It's Thursday again! (It was, yesterday.)

Thursday seems to be the day when I realize, "gee, I haven't written a blog post for a while!" and turn myself to getting something down before the weekend. It also helps that some of the crush of the work week has dissipated, and I've also (hopefully) gotten a few good runs in since my last week's post.

Rather unintentionally, I've fallen into the pattern of running twice on the weekend (a long run and a 5K race the last two weekends) and then just two weekdays (e.g. Tuesday and Thursday). I'm not entirely opposed to continuing this for some weeks throughout the late fall and winter. On the one hand, it is a little burdensome to devote both weekend days to running. But on the other hand, dark, wet, stormy, dark early mornings are so difficult for me. Just getting up and out there is hard, but then when I do I am even slower in the dark than I am during daylight.

Well, I have double weekends on tap for the next two or three weeks, then we'll see.

Last Saturday was my second Halloween 5K, the YMCA Fall Classic in Monroe. The weather was even worse this week, so once again my sister and her kids opted out. So there I was, alone in my costume again. (Although my parents came.) Actually, I was glad she canceled. The weather was so ugly--only light rain but blustery--that I just wanted to do my 5K and leave (and not wait for the Kid's Run).

I did a two-mile warm-up wearing a plastic poncho. It was a little warm given that the outdoor temp was probably in the 50s. I ditched the poncho before the race began.

I had really hoped to go under 26 minutes, but didn't (although I improved my time from the week before). I ran my legs off as best I could, but crossed the finish line with 26:26 on my watch and a 26:22.8 chip time. I ended up fifth in my age group, which tells me all the fast women were elsewhere (probably the Snohomish River Run). If I'd been in the 24s (which I've done frequently before) I could have been second or third. (Not first, that woman was fast!)



Here we are at around the 2-mile point; I am in green at the back of the photo behind the guy in red. I would soon pass the octopus head lady.



The finish line stretch.



Crossing the finish line with the dancing runner!



That evening my sister had a little Halloween party so Eva could show off her fancy costume.








I couldn't resist putting my wings on Gretchen's dog, Nissa. She was amazingly cooperative.









Sunday morning I headed out for a 15-mile run. 15.63 miles, 10:15 average pace. I considered adding .37 mile to make it sixteen, but after standing around mentally debating it, I took a few more steps and my legs said no thanks, you are done. So I was.

I tried to stay away from the treats on Halloween and I pretty much did. not entirely. I've been dipping into the dark chocolate kisses that I bought to make these witch's hats. (The bases are fudge stripe cookies, with a ring of decorator icing and a kiss.)



My mom came over to keep me company on Halloween and we got almost 130 trick-or-treaters, including this bumblebee.



Here is the bumblebee last year....



I bought Swedish fish, Sourpatch Kids, Skittles, and Starbursts. Leftovers will be for long runs! Although I didn't have all that much in the way of leftovers. At one point I got worried about running out, and reined in my generosity considerably. At least for the bigger kids. The little ones still got two or three. I didn't run out.

I decided that in November I would up my game in the weekday runs. I'd only been doing 6-6.25 miles on weekday mornings...this month I'm shooting for 7-8. Realistically that means getting up at least half an hour earlier (because I've been straggling into work way too late).

On Thursday I followed through with eight miles, six of them at marathon goal pace (9:45). Actually, five of the six were around 9:30. That makes me pretty happy. (The irony of being thrilled with a 9:30 pace....)

Tomorrow (Saturday) I have 18 miles on the schedule!


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