Where did I leave off?

Oh yeah so you all saw my busy week, and so far this week is no exception. Monday started off with a bang. I had planned on going outside, but last week I told myself I refuse to ride outside with multiple layers on. Well guess what. It was again only 30 degrees. Bummer I thought!!! So I climbed on the trainer and did a Coach Troy DVD. Those suckers never get old. Afterwards I got my car inspected (it was due 2 weeks ago) and got to visit mom and dad for about an hour. I had promised them lunch, but things were running late and I had to rush off to the airport instead. My friend Mike picked me up (he's working here with me), and we headed to PIT. I was so hungry as always, and ordered a ton of food at TGI-Friday's, but it took forever to come, and I had to leave half of the meal on the table or we'd miss our flight. Mike and I rushed to the gate since the board said the flight was "on time", but of course it wasn't. They finally boarded the plane about 20 minutes late and not even 2 minutes after everyone boards the pilot comes on the overhead speaker and gives us one of those office space talks. You know one of those talks that goes "Hello, Peter. What's happening? Uh, we have sort of a problem here. Yeah, you apparently didn't put one of the new cover sheets on your T.P.S. reports." But instead it was "Ummmm, ya, we sort of have a problem here. We were given a ground delay and we're going to be stuck on the runway for at least another hour." All I kept thinking was that salad and french onion soup I left sitting on the table at Friday's half eaten. Thanks again US Air. So after an hour of sitting on the plane doing absolutely nothing, we were off to Laguardia. We had a really big lay over so we had about an hour to kill in New York. I was still hungry so Mike and I went to this little Irish pub. We both ordered a beer and a cup of soup, and our bill came to $24.78. You have to be kidding me I thought. The soup was terrible by the way. It was one of those soups where you could just tell it's been sitting around forever. Our plane to Manchester was exciting. We flew on this little prop plane that couldn't of held more than 15 people. It was loud, bumpy, and an awful flight. Plus I think our flight attendant was smoking crack. She was all wired, and making very weird comments to the passengers. Now that I think of it, it was actually entertaining. We finally made it to Manchester, and found a local bar and watched the Pen's game. Pen's won AGAIN and are up in the series 3-0!!! I'm sooo pumped.

So today went well. Mike and I are staying in this Hilton Garden Inn that overlooks a minor league baseball field. Here's a picture from my window. There was a game tonight and I've been watching it on and off. I'm not a very big baseball fan, but it's sort of cool watching it high above the outfield.

So now for my big run of the day. My longest run of my training so far. The type of run that separates the men from the boys. Yep the 20 MILER!!! I've run plenty of 20's so far, but typically I'll run at an easy pace well off of my marathon pace. Today however was an exception. Coach wanted me to do the run in zone 2, and negative split the last couple of miles. As it turns out I was consistent every mile, and kept every mile within 10 seconds. Not really sure if I negative split the last couple, but I know it was close. I started to get a little sore about 17 miles in, but simply blocked out the pain and pushed on. If you're ever in Manchester staying in the city, I recommend running a variation of this route.

posted by Chad Holderbaum @ 8:33 PM Comments: 3