Any day running is a good day

So, I have about 9 days to do as much planning for this cross country excursion as I can. I took summer classes until the 5th of August, and school starts again on August 20th. So far, things are looking good. I have mapped out my route in an atlas...in pencil, of course. And I'm building a list of all the addresses of the companies I want to write to to hopefully work out some sort of sponsorship deal.

After working on much of this, I met up with Lauren Rinker for the photo shoot portion of the interview for Sports Backer Quarterly Magazine. She was very nice, and is working as an intern now. She was very thorough in the interview. If I were an employer, I would hire her for a position as an editor...hint. hint.

Getting my picture taken is always awkward. I get the feeling as this trip and the running thing get more serious, they don't always want every picture to be of you just cheezin' it up. Unfortunately, for me, I always get nervous, and the whole nervous smile thing comes back to bite me. Oh well, maybe I'll get more comfortable as time goes on.

Waking up every morning at 4:30 for work started to take it's toll on me today on my bike ride home from work...or maybe it was the 100+ degree heat, couldv'e been both.

I started my run at around 4:50 pm and had a destination in mind. I used to go to Tuesday night speed workouts with the Richmond Road Runners but as my work schedule and school needs piled up, I was forced to give that up and just do that work on my own time. Tonight, I didn't have any other obligations so I decided to visit my friend Mark Guzzi at the track. After arriving, no one actually wanted to do the speed work, and someone brought up a slower longer run instead. I am no one to ever turn down a longer run. It was good...still very hot, but good. I believe the temps hovered around the 98-101 range which meant finding a sprinkler in someone's yard was like winning the lottery. Upon returning to the track I was informed that a storm was supposed to blow in tonight, and the heat wave of the past couple days was supposed to end. I don't mind the heat. And I really really prefer it to the cold. But I did want to make it home before any lightning had a chance to creep me out.

It was a good run, about 3 hours, decent for a weekday that had some leg weight lifting in the morning. I'm just trying to get as much time on my feet on pavement, beat my feet into submission on the regular, and work on getting my recovery time down. I did have a missed call from my Aunt Vickie informing me that she had contacted Ray Storm, a professional mountain biker, through a friend of a friend. This guy is incredible, and he knew a ton about the ins and outs of sponsorships. He was really willing to help with letting me know how things worked with sponsorships. Plus, he's got a sick last name. Storm. Seriously, if I toed a start line next to a guy named "Storm" I'm not sure I could even start.

One of the things he told me is that I need to start an emailing list just to keep people up to date with training, races, news from the run, etc. So, while I personally think, this would be more in line with companies, or people who sponsor me, if there is anyone who wants to be on my mailing list, just let me know.
That's all folks