Baseball practice, Yard work, and Running without a jacket

God graciously provided an absolutely beautiful day today here in Georgia. It was the bluest sky we have seen in I-don't-know-how-long, and it just made you smile to be out in the midst of it.

My day began, no, not with a run of many miles, but with sleeping late and getting our oldest son to baseball practice. Great, great practice for him, and it reminded me how special it feels to feel like the superstar on the field. It's funny how those kinds of memories are so imprinted in your psyche, you don't forget them even after 30 years. Not that 40 is old, of course...

Since I am still allowing my outer left knee to recover from Birmingham, I elected to get my 5 miler today on the treadmill. While I wanted badly to take it to the roads (my wife couldn't believe I ran on the treadmill on such a gorgeous day), I knew the reduced impact of the t'mill would be more forgiving on my recovering body. No problem with the 5 miles, I just ripped it off at around 8:03 pace.

After much yard work and playing batting coach for our sons (and the next door neighbor's son), I decided to actually get another 3 miles, outside this time. The sun had already set by this time, so my typical running in the pitch darkness was the order for the evening. Tomorrow I am going to plan on getting out on a nice long road in the daytime and just letting it go for about 8 miles or so. I love those Saturday/Sunday afternoon runs.

That's it for today. The ING Georgia Marathon is four (4) weeks from tomorrow morning. At this point, I am planning on ramping training up this coming week to about 75% of normal, and hopefully bringing to a full training week with ING being only three (3) weeks out. I'm not going to do another 22 mile long run though, as I'm already conditioned from the previous marathon and training cycle. I'm going to just get my usual 40-45 miles per week, and that should carry me to Atlanta in prime shape for a solid race.

At least, that's the plan... ;) You know how that goes.