Four

At some point during the first week of this training cycle, I decided I would post something about running at least once a week, no matter how mundane it might be. And for a couple weeks, it was "weekly" on a Sunday night. Then last week it was on Monday... and it's Monday again for number four.

Bored yet?

Anyway, breaking from the format a bit, I didn't repeat the long out-and-back seaside run I mentioned last week. I ran for "square footage" instead. Something I haven't ever consciously done before, at least not in a single run. We were staying in Rhode Island in a small area whose perimeter I knew from an earlier run to be almost exactly a 5k. I had to do 12 miles, so I started off thinking I'd just do four laps around the place. Nobody knows why (probably because doing laps is kinda boring), but within half a mile I changed my mind and decided to cover as many roads as I could inside the loop as well. I did pretty good - missed a few roads, but went over several of them two or even three times. I'f I had put a little more planning into it up front, I probably would have covered all of them. It ended up turning into a rather long version of the Marshes - I found myself zig-zagging back and forth, running up and down many, many hills. I found a couple dead-ends as well. Just to spice things up a bit, here's a picture where you'd have to look real closely to identify all the roads I missed:

In other, perhaps more exciting news, I also booked our flights and hotel for November. That was kind of the last of the fundamental preparation steps. Now, I just have to run for a few more months and show up on race day. Simple.

In yet other, and quite less exciting news, I'm no longer running to the sound of surf. I was very surprised yesterday at how not-oppressive the heat felt on returning to Austin. And today, I was not surprised in the least to find that yesterday's run was but a mere illusion, pulled off by the sun, who had been using a couple cloud-shaped accomplices to hide the truth.