Summer hurrahs!

I will unofficially official start marathon training next week, so I will probably start skewing more towards boring posts about my training regimen and less about awesome life stuff.  Well, just a little perhaps.  I've been having quite the fun summer.

Let's talk about running first though.

I got some new shoes last week after dealing with some major minor foot pain that could have been brought on by my Brooks Pure Flow 2s.  I dunno.  I also could attribute to the extra speedwork in July, the sloppier form I have in hot weather, my work shoes (40 hours a week on my feet likely doesn't help), or a combination of the above.  I'm trying the Mizuno Wave Elixir 8s.  Lightweight enough, but with some stability.  And a roomier toebox for my yeti feet.



I went to the Greenway to test them out after I bought them.  Had a 12-16 miler in mind.  The Greenway was closed due to flooding.  I drove another 20 minutes to the other Greenway in the vicinity and it was also closed.  Doh!

So, to the pain cave I went.



Amazon Prime has Spirit of the Marathon free right now and I hadn't seen it.  Cue the first 1:41 of my run.  Love, love, loved it and it was really cool to watch it while I was running.  I started watching another dumb Jennifer Anniston movie Switch which was not-so-great, but kept me occupied through the final few miles.  16 overall and yes, it was quite mind-numbing even with my movies.

I took Friday and Saturday off running.  The long run padded my miles for the week and I had fun things to do instead.  But I did run 5 miles yesterday and it felt good and comfortable.

However, today was a major mojo killer.  I felt absolutely awful and I was running around 8:20 pace for the first 3 miles and it felt reallly, really hard.  The last 2 I got my pace under 8:00, but it really was motivated by the fact that a terrible thunderstorm was coming closer.  The last 2 minutes of my run were in the rain so I timed it just about perfect. This was the type of run that I need every once in awhile though to remind me that I'm not invincible.

In non-running news, I was giving my grill a good workout last week and enjoying the beer challenge.

How can you go wrong with steak?



Or a rack of ribs?




I drank beer at home (as seen in the above pictures) and at local restaurants:




In the parking lot of Turner Field ($.75 beers):



Inside Turner Field ($7.50 beers):



Unfortunately, we saw the Braves streak end.  But the hometown crew still cheers:




Last, but not least, my sister invited her future bridesmaids (including me, duh) to a brunch yesterday where she formally asked us to be a part of her wedding.  She found Barbie-esque dolls in the hair color that matched the girl and made dresses that look like the ones she wants us to wear.  Here's mine:




Happy Monday y'all!