Runnning - because I can!

Webcam for the Garden Spot Village Marathon Today!

Picture at 6AM

Race Day Course

Race Course

This is the course I will be running in 12 hours ... omg, am I ready?

About 1 to 2 miles south of New Holland, I will be starting at the corner of Peters and Mentzer Road around 9AM. I go west on Peters for a short distance, then right on Hollow. At stop, I'll turn right (west) on Ridge Road for about a mile, then right on Hollander Road. The first left on Scenic - then right on S. Groffdale Road, left on Musser School Road and there's the relay transfer spot - yes!!! I made it - I'm done!!!
Oh wait, I'm not there yet, just writing directions about being there. Well, hopefully sometime between 9:45 and 10:15, I will be there.

Rest Days

Well, the training is done for now ... and these are the rest days. Part of me loves a few days of no running (especially in the rainy and/or windy weather we've been having) but the other part of me finds it hard to rest because I want to go run, so I can run well on Saturday. Part of me feels like I need to train more and so I should be running NOW. (I just want to do one more long, hard run and lose 10 lbs - why didn't I do that a month ago?)
But wisdom tells me it's not good to starve myself now and it's too late to train more, any training I wanted to do needs to have already happened. The best thing I can do for my legs now is give them rest, so they feel good for tomorrow and eat a healthy, balanced diet so I have energy.

Telling myself to remember it's one step at a time - I know the best way for me to do that is to spend some time today doing what the Psalmist said centuries ago ... "Be Still and know that I am God."

Marathon story on WGAL

Marathon story on WGAL

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