Mike, thanks for the update. Was it a complete tear? What happens now? Teresa, I haven't commented yet, but zoomed through your thread when I was at work. Your pictures are absolutely astounding. thanks so much. rest day for me. really! busy, but nothing that I could record, even though I thought I'd fit some in. Yesterday was a little hard, I ran 7 outside, gave up & went to the gym (a 5 min. drive) (which I planned on anyway, but not to run) for the last 4. does that count as 11? w/the wind chill it was 3F, & running into the wind was , well, maybe colder than I've ever been. My face, anyway. Even with a balaclava on. Sort of scary. Then it would get a little better, so I'd do another section because it was such a nice day! Beautiful, crunchy snow, swans & all their little friends. . did some weights at the gym after I finished my run, it was a pretty good day overall. the whirlpool didn't hurt. Laurie, how did your weekend go? Are you now officially healing? Linda, an update? roberta, you're being too quiet. (Kevin, you too... ).

I'm still here, just feeling quiet and not terribly talkative. this is the busy season at work as most of the projects need to be completed, or at least running, by the end of the year. Not a major complaint, as the natural gas business seems to be mostly recession proof (knock on wood). the running part of life is at least going well. I'm managing to keep the miles slowly increasing so far. (knocking on wood once again) I do the Jinglebell run this Sunday and am hoping to at least do better than last year. Since I haven't done a bit of speed lately, I'm not even thinking about a PR. Deb--your distances are still looking good. Just don't freeze your face! Do you put any lotion on before going out at those temps? I find it helps immensely to reduce the frostbite feeling. it warmed up overnight here. It was 13 at bedtime last night , but 22 this morning. Made for a nice run, but only one lake loop of 3.2. It was close to a tempo as I'm seeing lately, just over 27 minutes. Laurie--hope the PT gets rid of your hammies soon. Good luck with that. Judging from past opinions on winter running, it seems you might not be TOO disappointed not to run for a while Teresa--Wonderful trip and pictures. I need to go back and look at the pictures from my trip there in '98. I loved being there, but work always seemed to get in the way. one trip was 3 weeks and we had 2 days off. Of course on one of them we drove to Umfolozi (sp?) nature reserve and got to see a bunch of animals (although not nearly as many as you guys did) I forgot that I have about 120 Rand sitting in my foreign currency cache that I should have sent you. Maybe would have bought you a couple of beers, at least. Hi to everyone else. Back to the grind. Kevin

Good afternoon everyone, Dave had a complete tear of his ACL. So, the surgery involved replacing it with a piece of his hamstring tendon. He says that it happened playing football on his last deployment. Then he toughed out the rest of the deployment until he could get home to have it fixed. I had a great visit, and I think their corgi is in love with my dog Jake. Laurie, sounds like a couple of nice running events for you. That's neat that you invited people over after and had breakfast. Teresa, I'm on my way over to check out your trip report and pictures. Eliz, Enjoying what you are doing is what its all about. Isn't it? I just spoke with someone from work today that told me she has run for the past 30 years, but has not run in temps below 38 degrees. I laughed. Cheers Everyone Mike

Good afternoon everyone! Laurie, I'd love to join a fun run club and eat breakfast after weekend runs. I'm jealous. 4 miles for me this afternoon. I wasn't able to drag myself out of bed on time this morning, so my run had to wait. Its 45 degrees, windy and raining. Someone said the "snow" word on the radio today and all of the schools closed. Of course that's snow overnight and then sunny and 50 tomorrow. I hope all the kids appreciate the day off. Cheers, Mike