Ah, bank holidays. I totally recommend them. Happy Columbus Day!

By late last week, we already knew that Chicago was going to be warm, but who would have expected to hear the reports coming back from there? I'm very glad that my plans were changed. I don't know how I would have handled that heat. How exciting to have such close finishes at the end for both the men's and women's marathons? If you haven't seen them yet, check out the video here: http://cbs2chicago.com/

Sticking to the training plan, last week I did 4.5 miles Tuesday, 7x400s Wednesday, 4.5 miles Thurs, and 8 miles on Saturday. Although this training plan calls for 5-6 days of running a week, so far I've been able to stick with it. That'll change while I'm on vacation next week, but I hope to get a lot of hiking and some trail running in.

I bought my first pair of trail running shoes earlier this week. The store had a limited selection and the pair that felt best on my feet happened to be bright lime-green. I guess a nice thing about trail running is that no-one will be around to see the shoes... and if anything bad should happen to me out there on the trail, it'll be easier for the search party to spot me.

It was a great idea to sign up for a Thanksgiving Day race, since with all of the visiting family and friends over the past month or so and the upcoming vacation - it's hard to avoid eating like a cow.

The ING Georgia Marathon has announced on their site that the races will now start and finish at Centennial Park. There will also be a staggered start by pace this year, which is all good news. I'm expecting that race to be a lot better organized this time. The hilly route is daunting, but I am on a mission to do the full marathon.

Enough rambling for now and onto another cup of coffee. Once all the saps who have to work today get their butts off of the road, I'm going to venture out to enjoy my Columbus Day!