They all can't be "easy" runs.

7.5 miles. Hood route. 6 a.m. start. 62 degrees.

6 pm. My left ankle is swollen.

7.5 miles. Hood route to Legacy trail and back. 7 a.m. start. 50 degrees. 56:46 7:34 pace. Things still feel tight, but I'm glad this run went well.

First run in Derunzo's shoes. 6:30 a.m. start. 58:27. 7:48 pace. 54 degrees in the drizzle breeze. Hood route to Legacy trail and back. I bought the fresh foam boracays yesterday. Since New Balance Sarasota was bib pickup for today's Sarasota music half, the store was kind of mayhem. On the other hand, I spent $45 on shoes, which I think is a good deal.

5.5 miles. Hood Route. 6 a.m. start. 43 degrees.

7 pm. Island walk mini bridges. 2.4 miles. Then weight training. Then 2.4 down. 65 degrees.

3.5 milea. Hood route. 5:45 am start. 57 degrees. Windy .

8:15 pm. Island walk mini bridges. 2.4 miles. Then weight training. Then 2.4 down. 54 degrees

6 p.m. At track. Warmed up for a mile and a half and then decided not to run. Sometimes life gets in the way of running.

Fruit Cove running. Perfect weather. 3.5 up. Then a drink of water. Then 7.85 through Julington Creek. The run felt very smooth and consistent throughout.

Fruit cove running. Started in the dark. 6 am. Slow. Low 40"s.

Then church.

then ran the whole thing again with my sister in law. And since she can't stand to finish on uneven numbers, we continued running until we got 8 miles even. 20 degrees warmer for this one.

6 pm. Island walk mini bridges. 2.4 miles. Then weight training. Then 2.4 down. 71 degrees. No time to run this morning, before we left Fruit Cove. Just as well, I guess. Maybe I can save my racing for the actual race this time. 

7.5 miles. Hood route to legacy trail and back . 5:45 a.m. start. 70 deg. When i started. 65 and foggy when i finished. About an hour or so.

7.5 miles. Hood route to legacy trail and back . 5:45 a.m. start. 60 deg. Super foggy.

6 p.m. At track. With my brother John. 2 up + strides. 800 @ 2:51. 3 min. rest. 400 @ 1:24. 3 min. Rest. 400 @ 1:26. 200 easy. 200 @ :35. 2 down. The lady that wins all the local races was there. It looked like she was teaching a class. I said "see how hard I work, just to lose to you? " she was supposed to run the Gasparilla 15k this weekend, but she says she has been injured for a while. Bummer.

5.5 miles. Hood route. 6 a.m. start. Then once around the block once I got home.

3.5 miles. Hood route. 6 a.m. start. Then once around the block.

Gasparilla 15k. 1:04:37. 6:56 pace. 149th place overall. 15th age group.

Met Mike M and Drew from the blog. Drew is neither a fat man, nor a unicorn.

Had to get up at 3, and met coach at 4, and we hit the road. They would not let me in to get my bib until 6. Race starts at 6:45. How they process that many people that fast is beyond me.

I lined up behind the elites. There were a few words from Bart Yasso, Shalane F., and Meb. (Impressive, I thought). I talked to a woman down on vacation from Ohio. She was shooting for 1:03. I think she got it. She had great pacing. And when she passed me at mile 7, she said some encouraging words. Nice lady.

I ran the second half slower than the first, like i do. I could read a bunch in to this race result in both good and bad directions. Obviously, if I want to run a sub 3 in May, this is not good news. On the other hand, I knocked 14 minutes off my PR for this distance. I'm going to try not to dwell on this either way. Things are moving in the right direction, and that's all that matters right now.

After the race I walked for @ 400 yards, and saw a group of runners standing around talking. I just said "are any of you guys Drew?" So weird that i found him and Mike like that. I mean, I had no idea what they looked like. Glad you guys had a good race. They beat me by a ton! I'll see you guys around.

going for @13 tomorrow. I'm not sore at all, but I'm going to run this one easy.

16.25 miles. Hood route to legacy trail to circus bridge and back. 7 a.m. start. I was supposed to do 12.9 but the weather was perfect, and I was feeling good so I just kept going.

Am. 0.4 mile run fail. I just didn't have it this morning. Hamstrings were pretty sore.

pm. Island walk mini bridges. 2.4 up. Then weights. Then 2.4 down. Seventy something degrees.

The man with the charts says last Saturday's race translates to a 3:13 marathon. Dang.

in happier news, i lost 4 pounds.

6 am. 3.5 miles. Hood route. Windy. Track stuff later.

Track stuff. 6:30 pm start. More wind and no light from the softball fields next door. It rained a lot today. Lanes 1-3 were flooded. 2 up. 1600, 800, 800, 400, 400, 1.5 down. The goal was to run the second lap of the 800s faster than the first.

6:25, 3:06, 3:10, 1:28, 1:26.

7.5 miles. 6 am start. Hood route to legacy trail and back. Breezy.

6:30 pm. Island Walk mini-bridges. (the anti-tempo.) 2.4 up. then weight training. then 2.4 down. The temps dropped while I was at work today to 59 degrees. Off tomorrow. 20+ Saturday. 

Interesting non-running related stuff. I got a note home from school today for boy #2. In part, it says "John licked a book I gave him ...." I should make a list of things I have to say as a parent, that I would have never imagined I would say in my life. I could come up with a bunch more, but the two of my favorites right now are: 1. "Stop throwing bait fish at those people." and 2. "Let's try not to lick books anymore."

I had to sign the note for him to take it back tomorrow. 

I'm going to lick it, because that's how we roll over here. 

20.75 miles. 6:30 am start. Hood route to legacy trail to the circus bridge to Caspersen beach and back. Slow. 48 degrees at start. 58 degrees at finish.

11 miles, mostly on legacy trail with boy #2 on his bike. We started out @ 4:30 from Laurel road. We headed south over Dona Bay and Roberts Bay and the US 41 bridge. Then we did a quick u turn to go along side US 41 on to the island of Venice. Once on the island, we ran on the west side of the venetian waterway park, behind venice high school. Shortly after that we came up on the Lomas family, and said a few words. He's probably going to beat me by a lot next saturday. I started worrying if we could get back to the car by dark. So we went over the circus bridge to run on the east side of Venetian waterway park. We crossed all of the bridges for hatchet creek, US 41, roberts bay, and dona bay again. Great sunset over the bays.

Even though this was 11 miles, it felt like much more. He kept losing his chain, needed a drink, had to pee, etc. All of the stopping and starting gave me a beating. I'm glad we did it, but this was work. He is excitedly making plans for next sunday. I might do a small run sunday morning, then go for 10 with him in the afternoon.