ahh... the great north

family has been here approximately 12 hours and they're already half driving me crazy. nice. but it's better than being up here alone, which was perhaps the worst thing ever. It was an incredibly difficult ride up here, and even the littlest things have just been freaking me out. Making the beds, I could almost hear my mom telling me I had to do them over until I got the hospital corners right. The calendar that was turned to November, when she stayed up here by herself last year for months on end, enjoying the peace and quiet. Her spare bible sitting on the bookshelf, with it's tattered pages. everything just sets me off on a sobbing fit. I keep telling myself that she's in a better place, but that doesn't help the fact that she's not here with us.

my dad started having the "are you ever going to make time to have a meaningful relationship with a man" discussion this morning. It seems to be a pretty popular subject now that he isn't preoccupied with taking care of my mom. luckily, he kept it generalized and just muttered something about how people focus too much on their careers and outside interests to invest the time to actually get to know someone well. No, "you're never going to get married and have children, are you?"s this time around. I took the opportunity to subtly mention that maybe he should stop smoking before he even thinks about dating again. because smoking? is so not hot.

on to happier things. did my 10 miler yesterday afternoon. I purposely chose an only moderately hilly route just to test out my hill running legs. The best way to make sure you start your longer runs out slow enough? putting a 1+ mile slow climb in the first mile or so. I'm getting much better at focusing on even effort instead of even pace. and luckily, my garmin doesn't even get a signal in that part of the run, so I can't check my pace even if I wanted to. granted, I know approximately where the mile markers are, but I just didn't even worry about it yesterday.

when I was in high school and training up here for the upcoming cross country season, I'd always try to stay off the hills and hit the long, flat road the runs along the shoreline. I still run that road as part of my longer runs (usually toward the end, after I've exhausted my legs on the hills), but now I find it incredibly boring. I think I like the challenge of hills; it breaks up the monotony of the miles. I don't know how I did almost all my runs down this road when I was younger.

so ten yesterday, in just under 1:35, so a 9:26ish pace for the whole run, which was surprising because I was going really slow on the uphills and was trying to take it easy on the downhills to reduce the pounding on my quads. but hey, I'll take it. here's the elevation profile for the run:


Last night, I headed down to watch the sun set over Lake Michigan. The sun "set" well above the horizon due to some clouds, but it was still beautiful.





sissy and I are going to head out for my recovery 5 miles soon. I will probably want to kill her by the time we get back (she's one of those people who always want to race, even when you're just trying to do an easy run). should be interesting.