Bret

AM - 3.25 miles with Dan and Finn in the neighborhood.  

AM - 3.75 miles with Finn in the neighborhood - as Dan is out of town on business for a week.  Intentionally keeping the distance between 3-4 miles again this week.   I feel fine, but want to be deliberate about recovery.  Ran in the NB Fuel Cells today and Saturday.  The larger size helped with the friction on the ankle collar quite a bit; I like these for how they seem to make the achilles feel better for the remainder of the day.   Still alternating between shoes to get a range of impacts - it feels like I am so close to resolution with this lingering discomfort; it has been many month with only the most marginal improvements from month to month. 

AM - 3.25 miles with Finn in the neighborhood - a little faster paced since I wanted to get back before Delaney's car picked her up to take her to the airport.   Experimenting/rechallenging the lipitor after nearly 10 months of non-use.   Trying the dosage every other day versus everyday.  

AM - 3.75 miles on the Milton Trail with Finn.   My weather app said it was raining, but it was really just low clouds and humid, but cool.   

AM - 3.75 miles on the trail.  Fairly good feel to the run today.  Started taking Coenzyme Q-10 to neutralize statin side-effect.   At least for the first day, it seemed to make a difference.   

There was a fire in the woods across the trail from my house overnight - I was out with Finn around 4:30 and smelled the smoke and saw the flames - but heard no emergency crews - so I called 911 - and they got out there quickly getting what appeared to be a brushfire under control;  my surmise is that it may have started in someone's backyard perhaps from a careless extinguishment of a fire pit.   Lots of dry leaves on the ground - so probably spread fairly easily if that was the case.  

AM - 3.25 miles with Finn in the neighborhood.   Have a cold again. 

Sacred Selections - Run for the Babies Turkey Trot 5k - this was a race organized by members of my church as a fundraiser for an adoption organization called Sacred Selections.  Small event with mostly congregation members on an out and back course in a park along the Chatahoochee River.   I was sick this week and also in a down week in recovery mode from the NYC marathon 2 weeks ago - so I did not want to really push in this event.  In fact I did not even know about the event until earlier in the week.    I expected to have a chance to win given the small turnout - but was a little uncertain what the day and my body would bring.  As it turned out it ran fairly conservatively keeping close to the competition before pulling away in the second half with about a 30 second cushion for the win.  

This was an out and back course, but in an unfamiliar area to me - and I was not sure I would know the course well enough to lead.  Also, I wanted to run this more "socially" than aggressively racing - and I think this was just the right approach.  I let a couple of the guys lead by about 5-7 yards early on until just past the 1 mile mark.  There was a group of 4 of us.  This was mostly uphill and I could hear from their breathing that they would not be able to push beyond that pace later.  As we approached the turnaround (which was not entirely obvious to me) I conversed with Brigham who was running by my side (as the others had already dropped back) to confirm we were at the right spot for the turn; and then I just gradually pulled away from him until I felt like I had a good enough lead that I could coast in.  Ended up running 7:15, 7:05 and then 6:45.  It was a fun event, and I got to cheer and encourage everyone making their way outbound on my way back - and then hung around afterwards for some good conversation.