bringing the heat to michigan

one of my good friends got married this weekend. in michigan. brr. hence why i needed the shoe advice. i was amused how the red shoes won by a landslide. no need to recount votes here. thanks for all the input fashionable friends.

course by this time the shoes were long gone

i informed my mitten-dwelling friends of my travel plans and although someone forgot/ignored me (and then tried to blame it on me) the redhead did not let me down. morgan drove about an hour to run - that is some serious dedication; i don't even like driving 5-10 minutes to run. the weather was supposed to be a high of 19 degrees, but by the time i arrived the forecast changed to a high of about 30 degrees. heat wave; you're welcome michigan.

my old running buddy had guilted me into running a few miles with her as well, so we went out for 5 miles around 7am, had just arrived back at the hotel and morgan arrived a few minutes later. i scarfed down a yogurt since i hadn't eaten anything yet (and dairy products are always good before running) and headed back out with morgan.

neither of us knew the area so we drove part of the route first and realized we were just gonna have to deal with running 4-lane highways and narrow shoulders for part of the run. this wasn't a big deal to me as south carolina roads rarely have a shoulder so i'm used to running in ditches or having to stop and let cars pass. morgan kept apologizing for putting our lives in danger and making comments about death (we may need to stage an intervention).

she never did apologize for sprinting up all the hills and leaving me a half-mile behind though. her hill workouts are definitely paying off although it still doesn't make me want to do them myself. i told her she can brag to everyone that she was faster than me. seriously, she's the friggin' redheaded energizer bunny! :)

i had joked about running by michigan's finest scenery (closed down factories) and morgan managed to route us by the chrysler plant and test track. it was hard to see through the trees and 27403 feet of snow but technically we did run by it. we also ran by my future home, josh and i are hoping to close by the end of the month.

there will be plenty of room for everyone to visit

the snow/ice made it slick in a few spots but we made it. surprisingly i held up well considering i was jamming in 19 miles. morgan was kind enough to bring me a bottled water and spare power gel as i forgot to pack mine. it was a confidence boost to see i could handle the mileage and a decent pace with practically no food (yogurt + 1 gel). it was also nice to not have a bathroom emergency either.

the front of my right ankle was sore for the majority of the run so i'm not sure what's going on there. i'm hoping it's just from a few too many slippery steps on the snow. it's not swollen or bruised, doesn't hurt to point my toes, does ache when flexing toes back towards shin, aches when making circles with toes... and of course this was before wearing the heels, so i can't blame it on them. it doesn't hurt bad, just bothersome.

any ideas of google search terms i can use?
"front part of ankle hurts" isn't giving great results.

anyway, both runs were great and it was super sweet to 'hang out'/girl talk with morgan for 2 hours. after the run we went to tim horton's where i was tempted to eat the whole rack of donuts. i saved those calories for an extra piece of wedding cake instead.

saturday (2/5) am run #1: 5 miles, 44:40 (avg pace 8:56), 16*
saturday (2/5) am run #2: 14.10 miles, 2:07:34 (avg pace 9:03), not much warmer