Sunday, December 06, 2009

The Moose are Back!

It was a great day for a run, once we shoveled our respective driveways and made our way over greasy roads to the usual meeting place at Boyden Lake. We had our 1st real taste of winter overnight with about 5-6 inches (10-15cm) of nice fluffy but sticky snow to deal with.

I was initially little nervous about going out in this and so sent a couple of emails/tweets to Andrew with my waffling noises. Need to check the roads, time to try out the new snowblower, maybe we should wait another hour...

But finally I get this message:

The snow blower is fine...get your maple leaf over here. I didn't drive 5 hours to have a little snow flurry keep you home! Marc



"Uh, OK, yes Sir, Captain Marc!" You see, the missing Blind Moose came up to visit and there's no stopping him once he gets going, and so there was no choice but to get going and make the trek.
The co-conspirators...
I was glad I made the trip and we had a great run, although it seems the running is often secondary when we get together because the stories, politicking, and jokes run fast and furious. They were really bad today with the dog jokes and blond jokes which will never be retold by me on pain of severe punishment and a permanent chocolate ball ban. Andrew did retell his 3rd chicken joke and it was even worse in the retelling. However, I think that Marc did get it because shortly after he was crossing the road and heading deep into the woods (I'm not kidding here).

It was a nice 13ish mile run and we were joined by Jon (what's his name) at the beginning for a few miles and saw Stephanie A just starting out at the end of the run. The roads were a little slushy and the snow kept building up on the soles of my shoes, causing my running style to be more of a scuffle/kick and drag your feet sort of a pace.

Lately my running has been slow, very easy low mileage with only 20-30 miles per week. Curiously my total for last week was exactly 26.2 in 3hr 55 min and Andrew had an interesting theory on this. "Aha, you're in 3:55 marathon shape because your fastest (and my only) 26 miles predict that." I wish that was so, but know that I need to start upping the mileage over the next month so that I can really get started on the training for the spring marathon.

That's all I got, need to run more so I can run more. Makes total sense doesn't it? Have a great week!

7 comments:

Andrew said...

Great run Mike! It was good to have all of us there at once!

Thomas said...

The missing Blind Moose has returned? Go tell.

Btw, it makes perfect sense to me.

UMaine Cooperative Extension said...

Mike - Thanks for coming south of the border and making my trip a great one! Great run and great getting together after lo the se many months. Looking forward to winter running camp. Give my best to Joanne. Marc

Grellan said...

Great to see all the Moose back on the road. Is this a sign that you are all are targeting the same Spring marathon?

Ewen said...

Hope Marc didn't cross the road to throw up the piece of chicken stuck in his throat ;)

Photos make it look like a proper Christmas run - somewhat different to our dusty 30+C runs. Time to dig out the studded shoes me thinks!

It does make total sense - running is fun!

Sonhasrisenrunning said...

Mike it's great to see your training going so well after your surgery a while ago. Good to see the old gang back together again! God Bless!

Dawn - Pink Chick Tris said...

Dropped by to wish my fav Eastern Runners a Happy New Year and look there's a butt shot on your blog. You haven't forgotten me...lol.