Seeking a better country...

To celebrate the air you can breathe and not taste, I ran inside.  I rebooted "24" season 1.  Good show.  7 miles, 57 minutes.  Take away a <1 mile warmup, and that's 8:00 pace.  

Several toes are messed up from Saturday.  Bummer.  I like the one purple toenail better than the black one.  Gotta keep those nails trimmed.  5k and 20 miler on tap for this Saturday.  Why did I sign up for that winter series? 

3:30 plank during Biggest Loser

I got home from work at nine.  Onto the TM.  1.5 warmup, then 3 @6:22 with 800 recovery between, 1.5 cooldown.  The last lap on each mile was pretty tough.  I wore the HRM but it seems I didn't push start.  Ah, the downfalls of technology.  Anybody running the Striders Winter Circuit in Ogden?

It was one of those mornings on the treadmill.  I don't know anything about those.  I've never run on the tm in the morning until today.  Now I'm super late for work, and still need to drop my daughter off at pre-school...I'm coming down with something in my throat.  I'm trying to knock it down with Ricola, emergen-c and colloidal silver.  I have enjoyed remarkable health since I started running 3 years ago.  I've never been knocked out for more than a day or two, and that's only happened 2-3 times.  

The first part of the run was a 5k.  Made it to Ogden by 7:45, grabbed my shirt, # and chip and got ready.  I had a very solid warmup for about .6 miles.  The "gun" went off and we were away.  This course is not a pr course.  It's hilly like crazy.  The first .5 went by quickly, then the climbing started.  .5 to 1.5 is mostly uphill, so there was lots of passing going on.  Finally we caught a break with some downhill to recover, followed by more wonderful uphill sections.  The last mile was mostly downhill, except for the lovely uphill finish.  Gosh, I LOVE THOSE!!  I held on, and valiantly fought the urge to walk several times.  I couldn't stand to have people I passed go by me because I felt a little uncomfortable and wimped out.  

So after the race, I got some *****ade, and ate a muffin half.  I was ready to go, and as I was driving away, saw a lady starting some miles.  Well, I'm supposed to do 20 today, so I asked her if she'd mind some company.  She kindly obliged, and we ran and chatted for another 4.6.  Turns out she ran at BYU with Nan, and is a killer runner.

 Then I drove home.  I changed my bottom shirt for a dry one, and headed out for 10 more miles.  I took the same course as last week, and it was killer.  No 5 hour energy, plus I'm a bit sick, tired and overworked this week compared to last.  I got them in, though.  Overall pace for the bonus, post race miles was 8:30.  This is a bit slower and fewer than my calendar calls for, but for today it's more than enough. 

Now I'm at work, furiously cutting more implant parts for a Monday deadline.  Hopefully I can finish today and not be stuck coming in again tomorrow.  (I mean that "hopefully" like, "come hell or high water I'm going to finish this stuff today")

Finally, a weather and air quality report.  It was a temperate morning for early Feb.  The air seemed clear.  I could see individual clouds, and even small sections of blue in the distance.  Airnow.gov puts us in the yellow/moderate range.  I'll take that.