Aches and pains check-in, and a swan song

A swan and his goose friends at the park where I start my runs.

I've been MIA these last few days because I needed a bit of a mental break after Michigan Titanium. I've also been busy with family stuff and trying to catch up with all the things in life that get pushed to the back burner when you're training 11-15 hours a week.

My SI joint has been OK. I have been running shorter and slower, and it has been holding up with a bit of tightness but no real pain. I noticed when I wear my newest shoes, which I have been running in since Christmas (BAD!), I have the most pain. So I'm rotating them out, have ordered another pair, and am using my next-newest for the time being. I really think the pain is a combination of ramping up running miles, not doing any stretching (again, BAD!), and running in the same shoes for too long.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my marathon in 7 weeks (EEEEEEK!). Right now the plan is for a slow re-build, a short taper, and hoping for the best. I also might have a second-chance marathon fit perfectly into a January vacation, but we'll see. I did 10 today, which I figured was a safe middle ground between ramping up too fast again and losing fitness. Plus, it started downpouring at 9.5, so 10 it was.

I really shouldn't even be thinking about monthly mileage totals right now, but when I added it up a few days ago and saw I was in the 80s, I decided I wanted to try to hit 100 at least. As long as I get a 4-miler in tomorrow, I'll do it -- slowly, but it'll be done.

So, swans! The park where I begin most of my after-work runs from has a lake full of geese, ducks and a few swans. Lately I noticed that there is one swan that hangs out with a flock of geese. Then I found out that swans mate for life, and I got really sad. =(

"Hey guys, will you be my friends? Guys?" =(

I talked to my mom, the bird whisperer, and she said that if a swan's mate dies they'll try to get in with another flock. Then I started Googling, and turned up a bunch of stories about swans dying of broken hearts after their mates die, and before long I was sobbing at my desk. I even emailed the park department (prefacing my email with "I'm not a crazy person...") so they were aware of the situation and to ask if there was anything residents could do.

After work that day, I was on a swan mission. I found the goose-befriending swan in his usual routine, strolling around the park. But this time I walked down to the lake and spotted another one! So, maybe his mate did NOT die, and they just prefer to spend their days apart, or maybe they don't like each other's friends (ha).

One with his flock of geese, and another swimming with some ducks.

At the very least, he has another swan friend to hang out with. Yay! I know this makes me sound like a bleeding-heart hippie animal lover, and I really am, but I see these birds every day and it makes me feel much better to find out that Mr. Swan may not be a widower after all.

Now that I feel better about the swan issue, it's time to go stretch my hips for the 50th time this week and work on that SI joint. Hopefully stretching and slowing down will do the trick.