Sorry that I was late this morning. I have an excuse...... OK......so the Celtics win kept me up late last night and I am getting a REAL late start on my day. It was worth it to see the Championship for basketball back in Boston (in the opinion of this former New Englander). As a kid my parents would let me go to bed right after supper and sleep. Then at midnight they would wake me up to watch a Celtics - Lakers game from the West Coast on TV (on West Coast time in those days). The whole family was up watching. Those were great days for me and unfortunately my youth didn't let me fully appreciate it then . Maybe today is the yesterday I will remember fondly tomorrow. Learn the lesson, Joey. Erika checked in yesterday with the updated results of her DS2's second game in Hawaii. They play a third game again this morning against another tough opponent who has already posted 2 wins.....against the very teams that the Alaskan team lost to. Win or lose, it still is a great experience for these kids. Hopefully the Alaska Phoenix team will have a good game today and learn from the lessons that developed in yesterday's game. Mary......those are certainly cute pups. I stay away from cute animals to prevent myself from making a decision to get one during a weak moment. Sunday on my way to church I saw a tiny kitten playing in the grass of the median strip along the divided parkway where the speed limit is 65 mph. Being well away from houses, this had to be a kitten that someone "dumped". I got off at the next exit and went back to see if I could rescue it, but was not able to find it. It certainly was darn cute jumping in the grass. What are compression shorts and their benefits? This was mentioned yesterday by Peter NC and biketm and I am just not quite sure of the benefits. Eliz and Theresa........both of you be careful on the foot problems. Slow and easy has to be the words to keep in mind. To err on the side of caution seems to be a good thing. Let us know how it goes. Nono.......feel free to use us a "venting place" for what you are going through with your family. I went through a similar thing several years ago and I had to remind myself of a couple of things. As you have suggested and already thought, "as the are today, I will be someday". I STILL remember my mother turning to me and saying "It is not fun growing old". She was scared, fearful and unable to control how she responded. The second thing I had to remind myself was that "this too shall pass". We went through some difficult months but eventually it worked into another phase that brought relief. jlynne.......One of the first things you need to post photos is an online website to download them to in order for this website to pick them up. I use Photobucket where I download them and then there is a code to copy and paste which easily put into the body of your posting here between the Spareribs and Tall gave us good thoughts to consider. Joey

Morning Joey and everyone, thanks for the start up on this "hump day" Celtics just barely squeezed on out a win last night 6.5 easy miles last night - 59 minutes on the nose -9:07 pace. Getting ready for my first speed / tempo workout tonight that Ribs is helping me with. It's nice to have a plan instead of just winging it like I always have, and hope I see some positive results....I know I will. It's the plan Ribs talked about yesterday with 2 bigs workouts a week with speed work Incorporated into each one, then easy runs in between getting ready for the next one, Well, need to get payroll done for my guys....they are kinda picky about being paid Will check back in a little later...have a great day all Tim

Bill.. maybe it's the heat. It wears on ya and you remember the faster, cooler days. Today it was IRC 59F with only 67% humidity so dew point was way low. That made my 14 miler nice and sproinky. Started 9:40 pace ended 7:22 pace. 2:02:42 (8:45 pace with AHR only 145!). Took Tory for first mile and a bit. I think a hard workout Tuesday and a medium-long run Wednesday is a good combination. It sure felt good. I downloaded an elevation profile for Grandfather Mountain Marathon (July 12th) and the hills I've been running look like a pimple on an elephant in comparison... Have great runs! Steve

Bill,This winter I just ran when I felt like it and varied my routes...I ran with my buddy T three days a week,but left the other days open to change...sometimes you just need a break... The marathon is a tough race and I'm really having a hard time trying to convince myself I want to do another one...

Had my interval workout last night and the 2 hours of tennis the evening before had me not to overly optimistic of running well. I had to run with the only other fast guy there, who is in amazing shape. We had a warmup and then we had 1k, 500meters, 500 meters X 300 with 30 second rests between distances and 2 minutes between sets. The first on was fine and was done at 3:28 pace, during the second at 3:26 pace I started experiencing chest tightening, like everything was constricting. I finished the second set and bagged the run. I hate to do it in front of the whole group since you feel like your quitting but in my early years of running I would have run this all out and paid for it. Now if it does not feel right and it's not just fatique or soreness I bag the run. Think it was just something I ate as I had an awful lot of gas as I cooled down. No running today..Take it easy everyone Tall

Note to self: do NOT follow Tall's training plan. Today was 5 easy miles in absolutely beautiful conditions. I didn't want to beat Joey to the punch (and anyway ran out of time), so not posting until now. Let's see, from memory: Workout: 4.1 miles, 8:45/mi, AHR 140 Overall: 5.1 miles, 44:41

Tall, that was a nice relay marathon you did over the weekend. Steve, I loved the pictures of Batman and Batman, jr. nono, you've really got a lot on your plate with moving and your parents. My thoughts are with you. Nice long runs for TheJogger, Peter, CNY, breger, and perch. Good job on the speedwork for perch (on hills), BC, Sue, and Tall. This morning, it was in the low 50s with a light wind. I did 4 miles in about 39 minutes for a 9:47 pace. A good day and good runs for all. TomS

Good Morning! Eliz - I have gotten exactly that foot pain from doing exactly that thing - moving a heavy object across the floor with my foot. Hope it gets better soon. Bill – maybe you’re just a little burned out, mentally. You worked hard all winter and were disappointed in your goal marathon – you suffered a mental blow. (Hey, I know exactly where you’re coming from there, because my spring marathons were very disappointing, performance-wise, for me.) Perhaps, like Tim said, you should just not run a fall marathon, and just run for the fun of it for a while. I've been listening to good advice from both Spareribs and CNYrunner - they both have given me much to chew on. Now to decide the specifics of how to implement it for my own best results. Like Karin says, we are all an experiment of one. I’ve had my Garmin for a year, and today was the first time I ever programmed intervals on it. I did half-mile intervals with quarter-mile recoveries (800m/400m I guess I should say, since I just looked it up and saw that a half-mile is 804.7m). I was aiming at 3:50 for my half-mile interval, because that’s about what my current 5K pace is, and also that was close to what a Yasso 800 was supposed to be, roughly, if I hope to have a 3:45-3:50 marathon time. Is there normally a correlation between these two? It was dark when I started, so I wasn’t able to see the Garmin readout, and just ran by feel, listening for the beep and aiming for comfortably-hard-but-not-sprinting pace, periodically hitting the light button to see how far off I was. I came fairly close, considering. WU: 3.44 miles (ave 9:55) Intervals: 4:04 3:59 3:55 3:54 3:52 3:52 CD: 4.42 miles (ave 10:17) Total: 12.25 miles (ave 9:39) A good workout, tough but not exhausting, and I still had enough energy to make it up the hill home without walking. Next time I do this, since I hope (dream) to run a 3:45 marathon, I think I need to aim at 3:45 for my intervals, and if I can do that for all six, then begin adding additional intervals the next week. I got home right after DH left for work and the house was strangely quiet. We are experimenting with middle-schooler DS staying home occasionally, and today was his day to sleep in. Not to be, though, because as I was taking my shoes off I heard a loud whistle upstairs, “TOOOOOT, TOOOOOOOT, TOOT, TOOOOOOOOOOOOT...WAKE UP!...TIME TO WAKE UP, ZAK!!!!!!!!!” Sometimes DD can be a real stinker.....