Friday, 5/5... no workout today, it rained all day and forecast to rain a good part of tomorrow as well.   Decided to see my primary care about my heel before July, so appt. is set for next Tuesday.   In making appt., symptoms might indicate bone sliver floating around in there or partially detached tendon.   I'll be glad to get this mess behind me.    Stopped, picked up tires and tubes for mtn bike today and replaced the old with new.

az... I pushed the bike 3 miles yesterday after riding 7.    Just trying to maintain is about as exciting as mowing grass...lol   17 out of 20 free throws, eh?   I ain't playin' 'Horse' with you!  lol   Another solid workout yesterday, nice!

Saturday, 5/6... took the tryke out for a 7 mile ride on the railtrail.  Tough rowing, but a good workout.   Rain that was supposed to hold off didn't, but I didn't melt...lol

Art... 108 degrees already, wow!  We're stuck in a weather pattern that's bringing in a lot of rain that's supposed to be over us for the rest of the week.   Turkey season runs 'til the end of May, so there's plenty of time.   I kid about it, but hunting's serious business, respectful and appreciative of the animal, I never take what's involved lightly.   You got in a couple of nice runs again, eh?    I'm hoping for a quick fix in my heel and that I remember how to run when the time comes...lol

Hello all!  I started my May runs this Tuesday, I did 10 1/2 miles with some light rain, strong winds and some hail! My long run was Thursday of 13 1/2 miles in drizzle and light rain. This course covers much of the HM race course and has a 238 foot climb from mile 9 to 10. I already was feeling tired but managed to jog up the hill to the top and my breathing and heartbeat were going strongly, a good cardio workout! Friday was a short run of less than 4 miles. Saturday I ran over 11 miles in what started as drizzle and became a light rain. This was my "Millgully" course and Millgully is a dirt road which became very muddy in sections, I started to slip a little in the downhill part of the gully and my shoes got muddy and wet. Perhaps that course was a poor choice for a rainy day! Today I did about 11 miles, it was overcast, but I did not see the predicted wet snow! This week has been rainy and chilly, but felt warm enough as long as I was running! The temperatures are colder than usual, mostly in the mid 50's to mid 40's. I was soaked pretty good for some of my runs and my speed was quite a bit slower than last week, sometimes you feel like pushing faster and sometimes, particularly in poor weather, the motivation is just not as great. Good point is that my weekly millage reached 50.17 !

Thanks to all of you who gave encouragement to my training progress. I am not totally confident about developing qualifying speed, but feel like 60% confident. I still have 5 months to go before the full and I am still deciding which way to go in my training - basically how much speed-work I will need to do. For now I feel I need just to continue with high weekly millage and maybe work on the speed the last few months. I wish I had an extra 3 months to train! It was a setback to do little running after my September 2016 half and basically start all over in late December, I feel like I am doing accelerated training and even so may fail !    (violins playing sadly in the background).

AZ - congratulations on completing the Cedro Peak HM trail run, and close to your 2:30 goal time! Some cold temperatures in NM you ran in ,those 40 to 50 degrees during the race, hope the running kept you warm! Sounds like great food,I never was offered food until the end of any of my races, but don't like to run with full stomach anyway. I think I would also have passed on the tequila, but sometimes a cold beer feels good after a hot run. Electrolytes! Nice that you ran with your friend Mary. I'm glad your calve injury is better and you are running and dancing with the best of them. The hills are great exercise and I too try to be cautionary on the descents. On steep down slopes I either slow down with bad jarring of my legs with the breaking or try to keep pace with the acceleration and try to get more "airtime" where I am not touching the ground and let gravity carry me forward as much as possible, the danger being getting going faster than your stride turnover and risking a bad fall. Now you may have a misapprehension, I am not doing a HM race each month! In my training I do now run a long run of over 13.1 miles each week. My HM race ( The Oak Tree - http://www.geneseevalleyconservancy.org/race ) is not until September 3rd and my full marathon is the Wine Glass -  ( http://www.wineglassmarathon.com/wineglass-half-marathon ) is October 1st. I think that if I run the Wineglass fast enough I will be able to run the 2018 Boston Marathon in April! As for posting photos here is how I do it: Go to photobucket, click on the photo you want and it will appear on it's own screen, to the right you will see "SHARE THIS PHOTO" with boxes under that. I find the box labeled "direct" with the http address works, sometimes it seems to copy when clicked, other times I just highlight the address and copy. Now when you compose your message at Running Ahead click on the photo icon in the toolbar and then paste the address the where it says "SOURCE". Click "OK" and the photo should appear in blue in your message. I think you may have to click again somewhere in the message to take it out of the blue mode and thus finish the paste.

ART - Good way to beat the heat with the early morning run! 108 degrees is very hot, hope you enjoyed the mid 70's this weekend.

Rich - Don't you carry a repair kit for the bike? My bike has a little pouch behind the seat with tools and a spare inner tube. Even with new tires you can get a blowout! Well, maybe you thought pushing it for 3 miles and doing the repair at home was the better choice. I think it is good that you are seeing a doctor soon about your heel problem, perhaps it will soon be much better! Good luck practicing the turkey mating calls!

Ray - 70 degree temperatures don't seem too bad to me, although I guess low 60's are ideal for a race. Looking at your race reports I see you actually ran the Boston about 4 minutes faster than you did last year! Not as fast as you planned or have done at other Marathons, but still an improvement for that race. I looked also at your Big Sur results, but don't want to be a spoiler, I'm sure you will report sometime soon on that race as well.

Sunday, 5/7... 8 mile ride on the mtn bike today.   Altair8 and I seem to be dealing with the same weather system, a storm that's circling in place and keeping us wet.    Some rain during today's ride, but we're in and out of the clouds all day long.

Altair8... just training to run a marathon is quite and undertaking in itself.   If you can't get your times to come down enough to run a BQ, you certainly won't be alone, besides, you get bragging rights for running 26.2 miles at any pace...      And no, I don't keep a repair kit on my mtn bike, it's like getting a flu shot, I'd rather just take my chances...lol

Art... to answer your question in an earlier post, no, I don't start any veggies indoors before planting it outside

From Ooh Aah rest area, our first stop for some photo ops. Sun is rising but it's partly overcast. Beautiful morning.

Near third rest area - Skeleton Point - almost to the bottom.

You can see more of the Colorado River at this point (not in photo).

We hiked up Bright Angel trail to the finish.

More clouds rolled in, had a few rain sprinkles and cool breeze.

The next day, we returned to witness the sunrise over Grand Canyon.

On our way home, we stopped in Winslow, AZ. You all are familiar w/ this? This is Wednesday .....

This is Thursday!! It snowed, so took my guests to Snow Bowl ski resort, it's 9500 ft. The lift goes up to 11,500 ft.