I generally do a pretty good job when i’m traveling to ensure I have all my running gear with me. I thought I did a good job yesterday when I packed things up and left for Virginia. Its strange but I can actually admit that I generally put more of a priority on packing my running stuff than on packing anything else, but I guess thats part of the running psychosis I live with.. Anyway, I found out this morning at 5:30am when I was getting ready to head out for my run that somehow I managed to pack two left shoes (one from my new pair and one from my old pair).. you couldn’t imagine the surprise on my face when the shoe didn’t fit. It was actually funny at the time although I found myself feeling really stupid. Thankfully I have an OLD OLD pair of shoes in the trunk of my car, which I always keep around in case I’m somewhere and can get a chance to get a run in with a group of people or something… i’ve never actually used them until now and I found out that they’re pretty beat, but its better than running with two left shoes or running barefoot (yes, I thought about doing that) … it was not a good way to start my day.

Running in a new place when traveling is pretty cool, its an opportunity to see new places and run different courses. There is one thing I don’t like about traveling though and that is that its so difficult to keep eating clean .. temptation is all over the place (especially in the area i’m in)! I can say that i’ve done fairly well so far for being two days in, my only big splurge was to go to the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream shop across the street, i’m just a sucker for ice cream. The weather is a little warmer here in northern Virginia than it is back home but not totally unbearable. I actually didn’t feel like I was going to pass out this morning from the humidity trying to get in my speed workout.

Its time to get some much needed rest though, as I said, I finished a speed workout today, so its into a recovery run tomorrow, then off on Friday and then a short race on Saturday before kicking it back up again. I’m in the race prep stage of training right now, so I get hard weeks and then easy weeks and believe it or not i’m just over 4 weeks until the Rochester marathon, its going to be crazy!

I was fortunate enough to talk to a woman today who will be running her first marathon in the fall, she feared the infamous “First 20 miler” this weekend. We’ve all been there, it seems like such a long distance when you’ve never done it before, but now it just comes naturally .. I reassured her that she just needs to trust her training, keep her pace and stay fueled and hydrated and you’ll be fine. I feel like such an old-timer with running marathons … i’ll be doing my 16th marathon in September, thats crazy!

I guess its time to get back to the reason i’m traveling … maybe another update tomorrow …