We had snow in Murfreesboro this weekend…kinda unusual for us, but we mostly get one or two days a year of the good stuff.  I was anxious to run in it on the farm because of the beauty in it, and I did that today, but it was mostly of the gloppy, muddy, post-snow kind.

I have a little loop on the farm that I like to run that includes a pretty good hill up the TVA easement which crosses our property.  The loop takes me about 10.5 minutes, a few minutes to get there and back, so today I ran 5 loops, including the slip-slidey hill.  I had my two dogs, and the extra golden (Boo’s daughter) who lives next door.  We all happily slopped through the mud in the sunshine, and the crunchy frozen ground in the shadow.

Today’s run was strong and fast…I had had a good 8 mile run on Saturday that I didn’t blog about, and again today I felt terrific.  This has been a really good stretch in the training for the running portion, always my weakest event.  I’m a little lighter and I’m sure that makes a difference, and my head’s in a good place so that helps too.  Busting the hill several times today made me incorporate some higher intensity intervals, and although I can’t say I’m fond of them, I feel like they really make a difference in my overall time, and they don’t seem to hurt my effort when it’s all over.

I’m still wigging about the ocean swim, so I’m heading to Panama City Beach this weekend, with my new wetsuit, to swim where the actual race will be.  My buddy Trainer Mike tells me that my head is more important than my body on this issue, and that I’m working myself into a frenzy for nothing; I’ll let him know after I swim in the 59 degree water on Saturday…

Fave song:  Dane Cook’s bit about seeing the guy get hit by a car…Johnny Tamborine

Thanks for reading…