Please pray for my foot....

It's really hurting. I'm worried. I'm doing pretty good with keeping the anxiety at bay, but that's only because I haven't missed a long run... yet. If it's not better by tomorrow, I'm gonna miss one on Sunday. I'm not happy about this. It's very disheartening. I decided to get the boot out of the laundry room last night. I'm wearing it today. I'm not doing a whole lot today. I'm trying to avoid the questions. I don't want to explain why 50 times today. I know that will just bring on the depression and anxiety.
It's possibly a metatarsal fracture. I know. (I tend to think the worst). It won't show up on a x-ray for a while, so there's no sense in wasting money on one. It seems to get worse with every run. Thursday morning's 10 miles wasn't pleasant, but I was able to get through it. The pain afterwards was pretty bad. I plan to continue training on the bike if I can't run, but I still hate it. I haven't run anything longer than 17 and I'm still 6 weeks away. I have to be able to run at least two or three more long runs before the marathon. I know I have to stay off of it, but my brain is fast-forwarding to an image of me limping or crawling to the finish line. (Which is fine, as long as I finish.)

Please pray that my foot heals. FAST.

Maybe this is a lesson for me. Maybe my bad feet genes are finally catching up with me. I think God is teaching me to be less prideful. It's working.

Gracie T-Shirts!!!

Team Gracie T-shirts are now available! $15 each!! All proceeds go to Benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in honor of Gracie. To order one, email me (standbyone1@yahoo.com), message me on Facebook or comment back to this post with your size, address and phone number. To donate without purchasing a t-shirt, go to www.cff.org/GiftReg/EvelynWatkins

Tupelo 14.2 Miler... AWESOME!

This was a GREAT race! It was the first overnight CHILL! The temps were in the high 50's at the start. It started at 5am too, so it was really dark. A lot of runners had headlamps or were carrying flashlights. I didn't have one, but it was good that others did because it was easy to follow the course because I could see the lights bouncing in front of me. The race was pretty small (only about 650 runners) and there were no sponsors. I was unsure about this at first, worried there would be course issues and not enough volunteers or water stations. But it worked out perfectly. The weather was great. I maintained a 9:30 pace throughout the whole race. I talked to this guy who was wearing a New York Marathon jacket. I talked to him about the race and got some advice. I ended up finishing at 2:18:06. Mike Tvar finished at 2:10. At the half marathon mark (13.1), I PR'd at well!! I'm not sure the exact time but it's around 2:08. That's 12 minutes better than last time!! My overall time was better than my old half marathon time! Oh yeah.... I finished 47th in the female division!! :)
Here's some pictures.....

Trying to stay warm...

finish line

Week 7 - 68 days to go...

So far so good in training for NY. It's been a little rocky. My calf is still hurting. The knee problem I had a few weeks ago is a result of me handicapping myself because of my calf. I think anyway. My calf is tolerable. I think it needs a little more R&R than I've been giving it. Last weekend, we all ran the Run for the Fallen 5K and then attempted to run 10 more miles in Stonewall and Enterprise. It was way to hot! The race didn't start until 8:30. This put us starting our 10 mile run at almost 10am. It was already 90 degrees! We made it 6 miles, totaling 9 for the day. The heat drained us! We did four miles without a problem, but then it hit us fast! I drank all my water and powerade and we hobbled home. It was terrible! I came home and crashed. We really needed to cut the grass, so Wes got out there and started it. It was still really HOT! I was feeling better, but I felt bad for him, so I went and helped as much as I could. When he finally finished, he was on the verge of a heatstroke. So needless to say, we were both pooped! We didn't go to church last Sunday.
This past Saturday, I ran 12 without a problem. My calf didn't even hurt. (It's sore after this mornings run though.) The weather finally changed last week! I ran today at 9am. This time last month, it was 95 degrees by 9am! I'm positive that the rest of training will be much more pleasant!

This Sunday is the Tupelo Half Marathon! Well, its actually a 14.2 mile race. Not sure why. I have to do 14 this weekend, so it works perfectly! One of my running buddies will be there too.

Week 2

This week was rough. Monday & Tuesday's runs were great. Got on the bike on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, I kept having weird stress dreams and woke up every half hour or so. Last Friday, I broke my crown. I had a new temporary put on it. It's been aching all week. This didn't help. So I missed Thursday's run. I got on the bike for an hour though. Today, I met up with 13 other folks and we ran 10 miles through town. I was amazed at the turnout! We stuck together for about 4 miles, then started splitting up. Anyway, it was a great redemption to a rough week.

Marathon Training!! Week 1

I've been neglecting this blog lately.... Running out of things to talk about. Maybe it's just that I have nothing I feel that's worth talking about. I don't like my job. I'm in a rut. It happens.

