visibility

on thursday night my gf and i drove to iowa for a wedding that was taking place on friday night. one of her cousins got married and there were around 300 people at the wedding. on saturday i went golfing with gf's dad and her brother. i beat her dad the first round we played together, last year, ooops. this time he beat me handedly, which was kind of a relief frankly. i had fun out there despite my struggles.

dudes, i was getting some pressure from her extended family! when was i going to buy the ring, they would inquire. and, "gf's finger is looking pretty naked there brent!" heh. i expected some comments but it was more than i was anticipating; i guess they are ready for me to join the family!!

similar to those several hour long-runs, a person has an awful lot of time to think about life while on the golf course. the air was thick and the sun was beating down on us firmly. nobody was pressing us from behind so we pretty much took our time on the course.

somewhere in the middle of the front 9 while i was searching down another mis-hit iron, it hit me. i had just finished a 13-miler in the iowa heat the previous morning, around 9:40 avg pace (hitting some 8:40's on the last few miles however), with an average heart rate of 135.
it was hard to let myself think it, but i couldn't help it. i think i might be in the best shape of my life right now. i rarely say that sort of thing let alone think it, but i let my guard down for just an instant and relished in that thought. i'm surely not as thin as i have been in the past, but i guess i'm at the point where i can throw down half-marathons in the heat and it won't wear me out to the point where i can't function for the rest of the day. it just feels like another training run. i find that totally satisfying. i guess i'm a runner.

ok, after that brief interlude i bring you back to my standard m.o. whereby i'm very hard on myself, and am rarely satisfied with my performances, my training runs, or my weight loss progress!

due to the wedding and the travel, my running schedule was all off. i decided to wake up early on friday morning to get in my 13-miler instead of running the scheduled 5-mile "recovery" run. my gf's sister-in-law said dude, why are you getting up so early to run, do you have a race coming up or something? i said, YEAH, its in October. you better believe it baby!!

unfortunately i ended up skipping my 5-miler altogether. i could have squeezed it in on sunday but i felt like poo from all of the driving and the less-than-ideal eating that took place over the weekend. back to the schedule now. back to it!