With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams...

Ran the Marine Corps Historical Half Marathon with my running buddy from MD.  I didn't race, so I didn't put this as a race entry.  I just ran with my friend and we talked and caught up and took time to pet the minature ponies.  If I can get RAD to help me out, I'll get a picture of the ponies on here for y'all to enjoy.  They were just around mile 6, and too cute to pass up.

MR. ran the race.  He had a goal to finish under 2 hours.  His actual chip time was 2:00:28.  He was close!  Maybe next time I'll race with him and see what we can pull off.

My friend and I trotted in around 2:12.  We wore sock puppets as an experiment to see if they'd help us run faster.  At her last race, there was an older gentleman who had long socks on his hands (in an effort to stay warm), and he kicked her trash.  So we wondered if it was something in the power of the socks, and made sock puppets to wear to see how it went. 

I'm not sure they gave us any kind of advantage, but it was fun.  We had to take them off after the first mile due to sweaty sock puppet hands, so the sock puppets became sock tails for the rest of the race, until we put them back on again to cross the finish line.

We got to high five the base commander of Quantico as we crossed the finish line.  He got a sock puppet high five from me... and just in case you're wondering: my sock puppet was a pirate :-)

lots of rain, wanted sleep, and have a little pain on my foot I want to let recover before I get back into the full swing of things for our "mock marathon" in a couple of weeks.  

I considered doing the shred dvd. Maybe tonight.  Maybe!

I'm running in the rain....just running in the rain...

Got out at 3:55 because I had lots of things to do this morning.  Taking the week-end off for a race means none of the regular week-end stuff gets done...wish I had a Cinderella to shop for me.

AP was an 8:44.  Progressive run:  9:40 start with a 7:51 pace to finish (last .75).

Ran by a little pond, and the frogs were all singing and croaking away.  It sounded like there were thousands of them...pretty neat.

Went for a walk after dinner & dessert while the kids were at church.  There's a park with a walking path next to the church, so we got a couple miles in walking & talking.

When my alarm went off, I could hear the rain just pouring down (the windows were open) and I couldn't talk myself into a 9 mile run in the drenching rain.  So I slept in and when I got up again, the rain had pretty much stopped so I got in a few miles.

My avg pace was an 8:twenty-something (can't remember).  I think I'd call it a tempo run, but I don't know what kind of tempo it is...I just tried running faster.

The frogs were silent today when I ran by the pond.  It was still wet everywhere outside, but not raining.  I wonder if they only like to sing in the rain, or if they stop singing after 5 am?  Or maybe, like RAD said, they were just singing for my birthday yesterday, and they knew it wasn't my birthday today, so they weren't singing for me.

Comfortable pace run.  Watch was off from .19 to what I determined was 1.19, so I didn't get 100% accurate pace, but I'm pretty sure I have the distance right because it's the route I run every day.

Avg pace for what I did get on my watch was 9:17.  Actual would have been more since my first mile is always slower.

I saw the most fantastic sunrise.  Started out with light pinks and baby blues, then the pinks grew bigger and brighter until the sky was almost all magenta and the clouds looked  blue.  Then a 1/2 mile later when I'd turned to see the sunrise again, it was all gone, and the sky was back to blue.   What a show.

Saw Brent's black cat out slinking around this morning.  She ran off into the grass under the apple trees...probably looking for some old apple cores to chew on.

Recovery run.  I wanted to run a slow pace because I want my legs fresh for tomorrow, but I also wanted to hurry and get the run over with so I could go home and try to hurry & get ready so I'd have enough time for a quick nap before work.  

It was a good choice vs a good choice.  I managed a 9:48 avg pace, and I had 15 min for a nap.  So we all won.

No frogs singing today, but... I think I know what happened to them.  I was looking out over the grass and into the pond wondering where they'd all gone, and I saw a gigantic frog jumping in the grass.  I think he must have eaten all the other 2,000 frogs & that's why they're not singing anymore.

Clear sky sunrise, so not a lot of colors like yesterday, but beautiful none the less.

Cloudy, cool and overcast all morning.  Until I go out to run.  Then the sun comes out & it's humid.  Oh well...serves me right for sleeping in & being lazy.  

Ran with MR.  We kept a fairly good pace most of the run.  There is one part of our run that is a long straight road with nothing on it, and not many cars.  We switched over to the right (wrong) side of the road when there were big patches of shade to run in.  It made such a difference.

He got a leg cramp and stopped running around mile 7.5.  I ran the rest of the way home, grabbed some water and gatorade and ran back to meet him.  I had an 8:30 pace for mile 9, but over all pace was 9:30.  Miles and pace matched up again today.  9 1/2 for both.