Thursday: A practice 5K with my Girls on the Run buddy
Friday: rest day
It’s the first time I’ve volunteered with Girls on the Run, a program that encourages self esteem in young girls through fitness and running. Each girl (3rd, 4th and 5th graders) is paired with an adult Running Buddy. We running buddies encourage them to walk/jog/run a 5K race by, um, walking, jogging or running with them. :)
Here are a couple pics from the practice 5K on Thursday:
I’d put my phone away by the time I met my buddy so I don’t have any pictures of her, but she was pretty cute — a 3rd grader. And so funny about running. She’d want to sprint for about 100 meters, then she’d be exhausted and ask if we could walk. I tried to get her to do a slower, extended jog, but she wasn’t having it. So we did sprints & walks for the duration of the 5K.
The race we’re practicing for is next month’s Starlight Run. My buddy is really excited, and said she’s going to “stretch a lot more” before that one. :)
Today, I’m taking it easy and packing for tomorrow’s 10K trail run. I’m driving up to the Tacoma area in the morning, and meeting my friend, Jill, who’s driving down from Seattle. And I’m inexorably excited!! SO. EXCITED. I don’t care if you tell me it’s silly to be so excited because it’s only a 10K and I haven’t really been training enough to make a marked difference in my speed yet. Don’t matter. I’m ready to run.
And, also, ready to carb load. From an appetite perspective, I’m oddly treating tomorrow as if it were a marathon. Today’s meals looked something like this:
- Breakfast: bagel with cream cheese, 12 ounce latte
- Snack: Jelly beans
- Lunch: Polenta with cheesy sauce, mushooms and peas and shrimp
- Dessert: A slice of chocolate cake
- Snack: Wheat thins
- Dinner: Spicy tuna roll
- And … maybe there will be another dessert
Perhaps I’m going overboard, but, I don’t know, it’s fun to fuel up. I can’t help it.
Another thing I’m going overboard on? Packing. In my real life (‘cos, you know, running isn’t real or something), I am the world’s lightest packer. I can travel out of the country for weeks with only a carry-on. But, when I’m running, I seem to want to prepare for EVERY circumstance (Will I want ankle socks? Knee socks? Will I want this headband? Maybe I’ll want this one.) and EVERY type of weather (I should bring a fleece! I should bring a rain jacket! And I’ll need sunglasses!) possible. I do believe I’ll need to learn to streamline before the Ragnar Relay this summer (12 people, 2 vans, not a lot of room for bags).
Think good thoughts for me while I’m running tomorrow! Or tweet at me — I’ll be super pumped if you do.
What are you doing this weekend?
see molly run (away) 