Happy APRIL! Ahh, but Tim, you said you don't mess with people on April Fools Day. Nice recovery run last night. My alarm clock was dark this morning when I woke up, so I assumed our power was out. Got out of bed to stumble my way around the house and I see that DH's clock is working perfectly and it was past running time. April fool's to me?? So .... I will have to run after work in the wind which is supposed to get stronger as the day goes on. Ah well! I did sleep good though as Momma Dog seemed more relaxed too.

Tim....what happened? I must have missed it.

I swam 1600 meters this morning. (No, really. I did!) The first time I've swam a mile since I was about 21 or 22. Alternated 3 lengths freestyle and 1 length breaststroke. Everything was cruising today. The best the swimming has felt since ... 21 or 22. Bill

6.6 happy miles this morning - felt awesome!! Today is when DS and I fly down to Austin to look at UT, so I'm on cloud nine. He got up at 5 am to run 6 miles. I can say without doubt that I would NOT have done that at his age. Have a great day, everyone!

Nice swim Bill........That's what I did too. Opened with 850yds then switched to drills. I really need to figure out how to get back to 4 days/week of swimming if I'm going to improve. The YM closed up a location and combined pools......we have 5 lanes and we are supposed to sign up. This morning we had seven in the water with two people on deck waiting. It used to be that if you missed a workout you could sneak one in later that day or add another day in but now the pool is so busy that this is no longer an option. Combine that with Tri season starting to pick up and more people wanting to use the pool Anyway, there is just no comparison to starting the day off with a good swim. Ahhhh, the smell of Chlorine on my skin. The wind here has been murder. Last night I was about 1/2 mile from home when I ran into a fellow runner I know. We stood along side the road and talked about last weekends race. The wind was so strong it would actually shift you causing you to scoot your feet in order keep balance. Go Get'em Masters !

Good morning, all! Carolyn - great news about your Dad! Sleep in day for me and no run planned for this afternoon. I'll visit the gym for lunch and do core and upper body weights. Happy Fools day to everybody!

With my anti-training brain still reeling after taking nearly 6hr/40 minutes to do in the Dizzy Daze without that much training what SRL did more than two hours faster and fanci was already at 38 miles, it's probably time to junk my anti-training mindset and adopt some of the wise training advice posted yesterday so it'll be an eazie/peezie 20 mile MP PDQ HR 150 this afternoon with some classic 800’s with 4 repeats (since it's my 1st session), 4 x 800m with 200m Active recovery, Interval pace 8:41/mile plus Recovery Pace 10:15/mile or Interval Time, 2:09 – 2:12 / 800 and Recovery Time: 1:15 – 1:18 / 200, 2x1 mile at 120 strides per lap, separated by a one lap recovery/1 mile cooldown to get a nice 4.25 mile run, with a baseline mile measurement (done twice to validate the first mile time wasn't a fluke) as I should find it quite easy and if more stimulation is required I can always add in an interval and maintain the pace or do more of a speed ladder so I can end with a swift pace without going too far and overtaxing all the systems or not being too agressive It will probably be worthwhile to walk .5 mile with purpose---thinking about the form in the past and about the future and moving into a shuffle jog to test breathing and run for 1.5 - 2.5 miles and, if the latter, slowing down in the last .5 and move into the workout of 2x400 at 1:45 seconds with a 45 second jog rest interval, 1x 600 at 2:47-2:50 (7:30 pace) with a 3 minute jog rest interval, 1x 800 at 3:53-4:00 (7:50 pace) with a 3:30 minute jog rest interval before going back down the ladder if feeling recovered enough to hit each speed portion in the time range without struggling with a warmup jacket aroungd my waist to start the mile repeats with a nice relatively easy progressive run to see how the legs feel. I also liked the part about running 2 miles as a cool down at about 9:00-9:15 pace and walk the .5 before skipping the other side of the ladder and running 3 miles easy, .5 walk and 2 mile WU and 2 mile CD with 2x1 mile at 120 strides per lap, separated by a one lap recovery and 1 mile cooldown to get a nice 4.25 mile run, with a baseline mile measurement (done twice to validate the first mile time wasn't a fluke) the advantage if this being that even not doing any speedwork in a while lets you ease into it.. To get the juices flowing and give a nice Tempo pace benchmark, I might just forget the Intervals as, after running the last lap of last weekend's Dizzy Daze without stopping, I probably don't need any real speedwork at this point and a better benchmark at Current Conditioning would be running Tempo pace instead at 8:45's once in a while with the comment of "easy" or "feeling good" and not using the last 5K time trial either as it's apparent I'm in much better shape now especially for running 1.5 to 2 miles easy as a warmup, then run 3 miles "comfortably hard" somewhere between 7:55 and 8:15 being sure not to overdo this, run more like HM at fartlek pace and not 10K pace to say nothing of 5K pace, or 50K pace, or 50mile pace even though, when in normal shape, these paces are like walking, but this is now, not then, and not yet the future which will apparently never come after all for me with regard to training until next April Fool's Day. . ps - I saw on the midnight weather forecast that the birch trees are starting to bud in Fairbanks. pps to timbike - I checked out the giant hill at mile 16 of the Seattle Rock'n'Roll that we're all worried about for you but it's really not that bad and you should be able to handle it after all without any problem, . . . . . TIMBO FOOL'S DAY!