SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Okay I figured out the header. I’m done tinkering with it for now. I have a few color changes left (I’m going for this look) but that’s it.

I’m only 10 days into my training and I’m already noticing that I’m “worrying” about pace and splits way too much. So today I decided to “leave my watch at home” (actually I wore it, but I didn’t use it – but “leaving it at home” sounds so much better). I can’t remember EVER doing that before. I also decided to “only” run 6 miles today because I don’t want to increase mileage too quickly. I’m at 45 miles now and I’ll figure tomorrow’s run will give me 53 for the week. I haven’t run that much since the last week of JULY. Man, what the hell was I doing all summer? No wonder I raced so poorly.

On my way back to my car the trail I run on crosses a road about a half mile before my run ends. I thought I’d be “wild and crazy” and take the road back. It turns out there’s a nice little hill along the way. Since there aren’t any hills on the path I think I’m going to run this hill 1-2 times during the work week, just to make sure I don’t “go soft” by just running on the flats.

A few weeks ago I wrote this post about my anniversary of running and how I thought it was earlier in October. It turns out I was right. Last night I was reading through my old log book and way in the back it says “Started running Oct. 2nd, 1979. There was also more info on my first “race.” There were 3 people in the race. I came in 2nd, one second behind the winner. I hope he felt good about sprinting to beat a 10 year old. I also found my dad’s time from the 1983 Grandma’s marathon. He was 43 at the time and ran 3:12 – not too shabby.

Tomorrow I’m going to watch the Minnesota State High School cross country meet. My friend Eric’s daughter has qualified 3 years in a row. As a sophomore she finished 100th. Last year she probably ran her worst race of the year and only managed to finish in 88th place. This year she’s running awesome, having just won her conference and section meets. She’s currently ranked 12th in Class AA. Good luck to her. I always liked what Mark Wetmore (Colorado’s coach) said in “Running with the Buffaloes” it was something like “I don’t ask my kids to run Herculean-efforts (in the big meets). I just want them to run as they’re capable.” Good advice for anyone prior to a race.