Sunday, August 24th to Saturday, August 30th: 21 miles run, 20.2 miles bike

I wish everyone an enjoyable Labor Day! I "celebrated" by running 13.8 miles in the morning. My last long run before the Rochester Marathon in less than two weeks. I did the first 7 in 55:10, 7:53 pace. I had some gu and water at the house then headed back out. I had some stomach cramps and could only do 12:15 for the next mile. I cranked out slow 8:15 to 8:30 miles the rest of the way to finish in 1:56:08, 8:25 pace. I was kind of stiff afterward with a slight pain in the back of my right thigh and Achilles tendon.

I ran three times last week:

Mon: 7 miles, 53:35, a little hard, 65F, sunny, calm, no stops, 7:39 pace
Wed: 7 miles, 54:14, easy, 60F, sunny, calm, no stops, 7:45 pace
Fri: 7 miles, 54:58, easy, 75F, sunny, calm, no stops, 7:51 pace

I am worried about running the marathon in two weeks but I am committed ... or should be committed, I guess. I am concentrating on running easy, trying not to run for time.

I biked once last week. I rode my bike 20.2 miles out to Palmyra to give blood for the 65th time, www.donatebloodnow.org. My pulse was 44, blood pressure was 100/70.

Sunday: I helped cart some of my daughter's stuff down to Houghton College. I had a car load: a dorm refrigerator, beanbag, and stuff. I could have taken more ... but not much. I talked with LB down in DE on the way down. She will be moving to a new job in VA next month.

On the way back I decided to go to the DCA World Championship at Paetec Park, link here. I had a seat in last row of the upper deck, even with the goal line on the right side. There were 4 Class A corps in competition: SoCal Dream, Chops Inc, Fusion Core, Alliance. Alliance won with a 82.750. There were ten open class corps in competition: Rochester Crusaders (10th 83.738), CorpsVets (9th 86.763), Renegades (8th 89.675), Brigadiers (7th 90.013), Bushwackers (6th 93.425), Caballeros (5th 93.625 falling from 3rd), Hurricanes (4th 94.913, rising from 5th), Empire Statesmen (3rd 95.063, falling from 2nd), Minnesota Brass (2nd 96.513, rising from 4th), Buccaneers (1st 97.913). I may not be a judge but you didn't need to be to know that the Bucs won. They were simply astounding. Scores and recap, here.

Some links: DCI, DCA Corps, Drum Corps Planet, Band Videos.

I saw an interesting T-shirt for sale while I was heading to my seat in the nosebleed section ... the caption read "The older I get, the better I was". I prefer to think optimistically ... "The older I get, the better I will be".

Well, I have been alone in the house for a week now with just a cat for company. I have been keeping busy. I have boxed all of Michael's stuff. It's kind of heart wrenching when you box up games that you didn't have time to play back then and now you do. Now I am starting to box up my downstairs office. There is more to do for sure.

Keeping active, Doug