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Kris and Jim Hamilton
BZ and Jay Tannenbaum
Jenn and Jim Robertson
Suzanne Barksdale
Jean and Chuck Held
Sheila and Larry Moriarty
Catherine and Richard Haining
Margaret and Matt Mulry
Jean Elsea

Training-
Wow, I've done a bunch of training since my last post.
I guess I'll have to summarize.
On Saturday the 28th, I had to skip the Group run because I was leading part of the Boot Camp Saturday workout. It was tough, especially after I made a bunch of bad hydration decisions the night before. We had Boot Camp graduation, then a bunch of campers and instructors continued celebrating at a club. It was a hot and humid Saturday morning and we had a tough hill workout planned. Let's just say that it was rough! Even though I wasn't at the group run, I ran 2.5 miles(according to Tim's nifty watch gadget) and it was all uphill!

Sunday I ran by the river, nothing eventful, other than being ridiculously sore.
Monday, the 30th, was the first day of our July boot camp. I didn't do much running and I took the afternoon off too. I was in serious need of some recovery time from Saturday.

Tuesday was another track workout. I think that track workouts are even more fun for me than Group runs. In the track workouts I can chat with everyone, not just the people who run at my pace. This workout focused on stride rate, or turn over. It was interesting to hear that the most efficient runners -like me :-)- take 180 steps in a minute (90 on the R and 90 on the L). We started the workout with a few laps around the track just counting our steps. It became obvious that your stride rate has nothing to do with your pace. You can take 180 steps a minute and run a 15:00 mile or you can take 180 steps and run a 7:00 mile. After our counting laps, we did a couple drills. It made me feel like I was boot camping again. We did High Knees, Bum-Kicks, Skipping, and Bounding. Who knew that those things not only gave you a cardio workout, but they increase your efficiency too. It was a lot of fun, but it was a tough workout.

On Wednesday, I went for a run at the River with my coach, Joanna. I've been pretty exhausted recently and I've been starting to hurt so I wanted to talk to her about what I could do to make Boot Camp and Running work together. We had a great run. From talking to her, I've decided to take another rest day from running because my current rest days are not really rest. I'm boot camping those days. I'm also going to make sure that one of my run days is actually cross training. Hopefully that will help my body make it to October. I'm still trying to decide if I want to take Wednesdays off of running so that I never run 3 days in a row, or if I want to take Sundays off so that I have a true rest day with no activity. I think that I'm going to mix it up and see how I'm feeling each week and see when my boot camp days off are.

Thursday I took the day off because Friday was the 4th of July. I woke up early and ran in the Peachtree Road Race. For those of you who haven't heard of it, the Peachtree is the largest 10K in the world. 55,000 people wake up on 4th of July and run 6.2 miles down the most famous street in Atlanta. For anyone living in Atlanta, you should check it out. It is more of an event than a race, but it is always a blast, think about running through a mall at 4:30 pm on Christmas Eve, now make it 80 degrees with 90% humidity. That is the Peachtree.

This was my 5th year running and I think that it was the most successful. Bryan and I ran together again. We ran the first 3 miles without stopping, which was impressive. We ran about 1/2 of the rest of the way and walked the other 1/2. There are so many people who compete in this event that they start in waves, not all at the same time. The elite runners started at 7:30am. Bryan and I crossed the START line at 8:45am. We kept up a pretty good pace, even with our walk breaks and averaged about a 12 minute mile. Not too shabby.

I woke up early again on Saturday for our group run. There weren't very many people there, but there were still more than I expected with the holiday weekend. I just did a light run of 2 miles or so because I was a little stiff from the Race, but it was a good run. The last hill up from the river is always a killer.

I took Sunday off this week and here I am. We did a sprint workout this morning at Boot camp, so I'm pretty exhausted, but I'm going for a run this evening. I think that I'm going to stop on my way home and get some new running shoes. I was trying to alternate my two pairs between running and boot camp, but I'm now at the point where both pairs of shoes are wrecked and my knees and feet are really starting to hurt. I'm hoping that buying new shoes will fix that problem. Unfortunately, that means that I have to buy 2 pair, and I haven't been able to find my favorites other than at a specialty running store ($$$$$). But, I figure that shoes are cheaper than co-pays and surgery.

Miles Completed- 74.7
Miles to Go- 176.3 (before September)

Fundraising-
Wow, you guys ROCK! I am solidly past the halfway mark. Thanks to everyone for their generous support. I finally got the thanks postcards in and started writing them. Then, in my infinite wisdom, I tried to sort my address list by last name.

Well...the names got sorted, but not the addresses. I'm slowly working on re-connecting the names with the addresses. I apologise if it takes me longer than it should to get you a thank you note. It has been an interesting mix of memory and process of elimination to get everyone attached to the correct street.

On a happier note, I've been working with a manufacturer to create a fundraising product. I wanted to make something that is appropriate for my event, but fun and cool at the same time. I finally decided on a product. I'm making aluminum water bottles with the Team in Training Logo on them. I'm still working out the final details (I'm trying to get the company to donate all, or part of the cost), but I should be finished with hammering out the details by the end of the week and then I'll be able to get the bottles within 2 weeks. Let me know if you are interested and I'll send you more info. Yay! I'm finally feeling confident about the fundraising part of it. We have re-commitment on August 7th and I've already doubled my re-commitment minimum. It is a big weight off of my shoulders to not have to stress out about it.

Funds Raised- $2175
Funds Remaining- $1825