Breaking all sorts of rules...

After weighing all of the pros and cons of whether or not to run 15 miles today, I made the decision not to run. Yesterday, I walked around a lot in Lawrence, KS with a friend and my ankle was very tender by the end of the day. I've been on a serious ice regiment and I'm really hoping to make a great come back. My marathon is just too important to me to risk further injury. I'm telling you, it was HARD decision. Especially since last week the most I ran was 5 miles and since then, I've only run 4 miles. This is not good...

But, I'm determined to make it to the marathon. If I'm under trained, I'm under trained.

Having made the hard decision, I knew I had only one option left. Three grueling hours on the eliptical machine. That's right folks. Your friend Stephanie has gone where she hopes no other RBF members have to go. From 6:45-10 a.m. this morning (the 15 minutes extra was the time I spent walkingand stomping around in circles every hour to wake up my feet) my life consisted of eliptical hell. I wanted to be running so bad.

In order to prentend I was running, I still followed my pre-run routine of eating, drinking water and even using body glide. (Hey, I didn't know what my body would do if I spent that long on the thing.) I also brought along a thing of gu to keep my body used to it. (And after 1.5 hours, some extra energy was sounding great.)

At our apartment complex workout room, there is HUGE sign that reads: "Please limit your workouts to no more than 30 minutes. Thank you." So, I was super nervous that I would get busted. Believe it or not, there are people who WANT to work out on that thing. I figured if I went early enough, I wouldn't have too much of a problem.

After 2 hours, during one of my walking around stomping breaks, a girl came in and asked me if I was done on the eliptical. I said no, I have (pause.) an hour left. She looked at me like, "WHAT?" So I apologized and explained the entire saga of my marathon and my ankle and my training etc... She seemed to forgive me and moved to the treadmill. I apologized a million times. But we talked for a while and suddenly I'm thinking, she knows an awful lot about me. The first few hints were subtle:
"How's your husband?"
"Did you cut your hair?"

And then:
"Is your air conditioning working?"

That's when I realized...it was the apartment complex MANAGER!!!!! Yikes. I hope we don't get evicted. Luckily, she was nice. I feel like I should bribe her with something.

Here's to hoping I'm up to my 16 miles next week. I really hate breaking the rules.