10 Days...5 runs....37 miles later, the scorecard reads Mother Nature 3, GS 2

I am back to my blog...sorry! Alot has taken place over the last week and a half. If I blog about all of it the battery on my laptop might die...Ok, lets get to the nitty gritty. Two long runs, two short runs with hills and a regular run. "Let's go to the tape Bob!"

Last sunday Cubbie and I were scheduled for a two hour run. we usually measure our long runs in miles but this run was kind of us working back into long runs after taking a couple of weeks easy. "Spokes" said he was interested in meeting up with us, so the more the merrier. We agreed to meet up at The Village at 5am to get most of this run in before the sun came up. Weather report was terrific. It was 72 degrees when we started, a little on the humid side. As soon as the sun came up (6:30) the humidity lifted. We finished the run and it had only reached 78. According to Spokes' Garmie we covered about 11 miles. GS 1- Mother Nature 0

I had to head to Atlanta for training and decided to get a couple of workouts in while I was up in the big city. I stayed at The W Atlanta-Downtown, one of the perks of working for Starwood Hotels. I could actually devote an entire blog to the awesomeness of this new property; seeing as how this is a running blog, I will not.

I arrived in the ATL(that's what the kids call it) early Wednesday evening. Had dinner at this really cool place, Flip Burger Boutique. I was told someone who was on Top Chef opened this place, great food. Anywho, got back to the hotel and was itching to run. I wanted to tackle the hills of downtown Atlanta, so off I went for a little thirty minute spin around the block. The weather was perfect and so was my run. I love running hills. I think it is the mental aspect that I really like; you know it sucks, your legs burn and you want to quit. When you get to the top you feel a certain sense of accomplishment AND you get to go down the hill. GS 2-Mother Nature 0.

Spent all day Thursday in training. Finished up at 5pm and decided it was time to explore Cenntenial Park. I saw dark clouds rolling in and was hoping to get in and out before Mother Nature "got on the board" As I ascended Peachtree St. the winds really picked up, blowing debris all around and generally making my climb much more difficult. As I headed toward the park I could feel the pressure drop and knew it was only a matter of time, but I didn't care. It felt great out! I ran across a few other runners, we silently alerted each other of the impending storm by waving and pointed to the sky. I had just about crested the hill next to The Omni as the heavens opened and drenched me. I then realized that I was running with the biggest sh!t eating grin on my face. This was a close call, Mother Nature had made it on the board. GS 2- Mother Nature 1

As I was heading back to Savannah, Cubbie called to see if we could move our long run to Friday night, instead of sunday morning. Uh oh..."Dude, it is going to be so hot! We are going to die. No, I mean literally die Cubbie!" So we agreed on a 6pm start for our 14 mile trek. Just an FYI- I have never run 14 miles consecutively in my entire life, and now I am going to do it at 6pm on a late July evening in Georgia...We cruised the first 7 miles easy peasy, lemon squeezy...Stopped real quick for a water refill and continued on. We were pacing at about 11:30 per mile and I was happy to be halfway home. It was really humid and the sun was baking. Cubbie wasn't taking enough water and really began to struggle. We will go ahead and call this one, Mother Nature has just tied it up. We stopped for a bio break at mile 9 and walked for a couple of minutes. Ever the fighter, Cubbie caught her second wind and we soldiered on. Mile 10 we came to the point in the road where we could turn left and do 11 miles or turn right and do 14. I knew Cubbie wanted to go left...But like the awesome running partner she is, "Let's finish this, we are doing 14!" Ha, give me that point back Mother Nature! We continued to push and finished our long run at an unofficial 2 hours 52 minutes. After a judges review, Mother Nature evens the score 2-2. Dang Russian judge!

This morning was supposed to be a recovery run, 3 or 4 miles. Cubbie calls me last night and says, "Hey can we run at 9am?" sure. "Um, you want to run the DeRenne run?" This is a no brainer to me...."Cubbie, we are only supposed to do 3 or 4 miles, we just ran 14 miles! DeRenne is 5.5 miles!" this is where her tricky logic suckers me in..."Yeah, but we haven't run that route in so long, it will be fun." That's all you've got? It will be fun? "Um, okay, why not" WTF? I am such a pushover! LOL! It was 85 degrees when we started, only half of this route is in the sun. We managed the first half of the run with relative comfort. However, the second half was a battle of wills, me secretly wanting to walk it in. MN beat down on me for the last mile and a half but I fought back as best I could. We finished strong. I really think it was a draw but after reviewing the tape I award Mother Nature the final point and the overall win for the week.

Final Score:

Mother Nature 3 - Georgia Snail 2

Shhh....don't say this too loud. I loved every minute of it!

One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.