Happy Humphreys: 2010

I know you've been dying to hear about our latest run! Our group met
up at the usual place for our weekly run. I was looking forward to
this week because it was only 6.5 miles for the half-marathon groups,
and it was nice and cloudy in the morning. One thing that I hate
about our group is that we meet at 8am, but we don't actually start
running until 8:30 or 9:00 if we have some sort of business to
discuss. This time it was nutrition and hydration. It was all fine
and dandy, but we always have people in our group who insist on asking
questions that are only relevant to themselves but it takes time away
from everyone else (you know who you are!). I really don't care about
your personal dietary needs - save it for one on one time.

Anyway, our run was down the beach to Washington (the Venice Pier).
It was a nice run with no hills. And I love running through Venice
because there's so much to see (and smell). We hit a water station at
Washington, which was our turn around point. I hate drinking or
eating anything when I run, but I've noticed that about mile 4 or 5,
my body has trouble cooling off. It looks like I'll need to get
either a hydration belt (which looks super nerdy) or one of those
bottle holders I can hold in the palm of my hand. I guess hydration
belts aren't that nerdy since I was informed that we are one of the
few groups that don't require them (they're mandatory in the Pasadena
and Inland Empire group). Chris and I also need to buy some goos to
see how they work during our runs. I am not looking forward to that.

I felt great after the run, and even could have run another 2-3 miles
later in the day. I didn't because I was too busy watching Argentina
beat Mexico, but it was a nice idea. Chris was pretty torn up after
this run, which was weird to me because he felt great about the
miserable 6 mile (uphill) run last week.

Not much else to report. Thank you so much to the people who have
donated! For those of you who haven't, please visit my donation page!

Here's the link to donate:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/disneyh10/mhumphr0yt

Thank you very much to those of you who donated to our cause! Today
at our morning practice, we met a young lady named Ashley who was
diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 4. She is currently 8, and has
been cancer free for 6 months. Her mother told us today that she was
on an experimental drug whose funds came directly from Team In
Training. Thank you again!

I thought I'd send out weekly updates to keep everyone informed of the
training Chris and I are going through.

Today we ran 6.2 miles through Santa Monica. That included the famous
Santa Monica stairs as well as a hellish hill between mile 2 and 3.
Some people in our group are training for the Nike Women's marathon in
San Francisco, and they are trying to get them used to hills. Those
of us running in the Disney half marathon get to enjoy them as well...

6.2 miles (and uphill) was a big step up from our 5 mile run last
week. I'm not quite sure how we'll manage the 7 miles next week!
Stay tuned for that update.