Saturday morning at 8:30am I made my way to the old high school in town. I grabbed my paperwork from the front table. Looking around for a few friends that would be meeting me, I dropped my shirt from the race in the car and took a quick puff from my inhaler. After some light stretching and discussion with a few people, I went up to the start line. I was in pain, mostly from the respiratory infection. As the race started, I headed down High street in the middle of the pack. I wasn't concerned with place nearly as much as time. I was doing great for the first mile, right on pace. The second mile took me through the cemetery and up a rather large hill. This definitely took the wind out of me, and I slowed behind pace. The third mile seemed to drag on forever, but I remember looking back with a few blocks to go before the mile mark and seeing two people near me, then at the three mile mark they were still in the same spot. I found out later that they were closer, but moving much slower, and I had decided that I didn't want them to catch me. I finished the last .1 of a mile, rounding the corner into the school. The time was horrible. I was slower than the last 5k by about 20 seconds, even though I'd been training much harder. How could this happen? Then, more pain in my chest. I grabbed the inhaler out of the car and walked around the parking lot. After wandering into the school, I found I wasn't the only one who had done worse than expected, but that I still placed in my age group. I sat around for a while and then walked up to get my medal. Third place, men 20-29. Not bad, I guess...

I took Thursday evening off so that I could spend some time with my son. We went swimming and played around the pool for a while. Friday afternoon was looking like I would be heading to the gym, but a sudden downpour brought some cool weather out and I thought it was a good opportunity to run the course that I would be running on Saturday. This was my "dry run" but it was more than a little wet. I was aiming for a 27 minute run. That would work out to about 9 minute miles the entire way. With no one running on the course other than me, I knew I would be a little slow, and I came in at 31 minutes. I think tomorrow will go better though. In other news, I also went to the doctor this morning and found out I had a slight upper respiratory infection. Antibiotics should take care of it, but running tonight and tomorrow may be made much more interesting by it. I plan on loading up on the cough syrup before the race, mostly because I have been coughing to the point of vomiting, but hopefully this will be out of my system soon.

Starting late on Thursday, went for a 5k bike ride, then rode down to the pool. Tried out some new goggles that I was given to use by a coworker. If that was not cool enough, I got to try out the waterproof mp3 player I was able to borrow also. It is a Finis Swimp3 player, which is actually pretty cool. I only swam about 250 meters, but it felt good and I was a little concerned about it being too dark out. After a quick ride home from the pool, I started doing some math and decided that tomorrow I could definitely get a decent workout in. The plan is for a 10-20k ride before work, then a 20k ride after work with a quick swim in a nearby lake (about 400-600 meters). This will set me up for an evening of break, then I can hit it hard on Saturday morning and get a great weekend workout in. Counting down the days to the big event - 51 days. Excited as crap and ready to push myself way past my comfortable limits.

- brad

Work went less well than planned today, and that happens from time to time, but I made it through the day. I wandered home a short time before I had to go get Dyl, then drove up to the old track. If you've been to a Vinton County High School meet there, it is on top of a hill off of a highway, but there is nothing else around. Even more than that, with a new track around the football field, this one has become an abandoned memory for most of the people here. I remember this track so well. I ran there for the first two years of track when I was in school, then for the next four years we had the new track while I was in high school. I was always a fan of the old asphalt track. Something about it made it seem great, even though it was rather basic. There was an advantage, in my mind, because the asphalt made such a loud clicking noise when spikes hit, and a runner could learn to tell how close someone was by sound, more than by vision. I pulled in and dropped my phone by the 200 meter mark (as it was the closest to the car).

There is something special about being the only one out running. Being alone on the track, or being out earlier in the morning than anyone, makes it special. I began jogging the track and instantly felt a little sad. Most of that comes from remembering the talent I had as a young man when I ran well in the very same spot. After thinking of that, I immediately felt shame due to the way I have allowed myself to stop exercising for such a long time. Toward the end of this run, I felt strong, powerful, and confident. I found myself following the some of the same patterns that I have since I was a young kid, such as counting down by every 100 or 50 meters or doing math for no particular reason. I know that tomorrow morning will come early, and I'm hoping for a 10k bike ride before work at least, possibly 20k if time is going well. Will update more then...

- brad