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What a great week. The weather was great, Lizzie graduated Kindergarten, and I'm rocking and rolling on my training plan.

Let me start of by discussing my "yesterday". Yesterday really had everything that I loved the most. I got to run my favorite trail, I got to take my girls out to eat dinner at a nice restaurant, we took a family hike, and then we all ate ice cream outside on a nice summery night. It was also kind of fun because Jennifer straitened her hair, and I got to admit, I really liked it. :) I'll post some pictures to the photo album this weekend to share with those that that know about Jennifer's curly hair problem.

Lizzie Finishes Kindergarten
Ok, so, in a nutshell my yesterday was my favorite day of the week. Yesterday was Lizzie's last day of school so we all went out to celebrate her graduation (of Kindergarten of course). Jennifer told the girls that I had a big surprise for them after my run. Luckily she called me on my run and told me that I was supposed to play it up that I had a "surprise" for them. My run went great (more below), then I got home around 6pm or so. As soon as I pulled up, the girls came running to my car saying "DADDY, WHAT'S OUR SURPRISE?" Jennifer said that they had guessed nearly everything... "are we getting a new puppy?", "are we going to the pet store?", "is Mommy pregnant?", etc... It was kind of funny when I told them that we were all going out to eat and they got to pick where. Their reaction was like "that's it?". Priceless! Of course, I have extremely polite children, so they acted excited and said they wanted to go the place "where we can draw on the table"; which in grown up terms means Garfields. After dinner, we all went to the EarthWorks Indian Mounds for a late night hike before it got too dark. Once the sun had completely set, we all went to Dairy Queen for dessert and ate outside in our t-shirts on a nice summer night. I'll be sure to post pictures of our adventures this weekend.

Training Overview
For those that are interested, here is my week of training for my upcoming marathon it is from here on, so look away if you don't care. :) Let me start by saying that my favorite running is that which allows me to just get out and spend quality time with my thoughts; that is exactly what this weeks running was all about:

I took Monday off of running and spent it with my family for Memorial Day. My mom had burgers and brats on the grill and Jen and I took the girls over to hang with family. No core work, no nothing, just protein.

On Tuesday, I took an evening run in town on the YMCA bike path. It was a bit chilly, but once I got the blood flowing, I wanted to peel some layers, but kept them on and really worked up a nice sweat. The sunset was beautiful, and I could have kept running into the night.

Wednesday, I took off out the front door and ran down to Blackhand Gorge. Once I got to the bike path, I ran ~1.2 miles in, then turned around and came back. I had no goals for that run, so I literally just ran at a nice slow pace. I must say, however that I hate running on my roads out here though because people go about 70 miles an hour and don't pay attention. There is a nasty turn down the road from my house, and I had to literally jump off of the median at one point.

Yesterday was my favorite running day of the year I think. I woke up, worked most all morning in the recliner, then went out for my run around 4:00 pm. I decided to drive down to Marie Hickey trail with my Garmin and my water bottle. The trail was in it's prime. The poison ivy was fresh, the animals were all out and the sun was shining. I even stopped and took some pics on my cell phone because it was so beautiful to be out. I remember a statement that Kim said while she was running at Mohican; she said that the woods "cocooned around her". That is exactly how I felt at a few points.

Today was a great run too. I got home and headed up to run around my hill. I found out tonight that I have to run 6.5 laps around the back hill to equal a mile. Since I was out to run 4 miles, I winded up running 26 laps. Jennifer had the girls in town, so I was in no hurry. The sun was shining and I was feeling great.

I tried a couple of times to invited my girls on runs with me this week, but they declined each time. I just put them to bed tonight, and I asked them about running with me in the morning. :) They said they would, so I'm excited. Of course, I'll just treat it as a hike since I'm scheduled for a cross training day.

Sunday is my 11 miler and I plan to just run around the block while all the people are at church. I love morning runs around here; fresh field smells, dewy hay fields, etc... Looking forward to it!

To wrap it all up, next week will be all hot and sweaty running since I'll be in Orlando for TechEd!! I'm looking forward to these runs. It's always nice to get out and run in different cities. Luckily next week is a "down" week in my training schedule. Florida humidity is a bit much this time of year. :)

So there's my week of running and family goodness.