Having a wife is neat.

I am mostly recovered from a bout with Lyme Disease. I will take my last pill this coming Thursday. While the effects of the illness appear to be gone, I am still recovering from the hiccough in my training that it caused. I ran 2o miles last Tuesday and it nearly did me in. My body wanted to quit after 8 miles, but my brain wasn't that SMRT.

This coming Saturday is a 10K in Kasson, MN. While not a true 'rematch' of the 5K Shamrock Shuffle, it will be the first time since then that mumblingsages and I will be in the same race. He is training for the 10K and I for the Marathon at Whistestop in Oct. Neither one of us is "ready" for a headtohead on Saturday. He runs faster splits than me, but has never run a complete 10K distance. I run much farther on a regular basis, but to do so I run much slower.

The sage claims he will just 'run his race' and not care what I do lest he hurt himself and mess up his chances for a strong 10K at Whisltestop. While I applaud the sentiment, 1) I don't believe him. 2) he should be on notice that I am bound by Community Fun Run Rule #23.

Community Fun Run Rule 23) If Mark is in your race, beat Mark.

Yesterday I had 6 miles(10K = 6.1 miles) on my training calendar, so I decided to push myself and see how I'd do. I finished in 50.13 mins, one of my splits was my first post-Lyme sub 8 min mile. I was feeling pretty g00d until I checked mumblingsages' log for the day. He had done 5.14 miles in 41.13 mins. Three of his miles were sub 8mins. This made me a little nervous. At his pace he would beat me by a full minute.

When I expressed my concerns to Lisa, my lovely wife, she was able to put everything in perscpective. I told her Mark's time and she said "Yeah, but that's not 6miles".

Ah Clarity! She is absolutley right. Yes I will have to push myself. Yes I will be sucking major wind. But I have a lot more reserves in the tank. I just have to be willing to use them earlier in the race.