Counting calories is never a good idea.

Since yesterday's run was a 7 miler, I decided to do our favorite trick of driving to the half way point, stocking the car with Gatorade and then 'butterfly'ing' out in each direction. It would have been the perfect plan if I hadn't read the pedometer calorie count instead of mile count for my turn-around in the u-district and in Ballard. Once again (just like in Seabeck) I added about an extra mile to my run by reading my calories as miles - woops.

It was the first time I have run a long run on the Burke Gilman on the weekend. I made some important observations of things that people should NOT do on a busy weekend on the trail.
1. Ride a Segway
2. Let their dog poop in the middle of the trail
3. Stop walking in the middle of the trail to point something out to your friend
4. Schedule a scavenger hunt where a bunch of hungover college students do #3

There are many more, but Sam is crying and it's time for ballet. Good thing today is a 'rest' day according to the training schedule.

Wind Sucks.

Today ended up being only 3.5 miles, which is about what it was supposed to be based on the training schedule...except for the fact it was my first run since last Sunday's long run. A mix of Zoe with the flu (and apparently a raging case of preschooler-pms), mom in town and rain provided a variety of excuses for not running this week. I do think that I made up my miles walking to and from all of Zoe's 'time outs' this week though.

Today's run was at my slowest pace ever, even though I almost made myself trying to keep pace with some runner on the other side of the road for about a mile. I would like to blame it on running into the wind all the way home, except that would mean that the wind was at my back for the first half....maybe it was just the stack of pancakes I ate before I left....

Crossing over

Today was the big day - not only 'crossing over' to the other half (where the long runs are longer than running half the race) but also crossing over to Magnolia to do a little exploring. I didn't bring my camera since it was a 6.5 miler, but I should have - the views on the other side of the locks were really pretty. Not only that but it was a beautiful sunny day...tank top, shorts (I didn't even know that I owned shorts!) The only tough part was weaving through all the tourists at the locks. I was going to use that as an excuse for my time, but it was my best pace ever - under 9 minute miles (according to my pedometer).

New World Record!

After a morning and afternoon of set backs including a rain delay, feeding delay and a nap delay, we finally went for it and ended up having an amazing run.

Not only did the sun come out, but according to my pedometer, we did 4 miles at under a 9 minute mile. This is about a 2 minute improvement in pace which is especially shocking since I had both Sam and Zoe. Chances are that there was some error with the pedometer but I'm still taking credit for it. Hooray!