Week

Had our office Xmas party last Saturday night. I'm usually an early pasta dinner/early to bed Saturday night person. I like that routine. It has served me well, nearly to the point that I feel this routine is necessary in order to run long in the morning.

Saturday we stayed out late and ate crappy buffet (low carb) food. I met my friend Albert at 6 on Sunday morning as the wind howled and the rain blew sideways. The rain stopped as if on cue and we had a nice 20 mile run. We had a "goo" toast at 7 am to honor our friends Karen and Aaron who were staring their marathon in Jacksonville at that moment.

I made good on my vow to run on an impromptu whim. Tuesday I pulled into a local park around lunchtime, grabbed my gym bag that I have been carrying along with me for such an occasion, changed and ran a nice 8:25, 8:10, 8:00, 7:45, 7:14 5 miler w/another 1.5 mile cool down and was dressed and on the road within an hour.

I got a massage this week and found that my left side flexor range is improving.

I got a last minute call to run the boys team through an interval workout yesterday which I really enjoyed. Nothing like being around a bunch of knuckle headed kids who run 65 second 1/4 mile repeats to get you inspired.

Last night I attempted another tempo (3 miles at the lowly 7:08 pace again) and as it was last week it seemed very labored.

I'm juggling around my training ideas for the remaining 21 days left to the marathon. At this point I'm focusing on the long run, running 1 tempo per week, and trying to run 5 days a week. Albert has asked me to run long in the morning. He is running a half marathon next Saturday and wants to move his long run up one day this week. I'm on the fence about this. I'd really like to avoid an injury in the next 3 weeks.