I've had a busy day today, and it started with my nine mile run.

I wanted to sleep in. I kept hitting snooze. Then, I remembered that I had to run this morning, so I got up. I wanted to knock that run out before it got too hot. Today was nine miles, and it went wonderfully. Last week, I picked up a digital watch that had an interval timer, so I can be consistent with my walk/run breaks. So I set it up for a minute walking and eight minutes running. After talking to ccohoon this afternoon, I'm going to adjust that interval to use seven minutes running. I think that will help me out a bit.

I was just over two hours for my run, which put me at a little more than 13-minute miles. I'd like to pull that down to about 12:30 by race time, and I think I can do that. I was able to stick to my walk/run schedule completely, without taking extra walk breaks, shortening the running portion, or lengthening the walking portion. I was drinking Gatoraid on the porch by 9:30 this morning, before it got too hot.

All in all, I'm very happy with today's run. It definitely makes up for last week's difficulties. I think it plants me firmly on track for meeting my marathon goal in October.

After the run, I've been in and out of the house doing various things. It's hot out there. But at least it seems that the smoke we had for the past two days has gone away. That's good.