Anyway, Marathon training has officially started... I've been fighting off a calf strain. Nothing bad. The shin splints were a lot worse last year. Hopefully it'll get better. First long run this weekend. It's only 7 miles. Thomas is running with me. Here's the schedule I made.

Independence Day Road Trip

We had no plans for this weekend, while everyone else was cooking out and traveling and all that. Mom went to Arkansas and Dad left for his mission trip. Pete & Kelly are in Charleston with friends. (BTW, Pete is back for some R&R. He'll head back to Afghanistan on July 15. Once he returns, he'll only have three months left.) We had no plans, so we decided to take a road trip. Our original destination was Natchez via the Trace. We started in Ridgeland and rode a while on the trace until we decided that would take too long, so we got off and headed to Port Gipson, a charming little town. (Sort of, I guess. Not much to see.) We did see this......
I'd seen a picture of this church steeple before (in MS magazine). It's the steeple on the Presbyterian church. Kinda cool I think. We did a little iPhone searching and remembered there were several ghost towns in the region we'd heard about on Mississippi Roads. We also remembered that Windsor Ruins (wiki link) were nearby too... The address of Windsor is not navigable by google maps or our GPS. We found it anyway. Cool place. I'd never been there. Wes had though. It was destroyed by fire when somebody left a cigar burning in 1890, causing it to burn to the ground! Tragic considering it survived the war.

Notice the iron rails still attached where the upper floor porch used to be. Pretty cool. While we were there, this man asked us if we had been there before. He said the staircase from the house is being used at the chapel on the campus of Alcorn State University.

Here's the staircase at Alcorn's Chapel. The iron rails were also from the house.

We decided to look for the Ghost Towns nearby (according to Wiki). Rodney was the first one. We knew Rocky Springs was nearby too. Rodney wasn't that easy to find. The road that would lead us there was HWY 552. It split off and then turned into a gated private property. We had to go back to Alcorn State (which is really in the middle of nowhere! Why would anyone want to go to school there??!) and find our way through campus to a road that would lead us to Rodney. There was construction at Alcorn which made it difficult to figure out where to go. We found the road....it was dirt. We'll more like an old logging road/trail that hadn't been driven in 50 years! It was terrible! I felt like some redneck hunter in dirty overalls was gonna come out with a rifle like a troll and make us pay to pass or something.... It was that bad! (I should also say we were in the car too). The road eventually got better, then worse, then better again... We were truly in the sticks!

We finally found Rodney. (wiki page) The road went from gravel, to dirt and back a few times. Then is suddenly turned to paved with curbs and gutters and everything. It was nice, but the thing was, it hadn't been touched in years. Grass was overtaking the pavement. Their was this huge pile of dirt/grass/whatever in the middle of the lane. It was weird. Then it turns back into dirt and whalla... there's the "town." This is the Presbyterian church. The one where the "battle" took place (read the links above).

Here's a shot through the window. The wiki page says there are still services here. Looks like there are new floral arrangements in front. The white tassel is the pull for the bell.

Notice the cannonball in the wall above the window.

This is the Baptist church.

This was a commercial building back in the day.

I think this was an old corner store. It was next to the main road. Notice the old gas pump.

After finding out way back to civilization, we headed towards Natchez. We wanted to find Rocky Springs, but it was 4pm already and we had no idea where it was. (photos) There was little to no cell service so we couldn't search for it. It obviously didn't show up on the GPS. Maybe next time, we'll find it.... Here's a few pictures of Natchez. We didn't do much. Just drove around a little and then ate at a restaurant on the river.

EXCELLENT FOOD!!!

Welcome to July Sweeps....

Sorry for the language in this (I didn't write it), but it's absolutely hilarious!! After working in TV news for almost 10 years, this is what I see when watching....

THE ONION

FINALLY Found a HALF!!!!! Sort of....

Finally found a half marathon during the 12-14 mile weeks of my training schedule! September 5 in TUPELO!!!! It's actually a 14.2 mile race. Don't know why, but it's cool! There's a marathon too. It'll be small (capped at 250), but I think it'll be fun! :) The website is a little old school, but that's okay. Now I'm getting excited!! :)

Turning Thirty

I've been sitting here thinking about the pros and cons of turning thirty for about an hour. (i like spelling out the word better). This is all I could come up with.


PROS:
- Some people may stop asking why we don't have kids. They'll probably assume something's wrong with me. That's fine as long as they stop asking.
- I'm not afraid to admit my age. I know a girl who won't tell anyone her age... Why lie? What's the point? I don't necessarily like that I'm 30, but I can't go backwards...
- "Older and Wiser?" Nah. This goes in the Cons category I think.
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CONS:
- It's 30. It just sounds bad. Three decades.
- Moving up an age bracket. It felt good being the oldest in the 20-29 age bracket and placing. Don't think that'll happen much in 30-39.
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