Trying not to be a slave to the running log book

On Halloween morning, I was laying in bed with 193 miles for the month under my belt. I had a slight hangover from too much wine with friends the night before at Winslows Wine Bar in Fort Worth, and I promised Nancy I'd be in Austin by noon to care for Noah so she could get to school.

193 miles. Just one more run would give me an even 200 for the month. I mean, how could I leave the running log at 193 miles. Its like when you put gas in your car and it stops at $54.89. You keep squeezing until you are at $55.00

And besides, I'd never had a 200 mile month before. But I also had some aches and pains that needed some TLC.

So I didn't run. I didn't pad my running totals, but am still proud of the month, which is a record for me. I actually began the week with 171 miles after having gone 50, 41, and 46 miles in the three previous weeks. I only ran three times this past week, though, am feeling really fresh for tomorrow's DRC Half Marathon in Dallas.

My goals: 1:42 is totally doable without me throwing all the fuel on the fire. That would be a 7:45 min/mile pace. It may be a little warm and humid tomorrow morning, so I'd be totally okay with 1:42. It will be a magical day if I can run the half in under 1:40, which is about a 7:30 mile. And its not that I don't think I am capable of holding 7:30 for 13.1. But I know I am going to do the first half slow _ like 7:50 to 8:00 minute/mile slow _ and so breaking 7:30 may require me to run a little faster than 10k pace over the second half of the marathon.

Anyway, here are the running totals for the month and year.

October miles: 193.16 on 25 runs
Total time: 26 hours, 29 minutes, 17 seconds
Pace: 8:13 minutes/mile
Avg. heart rate during runs: 77 percent of maximum.

And for the year

2008 miles: 1,302.97
Total time: 7 days, 18 hours, 25 minutes, 10 seconds
Pace: 8:35 minutes/mile
Heart rate average: 79 percent of maximum