True to my own prediction, I did not go running during Andrew's visit. We did take a nice little hike up at Mount Lemmon, which included a couple of small-but-steep hills (see? I do too do hill training!) as well as an excellent storm that included pea-sized hail.

Andrew left early Tuesday morning and I really should have gone running yesterday morning, but I couldn't quite activate myself to get out of bed -- I was in a terrible mood and missing Andrew and generally just wishing I could sleep all day. Oh well. Still, I really did want to get in one decent run before the upcoming 16-18 mile monster on Saturday, so this morning I went over to Reid and ran 6 miles and walked another 3. It went fine and I kept a good, consistent pace the whole time.

Unfortunately, I am not getting along so well with the FuelBelt. I've figured out that in order to keep it from moving around and scratching me up, I have to wear it fairly tightly at the smallest part of my waist. This feels OK when I start out and then becomes uncomfortable. Also, I'm finding that it's very difficult to run with the extra weight of the water bottles at my lower back. It's fine for when I'm walking, but not so good when running. Bummer! I feel like I've given it a reasonable try (3 runs now) but I'll ask the coaches on Saturday if they think I should stick with it; the TNT coaches and mentors seem to really love their FuelBelts. However, I can't imagine doing 16-18 miles with the belt, so I think I'll revert to carrying a water bottle in my hand for now.

On the positive side of things, I've also figured out that a packet of Sport Beans about 20 minutes before I start running makes the first 3 miles or so vastly easier to get through. Usually miles 2 and 3 are pretty tough because I haven't quite hit my stride yet, but this doesn't seem to be the case if I've had some Beans! I'm still creeped out by these weird non-food sport supplements, but dang, they seem to do their job well...