Rain Out?

I hope that last night's practice was rained out (well, lightninged out...we don't stop for rain!). All of this is for selfish reasons of course. I had to go to my bookclub meeting, so I opted to do my run on Monday. If it was rained out I won't feel as badly about skipping :)

The latest news for me though is that my physical therapy worked! I had a follow-up with my orthopaedic doctor yesterday. He said that my right quadricep had increased to the size and tone of my left quadricep (amazing!). He was impressed with my improvement. The only downside is that if I still have even slight pain in 3 months I'm supposed to schedule an MRI, because that means the muscle is torn and they would have to do surgery. Yeck. I do NOT want knee surgery. He seemed optimistic though that this was not the case.

I am getting very excited for Chicago. My sister (who lives there) even planned out a route for my family and emailed it to me and my husband Bill. She figured it out using Google Earth and the pacing that I gave her. She even has figured out what time they can move to the next spot, what transportation and transportation station to use, etc. She is smart. I guess that's why she has a degree in engineering. :)

I decided that I am going to run with one of the New Balance Pace Teams . I am also trying to talk my running buddies (Lindsey, Sarah and Eric) into doing this as well so that we can run together. That would be fun AND those girls (and guy) have kept me going a lot of times when I really really wanted to stop. The only bad thing is that I wish they had a pace group between 4:30 and 4:45 (I KNOW that would be stupid, because what would it be? 4:38?). I was hoping to run an 11 minute mile the entire time, but after my 3:29 20 miler I am thinking I could do a 10:30 pace the entire way. I say this because my first 20 miler pretty much mirrored what I did for the Flying Pig...yes, even the walking at the end and the really slow miles at the end where I should have been walking. I know I can handle the 10:52 pace (which would put me at 4:45) but I don't know about doing a 10:18 (which would put me at 4:30). And yes, yes, I KNOW that I can run ahead of the slower group (which is what the site tells you to do if you are inbetween). However, I am one of those people who get overly excited at the actual race. I take them out WAY too fast, check myself, say "No, I'm really feeling great. For real. I can do this for 25 more miles." and then absolutely die at the end.

So I think the pace group will be good for me for that reason. I guess if I am feeling super spry (ha ha) I can always pump it up for the last two miles of the race. And besides, there's always next time to do the 10:18 pace. (You KNOW this won't be my last marathon if I have anything to do about it!)