Hope to hear a lot of good stuff about races later on! Really hoping for good news from Murphy... Nice work, Bugs! And yes, those small town races are annoying sometimes... we have a lot of that around here! Yeah to Kimmie for getting out there in the rain and having a good time! I did run my 5k yesterday. By myself... DH and I were going to run/walk it together but he was stuck in Anchorage (missed his flight Friday night). So, I did it by myself. Took off in the back-of-the-pack with all the kids and moms/dads with strollers. I got passed by a woman pushing a stroller. But that's ok. I wasn't doing this for speed or time but to see how things felt on a level (mostly) course. Felt pretty good! Had one hard twinge when I stubbed my foot on a bump in the pavement so I stopped and stretched for a bit, walked a few steps then started jogging again. This was just before mile 2. Felt good enough after the river overpass that I increased speed a bit the last half mile. All systems felt pretty good. Finished in 27:51 which was better than I was hoping for (plan was around 30). Finished the day with almost 3 hours of yard work and dog$hit detail. Good lord there's a lot of that out there! Will do more of that today. I was concerned I'd be sore and have back problems from all the bending and stooping, but feel good today. We've had an unbelievable stretch of nice cloudless days, even broke some high temp records last week (I think it was 76 on Wednesday). Next week will be still nice but cooler, and that's fine. Will head to the gym/pool later for some pool running. But that's after an afternoon of more yard/house work.

I can't keep pushing my health issue's to the side much longer.

Right. Hope you feel better Pam.

Right. Hope you feel better Pam.

Thanks Dave! What sucks is we have no health insurance at the moment which is a first for us. Doesn't help that I put myself last and worry about everyone else even the pets first.

Pam: Sorry to hear about the urine issues, and also about the lack of health insurance (that sucks). Erika: Congrats on getting out there, and having a good injury free one. And congrats on doing a lot of yardwork later -- if I do even one hour of yard stuff after running, I'm lazing out on the couch very shortly thereafter -- I'm not nearly as industrious as you clearly. Kim: I put a link to a fairly long race report in that sticky thread here titled race reports. I dueled that kid through all of mile 3, then I let him escape me coming to the stadium -- he got about 10 feet in front -- then when we hit the track I sprinted and just about caught him at the line -- .15sec time difference. I got our times from the timers, because they posted the times for everyone by age group, and those omitted the three overall winners and the three masters' winners. Silly to post everyone's times except 6 people. So I had to go find the timers and get my time, and I asked for his as well, so I'd see how close we were. The bonus of that is I got my time down to the hundredths (heh). MTA: In Frederick, rain held off all day Sat (had beautiful weather for that 5K) and even Sun morning. Finally about mile 10 it started sprinkling, then eventually was really raining, and I ran the rest and my extra 6mi in the rain. Was cold afterward -- kind of shivering eating my sausage afterward. Bugs: Congrats on nearly PR'ing on a time trial. I think I need the adrenalin and competition of a race to be able to push that hard; I don't think I have the interior fortitude to push without a race environment to help. Lou: First Sat was that night, so when I jogged back after the 5K, I found that gorgeous waterfront area built over the creek, and I hit La Dolce Vita and had soup and they gave me a corn muffin to go with it -- I figured that was great for carb-loading. Lots of people out in that downtown area for First Sat night -- very nice. Plus, altho I missed potential opportunities to get together with Lou, Kim, or Dave up there, Lou & Kim aren't leaving the area, and Dave has some insane idea for something in Michigan with a 13hr time limit that I just might get suckered into

I was 25/84 in my age group in the mara. Heck, if I'd run my mara PR it would have only put me in 6/84, and there's no way I could run that speed on that course, with that killer second half. But I was 3OA in the 5K. I don't know where terra firma is. Google has some company named that, but google maps isn't working right now.

Aaaarrrgghhh! Oh well, Murphy at least you finished, right? That's more than I can say about my last marathon. If I don't run Royal Victoria in October, I'm coming down to pace you to a sub 4:30, ok?? 45 minutes of pool running tonight, after 3 hours of hard lawn/yard work. I tell ya, the pool felt so good after that. Did I ever tell you guys that we have a two acre lot, and half of it is lawn or yard?? Oy....