She did it.

I drove behind Helen in the truck as she made 3 miles look super easy. I'm not sure her pulse increased during the run.

Finding time to run.

While a lot of people will dismiss the idea that one can't find the time to exercise, it can be difficult, particularly in the winter to get all the runs in you need.

Case in point is today with my daughter. We don't have enough daylight in the morning for her to get in her 3 mile run before school and after school she has Destination Imagination practice. By the time we get home it will be dark. Her mother has several pre Thanksgiving stops to make in Charlottesville and will probably not get home until 7:00 pm at the best.

Helen hates running on the treadmill so that means driving to town and running with me following in the truck or running with a flashlight (headlight) while I do the same (she's too young to run unsupervised). A lot of times you can just move a run to another day, but Thursday is race day so she can't back it up to Wednesday and still run her peak time. Brenda is in the same boat, but a little more (just a little) willing to run on the treadmill. We did pay a lot of money for the thing; I wish somebody would use it. :)

Resting for the Race

I will take a three day break from race training after the Turkey Trot. I know what you're thinking...this guy's already giving up on running. No, I'm just going to switch to my other love and do some hiking those days. I've hiked a good deal of the trail (over 200 miles which is about 10%). I've knocked out everything north of Three Ridges in Virginia to the Maryland/Pennsylvania line except for 0.6 miles just north of Bear's Den Rocks. So I'll probably hike that (plus some) this weekend and maybe do the Three Ridges loop. Summertime plans are to hike the rest of Virginia.

I'm also not running for two days before the race. I have been following this plan to get ready for the Turkey Trot: Hal Higdon's 5K Novice Plan.

On Monday Hunter and I switch to this plan: 8K Running Plan. I'm excited about it because it includes some much needed weight training (we have a weight machine in our basement).

Brenda and I feel that 5K is the longest run Hunter should be doing right now since he's only 10 years old. We figure each year we'll let him bump up one race distance, but he will not be doing any runs in the 8K plan longer than 3 miles. So in March he will do a 4K walk when Brenda, Helen and I run the Martha Jefferson 8K in Charlottesville. I am hoping one or more of his grandparents will join him that day. If you are interested in walking a 4K (or more commonly a 5K) here's a plan to get you started: Hal Higdon's 5K Walk Training

Interestingly, since I'm switching to the 8K plan after the Turkey Trot, I won't have another 3 mile run until I run a race on Dec. 12 and I won't run a longer distance than that until Dec. 27. That's okay at my size (256 lbs. yesterday) I need to bump up the mileage very slowly.