Sunshine and 63 degrees called to me to blow off that whole work thing and go for a run. 6.3 M overall and feeling great about it. Man am I hungry now. I think I'll grill a pork tenderloin or something tonight, with Asparagus... baked potatoes too yeah?, and a fresh salad. If you guys want to come over, we'll set a place for you. 1-MTA: bring some beer when you come...or wine, whatever. 2-MTA: I've got Moonjockey in my sights.

Sunshine and 63 degrees called to me to blow off that whole work thing and go for a run. 6.3 M overall and feeling great about it. Man am I hungry now. I think I'll grill a pork tenderloin or something tonight, with Asparagus... baked potatoes too yeah?, and a fresh salad. If you guys want to come over, we'll set a place for you. 1-MTA: bring some beer when you come...or wine, whatever. 2-MTA: I've got Moonjockey in my sights.

Shoot, such a nice day and I was in the box (simulator) all day. Since my long run Sunday I've done nothing, and the bunny is taunting me. Snow is forecast for Saturday! Hmmmm...pork tenderloin, asparagus and baked potatoes. I'll be right over, with Sierra Nevada. But Daisy and Jo-jo will be expecting tenderloin trimmings too so plan accordingly.

Didn't do my planned 15K yesterday due to some serious L-achilles problems during my Tuesday run. Think the rest did it good cause it's gone today. Was it some weird DOMS thing? Anyways, today 60min swim class, swam 750 meters. Lots of focus on technique and first lesson in turning: half a head roll - push off on wall - do a screw - glide - continue swim. You probably have different words for that. Well my head roll is miserable. And I'm terrified having to do that so close to the pool side. I'll learn. After the swim class I went grocery shopping. When I got home I had one of my boys put the groceries away while I took the dogs for an easy run. Doggies were at the vet's yesterday. Vet said they looked really healthy and the running did them both a lot of good. Their weight was right on target. Hearts sounded excellent. Trey, you can just decide not to work? Are you self employed? If you put some wild salmon on the grill I'll come right over Ennay, you have to explain the participation points to me.

Ennay, that sounds like our provincial running circuit. There's 10 races and you get points depending on your placement. No. 1 gets a 100, no. 99 gets 1 point. I'm a 10:30 per mile runner so I'm pretty slow. But last year I did 4 of the races and ended up no. 8 if I remember correctly. Had nothing to do with speed but with the no. of people joining the races (if there's only 30 runners at that particular distance and you come in last, you still get 69 points ) The downside is, that you have to run the distance they tell you to. Most of them are 10K's, with two half mary's thrown in. This year I was more into the longer distances. Maybe I'll join the circuit again in september. Though the first race is a 10K when I want to do the 30K. We'll see.

Dutchie, wild salmon on the grill? I had that tonight! I could probably have that every night for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. Trey--you're right, it's hard to do it right and I still screw it up more often than not. The key is not to overcook it, and when you get it right---heavenly. This time I "poached" it--put it in a cazuela (clay dish) in water on the grill until it was almost done, then two minutes directly on the grill, and it was just right. BTW, Dutchie, that was some storm you all had there in Europe last week, wow! BTW I've been to Den Haag a bunch of times, are you near there? It's a great town! Today was a test. Ran our usual route with DW and the dogs. The hillbilly house along our route has gotten progressively worse (we live in the country, in fact, near where the movie "Deliverance" was set). Used to be just two dogs who would bark at us but not leave the property. By now they're up to six or seven mongrels and they've gotten more aggressive so now some of them come into the road and chase us. I don't fear the dogs (yet!), as they hesitate when I challenge them, but it's a public road and we shouldn't have to put up with this, especially with our Dobermans on a leash, who are very well-behaved, considering the provocation. And their dogs are getting more aggressive every day. So DW, who is more emotional than I am, went up to the house, pounded on the door, and read the riot act to the woman there. This did not go over well. On the return leg they once again chased after us, so I walked up to the house and tried to talk to her reasonably, but she was not willing to listen and got belligerent. So now County Animal Control is involved (fortunately we know the Animal Control Officer and are on good terms). They have been cited, and on the third complaint will be fined. I just wish that people would be considerate and responsible, so we didn't have to get Animal Control involved. Sheesh. Daisy and Jojo were on their best behavior throughout, I'm tempted to just let them go next time, as I'm sure they would "neutralize the threat" very quickly. Trey, I am training on a new airplane so am spending a lot of time in the simulator dealing with all sorts of worst-case-scenarios like engine failures, fires, hydraulic failures, windshear, and the like. I can deal with all those things but doing it in a simulator with a training department instructor looking over my shoulder and critiquing, not fun. Anyway, despite the hillbillies it was a decent run, the usual 6.2 (I guess that's 10km). Still not sure what I'll do at ING, the half or the full.

