Birthdays and Base 10

For some people, the 26.2 miles of a marathon are not enough and ultra-marathons of thirty (30) miles or more call to them. We're not at that point, but Jennifer celebrated an ultra birthday of thirty (30) years yesterday. In fact, every year we celebrate birthday week. Kinnier's birthday is September 6. Jennifer's birthday is September 9. Various friends and family also have birthdays that are part of birthday week.

Smack dab in the middle of birthday week, we ran a "short" run of ten (10) miles on Sunday. Although the weather report when we left the apartment stated rain and clouds, we had ideal conditions with cool temperatures in the 60s and a sunny, cloudless sky. The lakefront looked perfect in the quiet of the early morning and it was one of the easiest runs we have had all year, despite the previously daunting, double-digit distance.

As an update since our 20-mile run, Kinnier experienced significant pain for the days following that tortuous run. Walking up stairs for the days following even gave Kinnier trouble. He preferred when the only IT band concerns were whether the Backstreet Boys or 'N Sync would win in a fight. (IT all depends on whether a dance-off is involved.) During the flight to Buenos Aires for Labor Day weekend, Kinnier's leg got worse and left him unable to sleep on the overnight flight. At one point later during the trip, Kinnier woke in the middle of the night to searing pain. It took a whole weekend of walking to get back to almost normal.

Fortunately, the condition did improve and we think we discovered a contributing cause. His running shoes had lost most of their cushioning during the training and they earned a retirement. We hope the cushioning in the new shoes, Brooks Adrenaline GTS, will prevent future problems. Kinnier just hopes to break them well enough before the 23-mile run this weekend. With that in mind, the relative ease of the 10-miler was encouraging. The shoes were still pretty stiff but the optimal weather conditions made everything else as good as we could have hoped. As things are now, we'll see how far Adrenaline (shoe-wise and metabolically) takes us this weekend. Goodness knows we'll both be tired with birthday fun and Kinnier's preparation for trial this week. We did have a short run last night of 3.5 miles, and we'll hope for the best on Sunday.

Statistics:
Distance: 10.0 miles
Start Time: 7:16 a.m.
Time: 2:00:01
Temperature at Start: 63 degrees
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Maximum HR: 153
Average HR: 134
Money Raised to Date: $8,165
Days until Race: 44