2012 Holiday Running Challenge! Who's game?

[Pheidippides]

They are tired. Did it in about 2:01.

Not bad at all, but maybe a touch fast if your marathon goal is +/- four hours. If there's one thing I've learned this year it's to go slow on the long ones.

[HBCoug]

Not bad at all, but maybe a touch fast if your marathon goal is +/- four hours. If there's one thing I've learned this year it's to go slow on the long ones.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

We are probably passing just north of Madison County, Iowa, home to the famous covered bridges of Madison County. The county seat here is Winterset, Iowa, birthplace of John Wayne.

We attended the covered bridges festival one year when we lived in Omaha. Very cool town, especially in the fall when the entire country is alive with brilliant colors.

I know I'm a few days late, but we recently passed through the land of my graduate school, Omaha. I imagine that we were fairly fortunate to have passed when we did, as the weather can be pretty nasty this time of year there. Our first year in Nebraska, 1997, there was an incredible ice storm over the Christmas break, stranding thousands of travelers as it coated that part of the state, as well as Western Iowa, in 2-3 inches of ice.

If we have any time to spare over the weekend and want a short break from I80, we could take a little side trip to check something off of my bucket list. Despite living just a few short hours away, I still regret not taking the short drive to Dyersville, Iowa to see the Field of Dreams. The deep, booming bass voice of James Earl Jones still haunts me today for likely missing out on my only chance to visit.

Does that mean I have to watch Bridges of Madison County tonight? If so I'm out.

[Pheidippides]

Happyone, this is your chance. I'm taking yesterday and maybe today off - probably only 40 miles this week. My ankle is achy and with 70 miles next week I need to be ifully healed.

[bluegoose]

Still no yellow blocks on the spreadsheet for me, as I stopped this morning's run .1 miles short of 10. I would normally have jogged around the car a few times to even the distance out, but the family had crepes cooking at home that wait for no man, runner or not.

[hostile]

8" of snow put a damper on running this am. I did ski, however. Hopefully things have melted by this afternoon.

[happyone]

Happyone, this is your chance. I'm taking yesterday and maybe today off - probably only 40 miles this week. My ankle is achy and with 70 miles next week I need to be ifully healed.

You could take a week off and I still wouldn't be able to catch up

That said after today, I'm only 40 miles behind

[Moliere]

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid...5198,36.430664

Currently still in Iowa. Hoping to get through the Quad Cities sometime early in the week. I spent 3 months in Bettendorf, IA back in college. Nice city, but I made more than one person mad when I referred to it as a "small" city. I guess when you live in farm country, the Quad Cities is the city.

[Pheidippides]

Lightning storm wiped out my 18 miler for yesterday, so I'm way behind pace now. Still, two full days of rest is probably a good idea going into this week. 70 miles, starting with 10 today in two spurts.

[Parrot Head]

I had my longest run ever over the weekend, 14 miles, and I felt a lot better than expected afterwards -- maybe it was all the pancakes at the ward Christmas breakfast right after that. I beat my previous half time by 13 minutes and this was presumably just a training run. The muscles were pretty tired and then spending close to 4 hours driving in the afternoon may not have helped much, but they're recovering. I had a short run yesterday and that helped to loosen them up though I feel like I have a paper cut under my left big toe. Man, this is fun.

And more exciting to me was that this run pushed me past my goal of 600 miles for the year. Thanks, niku, for the idea of mileage goals. At times I didn't know how I'd do it, but the past two months have been awesome and this challenge has helped me continue to rack up the miles.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I woke up at 5 to run, 3 inches of snow made me think watching Netflix was a better idea.

[PaloAltoCougar]

If people step it up a bit, and Topper gets around to posting his miles the past four days, we should be able to attend Jabari's announcement in person, and watch BYU's bowl game in a Chicago sports bar.

[Pheidippides]

I currently only have six toenails.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I currently only have six toenails.

I occasionally get dark toenails (I guess if when my shoes aren't tied quite right and the toe bangs against the end?), and my wife asks if I've been dipping into her toenail polish. I wish.

[happyone]

I'm burning up some use/lose annual leave, so I have a little extra time to add some miles. If Niku loses another nail, I might catch him

On a related note, I've lost 9 lbs since this thing started - down to 194