Top spin squirrels!

It's been a busy past couple of days....whew....
















Good news is that I got a new addition to my "family" - Brooks Adrenaline Six, as shown to the left :) I've been breaking them in, and wow....do they feel great.

Thursday I did a 3 mile tempo run on the treadmill - 2.5 miles at a 6:18 pace and the last .5 at a 6:03 pace - with a 1 mile warmup and cooldown. Everything felt great, which really leads me to believe that I am getting over the hill with this injury! Yesterday (Friday) was the first day in a while where I didn't apply any Icy Hot or anything to my lower leg. Usually I've been doing it as a precaution, but I didn't feel the need to use it yesterday. It worked well, I didn't feel any pain. At the very least, I'd go for a while doing something with my internship, and then when I had free time it would pop into my mind. Though, when it did, I thought to myself "Wow, this hasn't hurt at all for a long while today!"

This morning I wanted to do a long run. I had penciled myself in for 8 miles based on my marathon training plan, but I wasn't so sure of myself going that long considering I'm just getting back into the swing of things. So just in case, I made sure to plot a couple of cut off points so that I could make the route a little shorter if I needed to bail. I think I felt good enough physically to make it 8 miles, but my mental game made me only go 5.5. I felt it was better to take this one a bit easy and come back slowly, because in reality I've got 14 more long runs before the marathon. It also didn't help that it was already a humid 75 degrees at 8am. Even though I was adequately hydrated, I didn't wanna kill my body today. I really sympathize for all of you that live in the middle of the country where the temps are getting up to triple digits. My lower leg feels fine, though it seems as if the muscles down there are a bit tight, so I'll be sure to massage them and give them some rest and relaxation in the next couple days.

Speaking of the heat, it's supposed to be around 90 or above for the next 4 or 5 days, and tomorrow is my first of 11 consecutive days with the tennis camp internship....which means I'm gonna be in the heat for a long long time! Good news is that it's the last 11 days too. This past week was probably the best in terms of how well-behaved the campers were. At the end of the week they split campers up into six generally equal teams, and the team that me and a couple other guys were coaching named themselves the Top Spin Squirrels. Sounds kinda lame, but it grew on us. :) They ended up being champs at the end of the week by absolutely dominating the competition. There was this one girl who was actually the best person on the team that was head and shoulders above all of the rest of the girls at camp. She could also hold her own with the really good guys...she could rip the forehand, had a wicked backhand, and was VERY fundamentally sound. Not to mention she also had a great personality and was always smiling. If I could find a girl like her somewhere on campus, I'd be set. But who am I kidding...


Time to catch my breath...