Made it back from the beach on Saturday night, which gave me Sunday and Monday to recover before I had to come back. I must say that I did little organized athletics while I was in North Carolina. I was hoping to run at least twice on the beach and go bike riding once. Instead, I played “chase” with an 8yo and 2.5yo with consisted of running up and down multiple stairs for at least 30 minutes at a time. Also I carried Eric to the beach, so that was a 27lb weight while walking for 0.2 mile.

Now that I am back on campus, I forgot my swim goggles, so I guess that I am going to run today. I am anxious to see if I still have any of the speed left.

On a side note, with the effects of Katrina on the gas prices, I am definitely niching Big South Fork off my Races This Year, maybe next year.

woah, a 3rd post for the day! Today was a rest day, so it worked out that I ran yesterday and took today as the rest day. I was able to go to the bank and also went to Cool Bean for lunch as well. Tonight we will be going crazy as we try to pack everything and the kitchen sink to take to Nags Head.

I already have three routes planned out for Corolla. 2 are basic 4 mile courses up and down the beach and the 3rd is in the “subdivision” of about 0.7 of a mile. I am hoping to get in 8 miles at sunrise or 3-4 miles at naptime during the day. I might even try to have a “two-fer” and run at sunrise and sunset. Who knows, but I'm bringing the running gear… I mean what is a vacation if there is no running! Sheesh!

My coworker Tom and I were in court for a little more than an hour at the courthouse before our case come up. The victim nor the police officer was not there, so they rescheduled the case for Sept 21st. So, I will be going back at that point. Well, if the Aquatic Center wasn't closed, I could run, but NAH, today is a rest day, especially with the Scholar's Run 5k on Saturday Morning. I'll swim tomorrow, probably about 800-1000 meters – nothing to difficult

I didn't work out today but took it as a rest day. I guess in the whole scheme of things, I should have swam but didn't feel like it. My legs are still sore from Tuesday, but Thursday's run really got most of the soreness out. I may try to run either Sat or Sun, do not know which though.

We'll be in Dallas all next week, so the posting will be limited.

There are a lot of variables right now that are prohibiting the effectiveness of my running. Therefore, I have decided to take a step back and rethink my running strategy. It was in my mind's schedule to run a fall marathon to jump start my Knoxville Marathon training. However, I do not think that I will be able to do any significant running distance for most of the summer/fall. At this point, I am not sure if Big South Fork 17.5 mile run will be on my schedule, as it conflicts with some other events.

This leaves me with what to do to about my running. The lack of babysitters during the week has left my evening running to the ultimate minimum, zero. With Ryan's arrival my ability to wake up at 5am to run for an hour has been significantly hampered. My weekends are pretty much taken up with family events, so what does that leave me with?

Lunchtime. Currently, I am swimming twice a week anywhere from 800 meters to 1600 meters, but mainly about 1000 meters or so. I think what would be best would be for me to take two of the other days and introduce running on those days, maybe 3 to 4 miles. I think at my present pace, that would work to fit within the current lunchtime parameters.

My focus, pace time. My 5k PR will be 3 years old this year, my 8k PR time 6 years!!! A link to all my PR time is here. So on my agenda for running is to map out a 3 and 4 mile course around here at UT and figure out split areas so that I monitor my time. If I can gain my speed back, perhaps my marathon time will drop.

One of my running buddy's Ray G is in this situation. He has been doing major speed work since March and now is shifting into marathon mode with his brother. He's a lot faster than I am ~20min 5k, but the transition should be about the same.

Six FREAKIN' days since I have any type of exercise so to speak. With a rather important 10k on the horizon, this is not what I want to be blogging about. I would rather be telling about my mini-taper, carb-loading excitement in preparation for the race. But alas, I speaketh of my misery, woe is me.

My intention over the weekend was to get a 5 mile run in the morning of either Sat or Sun or both, if I could work it in. What actually happened was a lot of sleep. Since my only window to run at home is when Eric is asleep, I had to plan my runs in the wee-hours of morning so that I would end my run close to Eric's wake up time of 7am. Neither day did I wake up with enough time to fathom a run in time to get Eric up. I had thought that I might be able to get a run in after Eric had gone to bed on Sunday night, but we got caught up in pre-Incognito planning and so the run was shelved.

Monday rolled around and I woke up pretty early, 5:40. I should have thought to run then, but I didn't. Normally, Monday night is a weights night while I am working on the bills when Jen is making calls. No chance to workout. Maybe Tuesday, oh but wait, we learned earlier that our babysitter was not available on Tuesday, so no running with Beer Boy.

Tuesday turned out to be a beast of its own. I find that when I am under stress, I tend to eat or crave chocolate a little more than usual. By noon, I had to go to the gas station and get a King Sized Snickers which I quickly consumed. Tuesday had no exercise to it. Maybe Wednesday?

So far, nope. I had planned on running in the morning. I found out that light starts to break here right around 5:45am and so, if I ran the 5 mile loop in the 'hood, I would be finished around 6:35-6:40 with time to shower and get ready to drive into work a little late. Yeah, I woke up around 6:40. So not only did I NOT run, but I was late to work. I did manage to crank out some banana (budda-budda-budda) pancakes for Eric and banana with peanut butter chip pancakes for Jen which proved to be a hit for breakfast.

My next chance to workout was to swim at lunch. I had all my gear and was heading over to the workout place when I noticed that the aquatic center was taken over by Destination Imagination kids. Destination Imagination is a some thinking competition for kids and UT is hosting the Global Finals this week. So, they have the run of the campus. So, alas, no workie-outie at lunch. SO what does that leave me to do… run at night? not likely… well, maybe on the treadmill. Run Thursday morning? Perhaps, but when I plan it, it doesn't happen. Run Thursday night? Well, even though it would be a little close to race day, I could get an easy run under my belt. But we found out that our babysitter will not be able to make it that night, so not only do I not get to run… but I also do not get to see Carbon Leaf at Sundown in the City, for FREE.

So, we'll see if I can break 50 minutes for my Grandmother or not on Saturday Morning. It is looking pretty grim.

Damn, I need some chocolate.