So after a bit of a what some might call a vacation (actually, I think everyone would call it a vacation, and an amazing vacation at that!),

<<Side Note – Ev and I went to Greece (not Grease) and got to leave all responsibilities behind!  Pretty much every stress-maker was left in Eastern Daylight Time, and everything that is amazing was waiting for us in Greece.  Except for a comprehensible language.  Greek is impossible!  But the trip was amazing and I got another reprieve from running.>>

I’m back and re-energized to run.  Today was the first day of training for the Chicago Marathon!  I haven’t run very much since the Country Music Marathon for a number of reasons:

1) Basking in glory of beating Colin 😛 ;
b) Travel (see above about vacation);
3) Still basking in glory.  

I was also ever-so-slighly under the weather this weekend (excuse alert!), so hopping right back into training wasn’t going to necessarily be like riding a bike.  Maybe more like hog-tying a pig.  Actually it was nothing like hog-tying a pig.  It was like running.

It was harder than I wanted, but I got ‘er done.  The surprisingly hard part were the 20-second sprints.  At the 44-minute mark I would sprint for 20 seconds and then recover (run normal pace) for 40 seconds, and repeat ten times.  My heart rate shot up and I felt drained.  Here’s where I’ll hold onto that excuse for dear life.  I blame it on not feeling 100%, the humidity, and the economic crisis.  All told, it wasn’t terrible, and I’m looking forward to all 800 or so training miles lying in front of me for Chicago.

The details:

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