The Olympics and Summer Vacation

This morning Dan and I got up early to watch the women's Olympic Marathon. We don't have cable or any kind of DVR/Tivo set-up, so watching it live was the only option. I've watched every Olympic Marathon since Deena and Meb took medals in 2004 (how awesome was that??), and I wasn't going to start missing them this year.

I didn't regret getting up (especially because Dan let me go back to sleep afterwards and I slept until 9:40 a.m., a post-kids record!). I also really enjoyed watching the men's 10,000 yesterday. My favorite feature of both races? Seeing the bonds between training partners.

Good friends who ran hard and supported each other to the end. Credit: NBC Olympics

"...one is silver and the other's gold." Credit: USA Today

When the floodlights go down, win or lose, these athletes will always have running and their friendships. I think it's fantastic! It makes me grateful for all of my running friends, and all of my friends, period.

Yesterday I ran for 50 minutes. I had to stop for a bathroom break, but even that made me happy, because it meant that I am once again running long enough that I need to worry about my diet the day before. Time to resume some old habits! I can't wait until Darren lets me run for an hour, and I think when I'm allowed to go 90 minutes I'll actually feel I can say those magic words, "I'm back."

I'm in the middle of reading Matt Fitzgerald's Run: The Mind-Body Method of Running By Feel. I will review it when I'm finished, but I wanted to put in a plug right away for the chapter on injury. He describes injuries as a gift because you come back from them both grateful for your running and hungry for your goals. This has certainly been my experience so far.

My family and I are going on vacation in southwest Colorado this week, so I'll be taking a blogging hiatus. When I come back, I'll be grateful for fall running, for my coaching situation, for my big kids who are starting kindergarten, for my husband, Dan, who rigged up an antenna and then a connection to the BBC so we could watch the Olympics (no cable in my house), for my extended family and all my friends. This has turned out to be a great summer, though not in the way I expected it to.

Here's the cabin near Durango where we'll be staying. Ahhh!!