I'll try and kick us off for the week, and btw congrats Joe, good luck to your Giants. 2.9 or so this morn, 13 deg F 15 mph se wind and light snow on the near treeless plains this morning. Altered my route to avoid as much into the wind time as possible. From the left I can pass for Alvin of the chipmunks as I am swollen out to there from fridays dental fun. All things considered it was a good run. Have a super week fab forties!!

Healing vibes sent your way r2farm. Going thru that dental work and still running. You da man! Arla, great run/pace! Ya, I was rootin' for the "old guy" myself. Easy 3 yesterday. Hope to get my LR in tomorrow. Happy Monday all.......Jewels

Good Morning All! Happy MLK day to those w/day off~light schedules, etc. DH went in to open the shop as many folks will take advantage of the holiday to get some car work in....gotta find it ($$) when you can in the Winter! We had a brief reprieve from the cold weather yesterday ~ well, for most of it anyway....got up to about 45ish & sun-shiney into later pm, so I finally got a bit of a run in...my South Trail that my Garmin used to say was 9.99 miles & now (since updating) says it is 8.71?? ......however, considering other circumstances of the wknd activities, it wasn't exactly as "nice-n-easy" as I'd hoped.... .... ***Rant On***Sat am: feeling the beginning of a cold coming on (haven't had even 1 in over a year!) not too bad though, DS1 said last night (Fri) that he'd be here by noon to pick up GD so, I'm ready to go for a run in the afternoon - it's 37*F, no wind, sun shinin"!.....no show/no call till 5:15pm!! & me & DH have a date to go out w/friends Sat eve @ 6pm!! so, I have no time to go that late!! Not to mention, he made plans too & neglected to find a sitter, so we had to!! Ended up out till 1:am (supposed to be only till 10ish) ...being annoyed (& I "deserve it") I had a couple of cocktails(3) any alchohol at all kicks me for a coupla days where running ~ any strenuous activity~ is involved..+ I don't sleep well, even if I don't get "buzzed" but still, I felt pretty ok so, after I got breakfast assembled for everybody (Stock Show Day) I put on my shoes & headed out for what I intended to be a LS easy 10.....damme if my heart rate wasn't up a bit (yah, I know, I know...) but still, I'm taking it easy.....had to take waaayy to many walk breaks, especially my big hill! Severe rebellious Chi goin up that thing!! Good news - by the time I got back (2 hrs! ) my HR & everything seemed to be back to normal! the last 1.5 - 2 miles was actually the best! *note to self: correct alcohol abuse w/LSD! Ha!* DS1 finally getting up to tend to his daughter by the time I got back! she's been up since 8, it's now 1pm!! I ran throught the shower & got the heck outta here! **Rant off - for now!** Today is a lovely 12*F/90% H snowing & Fog (next front moved in while we were @ the Stock Show last eve)......& MLK Day so kids home from school.....whaddya think? since I can't run w/kids in tow - veg day or wrestle w/the cross-bow?

Thanks for the new thread! And yeah, I saw on the news that cold air is coming our way It's 55 outside now, but I guess y'all can't keep the cold where it belongs and its supposed to be (gasp) near freezing tonite. No runs since Friday, we packed a relative's house to get ready for moving all weekend long. I've decided that the Higdon novice 10K plan wasn't quite enough for me, I didn't want to spend eight weeks and wind up where I was (mileage wise) a few weeks ago. But I really want to get back into the routine of running, instead of my new routine of finding excuses not to run. So for now I'm gonna follow the Higdon novice spring training program, which is running 4 days a week, walking one, and spending rest days doing other stuff (like mowing the lawn). The miles each run aren't two long, but the running 4x a week I haven't been doing, not since November or before, so this should get me back on track. Hope y'all are well, I love reading about everyone's runs and stuff

mtnchk - smack DS1 on everyone's behalf here - then you can blame it on peer pressure Carol - I'm starting Pilates tomorrow, a 6 week class. I thought yoga was hard and they say this is even harder so I'm a little nervous! bear - that novice spring training looks nice - gets you up to 15 mpw pretty quick, doesn't it? I think it would be tough for a real novice, you should find it a breeze once you get into your routine. dang, Joe, BTY - you folks are fast..your pace is tempo pace for me! So whenever you're feeling slow, think of me Ran on tired legs today - I'm squishing my running days closer together this week since I have to do my long run on Sat instead of Sun, so it's been 4 days in a row now of running. HA - and the rain just started, perfect timing. Arla

