I had such a great day....started out by running my standard 8. My pace is faster when I know I only have to run a little over an hour: 9:30/9:13/9:34/9:20/9:13/9:50/9:50/913 and it feels pretty good although I'm still stopping for bathroom breaks every few miles.... bad habit, and...I am still on the treadmill most days. It's just so easy to hit the machine in the basement instead of the road with the cars, weather, and people or whatever. I've never done this much pre-race running on a treadmill except for the Moab half marathon and some for Boston last year when the weather was crummy. I'm only running on the ground once or twice a week, and it makes the road running harder. Anyway, today I headed up to the Canyons in PC to see my friends who were visiting and staying at a condo there. There was so much fresh snow and sunshine. We played and played all morning and afternoon; laughed on the chair lift rides up, sailed down mountainsides soft with fresh packed powder, jumped, raced like we were all 18 again when we'd all first known each other and used to ski together. The snow wasn't that deep so my quads didn't burn as much as they do when it's super thick, but I was suprized how beat everyone else was by the end of the day. Backs aching, legs burning, everyone was sore....not me. I felt guilty nothing hurt, and overall it had been a pretty easy ski day. I'm glad I took the edge off by running my miles early in the morning because I was tearing it up and had plenty left over by days end. But of course, seeing friends always gives me that extra bit of energy. It was a glorious day and I'm hoping to use that feeling, plus the tulips coming up out of the ground as some extra fuel for the Naitonal Marathon in a few weeks. It will be fun to run with Cath. | 