Week 9 Complete!

Turtle's back on track. Just finished a great week of running. I did have an unfortunate incident with a bug. It was really not a question of if but when...

For the last several weeks, along the lakefront in the morning I've been dodging giant gnat swarms and Wednesday one finally got me. These bug swarms are huge and you almost can't see them until you're right in front of them. I've ducked, weaved, closed my eyes, shut my mouth and held my breath while saying a prayer. Many times after getting home and looking in the mirror, I see the dead gnats stuck to my face. It's pretty gross. I'm going to write a letter to my alderman and see if there's not something the city can do about this situation. Maybe the mayor can tax the hell out of the gnats and force them to move to the burbs like everyone else.

So, I was chugging along during my 6-mile run and wham a direct hit in my right eye. I tried to rub the bug out of my eye and forgot about it until I got home and, pre-hump, looked in the mirror and saw a lovely blood-shot right eye. It was nasty bloodshot too. My eye was tearing, my nose started running and I couldn't stop sneezing. I doused my eye with visine and in the shower the right side of my face drained like a faucet. My sinuses were going nuts. More visine; still bloodshot eye. I looked in the mirror again, pealed my lower lid away from my eyeball and there was the bug. I dug it out with my fingernail and almost immediately my eye returned to blue. All day I was sneezing and my right sinuses were enflamed. Needless to say, I have now added sunglasses to my running attire. Of course they're fancy athletic glasses that have 3 sets of lenses so you can even wear clear lenses for low light situations. I might as well just put on a pair of goggles and a bee suit and call it a day.

Let's review week 9:

• Monday - rest
• Tuesday - 3 miles (switched running shoes - pair 2. Apparently running shoes have a life of about 8 weeks and you have to switch to a new pair. Jesus this sport is expensive)
• Wednesday - 6 miles, with a bug on top
• Thursday - 4 miles
• Friday - rest (Olympics started - yay!)
• Saturday - 10 glorious miles (by far my favorite distance and both times have been my fastest. I ran a blazing 10-minute/mile pace - a full minute faster a minute than I have been running.)
• Sunday - cross-training (bike 9 miles-45 minutes)

I am really excited about my upcoming Week 10 of training. My mom - aka Ma Barker - is flying into town from Florida for our upcoming annual Vegas trip. I have a whopping 15 miles this coming Saturday. I can't think about that now or I'll throw up. I'm going to bask in the glory of my 10-miler a few days longer. :-)

P.S. Thanks for the donations this past week. We raised another $100 for the dogs. :-))