It's over, man. Let her go.

Happy Father's Day, everyone!  I hope it was great!

OH, and my daughter got her YW medallion today!  Yea, Annalee!

No run today, first day of Cub Scout camp.  I'm the coordinator until the cub master gets back on Thursday, so I get to deal with any issues.  I dropped my son off that morning and got the two women that were volunteering that day all oriented and then I went to work.  About half way through the day, just 45 mins before I had my run planned, I get a call from the camp telling me that one of our boys fell during the sports activity and may have dislocated his shoulder.  They couldn't get in touch with either of his parents so I needed to help with that.  He got a cool ride in the ambulance to Children's and it turns out his collar bone is broken.  Poor kiddo, he's out for the week probably.  His mom is due this week with their 4th and so I'm sure that's all they needed.  The rest of the day was hectic with a move and by 10pm I was just too dead to go out.

I got up extra early today to get my run in before spending the day at day camp with my son.  Today was my scheduled day, as is Friday.  I got up, threw on my clothes (not matching, I'm sure) and headed out.  I had about 45 mins so I had planned on about 4-5 mi but I got about 1 mile out and looked up.  The white puffy clouds were turning black.  Hmm, that's weird.  About 5 minutes after that, I heard the first clap of thunder.  Another 2 minutes and I'm being DUMPED on with a ton of thunder & lightning.  I turned around and headed back.  The shorter run turned out OK since I had to get rain gear and other stuff now for camp that I hadn't planned on.

The run itself was OK.  It was somewhat fast, but I tired quickly.  It's runs like this that make me wonder how in the world I've run 2 Halfs and how I'm supposed to run my next one in Sept.  This week is probably going to be a low mileage week, but I've got to try and just get the miles in, I guess.  I think Saturday's long run will be key this week.

This is the kind of run that keeps me coming back for more!  After yesterday, I needed a run like this.  Decent mileage, low 150s HR, and despite the humidity, it was very enjoyable and comfortable run!  I waited until AFTER the thunderstorms had passed (brilliant) before heading out.  It was about 9:20pm before I left, but it had cooled off some from the 90F+ weather today.  Kids were hot and tired after camp, but they did the creek walk today which kept them a little cool in addition to the daily swim session.

I left for my run and my Garmin gave me the low battery warning.  Darn, I think I forgot to turn it off yesterday after my short run.  Oh well, I'll track it for as long as it lasts.  It hung in there for about the first 0.85 miles.  By that time, I had gone up the biggest hill and had gotten into a grove with a 150-155 HR which was slow and comfortable (~8:50-9:00 pace).  I tried to just keep that effort after the Garmin died.  I had only planned on using it for the distance and the HR, so that was fine.  I just switched to the iPod stopwatch.

I realized the Garmin was dead at the 1.2mi mark where I had to stop for traffic at a light.  I started the iPod timer but I'm not exactly sure what my time was to that point because my watch clock and my iPod clock were likely off by minutes.  Anyways, here are my times at the odd distance markers for this out & back:

0 - .85 mi - 7:59 (9:19)
.85 - 1.20 mi - ??
1.20 - 3.00 mi - 15:19 (8:30)
3.00 - 4.20 mi - 16:54 (9:23)
4.20 - 5.99 mi - 9:49 (8:11)

I felt really strong throughout and just focused on my form and keeping the effort in a reasonable range.  My main goal was to go the distance and do it at a speed that was comfortable and that I could sustain the entire run.  My confidence has been renewed that I can finish a Half again.

I hope to be able to get up early enough tomorrow to do it all over again.  :-)

No run today.  I got up super early, mainly because I had insomnia.  It was 4:30 and I figured I'd go for a run after I checked my work email.  There were a couple of important emails waiting for me, so I returned those and got involved in a project that I wanted to finish up today since I was leaving at 2:30pm from work to head out to the scout camp with my son.  Long story short (yeah, I know, when am I ever short), I kept working and didn't run.  I had planned to run during lunch since I had put in my time this morning, but work was busy and so that didn't happen.  I left work late due to some late "urgent" needs of my director and then I was out the door.  I was in charge of 2 other boys until their dads could get out to camp.  They're both lawyers so they didn't get there until after 6pm.  

Camp was great, had a lot of fun at the overnighter.

This run was a little painful...literally.  I haven't had a problem with the muscle on the outside of my right lower leg for a long time.  I used to have to stretch that after every run because it would get sore.  For some reason, it came back with a vengence during this run.  I had to stop several times to stretch it and that would help for about another 1/2mi then I'd have to do it again.  By the time I got to the last 1mi or so, I was able to run it in.  I'm not sure what's up with that, but I wasn't a happy runner.  I'll keep stretching it some over the next couple of days and see if that clears it up.

On a happy note, I had made my turn around and was heading back when out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement.  I looked over and there was a lady and her dog coming out of the woods.  I had never noticed a trail being there so I stopped the Garmin and went to investigate.  I ran it a little ways and there were two separate trails.  I took the lower one and it went for quite a ways.  I stopped and turned around.  Looking on Google Earth, it appears that that trail area is quite large.  With all the foliage, I wasn't able to see the trails or where they went, so I'll just have to run out there then run around the trails and see where they go.  It was nice and cool under the very thick foliage!  I'm excited that I found some trails that are challenging so close to my house.  I figured I'd have to drive about 10 miles away to find anything good.

Feeling a little run down today, too.  I hope I'm not coming down with what my wife had a couple of weeks ago.  :-(