I just got back in from my weekly long run. 7 miles in 1 hour and 39 minutes. That's a 14:09 minute mile, which is still great for this early in my training. Once again, I hit the magic place at two miles, then I found another magic place at five miles! A little more than three miles into the run, I ran into one of my friends from church and we chatted for a bit. We might become each other's running partners -- I'll talk to her again about that when I see her at church.

I need to get a shirt specifically for running and/or get a supply of band-aids because I ended up with the dreaded chafed and bloody nipples, due to a long run in a sweaty cotton shirt. THE INTERNET™ has all sorts of suggestions, including Vasoline, band-aids, and not wearing cotton shirts. I also found NipGuards, which I think I'll give a try. They sell them at the running store next to my office, so I'll pick up a box next time I'm there.

I've also been playing with motionbased.com a bit. Their Mac support is minimal, but usable. I've only got my most recent short run and today's long run in there, but it looks pretty cool. I'll keep playing with it, but I'm not going to give up keeping my data in my own Excel file, too. One of the things I like about motionbased.com is their integration with Google Maps to show you your track, and all the statistics they can gather from the GPS receiver. For example, here's a screencap from today's run:



It's interesting that they say I ran 6.94 miles, but my GPS receiver said I ran 7.0 miles. My GPS receiver also says I was out there a minute longer than they're reporting. As I do longer and longer runs, I'll see if that drift gets larger.

All in all, the more I run, the more I want to run. I'm feeling great.

But not so great that I'm going to do an eight mile hike like I did after last week's long run. ;-)