I haven’t stopped smiling since I finished this evening. A 5 mile run, and I ended the month of June at 101.7 miles.

My first ever 100 mile month.

I really didn’t know it was going to happen. I knew based on my schedule it could be close if everything went right.

Well it didn’t. I missed out on some miles and training at the beginning of the month because of the flood. I’ve never been as sore as I was after sandbagging.

After that, however, my training, the Ragnar, and everything since have gone pretty well; pretty much as well as I could have planned. As of Sunday, I knew I had to do a 4 mile and a 5 mile run by this evening to make it happen. So I did, even though Chris’ parents are in town right now and I kind of had to delay our evening with them to make it happen tonight.

I’m still a little shocked. I have this feeling that no matter what happens from here on in my life, I can say that I ran 100 miles in a month. Man, do I feel like a runner tonight!

It’s a big weekend coming up for me – my third Ragnar Wasatch Back relay. And this time, I’m taking on the ‘Ragnar’ leg – 4 miles at a 7% average grade (that’s uphill people).

My legs go like this:

3.6 miles with a net elevation change of -7 feet (man am I looking forward to this leg!) This will be sometime mid-afternoon on Friday. So it will be hot, but it’s at about 5000 feet, so I’ve got that altitude advantage.

7.7 miles with a net elevation change of +294 feet. Don’t let this fool you…it’s just slightly uphill the whole way. Average elevation is 5600 feet (there’s so much air down there!). I did an 8 mile run yesterday afternoon, and it was great! I felt rested, able to go farther if needed, and except for the storm moving in the wrong direction toward my run, very comfortable. The big difference between that run and my leg? My leg will probably be at about 3 in the morning.

4.0 miles with a net elevation change of +1631 feet. Ouch! Plus I don’t get any altitude advantage as it starts at 7233 feet and ends at 8864. This will be mid-day on Saturday. While it will (hopefully!) be in the sun, the elevation should make it a little cooler, and much of the leg is shaded.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m really excited (and slightly honored) to do the Ragnar leg, but I’m still quite nervous. I really wanted to go to the other side of the mountain from that leg and run up it for training over the weekend, but the perpetual rain and less than 50 degrees kept that from happening. Mostly because I’m sure it was snowing where I wanted to be.

So this week, I take it easy. I’ll do 4 miles this evening (maybe some slight hills, but easy), and 30 minutes Wednesday. Don’t know our start time yet, but I’m guessing it will be about 9 o’clock Friday morning.

I’m not going to do my planned run tonight. My planned run is a 6 mile tempo. I think I might do four easy miles and do the tempo tomorrow night.

This is why

The house on the left is mine. While the flood waters went down very quickly after this, we spent all day sandbagging and loading them on trucks to be taken to our house and many, many others. We don’t have any damage (we hope) in our house. Not for sure yet, as we’re just leaving the furnace off until we’re sure to have no more flooding.

Those kids on the right side of the picture? That’s a small part of the local high school football team. The whole team was out sandbagging, helping people out of their houses, and doing whatever needed to be done all day, basically. Which means I can no longer complain about them taking up the entire weight room at 7AM.

But filling sandbags is hard work. The muscles in my legs and back are all very sore, my hands are raw, and my knuckles are swollen and painful. Plus I got a major sunburn. I didn’t sleep well last night as I was still worried that we might wake up to two feet of water again, so this afternoon I’m quite exhausted. I just don’t think the tempo run is a good idea, nor is it likely to go the way I want it to.

We’re not sure if the river is coming back up again. It was supposed to be very hot today creating even heavier runoff, and it’s supposed to rain tonight. But it kind of sounds like we might be okay as long as all the canals and overflows stay unclogged.

During my run Saturday evening I had so much going through my head that I couldn’t decide what I was going to title this post, so this is actually a combination of all of the possibilities.

Faster than a bunny: I was running on the rail trail, and startled a bunny out of his hiding space, and we ran together for 30 seconds or so. And I wasn’t faster…little bunny definitely won this race

Camelbak: It was hot, and I was going to need some sort of hydration on this run, so I decided it was a good opportunity to try the Camelbak shirt I picked up on woot.com for $20 a couple of months ago. Despite the uncomfortableness in driving in it, I got used to the feeling while running within half a mile. There was no noise or sloshing, which was good. All-in-all, I was pretty nice. I will wear again.

Instant Negative Splits: Guaranteed way to get negative splits – run uphill, into the wind, mostly in the sun, then turn around. Run downhill with the wind at your back, mostly in the shade. Trust me – the second half of your run will be faster

I went for a lunchtime run on Friday. It was so much fun! A quick 5 miles on my favorite loop from the office. I often come in to run it on weekends, but very rarely have done it any other time. I wasn’t expecting any clients in the afternoon, so I didn’t feel bad getting moderately sweaty (or the slobber kisses I got from a rottweiler who would have happily run with me instead of his owner). Got back to the office, stretched, ate lunch…I have to find a way to make this a habit, at least weekly if not more often. But given that nothing happens Friday afternoons anyway, maybe I should stick to Friday lunches.

Had our Ragnar Wasatch Back team meeting last night and decided on legs. I’m doing *the* Ragnar leg this year! We’ll see how the Piriformis takes it. I’m going to prepare by running a couple of major hills in the next couple of weeks. My total mileage is just about what I’ve been doing, so I don’t have to worry about that.