In that time, we’ve been through two extremely hard falls and it’s lost a couple bits, but I haven’t let that interfere with the sacred love we have for each other.  Instead, I’ve McGyvered it to keep on ticking as long as it’ll have me.

The first fix came after the 1st hard fall.  The pin that holds one of the straps on popped off upon impact, never to be seen again.  Instead of calling Garmin for a new strap (because I’m lazy like that) I took some fishing lure I had on hand for jewelry beading and strung it through.  It’s been holding fine every since.

The second fix happened a few weeks ago when my Power button fell off and refused to reattach.  I fashioned a new button from a Viactiv calcium chew wrapper, which worked sans tape for a week or so, but finally needed the full packing tape accoutrement to remain attached.  It works a charm.
The third fix was necessitated this week when, while taking the Garmin off, the silver buckle tore straight through the strap’s attachment point.   I thought about calling Garmin or even going to Target for a replacement strap, but a few selective layers of packing tape put it right as rain in no time.

While it lacks in glamour, it’s still a beautiful accessory to me.

Tapering Week #1
I’m loving it!  Feeling stronger with each passing day, my resting HR is down to a rarely seen 46, my running HR is lower than usual, and my legs and ankles are pleased with this temporary new arrangement.  The big toe drama lasted too long, I was shoving a needle under both nails for 4 days but they finally dried up and now all is well.

Tomorrow’s my last double-digit run, a 13, which’ll bring this week to 44 miles.  Next week, a meager 32, then it’s time to Do This Thang!  I’m excited,  happy and looking forward to the whole 3-day adventure.  Woohoo!! 

Mon: 7 recovery (8:56)
Tues: 9 pouring rain, windy and hurting calf (8:58)
Wed:  13 slow again because of the calf (9:01)
Thurs: Off (enough of the calf, heal already)
Fri: 8 w/4tempo (calf was good, tempo was a bit slower than HP though @ 7:21s)
Sat: 6 recovery (8:51)
Sun: 17 (9:05s, slowest LR this cycle)

Today’s 17 was quite a tough one, it’s warm now so I ended up taking my shirt off on the way back, but the bottom line was I felt tired in legs, body and mind.  I had planned to do 4MP but I knew that was not going to happen. I did 1, lol, but it was 70 degrees by that time and my big toes were really unhappy (they’re both bruised now and I had to stick a needle under the nails to drain them before the run…nice, huh?) so I wasn’t sad about cutting the MP miles, more like I’m happy to know I’ve reached the topping point and that I will most assuredly benefit from two weeks of tapering.

As for my big toes, it’s insanely irritating to have this nail bruising/blistering happening now, but I guess in one way it’s good, hopefully the blisters will harden the toes up within the next couple weeks.  I attribute it to all my LRs being done in the trails, more footwork and ups and downs than any other cycle, so again, it was for the good, I just wish it didn’t hurt.

Hey to Steph (or was it Linds? they’re identical twins), it was cool to see you out there today, you looked good!  Funny about the orange Philly Distance Run shirt, I must have seen 50 people wearing one this morning.

Interactions this week
Ignore this if you read my Facebook updates, but I had a couple entertaining bouts of human contact this week.  On Monday’s recovery, there were 4 college rowers in the river who burst into an acapella rendition of Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train” then waved at me and wished me a good run.

Not two minutes later, I heard a double boom from what I call “Dead Man’s Curve”, a curve in the road near the bike path, but hidden by a fence, and every time it rains, I seem to see the tail end of a wreck.  So this was a double wreck caused by a line of cars sitting behind a wreck that had already happened. Triple wreck!  Hoping everyone was ok.

Then the next day, it was pouring rain and windy and I was feeling pretty crappy but as I neared home, a man under an umbrella yelled out “Dedication!” to me.  What an unexpected present that was.  Suddenly, everything was made right.

I want to spread that word to you all, too, because every single one of you who read this blog sweat, work hard and go the extra mile in some form or another and it’s too easy to take ourselves for granted.  It makes no difference how fast you are, if you win awards or not, be proud of yourselves for having dedication to do something that most people never dare to do…get up off their asses.

And with that, I’m going to sit on mine for the next two weeks.  In my mind, anyway.

Green – half marathon,  Red – marathon at half way,  Blue – marathon finish

As you can see, it appears that the marathon finishers will be forced to actually cross through the slower marathoners reaching their halfway point!  I can’t. believe. this.  But then, it’s Philly, so yes I can.

I’m hanging in there, though not without a quadruple dose of taper angst.  My run today was 7 w/2x(10min@HP, 2min rec) and my HR was just too damned high at 90 and 92% max on the Half pace portions.  I’m hoping it’s just overall anxiety, which I truly have in excess now, but it’s really putting a fear into me that I wish I didn’t have.

The rest of the week is 6 tomorrow, rest day, 5 and 4, then race.  The weather looks good at this point, so that’s a wonderful bonus.

Beyond my worried mood, I am so excited for this weekend because I’m finally going to meet several of the ladies I’ve been “talking to” for over a year in the Women’s BQ thread.  A bunch of gals are coming in for the race, both the Full and Half, as well as cheering section, and to actually meet these gals in the flesh (we know so much about each other by now) is going to be incredible.

Plus, Audra and Kat (I ran Steamtown with Audra and the Lehigh Half with Kat) are going to be staying with me, not racing but will be cheer support so I’ll have my own personal pit crew the night before.  Pre-race pillow fights!! Woohoo!!  So there’s a lot to be excited about, if I can just take my mind off my stupid heart for a while.

Thanks everyone for such cool comments to my little mishap on Sunday.  You guys and gals are stupendously great.  One good thing I got out of that run was that it was my gel dress rehearsal because my most favorite shorts only have a key pocket (Race Ready shorts are dumpy on me, so no one even suggest that, please).

My original plan was to do the pinning thing (for the uninformed, you pin the gels to the outer waistband of your shorts then tuck them inside your shorts so they don’t bounce, then you rip them off when you need one)  but because I’ll have a bottle in one hand, that makes ripping the gels off too difficult.  Then I remembered I had that detachable pocket I bought for Steamtown and didn’t end up using.  It works a treat!! Weighs an ounce, you can put it where you want and it’s very easy to take a gel out while on the run.  I put 3 in there and 2 in my handheld and didn’t even notice it was there.  Though maybe that’s because I was in pain from my weeping open wound.

Anyway, that’s one less thing on my mind.  Now if I could only unload the other 2 tons of mental garbage…