Week # 3

This was a great week! I ran a total of 28.4 miles this week and got five runs in - two of them were even early morning before work runs! Pretty impressive, I know. I thought both morning runs were pretty cold (mid-30s), until my Saturday morning group run...which was 20 degrees with a little freezing rain and high winds to boot. But it turned out to be a really nice run. I ran the loop around Forest Park and met a few people on the training team there and really enjoyed running and chatting with others. I'm usually a solo runner with my headphones and iPod, so this was a nice change, it really took my mind off the miles. And it's also pretty nice going to the Visitors Center afterwards and getting a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

My early Christmas present to myself also showed up this week, just in time for my group run. The Garmin Forerunner 305. It's my way to make sure I stay motivated training for this race and give myself a little incentive (toys). I haven't quite figured out all the bells and whistles (it's so fancy!), but I love it already. Its a GPS receiver with a heart rate monitor that tracks each run and lets me analyze the data with interactive graphs that chart pace, time, distance and heart rate. The software allows me to overlay each run on a Google map so I can pinpoint specific areas of each run and see how elevation, weather and other factors affect my performance. It even lets me compete with a virtual runner that represents my timw/pace goals. How cool!

Ok, enough free advertisement for Garmin. Non-running-wise, the rest of the week was pretty busy. I had a wonderful dinner with the girls (and Auntie Alison in from Florida) on Monday night, got my teeth cleaned on Thursday (ouch!), had a nice breakfast at Edgewood on Friday to bring gifts for Stock the Store, spent the week doing securities research at work, and watched the Tigers blow the BCS championship Saturday night at home with Seth and Claire. So, other than the bleeding gums and the loss to OU, it was a good week!

Weekly recap:

Sunday: 6.25 miles

Wednesday: 5.3

Thursday: 5.5

Friday: 5.3

Saturday: 6.0

Total: 28.4

And I finished out November with a total of 63.9 miles (that's over 12 hours of running).