Week 1

This week officially kicked off Dam to Dam training. And Amelia got a nasty virus with croup. It was one of those weeks where, sitting here on Saturday afternoon, I am not at all sure how we made it through. Amelia was home Tuesday - Friday with a stubborn fever and scary cough. John and I divided the days up based on various obligations and I still managed to pretty nearly do all the prescribed workouts in my first week of Dam to Dam training.

Last night I was so exhausted I literally went to bed at 8:30pm. My running group was meeting this morning at 7:00am for a 5 miler. When Amelia woke up around 6:00am I laid in bed and thought to myself, "I can just run on my own later." I could hear the wind rattling our house and I thought to myself, "I'll just go to the gym and bang the miles out on the treadmill."

But then I stumbled downstairs, poured myself a cup off coffee and went back upstairs to change my clothes and meet the group. As usual, I am so glad I did. 5 miles passed quickly in good company and I am fairly certain I would not have done a 5 mile on my own today.

We are also doing a new routine, termed "General Strength" which is designed to strengthen our hips and prevent IT Band issues. The GS exercises we've done so far are to write the alphabet with each leg while balancing on the other and a lunge sequence which includes 5 lunges each set, each leg - forward, side, back diagonal and back. I am all geeked up on the possibility that these relatively quick, relatively simple exercises (although that alphabet thing is harder than I thought it would be!) could help avoid the crunchy feeling I often get in my hips as our weekly mileage creeps up.