Right Here, Right Now 3.0

I have one friend from the old days who serves both as memory and bridge. He lived in the hometown until five or so years ago and kept up with folks I haven't seen in 35 years. He was my first stop when I decided to track down the friend for The Sister. My friend didn't know who the sister's friend had married, but did know the sister's friend's sister. (this would all be much easier if I used names, but this is the internet and ....) Fortunately the Sister's friend's sister had a unique last name and I was able to Google, er track, her down.

Now there's the question of the email to the friend's sister. (My friend is done in the story, so from now on, the friend will refer to The Sister's friend - the target of our investigation.) My goal is to a) get through the spam filter and b) not have the email forwarded to the police. Plus, I could have the wrong person.

But to keep this from dragging on, the email worked, people responded and now my sister has the email address of a long lost friend from childhood.

Here's the neighborhood. We lived in the white house in the lower left side of the map, they lived in the white house opposite it, next to the empty lot (now Raney Playground).

The Team in Training participants meet twice a week as a group. On Wednesdays there's a workout time, followed by an 'educational' session of some sort.  The run on Wednesday was at McKinley park. McKinley is a popular park for runners and walkers, so it's already busy. Add 40 Team in Training folks and it's down right crowded. What was interesting to me was how much having all those people around threw me off. I couldn't find a pace that was comfortable.  I was surrounded by people who were faster (most were much faster) and people walking their dogs  and everything in between. Also, I'd asked one of the trainers for some tips. I was (and am) concerned that I was looping along with absolutely no idea of the right way to train. The trainer proceeded to point out all the ways that various passers-by were doing it wrong and suggested a few things to avoid. So, add self-conscious to my list of concerns.  All in all, a bad run. My take-a-way was that I needed to figure this out because the point of the whole exercise is to run a Marathon. In a large group. And there won't be a n00b division, so I'll be in a mix again. 

Today was better. We ran along the river (well, on the levee above the river). After Wednesday I'd decided to work on my own pacing and ignore my fellow runners. And it worked fine. I had a comfortable run. In fact I probably could have pushed it a bit more, which I'll try tomorrow. I think it would have been much harder to keep at it if I'd had two bad runs in a row. It's nice to have a success. I can tuck this away and whip it out next time I'm discouraged.

It was also 'gear up' week. Got some socks and a shirt at the last day of the REI sale and picked up shoes at Fleet Feet. The shoes were definitely not on sale. Oddly, (Alanis Morisette would say ironically) the $130 shoes were thought by staff to be better than the $100 shoes. Who'd a thunk it. I was happy to learn at the Friday Marathoners' lunch that a Timex Ironman watch was a good way to go and would only run me $35 or so. I just want you to know that I'm investing in this process too.

Again, if you're just joining us, this is all about me running the CowTown Marathon this October as a fund raiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Details can be found here.  You can make donations here.