Second 10K of '08 After spending the week sleeping and coughing, I forced a gentle run friday to loosen things up. I've had some chest colds respond well to that and this was about the same, wheezed and coughed, left 1/2 a lung out on the road, but in the end it seemed to open up my breathing. Started to feel that I would be ready to race by Sunday Saturday I drove down to the race not sure what to expect. My original goals were 8:05, 8:10, 8:15 (perfect, target, backup) pace. Warm up felt a little sluggish but not too bad. I decided to go for it. Mile 1 I struggled to hit the 8:15 backup pace...came in at 8:14 but I was worried. Halfway through mile 2 I hacked up the other 1/2 lung and started to breathe easier. 8:11. Really got in to a rhythm after that. Garmin was useless on this run so I had to pace myself and I just really focused on holding a 2-3 breathing pattern (for me that seems about right for a 10K...if I go to 2-2 I am too fast, 3-3- I am too slow). Just focused on the breath the rest of the race. Mile 3 was 8:00, mile 4 was a little hilly 8:03, mile 5 7:59 - nice even pacing I felt. Looked at the watch and decided to go for it. Started alternating segments of 2-2 (end of race/5Kpacish) breathing in ...some intervals. Mile 6 7:50. Then I went all out for the finish 1:32 (7:40) TT 49:52 (8:02)Woohoo! But hey...that was my whole 2008 10Kgoal and I have 6 more 10K's Funny stuff on the course...it took me about 5 miles to lose this guy who from the beginning was breathing with this weird moan. If I heard that elsewhere I would have thought "oh shit, heartattack" Finally at mile 4 I relaxed and figured since he was still running 8mm he was PROBABLY ok. But dang...at least 20 years older than me. Then there was one guy who was pacing me a little closely. At about mile 4 1/2 he said.."I really like your pace". We exchanged pleasantries and he tucked in back aways. It was less flattering when I reached the end and he did the turnaround to head out on loop 2 of his 30K. He was 20 years older than me too.

Sorry to have not been here a few days guys. Recap: Friday was supposed to be my last day in my old job. Was supposed to be finished at 12:30PM. Thought I could put in a nice 15K run at day light when I got home. However, at about 11AM, things hit the fan at work. Were taking over another company and Friday all contracts were supposed to be signed and the deal legally finalised. Darn if the other company didn't change things and signing didn't seem to be an option. Crisis! It was stress stress stress and I didn't get to go home and finally leave this job behind till 7PM!! Things weren't solved by then but I called it a day (and goodbye). But after cooking dinner, I just didn't have the energy or motivation to do that 15K on the TM. Sat:9K doggie run. Did 3K more to kind off make up for the missed run. Achilles was fine. In the afternoon I did a 15K bike ride. Sun: 11K with both doggies in hard rain and very windy weather. But nothing like the storm I ran in last week. When I got home to drop Spike off, I was soaking wet, so i changed into dry clothes. When I left again with Spooky I felt nice and comfy. Didn't last long though. After about 30 minutes I was soaking wet again, but had to keep going. Spooky seemed to love it. When she was off leash she was running around, chasing birds and other dogs like she wasn't putting in the same distance I was! Guess the vet's right that she can do the full marathon training with me. After about 20K it really got tough. And believe me, when I was close to 25K and I could take a left and be home in 15 minutes, I was sooooo tempted. But my legs moved forward and we kept going. Me getting more miserable, wet and cold by the minute, and Spooky simply enjoying herself. Total 30K long and very very sloooooow (total 4:08:00 hrs). If my speed doesn't pick up, I'll be doing a 6 hour marathon! ARGhhhhhh. I wasn't this slow when I was training for a 30K back in September. Perfesser: try doing the salmon in foil on the grill. I live about 40K from Den Haag. For you that's probably close. For me, (and all dutch), I live pretty far away I hate it when I have to deal with out of control dogs. Aaron: you back yet? How was your SF trip? Ennay: congrats on your race time! And you'll be even faster at the end of the racing season.