Ten miler

Cindy's at work this afternoon so the kids and I are home packing for the yurt-camping trip. They're quite excited. We ought to do this more often. Actually, we should be out walking in the woods today and coming home tomorrow. Today it's sunny and 50 something outside, but tomorrow it's supposed to snow. Still looking like the camping trip will coincide nicely with a 3-day blast of winter. We'll come home just as it starts to warm up again. Oh well.

I got outside this morning for my long run. Ten miles today. The Trail Half Marathon is three weeks away, and I'm feeling good about my training. Generally, I'm supposed to be doing long runs on Saturdays, shorter runs on Sundays, and then three to four miles each on Tuesday through Thursday. Rarely have I managed to get in all five runs in a single week. Time, time, time. But I have managed to get in one long run each weekend, sometimes two, and then I've always managed at least two runs during the week. I'm bicycling to work, too, which may help a little. Today's ten miler was my longest yet this spring, but it was pretty easy and mostly painless. I'm keeping about an 8 min/mile pace, so I finished in about 80 minutes - including a few stops to stretch and one drink-n-pee stop at my office. I'll run a few miles on the trail at Pinckney while we're camping this weekend -- most likely Tuesday morning so that I can stink up the car when we drive home! Last year I finished the trail half marathon in less than a minute under two hours. That's just over nine minutes per mile. This year I'd like to run it at closer to eight minutes per mile, but it's a tough course.

There's no One Day Ride Across Michigan this fall. I may ramp up my running and do a full marathon instead.