Quick Post From Florida!

I don't have too much time to post - not much internet access in our digs down here :-)

We left on Thursday morning - hit the road at 7:15am and made it to the hotel in Jacksonville, FL by 9pm. This included three long stops (breakfast, lunch and dinner), a few short stops (bathrooms and gas ups), a traffic jam in North Carolina due to construction and a bunch of patches of driving rain in South Carolina and Georgia (and two glorious rainbows south of Savannah!). Only one major child meltdown in the entire 14 hours - I'm very lucky that the kids are great car travelers.

We got to Boynton Beach around lunch time on Friday and have enjoyed being here in my parent's house here. The kids have slept much better than in the hotel (which gives me a bit of anxiety for Disney World the next three nights...)

Tomorrow morning we leave for Disney World! Hooray!!!

I got a run in this morning. Early. Like before the sun came up...thankfully.

The plan was to do 14 miles. When I stepped outside at 5:30am, it was hot and soupy already. I checked on the NOAA site and saw it was 84 degrees and 70% humidity. I was going to run a 7 mile loop twice, with a Gatorade stop at the house, but as I got started, I knew that was not going to happen. By mile 3 my shirt was already soaked through. By mile 5, I wasn't sure I would be able to make it through the first 7 mile loop without walking.

I eventually made it home. But there would be no 2nd loop. Instead of 14 miles, I settled for 7. UGH!

All I can say is that I'm happy the marathon is in New York in November - and not in Florida in August!!!

I'm not sure I'll be running at Disney. There's a fitness center at the hotel, but I may be too exhausted. If I don't run over the next few days, I'm going to have to re-build up my base again - especially as I'm supposed to get in some higher mileage weeks now.

I likely won't be blogging for a few days. Speak to you all when I get back from Florida!!!

Scheduling The Next Two Weeks and This Morning's Run

Last week was a "step down" week...now back to increasing miles on the training plan. This week will be a challenge - 4, 7, 4 and 14 miles. On a normal week it wouldn't be too bad.

But the next two weeks are not normal weeks. On Thursday we are driving to Florida - as the start of our week-long vacation which will feature 4-days and 3-nights in Disney World!

I will try to get my weekly runs in on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll have two "rest" days on Thursday and Friday (driving down to Boynton Beach, FL). I'll try to do my long run on Saturday morning. Then on Sunday morning it is off to Orlando!

Next week will be just as challenging. I hear you do tons of walking at Disney World. Do I really want to run 7 miles one morning and then walk 15 miles around the park? The hotel I'm staying at has a gym with a treadmill, but we'll see how exhausted I am.
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My run this morning went really well. I remember last year that my easy runs that immediately followed the long run or speedwork runs went really well - and today was no exception.

4.48 miles in 46:47 - a 10:27/mile pace with an average HR of 150 bpm. I'm really excited about the pace - that's a full minute per mile faster than my run yesterday, at only a slightly higher average heart rate.

Finally, I'm seeing the benefits of my training!