Sweet Sixteen

Our girls have made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Basketball tournament. I think this means they're one of the 16 best in the country but frankly I'm new to this whole sports watching thing and championships and league tables confuse me. They're winning a lot though so that has to be good, I may even have to go and watch their next game somewhere with beer. It seems that this is the most widely accepted method of offering support.


I finally managed to run my 18-miler last weekend. Unfortunately I had to present a 5 minute piece at a conference earlier the same morning so by the time I got around to running my long run it was 5 hours since I'd had breakfast, I probably hadn't had enough water and my run took me across midday through the hottest weather this year, on the longest run I've done ever. Probably not the best conditions. Still, I started out well and on pace and continued that way until I ran out of water. It's tough to find water on campus during Spring Break and I think that I'm going to have to either start planting water, doing loops past the house or making Amanda be my support crew (I don't think that's really going to work but she'd look cute with a whistle and a loud hailer), thank goodness they have aid stations at the marathon... I found water and continued on my merry way. It was hot and getting hotter, the cloud cover that was making it semi-bearable was burning off and the gummy bears I had taken as fuel were starting to be sickly.

After several water stops and 16 miles I was ready to be done, it was hot and I'd had enough. But I'm too stubborn to give up so I plowed on for the last 2 miles, convinced that my pace was so slow at the end that I'd ruined my run and that I'd never make it to the end of my marathon. In comes the magic of the Garmin which tells me that actually overall the pace was the fastest long run I've done for a while and that every mile was on pace according to the McMillan Running Calculator except for mile 17 which was slightly below target pace due to having walk a little in an effort not to make the big dog cross enough to jump over the rather low fence.

Yay! Maybe I will make it after all. 6 weeks to go...