I serve the Fairy Queen

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;

Man, I think I need to hit the trails when I get back east.

I almost, almost punted this morning. The flight last night got in about 90 minutes late, so I left the airport well after midnight, got to the hotel after 1, and collapsed into bed about 1:45, taking into account the need to despin.

Then, the fire alarm goes off at 3. Yep, I kid you not – after not sleeping well the night before, I had taken about 15 seconds to drop straight into deep sleep once my head hit the pillow.

So, we’re standing outside waiting for the fire truck to arrive. Bunches of disoriented folks in various states of PJs or crumpled clothes pulled off of the floor. After a half hour or so, the night manager goes and calls them again, and, no lie, the fire truck got into a wreck on the way over. So, they’re having to sortie one from a neighboring fire district, which arrives after we’ve all been standing around for a half-hour or so.

So, I hit the rack at 3:45, needing to wake up about 0700 to actually start working. No way was I going to get up at 6 to get in a run.

Today at work – absolutely great. F’n phenomenal – good results and loads of new opportunities. Got back to the hotel, and instead of collapsing, went to do today’s three in the office park. Was doing pretty well until I rolled my ankle at about mile two.

Probably the greatest lesson I’ve learned in Augustathon is when to say “Enough”. I walked the last mile, and will be able to run again tomorrow morning.

Had a chat with someone. You may have seen part of it earlier. Anyway, he asked what my race plans were for the rest of the year. Here goes:

• Probably do the last Terramuggus next week, even though it WILL suck, as I haven’t been swimming or riding. There’s a better than even chance this will get dropped, as next week will be killer at the office
• New Haven. My goal there is to run in the same vicinity of April Anne as long as I can until she drops me, and then try to hold on to beat Jon. ‘Cause if I don’t, there won’t be any more ChaBaso bread when I finish
• I’ll probably do another half on a not-to-interfere with real life basis
• November/December will be the start of Marathon training for the OKC Marathon, and a chance to run with my baby brother
• A guy at church has hatched an idea in my head of a 20 mile race they do on the Vineyard in February. This has the intriguing qualities of: a) being somewhere I’ve been looking for an excuse to go; b) being potentially positioned well as a marathon tune-up race in about enough time to get my stamina safely up to 20 miles, and enough in advance of OKC to let me get some serious training in after this long run; and c) an excuse to say ‘the Vineyard’ and sound like I belong up here
• And my long-term goal is the Oklahoma City Marathon on 29 April, 2008. I’m committed, too, as I’ve just redeemed my first set of frequent flier miles ever for the ticket to the race. That, and my little bro, the barrister, has a couple of pounds to lose (but don’t we all).

So that’s it in a nutshell. Five more days and this is a habit. Then I start working on getting up consistiently at 0500, on purpose.