Good morning 40's! So Bear, have the cooler temps reached you? Sounds like you are on track to get back on track. Sometimes having a plan to follow really helps, and it sounds like you've found the one that is right for you. BTY, sounds like you have the layering thing down, even when you're on autopilot in the morning. Nice 4.5 miles! Arla, glad you got your runs in before the rain. That Pilates class should be good for your running since it will increase your core strength. Mtnchk, I hear you on going with the flow vs. a training plan. Seems like it's good to have periods of both. Don't forget to incorporate some smacking your DS upside the head when needed! It counts as cross training. Katy the dog and I had an eventful run yesterday. Less than a block into the run, we were beebopping along, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dog (looked like a fawn boxer or pit mix) heading from a house toward us. I adopted my best Caeserlike calm assertive attitude, and it seemed like maybe they would be friends, when from the same direction, another dog (same type, but brindle) came streaking towards us and immediately jumped on Katy. It was a serious mismatch, as the dog was about twice Katy's weight. He had her by the back, and the owner came rushing over and pulled him off. Apparently the second dog's name was Bruiser. Lovely! Fortunately, no blood and nothing seriously injured for Katy. So we continued on with our run. About a half mile from home, a black lab mix approached us, and decided she would run with us. She followed us all the way home, into the garage, and on into the house. Katy was fine with her at first, and then realized, "hey...there's another dog in MY house...not acceptable", and started to rumble with the lab mix. Lab didn't back down, and we were about to have yet another dog fight. So off Katy went to my office so I could call animal control to see if anyone had reported the dog missing (she had a collar but no tags). Nothing doing, so I made some quickie "found dog" signs, and posted them. Thank goodness, 30 minutes later the owner called and came to get his dog. On a side note, in looking at my Garmin readout later, the initial dog attack took my heart rate from 136 to 161 in about 30 seconds!

Yikes Carol! I've about had it with people who let their dogs run loose, and I've seen one too many get killed by cars. Mtnchk - did your dog experts say anything about pepper spray? I carry it when I go into the woods, but mostly I'm worried about 2-legged predators. Only once have I felt in danger from dogs, I was on a rural dirt road at the edge of national forest on a bicycle, and a pack of about 5 feral dogs jogged up to me. I stopped, they stopped, then the largest of them started to growl, so I just averted my eyes and stayed still. I waited, trying to think of ways to use the bicycle as a weapon/shield. They then lost interest and jogged off. It was scary! Arla

Thanks, y'all. I love dogs, I don't love dogs that a) bite or b) get run over. Yes, it's chilly here; still above freezing though. We are close enough to the Gulf of Mexico that the breeze tends to push back and warm up the cold air coming down, unless the folks in Canada throw the doors WIDE open, then it'll get really cold here. I ran last night, 1.5 miles, part of my Spring Training deal. In case anyone is looking for it (now or stumbling across this thread some other day), here's the link to the schedule, and at the bottom if you click on the individual weeks he gives details of each daily workout. It sounds a little preachy, but I like this bit from one of his notes. It helped push me out the door last night at 9:00 when all I wanted to do was go to bed (in my mind: "It's just a mile and a half, hardly worth going out for")

A lot of people play at running, going out for an occasional run on weekends if the weather is good. Sometimes they'll run three or four days in a row--then skip several weeks before running again. But that's not training. Training is when you follow a schedule, such as this one, where each day has a purpose. If the weather is bad, you still run. If you have important business, you simply rise an hour early to run. Why? Because I told you to!

I need that on a coffee mug or t-sirt or something. Have great runs / rests / etc, y'all!