Merry Christmas to all ... and to all, a good night

Christmas Eve day was very entertaining as I spent four and a half hours at work playing Scrabulous and cleaning out my WW supplies since I am giving up my At Work meeting. Then I came home, ate sushi as my special treat to myself and Emma and I headed to Portsmouth. Dinner and presents with the family was fun, and I ate everything in site and even asked for bread in preparation for today's 20 miles.

Was late to Christmas morning ... Emma had been up for an hour but didn't seem to mind not having started the gifts. I think she's playing us about believing ... too much talk about Santa this year. Her Dad, needless to say to those who know him, went overboard and Emma received everything she had wanted and more. After we played some crazy monkey game, I came home to get ready.

Having spent a great deal of time on mapmyrun.com with no success at creating the perfect 20 mile loop, I decided to just run in to the city for 10 miles and then run back. A perfect 35 degree day with little wind and sun made it comfortable to run without too much extra stuff. Once I hit the Southwest Corridor at Forest Hills Station, which I have now learned is 5 miles from my house, I hit my stride. And then, when I turned the corner at 10 miles, I knew I could do the 20. Of course, I needed to add a mile on the way back for some reason, but I did it ... and even a little bit faster than I did the 20 with the MGH team.

Phoenix is in 3 weeks and 2 days ... Rock and Roll!

Sunday nights

They are the hardest ... I get all worked up about what is going to happen in the upcoming week and I get frustrated about what I didn't accomplish over the weekend. Doesn't make for a very restful night's sleep.

I will have completed the Phoenix Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in six weeks' time ... absurd since I just decided to do it about three weeks ago. The long runs are going well but I am not getting the short runs in during the week. Two trips to Chicago in the last two weeks has made it difficult to get runs in every couple of days. The good news is, the long runs are going well. The bad news is at the moment it hurts to walk since my calf locked up yesterday at mile 4 of a 5 miler and I can't get it to relax, despite many icings and even heat over night.

I am inspired by the twenty-somethings I met in Kentucky who are training for Disney the second Sunday of January. And I saw that Alyssa may run NY again ... that's amazing. Running keeps me sane ...

I am sad that my friends Jess and Katie will not be in the office with me tomorrow to keep me laughing as I feel this might be a very serious week on a lot of levels.

More to come.