week:   6.75 miles

today: 20

5:30

I'm in Florida at our daughter's for Thanksgiving.  After several mornings in the 30's, its 51F at 5:30 AM.  I never bring enough colder weather gear here, expecting Florida to be warm.  Today, it is.

Its not the marathon that changes you, its the pursuit of the marathon.  I sit here in the dark, drinking coffee and eating my peanut butter sandwich. It seems like all the world sleeps.

Why am I here?  I want to run marathons.  I want 26.2 miles in training to be easy, if not routine.  I want a sub-3:35 in 2009 to qualify for Boston.

In "Lawrence of Arabia", Alec Guinness as Prince Feisal dreams of the gardens of Cordoba in a moment of distraction.  He brings himself back to the present by shrugging his shoulders and saying with a sigh: "Before the gardens must come the fighting."

Indeed.

Noon:

The run went well.   Running the flat Florida beachscape in 60 degree weather is much easier than hilly Maryland in the 30s.