A Change of Plans

Last night I registered for the Baton Rouge Beach Marathon, solidifying a recent change in plans. This will take the place of the Mississippi Blues Marathon. I determined that running a marathon closer to home just made more sense. (Money lost in registration will be more than made up in travel savings.)

The down side to this change is that it bumps my race date up by four whole weeks. I feel like my base is really strong, but I do worry the lost weeks. The upside is that the course is a much less challenging course, so I hope things will break even.

Either way...I am doing 26.2 in 12 days.

Ah, yes....the 20 miler

The much anticipated first twenty miler of the season is this Saturday. Folks often ask, where do you run 20 miles? Below you see what is a beautiful, quiet country route that runs mostly through rice and crawfish fields.

During the summer I stay away from this route due to the lack of shade, but even then I have strong associations with last winter's long runs when I drive these roads.

Click here.

Going to Have to Make Room....

for this morning's run on my Top Ten Runs list.

I spent the last couple of days in New Orleans for the Louisiana Baptist Convention annual meeting. I traveled by myself, which gave me the opportunity to get in a run that I have been wanting to do for a long time....St. Charles Avenue.

Since my marathon training called for a 10 miler today it fit in perfectly. I parked in a public parking lot in the French Quarter, close to Cafe du Monde. From there I ran along the riverwalk, then headed up Canal Street for several blocks to St. Charles. Once I got past Lee Circle I was hitting the route I had really wanted to get to. For a while I ran the sidewalk, but then moved to the neutral ground (grass median every place else in America)between the street car tracks. But traffic was light and I spent most of the run on the street, which was the smoothest of the three surfaces.

I turned around at the main entrance to Audobon Park. Once I had got back to my car I had completed a hair over 11 miles at about 8:25 a mile. Only down side was having to pay $8 for the parking. Most expensive run that did not at least get me a t shirt!

Bouncing Back Nicely

Saturday I completed my 15 miler incident free. Just as a precaution, I soaked my ankle in a bucket of ice water when I finished my run, but gratefully I had no lingering effects yesterday or on my run this morning.

I now consider myself back on schedule for my training. In fact, I just finished mapping out this weekend's 19 miler on http://www.mapmyrun.com/. Due to scheduling this will be my longest solo run in a couple of years. I will do the long run on Friday, as I am running the Cajun Cup on Saturday. (It will be my son's first 10K race. He is looking forward to it, I am just along for the ride.)

New shoes, should arrive tomorrow, along with some new socks and shorts later this week. Yipee.