Doug, I think you'll be surprised at how fast you're able to come back. Muscles have memories. I've had several periods over the last year where I had to take some time off from running and it came back quicker than I thought it would. I say go ahead and sign up for a 5K. You'll be ready in a few months. Really, you will. Michael, way to go. HM! How cool is that? Have you decided on a training plan?

Biked and ran today. Time to sleep. Stay safe everyone.

I took yesterday and today off, just to let the last of the funny soreness go away. I'll be back on the road again tomorrow morning; I'm figuring on something between three and six miles, depending on when I get out the door and how I feel while I'm out there. It's weird (but nice) not to have hard-and-fast distances and paces to run. I'm definitely going to enjoy running for fun over the next few weeks.

I looked at my marathon training plan last night (didn't feel like grading), and the first week's long run is 13 miles. Looks like I'm going to have to keep up my mileage, even if I'm just running for fun. My plan has me shooting for a 4:12 (or so) marathon time, which works out to something like a 9:35 pace. I figure I'll be thrilled with anything under 4:30 (that's about 10:15 per mile). I'm sure those targets will get adjusted as I train. Should be fun (?).

I need to get serious about finding some sort of cross-training activity. I don't think I can get the intensity I need from biking in my area -- too many cars to run into. I wish I liked swimming, and that I had ready access to a pool. The not liking swimming is the bigger obstacle. Maybe it's time to invest in a stationary bike or something like that. Where to put it...?

I also need to find someplace with hills. I swear sometimes I'm back in the middle of Ohio (where I went to college) -- it's flatter than flat out here. Just thinking about those bridges makes my quads ache. The worst part is that the elevation change wasn't that large and the distances weren't that great either; my muscles just weren't ready for it. I definitely need to remember Kimber's tips for running hills!

Well, enough out of me. Gotta do some work before a full day of meetings and prepping for a trustee meeting tomorrow.

Don

Went bike riding again today. I'm really liking it! Saves gas money too. I have a Honda Civic Hybrid. It gets between 40 - 45 miles to the gallon. I figured out (genius that I am) that it costs me almost $0.10/mile just in gas now.

Nico

Nico, she's 3yr old English Pointer. In the summetime I take her swimming with me (I leave her on a 30 ft lead in the water because she's prone to taking off. city dogs....), she loves the water. Or she just gets in my son's wading pool hah! Here's a couple of pics of her:

Okay. Here's what I have by way of t-shirt sizes so far. Please chime in if I've missed you or if you're just a little late to the party.

• Angie: Medium
• Don: Large
• Karen (Kimber): Medium
• Kevin: 2XL
• Mike: Large
• Nico: Small
• Val: Large

I figure I'll wait until Monday to make sure everybody who's interested is still on-board and that there are no design suggestions. At that point, I'll place the order. Just five more takers until a price break!

I've sold plenty of fountain pens and I participate in paperbackswap.com, so I'm at the post office pretty regularly. I'm perfectly happy to take care of payment-handling and shipping from my location (I don't mind international shipping, either; I'm getting to be a pro at the customs forms). I'm also pretty flexible on payment. I have a PayPal account that's set up to take credit cards, and I have no objection to personal checks or money orders. I'll post more complete details when we get to that point.

I went out for a nice five mile run this morning. It was a perfect day for it -- sunny and 42F. I planned for a three mile run, but figured I'd see how I felt. I was feeling great at three miles, so I decided to add another mile. That fourth mile ended a little farther from home than I wanted to walk, so I decided to tack on another half-mile. Well, at that point it seemed silly to stop at 4.5, so I just went the full five. That ended right at the end of my street. Couldn't have worked out better. I let my body dictate the pace and distance and I was just along for the ride. I could have kept going, but I do have to go to work today.

For the last few weeks, I've been noticing some stiffness at the base of my toes and in my achilles tendons. I didn't want to change things up so close to the half marathon, but I'd been suspecting that it was time for a shoe change. I did that this morning, and what a difference! Everything just feels better. Surprising, too -- I was only at about 264 miles on this last pair. Hmph. This is gonna get expensive.

Oh, by the way Kimber -- 46.0 MPG! Yee-haw! (I hope your stitches -- both sets -- are feeling better.)

Run/heal/rest/eat/sleep well.

Don