Mediocre

That's about how I'd describe my race Saturday morning. On a basically pancake flat course I managed an 18:51 5k.

My work week didn't come to a good end, which didn't help things with the race. I tried to leave early Thursday so I could get my run in before I went out to dinner, but I was held up half an hour taking care of a job that had to deliver the next day. Apparently planning ahead is not one of the National Park Services strengths; they didn't realize until Thursday that for a White House grounds tour on Sunday it might be helpful to put up a few signs.

I stayed an hour late on Friday waiting for tracking numbers that I couldn't even get until Monday morning because the person I usually deal with had left and no one else could help me. I did ask someone else for help, but he couldn't get me the information. And I know I told the agency the job would ship Friday, not that it would arrive Friday.

Desperately Seeking

Wanted: training partner. Must be willing to run every day. Indifference to the elements mandatory. Desire to be the best runner possible required. Following the sport at elite levels a plus. If interested, leave a message here.

Ah, Fall

The gorgeous fall weather is here. It was sunny and about 60 degrees for my run yesterday. I ran another 4 miles, still getting back into the swing of things again with my running. My knee pain is still lingering, so I did some quad exercises after my run. Hopefully the pain will subside soon.

My wife has started to run again. She ran some when we were in college, before we got married. When she started teaching, she was so busy and stressed out that she didn't exercise very much. She stays at home with Puff now, and gets together with other moms to run a few times a week. She found the group through the web site See Mommy Run. The group has been featured on the local news and supposedly will be featured in the upcoming edition of the Washington Running Report.

Back to It

After the pain in my knee came up, I took most of last week off to see if it would heal. I iced and took some drugs, and my knee felt better, but not completely healed. Saturday and Sunday I ran with Puff, and while there was still pain in my knee, it felt better as I loosened up. The same thing happened yesterday when I ran by myself, and even running some laps around the soccer field to run on grass didn't seem to make a difference. I think strenghtening my quads will help my knee, so I'm going to do some quad exercises a few times a week.

The cross country season is now in full swing, and I'm anxious to check out what happened over the weekend when I get into work Monday morning. Wisconsin and Stanford look good on the men's and women's side respectively, and I've been very impressed with Josh McDougal. There's a question at Trackshark about how he'll do at the NCAA championships in November. While I think he has a good chance of placing high, I wonder if he's racing too much right now and will be burnt out by November.

Work's been frustrating lately. It's amazing how hard it seems to be for some people to follow simple procedures, such as faxing a copy of an order they placed to me because we handle the billing.