Celebrating 100th birthdays and good runs

My sister is coming to town this weekend for the 100th birthday of her husband's grandmother. Grandma is small in stature these days -- about 4'9" -- but large in our hearts. She's still quite sharp if not a little hard of hearing. Last time I was with her a couple of months ago, we were going through her high school yearbooks and she could remember all sorts of people. She even remembers when electricity came to her little Indiana town. What a doll. Happy birthday, Mary!

Since my little sis is coming to town that means breakfast as a family on Saturday at our favorite local restaurant. But that also means it'd be tough to get my long, slow, distance run in before we'd meet. More than likely breakfast will be at 9 or 10 a.m. And that would require a 6 a.m. wakeup call. Not gonna happen on a Saturday morning. I don't like to run in the dark. 8 a.m. is the crack of dawn for me on the weekend run.

So what to do? Even though I did a long run only 5 days ago, it was today or no breakfast with the family. So off I went. Hotter and more humid than last Saturday, but still a beautiful day. Stayed with my half-mile runs followed by 1 minute walk breaks. I wasn't as hydrated as I'd have liked and I hadn't eaten as well (carb-wise), but I did pretty well.

Last Saturday, I ran about 12 minute miles and today -- even though the intention was to stay at 12 minute miles, I ended up doing about 11:30 miles. I struggled the last two miles though at 12:19 and 12:09. All in all, a great run. Most important thing -- really the only important thing to me -- is I finished the run pain free. My heart rate seemed to stay down. I don't know for sure because I no longer take a monitor, but I felt good. And I really enjoyed myself except for one thing: water bottles.

I usually carry a bottle of Dasani or Aquafina when I run because it's easy to carry. But I'd really like to free my hands up, so I went back to one of the many running belts I own. Today's was one that sits horizontally along the small of my back. It was OK but I couldn't feel my pelvis rotate with the belt on, which is part of the ChiRunning technique. And the belt itself was an issue. When it felt tight enough, it restricted my diaphram and breathing; when I loosened it, it just wobbled too much. Not really much of a problem in the big picture.