There’s an often used idiom, “The calm before the storm,” that I think appropriately describes my immediate running future.

C’mon… lucky 7.

My previous race was the REVEL Big Cottonwood Half Marathon in mid-September.

For the last few weeks, ever since I pounded the mountain pavement in Salt Lake City, I’ve just been concentrating on having solid training runs and dealing with my troublesome orthotics. My right foot had been experiencing a sort of “blister fest” while I anxiously awaited the arrival of my new & improved orthotics.

Well, on Wednesday my new orthotics arrived and so far my right foot is “blister free.” Keeping my fingers crossed and a four-leaf clover handy.

Back to the idiom and the aforementioned pre-storm calm.

Starting next Sunday I enter my craziest running month ever.

From October 12th- November 16th I’ve got 7 races scheduled (6 half marathons and a 10K). Yup, that’s a septet of races in 35 days… including a stretch where I run 3 half marathons in just over 30 hours.

Seven. That’s as many races in a little over a month as I ran in all of 2012. Yeesh.

To quote Hamlet (and Captain Kirk) “May fortune favor the foolish.”

Here’s the laundry list for my races or the “lucky 7” as I’m calling them:

1. Oct. 12- Long Beach Half Marathon
2. Oct. 19- Santa Monica RunFEST (10k)
3. Oct. 26- Los Angeles Rock ‘n’ Roll
4. Nov. 8- Santa Barbara Half Marathon
5. Nov. 15- REVEL Canyon City Half Marathon
6. Nov. 16(am)- Avengers Superhero Half Marathon
7. Nov. 16(pm)- Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon

Yup, just do ’em.

Which means this weekend I should have done a taper run for Long Beach. But since the REVEL Canyon City Race is a downhill race (like Big Cottonwood was) I also needed to do some “hill training” lest my quads explode come November.

So Sunday morning I did both.

I ran 8 miles. 8 hilly miles. 8 stupidly hilly miles.

There’s a big hill in Griffith Park, one that several of us have dubbed “Holy F%#king Sh!t Hill.”

It’s a 1/2 mile steep incline followed by a 1/2 mile steep decline. So I ran back & forths on that mother… four of  ’em to be exact, with a little flat ground in between for good measure.

It definitely gave my quads a good workout (yup, I feel ’em). And I plan to do some additional hill work in next few weeks, including another “hardcore hill session” on the weekend of Nov. 1-2 (my one non-race weekend between now and mid November).

Should be an interesting and bling-filled month. I can’t wait.

Have a good day… and Run on!