Bret

Unplanned day off.  I had actually gotten up early to run before church, but layed back down for what I thought was a few minutes - but which turned out to be about an hour.  Then, with family in town all week,  the events of the day began to multiply and despite my best plans to get a run in, simply prevented that from ever happening.  BTW, my daughter made perhaps the best cheesecake with chocolate fudge and pistachios I have ever consumed. 

AM - early start - 5.5 miles before 6 am.  Needed to run off my daughter's delicious cheesecake.  Planning to get my runs in early this week to avoid the potential scheduling conflicts created with family in town this week for the holiday. 

AM - early start again - 6 miles easy.  Had some kind of a random coughing - gagging fit around the second mile in which I was fairly certain I was going to throw up -- bleh.  But regained composure and finished up a not so pleasant run in very high humidity and temps for this time of year.  Hoping for some cooler air on Thursday morning for our annual Turkey Trot - 5k/10k event. 

Day off - planning to race tomorrow.

Traditional Thanksgiving Day event whenever I am in town.  This race has been around since the late 70's - I did this race in the inaugural year when I was 12 with my family.  Now, my three teenaged daughters and nephew do the event with me before we head back to the house for breakfast on the grill (pancakes and sausage) and preparation of the turkey dinner. 

Last year I did the 5k with Delaney and paced her along to a sub 22 min race, and then did the 10k where I faded late.  This year Delaney planned to run with her cross country teammate - so I had to decide whether to do the 5k or the 10k or both.  So I signed up for each and thought to make a gameday decision.

As it turns out I ran really quite fast in the first mile (5:39 on my Garmin) and as a result I quickly tried to smooth things out in the second mile - which was 6:06 - and then dealt with a short hill at the beginning of mile 3 - which pushed my pace down to about 6:21 - and I was just kinda hanging on through the finish for an 18:55 though I ran the last .1 at under 6 min pace.  Weather was cooler but still quite humid (around 75%) - so after waiting for my daughters and nephew to finish - I did a cool down and decided to quit while I was ahead - and bagged the 10k. 

Not too bad for relatively little training since the NYC marathon a few weeks ago.   

Happy Thanksgiving!

PM - Did an easy 8.25 miles this afternoon through Spanish Trails.  Had plenty of carbs in me from yesterday's meals.  Nice run.

AM - just enough time in a busy day to get in a quick 4 miles before heading up to Gainesville for the UF/FSU game this evening.