2 miles

I woke up at 6 am - it was in the mid-60's and raining lightly. At first I thought, "Damn it's raining, I can't run." My second thought was how stupid that pre-caffeniated thought was.

So I got up, pulled on my running clothes, stretched and sparked up the mp3 player before doing a 2 mile street run. I did a 13:12 pace (26:24 overall) running to the church and back. I didn't walk at all and had to wait for the light twice, so I'm pretty happy with my run this morning.

Running in a light rain was actually kind of nice. I didn't heat up the way I usually do and I'm sure the physics of the water on my skin and evaporation and such are the real reasons why. I just know that it felt somewhat refreshing. It was warm enough out that my t-shirt didn't feel all clammy until after I stopped when I got home.

I was tempted to go 3 miles this morning but realized I had to get back in to get kids off to camp and such - so I'll take running 2 miles for today and attempt going the 3 tomorrow. Because the race is on Sunday, I probably won't run on Saturday.

The concept of rest days are important, I know that. Yesterday instead of running, I walked just shy of 8,000 steps - mostly in the quest to find an affordable bike for my son. He loves his chopper-style stingray designed by the American Chopper guys (his uncle gave it to him last year), but when you're going off to high school you're better off on the lame-o $70 bike from Target your mother bought you than on a middle school style chopper, no matter how cool everyone thinks it may be. It's high school and image is everything.

In the course of bike shopping, we stopped at a triathlete store where I showed him just how light the bikes used in racing truly are. He was absolutely floored. I told him how his cousin is training for short triathalons (1/2 mile swim, 11 mile bike, 5K run) and he said, "That's sick."

Of course sick, in teen speak, is the equivalent of groovy or cool.

My niece, the one training for short tris, just finished the book Slow Fat Triathlete (http://www.slowfattriathlete.com/) and is somewhat inspired. OK, my niece was probably on this track before reading the book - in fact I know she was - just the book helped spur her on. This is a girl who went to a Division I college on a partial crew scholarship and tried out for the Olympic bobsled team.

At any rate I'll add a link to the book to the side there. By the way, if you buy stuff at Amazon by clicking through the links on the side, I'd appreciate it. It earns me a bit of cash which all writers for hire could use. So please, be kind and support this slow, fat keyboard warrior.