They all can't be "easy" runs.

10.2 miles. Hood route to Legacy trail to colonia and back. 6 am start. Slow, but that was expected. Then church. Then a couple more hours of yard work. THen swimming pool. Then batting, fielding practice with my boys +1 at well field. Then my brother got into town, so we hung out with him for a bit. When leaving my parent's house, I stepped on a snake for the first time. I've been close before. Since it was dark, i didn't find out until after. That was icky.

3.5 miles. Hood route. 6:15 am start. Slow and painful.

5.5 miles. Hood route.

12.9 miles. Hood route to Legacy Trail to Venice Ave. and back. Weather was uncommonly unhumid. 65 deg., 58% hum., 52 d.p. 1:44:06. 8:04 pace. Last 2 in 14:36. Once again, there was a lot of pain at the start. By mile 4 or 5, things kind of became manageable. I feel like I could run for days at slow paces. It is only when I attempt to generate the quick stuff that things get ouchy. I just need to get through this race, and then I'll worry about getting healthy.

It only sounds dumb because it is dumb.

7.5 miles. Hood route to legacy trail and back.6 am start. I saw a squirrel get run over at half way. Ewww. And. Awww. Happy mothers day!

7 days until race day.

3.5 miles. Hood route. 6 a.m. start.

3.5 miles. Hood route. 6 am start. Shirtless level warm. Flat course running. Good race day simulatIuon.

6:30 am start. This really happened. And it was not fast.

5.5 miles hood route. 6 am start.

Pm: flew to Portland, ME. Got in after midnight.

Driving day. Portland to Bar Harbor ( scenic route) to Acadia National Park to Cadillac Mountain to Sugarloaf. We got to Sugarloaf @ 10 pm. 2 floridians driving through rainy, foggy mountains, in the dark, with no cell service could mean bad things. Despite a bit of white knuckle driving, we got here okay.

I just couldn't see going to Maine, without visiting the coast. Impressive stuff.

We drove the course this morning. Usually, I do a three mile jog the day before a marathon. But today i thought i should just chill. It is fantastic weather. Much easier driving. Did some low-impact sight seeing. It is really a beautiful place. Craziest thing about today - I got knee deep in a really cold mountain top lake that buried a former town.

On another note, I don't think these sugarloaf folks are maximising the possibilities of this race. For example, they have a band playing at the base lodge tonight. And tjey are closed tomorrow night. Maybe it's this way because they want it this way.

Sugarloaf Marathon. I held 7:30 pace for @ 18 miles, then things got weird. Most beautiful course i have ever run. I guess Jake's buddy Merkel got on the podium for his age group. I heard his name called, but i didn't get to see the hair!

I guess I'll write more when i gethome. Cell phone connections here are iffy.

Sitting in the airport. Looking at the official results. I guess there was a timing strp at mile 16. I came through at 7:40 pace to that point. From there it says i dropped to 8:44 pace. I might be the first person in the history of this race that ran a positive spilt.

Rainy and cold at the start, but neither was unbearable. My plan was to go out at 7:30 pace until the big drop off at mile 10.5, and then see what happens. I came to that race plan, because in previous races - whatever my last 20 miler pace was, subtract a minute and you get my race pace. I expected 3:28:30. I went out at goal pace. I thought i held it pretty well. The downhill at mile 10.5 was almost scary, because of the wet streets. Also, i know the cross slope of the road caused some people troubles. I spent a lot of the race looking for flat surfaces. When i got to about mile 20, my calves were just about locked up. I was running slow. Like, breathe through my nose slow. And everyone was passing me but there was nothing i could do about it. so i finished the race.

Then we went back to the condo. Then we went looking for a moose. We never found one.

If you train on flat, without any speed, in intermittent surges, you don't do so well.

It was still a great 22nd anniversary trip. Maine is beautiful.

Day started with snow flurries. Drove back to Portland. We went over a wire bridge in New Portland. It swayed back and forth. It was really cool.

7.2 miles. 8: 11 pace. In Apopka. Apopka is Hillier than Venice. I'm up here for a conference, but staying with an old friend. I should have stretched at some point since the race, I guess.