Slow 5.

As in, really slow.  My hip flexor is much more aggravated by speed than miles.  Penny told me I could run 5 miles today.  I can't believe how excited I was over a measly little 5 miles.  But I was.

It was warm and muggy, but also raining lightly...which made the weather quite pleasant.  I consciously held myself back and ran around a 9:00 minute pace the entire time.  The hip held up pretty well--I did "feel" it during the last mile, but nothing sharp.  It's coming along, but it's still healing.  We'll see what Penny says tomorrow, but I'm hoping to run 30 miles this week and hopefully get on track for Chicago training.

But it probably won't matter anyway, as I see Dr. Wiebke this week and he's likely going to tell me I need more surgery.  Until then, though, I'm just going along as planned.  I had no abdominal pain during the run, but I did have the shoulder pain. The shoulder pain seems to be getting worse.  It wakes me up sometimes, and it's horrible when I get hiccups.  Something is up with my diaphragm.

Even though I can't run much right now, my...what should I call her...student?...Sara Jane is running well and heading into taper for Grandma's in two weeks.   Today she ran a marathon relay.  Her portion was around 5 miles.  She asked me how she should run it.  I had told her she should race it, but what pace did I think she could hold?  Well, she's on tired legs.  She's at her peak mileage for the marathon, so I thought we should be a little conservative with the pace.  I used the McMillan calculator and figured she should be able to hold around a 9:15 pace.  Well, she blew that away and averaged under 8:30.  And it wasn't that hard for her.  She has mad speed...it's just that she lacks endurance.  I was blown away by her time today, as I've worked her hard these last few weeks.  Like...really hard.  Now it's time for her to rest and explode on race day.

I am enjoying this coaching thing so much.  Mostly because I really like/care about Sara.  And it's so fun to see her improve and reach her potential.  A few training cycles focused on her endurance...and look out, she's going to kill it.

In other news, Tim has a half marathon next Saturday.  He has had a VERY long training cycle.  He's run an obscene amount of 20s (including the marathon with me), done a lot of speed work, and been riding his bike a ton.  He's set for a major PR.  He's like...SUPER fit.  And then there's me :)  Ah, well, I'm excited for him to have a great race.  Expect great things from him next Saturday.