Garden Spot Village Marathon on WGAL - Wed. Morning

This morning, I saw a brief blurb on WGAL with Jere Gish saying the report about the running club I am in and the Garden Spot Village Marathon will air tomorrow (Wednesday) morning between 6 and 7AM.

Recent Runs

Had a great run on Sunday with Jerry. We ran on the Exeter Scenic River Trail - it's a soft packed gravel/dirt surface and my legs feel so much better after running there than on a road. My knee felt good, but slightly sore after running up and down a small hill on the trail. We did a total of 4 miles - I ran 3 1/4 miles of it, Jerry ran about 2 miles of it. He runs faster than I do, but not as long at a time, so we were together some of the time.

Last night with Running Club, I only did 1 mile because the roads around Linda's house are hilly and I wanted to allow the muscles around my knee to not be stressed more before Saturday. I'm both excited and scared for the marathon relay - weather forecast is looking good - sunny and in the 60's.

Interview with WGAL

Linda Wingard, Loretta Parson, Carolyn Stoltzfus, Deborah Kurtz, Bev Shantz, Joseph and I were at Garden Spot Village to be interview and filmed while running on Friday morning with Jere Gish and Rick the photographer from WGAL. At the time, it was fun and seemed to go well, but we won't really know how it went until it airs next week, either Tues. Wed or Thurs. I will try and post the date/time asap.

Jere Gish - WGAL News Anchor

Interviewing Scott Miller the GSV Marathon Director

Carolyn and Linda watching Loretta's interview.

Jere interviewed Linda, Loretta and I - but I only got pics of Loretta's interview. It should be a good overview of running because Linda has been running for years and done numerous races - Loretta's a new runner (Jan. 3, 09) and I was a runner for 10 years, got hurt and am now back to running 5 years later.
After the interviews, we went out for a training run and Jere and Rick followed and/or were up ahead filming. It was a tough run - for filming, it worked best if we ran together as a group, which we aren't used to doing. At running club, we might start together, but then we usually end up in groups of only 2 or 3. The others were so kind and ran slower than normal and I ran faster than I normally do. Along with that, it felt odd having a camera on us.
I ran/walked about 4.5 miles - so that will be my last long training run. I will do a few 2 or 3 mile runs and then take some rest days so my legs are ready for 4. 6 miles next Saturday.

Newscast shown on WGAL later that week.

WGAL

Yesterday I got a phone call from Scott Miller, the director for the Garden Spot Village Marathon. He said a reporter from WGAL is coming to interview him about the marathon and they want some runners there training for pictures. Scott wondered if a few of us could come up and do a 'training run' for the camera. So a few phone calls later - there are 6 or 7 of us going to be shot at 10AM today - should be interesting. Hope I don't trip/fall/or look fat on camera.

Training on the Race Course

On Sunday - 10 of us did a training run on the marathon course. We met at Garden Spot Village and then dropped cars off at the end of the 3 sections that we had people planning to run. The groups for each section started together and I gave everyone a highlighted map of their route and encouraged them to each do what they could and not worry if they are faster or slower than the others in their group and Lord knows, I'm the slowest, so they don't have to worry about being last :) So everyone's finishing time was different - no one got lost, though one of us (won't mention names) did a short detour down one country road before realizing that she was going wrong. She turned around and still finished her section in good time!

When I first started this, I assumed that it would take me about an hour and a half to do the 4.6 miles - Sunday I did it in 1 hour and 6 minutes - so I'm happy!! Now I'm hoping to be able to do it on race day in an hour.

Spring coming to southeast PA today

Today was a day with weather beautiful enough to make me say, "Okay I'll live in PA the rest of my life." The sun was bright and temps were in the low 60's and I walked for about 10 minutes along the Wyomissing Creek which runs through the gardens of the Reading Public Museum.
Then I began a workout that lasted for 42 minutes :) I am 'one happy camper' - only 2 minutes of that was walking - 40 minutes of that was running ... hip, hip hooray!! My body feels like it is slowly, but surely getting stronger.

Some of the joys I would miss if I didn't run.


Wyomissing Creek

Snowdrop Spring Flowers

Forsythia's coming to life

Daffodils

Crocus

Reading Eagle Article

I was interviewed a few weeks ago by Dan Kelly from Reading Eagle. The article is in today - story and picture are on the inside of the front cover.

Florida!

I love living in this day and age - a short 2 1/2 hour flight and I'm transported to the sun and warm temps of Orlando, Fl. I arrived here three days ago for the Synergy Conference. It's been a weekend of meeting new friends - I'm a people person, but going to a conference where I don't know a soul and sharing a room with a stranger, stretched me more than I thought it would. Actually, I think the fact that most everyone here had a few initials behind their names bothered me the most and made me feel insecure all weekend. And you know the game - when you feel insecure, you do and say stupid things that make you feel even more insecure!

And information overload - some new info, some old info said in a new way. Usually when I hear new information, it raises some questions for me and this weekend did that. Words like egalitarian and complementarian were regular topics of conversation - thank God for internet access to do some quick research.

I also attended a few writing workshops - one by Lauren Winner. Now if I can take what I learned and apply it to the rewrite of my book!

Another thing I love about our age is the connections we can make online - I met Janet Oberholtzer (the other one) online over a year ago. This Janet is an Oberholtzer by birth and I am by marriage - but as we connected at Facebook, we were surprised how alike we are, both run, love to read, love coffee and dark chocolate. She works for Synergy, so we connected this weekend and had dinner together last night. She's nice and some of her personality reminds me of Jerry - there's a good chance they are related, because her family moved from PA to Indiana a few generations ago. Someday we will have do some research on our families.

I ran yesterday - 2 miles and felt great! 4.6 miles on April 4th is looking doable! Hope to build up to 3 miles this week and then 4 the next week.

It was a good day.

Finally, we are having warmer temps in southeast PA. Today was sunny, beautiful and about 50 degrees. When a day is like that, it pulls me outdoors. I ran on the Union Canal Trail from Gring's Mill to the Red Bridge and back. It was a good day. I am thrilled with how the strained muscle felt while running. It hurt for about an hour after I was finished running, but now, 12 hours later, feels great again!!

This fine-gravel trail is generally softer than either a road or a treadmill. Today it was really soft - from all the melting snow. Dodging the water puddles and slush was a challenge at times and I didn't always succeed, which means I now have sneakers to clean :) But I didn't mind the splatters - I felt too good to care about them. The sun was bright, the temps were great for running - I loved seeing and hearing the water of the Tully flowing beside me. Did I tell you it was a good day?

Now - I pack my bags and head to the Synergy Conference in Florida for 5 days. I can't wait to run with temps in the 80's! No, I don't mind the heat.

Knee Brace

I walked half a mile and ran a mile and a half on my treadmill today - further than I have since February 9th. The muscle beside my knee is feeling so-so. I wore this brace on it today and it felt a lot better than it has been. But I still had stop before I wanted to because of the pain :(

I signed up 5 teams - 20 people! - today for the Garden Spot Village Marathon Relay! When I decided to try and do a section of the relay, I figured it would be 1 team with 3 of my friends. Well, a number of other women were at a place in their life where they wanted to try running, so Linda and I started a Running Club for Beginners and now we have 5 teams in the relay! And the more, the merrier - Garden Spot is still taking sign-ups (just don't tell the local townships:) so find 3 running/walking buddies and join the party!

Meeting the race director, Scott and driving the course got me excited for race day, but I'm getting slightly worried about my sore muscle and how much running I will be able to do April 4th.

I have to keep reminding myself to take one day at a time!