Happy Sunday!! Murphy - so nice to hear that you had a good run! My run did not go so well, but I did see LOTS of deer also!! 5 rough miles so I stopped instead of torturing myself for another 5. oh well. looks like the weather is going to be nice this week so i'm hoping to get some good running in!

Erika, One odd thing about that 12K race is they have weight categories instead of by age. I was 123 in the 100-125 pound cat last year. I'm 125 this year, but don't think it will make a difference, it's a competive race. However if you're a heavy weight, you will probably go home with hardware. Really a stupid way to give awards, IMO. ShanGen, Sorry you had to cut the run short. Wasn't that long ago 5 miles was a long run for you. You're doing great! Maybe your coming down with a cold? Murphy, How about putting our calendar on the Home page? I would like to find a new calendar provider. Calendar.net server is too busy. P2R, Any pictures? Did you look for a local race there? I would like to try and import my log from Garmin Training Center into this. If I can't do it think I will manually enter it one of these days. Not like I have 25 years of logging. I love looking at everyone's logs. Although, I'm kind of starting out the new year not running, which sucks but it's just for the short term. I will be back. Been up since 1:00 a.m. with a sinus headache. Lovely weather here, and I feel much better than yesterday. Took the boys out for breakfast. My biking class was full! All those people with new year resolutions. Signed up for Saturday morning class. Maybe 1 day a week will be better for running.

Hey 'Thoners! How's it going? This is my first full day of work in quite a while... well since last year! I just worked partial days last week Wed thru Friday, so this week is gonna be tough I can tell already. Got in 19 miles yesterday... 16.4 outside, 2.6 in on the treadmill. I was going to run outside for 18, but DH showed up and asked if I was ready for a ride home. What the heck, I was getting real tired of all the trucks passing by way too close and blowing snow all over me. It was a tough run... we've had "flurries" of dry powdery snow that gets blown over to the shoulder, and it's like running in 6" of cornstarch. Ugh. Amazing how light on my feet those last few treadmill miles felt! I guess this is the start of my condensed taper for Carlsbad. Two weeks to go, dont even have hotel reservations yet! I'm so out of it.

Shan, Nice to hear that you were able to get outside with Tater (I'm guessing he's not the slimmest of dogs?). How cool that you dropped a wedding dress size! Way to go. Erica, once again I'm humbled by reports of the weather that you run in. I'm ashamed to tell you that it warmed up to 70 today and I enjoyed an easy 6 in shorts and a t-shirt. Felt like running in southern California, not Virginia in January. Bugs, hope you feel better. On the running import from training center, it doesn't look like Eric has an import script for it yet (it is a pretty huge .tcx file with all your detailed HR data). I know he's working on a way to import directly from the Garmin so it may be possible to import the .tcx file as well. The question was asked here http://www.runningahead.com/forums/post/f5423ba4a7344eb6950c122d657d0329#focus But I notice that Eric never answered. I think some of my easy (low heart rate) training is paying off. Might have been the weather but I was able to maintain an 8:50 pace today without going too much over my target HR. Felt really nice. But then again, it was 70 degrees and sunny.

Legs still sore after yesterdays half. So Boy Genius went out and rode 27.5 miles today.

Did 4 wonderful miles, no discomfort. Looks like I'll be ready to jump right back into this. Sure am glad. I couldn't pick a nicer day to run, either. It was in the mid 40s for my run. Shorts and no jacket. I almost wore a short sleeve shirt just because I could, but had a light long sleeve shirt laid out so I went with that. It was so nice. I am totally looking forward to focused training next week! Oh, I found the most awesome spot for long runs, I may try it next weekend. There's not a flat spot on it, and there's one hill that's over .9 miles long - perfect for training for Akron this year - can't wait to try it.

Not sure if I'm quite ready to bail just yet. I'd generally be ok with it, but there's a new influx of newbies there (NY resolutions and all). I like giving them nudges here and there and guidance fromt time to time. This year's influx is different than those of the past. Previously most of them have been along the lines of "I've never run, am overweight and want to run a marathon in 5 weeks". The new batch generally fall under the "I'm out of shape, WAY overweight and desperate, can anybody help me?" banner. Been there, done that so I'll probably drop in and offer what I can for a while yet.