Another busy week

Warning! My running is getting hi-jacked this week.
Did I ever mention that I used to do some diving?
Well, all the 'diving' I do no-a-days is in a 3ft deep garden pond
With a few goldfish that refuse to die off in the winter and numerous pond plants which were the real reason for the pond in the 1st place.

But actually it's been my job that's been keeping me crazy busy for the last little while. One more week of this, a final face-off with my industry clients and fellow scientists and then I'll be a free man once again. At least more back to normal with a little more time on my hands for running and scheming about running. I haven't even had time to come up with my plan of action or redemption to make up for Boston.

The clock is ticking for the Cabot Trail relay race on May 26th and there has been a slight development there for me. My team captain sent me an email last week, they had a dropout and now was wondering if I'd switch legs and take the North Mountain leg, pretty please?
My original leg #5 looked really easy with even a possible fast time with no big hills in the way. No problem, don't even have to train for this...
But leg 9 is a real challenge. That's a typo in the description. It's only a 385 meter (not km) climb in 6.2 miles before crashing down to 0 again on the 2nd half or 1250ft for the metric-ly challenged. I did this leg 3 years ago and could barely walk for a week because my quads were so thoroughly trashed. Of course you know what my reply was.
Sure, no problem, I'll start my hill training right now! Do I have sucker written all over me or what? Let's see, I've got 20 days and 2 or 3 good hill sessions should be enough to toughen up the legs, right? It's much like Boston in that it isn't the uphill but the downhills that will get me but at least the pain is over much quicker with only 17.8 km (11.1 miles) to do. It'll be fun.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I've got some decent running in over the last week. My cold is now totally gone and the paces of all the runs have been brisk with no extra effort. In fact, I've made a point of running easy and keeping the watch in my pocket so as not to be goaded into going too hard. Total of 40 miles in 5 runs with average overall pace of 7:50.

On tap for the morning is another Boyden Lake adventure with Andrew. We had a great 13 miler last weekend which he so nicely and accurately documented. Not sure what will happen this time around but I'll try to keep the tsk, tsks under control.