Zombie Land

I wish there was a sound effect on this blog so I could insert the sound my *%# alarm made this morning at 4:50 a.m. Today was my first real day of the ATP (advanced training program) group. Yesterday, I claimed that I was going to report an attempted homicide because the Texas humidity had tried to murder me on my run. Let me assure you that Maggie, my ATP coach, would make Texas humidity beg for mercy. She's a little firecracker and I was frightened when she informed us we were going to "warm up" by running a mile. After the warm up run, there was a hazy time with some stretching and skipping. I wish I was kidding. Before I knew it, we were off for our actual run of the morning. Five miles. That's a total of 6 miles and some skipping before dawn.

I want to tell you about the run because I have never been in a group like this. People around me were seriously talking about qualifying for Boston. They were comparing race times and talking about movies. Even on a good day, I'm not chatty before the sun comes up and border on slightly bitter before my morning tea. I was focused on just keeping in the middle of the pack and not dying. On the plus side, I did run those five miles almost five full minutes faster than I ran on Saturday without the ATP group. One guy told me that he shaved almost 30 minutes off his marathon time by doing this training.

After our run(s), we did a series of boot camp exercises. Squats, lunges, core work, push ups and weights. When I got home, I walked the dog. I realized at some point that I'd been up for 3+ hours before I even started getting ready for work. Jon says I will remember this experience fondly. Jon underestimates my love of sleep.

I better look really, REALLY fit by the end of this thing.