Thanks Mom

First, faithful readers, a big thank you to Mountain Mama (aka Mom) for giving me a nice even number of 20 followers. It really, really bugged me that I was hanging at 19. What kind of number is 19? 20 is so much more satisfying, and as you all know by now, I'm all about the round, even numbers! So thanks, Mom, and I swear your birthday present is in the mail. Or it will be. Soon...

So, you may be asking yourselves, where the heck have I been? Well, my computer has been sick and I haven't had internet access since Sunday. After several calls to my provider, a technician finally made it to my house and discovered I had a sick modem. We plug in a new modem and voila! I'm back in touch with the world!

I have managed a few runs, but nothing longer than 6 miles. I'm up to 15 miles per week, and will start stretching my miles to get back to my 30 mile base. I'm a little concerned about my stamina; it still isn't what I think it should be. It could be, as fellow blogger Bruce and others have pointed out, due to flu recovery plus stress plus a dash of post-robbery depression thrown together. And not eating well certainly doesn't help. So I hereby resolve to eat healthy, sleep well, and generally take better care of myself in an effort to get back to running.

Now, since I have been out of touch for a few days, how about a potpouri of thoughts, totally random and floating around in my tiny little brain just screaming to be shared?

So, we have a woman, who already has 6 children, who uses in vitro fertilization to give birth to 8 more children. Am I the only one here who thinks this is wrong for so many reasons? I am not opposed to large families. If someone is financially, emotionally, and physically capable of caring for 14 children then God bless them and go for it. But this is a single woman living with her parents. It just feels wrong. And how will this family cope when Pampers stops sending the free diapers and the children get older? Don't children from multiple births often have serious health problems? Who's going to pay the bill for the birth? And finally, there are so many children in foster care who need permanent homes. If this woman needed more children in her life, perhaps adoption could have been the answer for her as well as for a child who desperately needs a loving home.

Now-on to marathon training plans. I spent all day today cruising the internet for training plans and I see a trend that makes me wonder. So many of the plans are based on low weekly mileage. One plan I looked at had 4 runs per week with half the weekly mileage tied up in the long run. If you run 2 5 milers and 1 8 miler, are you really prepared to run a 20 miler? Or is it going to work because you aren't wearing yourself out on shorter runs? I reviewed the plan I downloaded that I will follow for my marathon this year, and I realized it's pretty much the same kind of plan with the exception that it includes one day of crosstraining. It's 18 weeks, but I'll stretch it out to 21 weeks. The problem with running my first marathon is that I won't know if my training plan is sufficient until the day of the marathon. Scary thought.

Stay tuned, faithful readers. When things settle down around here I'm going to start a new blog dedicated to my first marathon, the Las Vegas Marathon in December. It will be all about running and while it will be open to any and all who want to read and comment, I will especially invite anyone who is running this particular marathon to join in the conversation with advice and comments.

I only watch the Superbowl for the halftime show and the commercials; I don't know anything about football nor do I care to learn. But the commercials are always pretty good and I do love those Budweiser horses. So, now that Budweiser has been bought out by Heineken, will Budweiser trade in the Clydesdales for Belgians?