I Love my Iowa Roots

And so it's 10:20pm the night before my 5:00am house departure to catch my 7:00am flight. And I'm still packing. The weather is all over the map while I am gone and thus, I am packing half my closet. I wish I had more shoes. If you saw my closet, you'd be appalled at just how many I DO have - especially flip flops from J.Crew!

I started my day meeting a new running client, Ann, at the track. She's running a marathon in Utah in just a few weeks and needs a few tweaking and such. She's awesome and I'm excited to work with her.

Came home and did about 50 loads of laundry to get ready for the trip. Got to the park to run my tempo run a little late but it was a lot cooler today so that was good - but man, it is HUMID!!! We had a lot of rain last night; if you happen to ever run over at Cherry Creek State Park, you'd be amazed at how fast the creek was running. Normally, it's dry as a bone right now but there were places along the road where the water was almost running over. I ran a couple miles at an easy pace followed by 6x6 minutes tempo run and then a couple miles cool down. The tempos were tough and I was running them a bit faster but it was a lot of gradual downhill, too. When I got to the level area and even a bit uphill, I had to really dig deep inside to keep the pace. I felt a lot more encouraged today with my temp running - maybe this slight rest break between sets, as Brian suggested, is the ticket. Not sure it's benefits vs one continuous tempo at that pace but if nothing else, it mentally helps. The last 6 minuter was cut to 4:20 when I came off the gravel trail and hit solid mud. I slide about 5 feet and once again felt a tug on my annoying glute. But I think I actually stretched it this time around vs. Sunday when I pulled it too far. A good run today - even if it was grossly humid. I wonder if the Running Gods are acclimating me to the brutal Midwest humidity I'm soon to face (though I hear it's very nice there right now. Go figure).

I'm excited about my couple days with the bestest-best Iowa girlfriends ever. I'm excited to run the BIX and I'm excited to go do nothing in Michigan but run and go to the beach!

First stop: Omaha Airport where my wonderful friend, Meg, will pick me up and we'll do whatever (maybe antique shop and lunch) to our drive to Des Moines, where she lives.

9 miles run