Running for chocolate

Here's a picture of our little tree, very much smaller than this one, being guarded by a Swedish Christmas goat.

We run for fitness, for PR's, for fun and best of all for food at the end of a nice long run. The promise today was for chocolate balls, a delicious family recipe for a Christmas treat which is basically an oversize chocolate with no redeeming value nutrician wise besides it's caloric and carb value. Think dates, peanut butter, icing sugar, coconut, combined with an egg and rolled in a chocolate... mmmm! I promised Andrew a special treat and this is what he got. He brought the Dunkin Donuts coffee and all was silent as we sat in my van chowing down. There was an odd number! Do you want the extra one I asked? "Sure !" he said snatching it quickly before I could say a word.

Another early 6am run at Boyden, this time with +2C, no wind and our friend Jonathan along for the ride. We cruised along very, very easily with the 1st mile at 9:05 and the fastest 16th mile of 8:08. There was lots of good conversation as we grilled Jon about his recent adventures at New York and his year of running. The roads were almost bare and I kept commenting on how few cars we met, in fact it was 7 miles in before we saw any traffic! I don't think we met a dozen cars on the entire loop which must be a record. After 17 we made a quick stop at the van to give Jon his treat while Andrew & I continued with a 3 mile out & back to get our 20. And then we savored our treats.

Week 1 of 18 is now complete. On Saturday I only did an easy 5 miles and so the Pfitz program was followed almost to the letter (unlike some folks) except for today's long run which called for 15 miles. Score is now Pfitz (6) - Andrew (1). Great week, total of 58 miles in 8hr 23 min, feeling good, legs and knee are fine but need to do some stretching to help the tight hamstrings.

Have a wonderful Christmas all with your family and friends!