Thsi weekend I as hoping to put in a 12-14 miler on Saturday and about 5 miles on Sunday which would have put me well over 40 for the week. However thigns didn't go exactly as planned.

Saturday I helped Heather move from her current apartment in East Falls to my place. Yes, for the first time in my 30 years I am living with a girl that isn't my Mom or my sister. It's alll good though. But this meant that from 8:00 am till after 6:00 pm I was moving stuff here and putting things away. My run went from 14 miles to 0 miles.

Saturday night I went out to a Christmas party telling myself I wasn't going to drink to much but sadly that went out the window with my sobriety and I woke up at 11:30 this afternoon feeling quite hungover. I am always angry with myself when I feel like I have wasted a weekend like this but this time I didn't sweat it and just tried to get myself into a state where I could go enjoy a run.

So two packages of Ramen, two cups of coffee and 2 hours later I went out the door. I had a hazy idea of where I waneted to go and 15 minutes later I was cresting the Bloody Nipple. Instead of heading up to Ford Road I cut into the woods just before the top and blazed my own trail for a few hundred yards before ending up on the Wooden Nipple.(The Bloody nipples hills organic and more runner friendly brother.)

I was feeling better at this point and starting to enjoy the run. A cloudy, cold afternoon that seemed to threaten snow but I knew it was a little to warm and a little to dry to happen. I tooled along on the trail and passed a Mountain Biker who struck up a brief conversation about how nice these trails were and he pointed me in the direction of some new trails, new to me at least.

Just off of the Chamonioux overpass of Ford Road I jumped on a trail that made it's way towards Belmont Mansion Drive. The path wound all over the place, there was hardly a straight portion. I eventually came to a field that somehow I had never seen before and followed the mountain biker's instructions to the path that went behind it. A 1/2 mile more and it spit me out near the intersection of Chamonioux and Belmont Mansion. I'll defintiely hit this path again.

I worked my way down to Montgomery and debated on looping over to the Art Museum but my stomach and head were telling me that might be a bad idea. So I just went down to MLK and back home. 9.5 miles in 80 minutes.

35 miles for the week including a trip to the track and a couple miles of tempo.

I like to give a big shout out to Seebo who turned in a huge 5 minute (I think) PR at the California International Marathon this weekend. I'll be looking forward to a race report from that.