A field trip to poop

Happy Hanukkah! I'm celebrating as soon as Eric gets home with the candles.

 I've sort of decided to follow Hal Higdon's Advanced Marathon training plan for the Myrtle Beach marathon, but possibly adjust some of the mileage and trade out the easy run days for cross training. So, in other words, it's a loose estimate of what I'll be doing, but don't look at the plan and call me out for slacking, because I know everyone really cares to put that much time into cross referencing the blog with the hyperlink above.

It called for three easy miles Monday morning. My knee felt off during/after my run on Sunday, so I decided to hit the elliptical for a 40 minute hill interval workout with, my favorite, magazine reading.

I'm pretty sure my knee was annoying me because my old shoes had approximately 428 miles on them, so this morning, I busted these babies out.

The new Brooks Adrenalines

Please ignore my orthopedic old lady socks, I don't like blisters.

Hal told me to run nine miles this morning, and I had a little anxiety, because that kind of seemed like a lot.  I've run more than that since the 50 miler (a grand total of three times), but those were all long runs, not just a midweek run. I don't know why I was freaking out, I just felt like I wasn't ready to dive back in to that early wakeup call and long miles in the dark. Plus, morning runs always just feel so much harder than afternoon runs.

I ended up with 9.25 miles before sunrise, and was feeling pretty good about life. Mentally, I enjoyed the run, but my legs felt totally sluggish and my heart rate was higher than it should have been. My average pace was 9:44, and I really struggled to even keep that up.

I blame not eating enough the previous day, and not eating before I ran. Anytime I eat less than an NFL lineman, I consider myself underfueled and my training suffers. I blame poop.

Apparently, a local Baltimore landmark is these Golden Poop Eggs, also known as Poop Epcot. They are named that because that's what they smell like. Yesterday, we took a field trip there, and it turns out that they are actually filled with poop.  Note: I did not plan the field trip to the Water Purification Plant.

Here's the poop before it enters the eggs, when they thicken up to make it easier to remove from the water. There are three kinds of sludge removing machines.

And then eventually you get this! 

MMMM, ready to bottle and drink.

The other teachers and I considered burning our clothes when we got home. I never lose my appetite, but I could barely choke down the yogurt I brought for lunch (a sad lunch to start with, I know). Thus, a slow run the next morning. 


You're welcome for the pictures.


On the bright side, the Civic got its first Christmas present last night! The bumper never looked so good. Thanks, Emily!

Eric thought the race organizers sent them to everyone, as an apology.

Do you have a unshakable appetite, or do you lose it easily? I'm weird because I have a weak stomach in the sense that I completely freak out about having to see any sort of needles, even on TV, yet my appetite never leaves me.