Week 14 of 18: Training for the Flint Hills 50 and Trail Marathon

This is me leaping into spring break week

Ah, spring break.  Time for resting, traveling, and eating everything my mom and mom and law cooks, as well as trying new to me beer, and getting my hair cut.  Now that Andrew is in school and I can't just take off and go when good races are happening back home, I have to travel when he is out of school so no races this year:(  Another week of exploring the city i grew up in on foot!

Monday:  Rest day.  In Martin with my mom  in law.  We had heard that eagles were all out in force at Reelfoot Lake, which is a short drive away from where she lives.  If you have never heard of the story of Reelfoot lake, you need to read about it.  Basically an earthquake caused the Mississippi to flow backwards and it formed a lake, which wiped out an entire tribe of Indians.  The lake is very unique in that it has Cyprus trees that form knobby knees all in the lake.  We took Andrew when he was young to the Coleman reunion there, but now he could remember and enjoy it.  Unlucky for us, the weather kept changing from sunny to raining and super cold, so we couldn't really get out and enjoy as much as we wanted to.  We didn't see any eagles, but we did see deer, ducks, and a few blue heron fishing in the swampy sluice area.  We had lunch at Boyette's, which is over 100 years old and is known worldwide for it's amazing catfish.  Too bad I am not a fish lover!

Tuesday:  7 miles of speed work.  As usual, Andrew changed all of my plans.  Monday morning around 4 am, he woke up with a sick tummy and actual threw up.  Once he got whatever out of his tummy, he felt fine and went back to sleep on the couch.   Well, repeat on Tuesday morning, but this time he couldn't throw up.  We would get up, he would cry and cry, and then we would get settled and go back to sleep.  An hour later, we would get up and repeat.  He finally got some relief via the other end, but then every hour after that had horrible diarrhea.  I am really not sure what to do about his tummy now.  We are both on good probiotics, and the sick tummy doesn't seem to follow any type of pattern with regards to food.  I ended up going back to the ball park with the 1 mile loop and getting my 7 in, but at a much easier pace that what was expected.  100% humidity plus lack of sleep just wasn't conducive to me running a good speed work session.

Wednesday:  Rest day.  Grandma came up from Martin and we had lunch at the garden of olives, and then tooled around bargain hunt and big lots, two of my mom's fav places to find good bargains.  We got some knock off legos for 10 bucks and some other good deals and then just hung out while little man built.

Thursday:  6 miles easy.  I headed out to Pinson Mounds State Park to do some running.  I had looked at the trail map and I thought with some back tracking and looping I could get 6 miles no problem.  I had so many great memories of field trips out at the mounds walking on the trails and hating it (i had a great fear of getting lost and never getting back to civilization), but i knew this time I would eat it up and love every minute of it!  Most of the park is paved trails with some crushed gravel and a nature trail that reminded me of single track in KS.

Running out here brought back so many memories. I can remember wanting to be an archaeologist after one of the many field trips here because I thought this place was so cool!  Basically the Indians that inhabited the area at the time built huge mounds for both ceremonial and burial purposes, but did not actually  inhabit Pinson Mounds.

Saul's mound is the tallest at 72 feet but there are numerous other smaller mounds.  You can climb to the top and Andrew and I counted 125 steps to the top.  I didn't stay long though because I am not a fan of heights!  There is also a single track nature trail that takes you out to a boardwalk area and out to the Forked Deer River.

It took me over an hour to get my 6 in and I did pause to climb to the top of Saul's mound with Andrew, as well as paused several times to read some of the signs to refresh my memory.  I easily got in 6 with minimal backtracking.  I loved the single track nature trail and the obstacles we encountered.  

I had mentioned to Andrew that i wanted to go roller skating at the old roller skating rink that I grew up going to multiple times a week.  You can believe every Friday and Saturday night, me and my girl friends were at the roller skating rink playing the claw game, couple skating, and playing limbo/hokey pokey.  I kind of hoped that Andrew would forgot I had brought it up because I was so tired, but in true kid fashion, he didn't forget.  In the end, I am glad he didn't forget though because we had a BLAST!  They even played the Ghost buster song for him just like they use to do when I was a kid.  There were mainly kids there and Andrew started out with one of those trainers, so we skated until the place closed down.  I am not going to lie, shed a few tears at all the fun we had at that place and all the memories that came up while we were there:)

A random S.  Last week it was a random M.  SO.MUCH.TRASH.EVERYWHERE

Friday:  Long run 18 miles.  I had looked at several routes, but nothing was safe enough or all side walk for a Friday morning run, even with leaving at 5 am.  I decided to stick to my parent's neighborhood and go up the side walk a different way to try to avoid having to do 3 loops.  Other than the fact that I was SUPER sore from roller skating the night before with little man and the leering weird guy in the park, my run was good, a little faster than the week before even thanks to low humidity and no sun.  I still had to do some back tracking and I was super sore from skating so going down hills was ouchy, but i got it done!  Urban running is so different than what I am use to.  Tons of traffic right next to you and no place to go for emergency bathroom breaks makes it challenging.  Really glad I live where I live and have the routes I have!

Saturday:  Drive day.  I again had no plan other than take my time, stop when I needed to, and stay a night somewhere if I was tired.  It's always SO bittersweet to leave.  I love my mom and step dad and I love where I grew up but it has changed SO much.  I was ready to be home and in my own bed and see my baby Deuce (and hubby LOL).  The drive was much like the first time, uneventful with a few stops.  We made good time and had no drama other than little man claiming to have to poop a few times the last few hours.  

Sunday:  5 easy miles.  I really did take it easy.  I walked every mile for a tenth and enjoyed running with Deuce by himself.  It is so good to be back and back on my nice flat running routes :)

Next week has some pretty big mileage including my 20 miler and of course it is a holiday and  my hubby may have to work, so who knows how this will go.  As always I will get done what I can and go from there!

Have a great week!!!!