Contest Winner, Running, and Not Running

Thanks to everyone for switching over to my new web page. Yesterday was the deadline to enter the drawing for the book 50/50: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days — and How You Too Can Achieve Super Endurance!  by Dean Karnazes. I put all of the  names into a bowl:

I closed my eyes and pulled out a slip of paper:

Mark T is the winner! Mark writes a blog over at Thompson Training Journal. He is a super speedy swimmer who started running last year and is signed up for the Stillwater Half Marathon in May. Congratulations, Mark! I will catch up with you and mail you your book so that YOU, TOO, can have super endurance!

I was getting some really good runs in last week in the ice and snow thanks to my “Get a Grips.”

I’ve had them for a while but, to be honest, I was a little leery of trying them. They have little carbide pegs that come out, and I was worried that if I ran a route that wasn’t totally snow covered that it would be hard to run on the pavement. Silly me! These things are awesome! I should have been using them since the moment I bought them. Other than making a little noise, I don’t notice them at all when I run on the pavement. Best of all, it is wonderful to run on the packed snow and ice and not lose a little grip with every step. I also ran in them in 3 or 4 inches of snow and they were great. So, thanks to the Get-A-Grip, the snow didn’t frustrate me quite as much.

I ran on Thursday, lifted on Friday, and did something the rest of the weekend that I’ll tell you about in a second. I had planned 8 to 10 miles on Sunday, BUT I have a cold in my chest and decided I better not run. Every year around this time, I get a chest cold. Usually I am training for something, so I go ahead and run anyway. I’ve had pneumonia twice and bronchitis more times than I can count. Is it because I kept running while I was sick? I don’t know, but I’m tired of it. I’m not training for anything big right now, so I’m taking a few days off. Will I still get something terrible? Probably, but I’m going to give the rest thing a try and keep my fingers crossed.

So what did I do the rest of the weekend? Mike, the kids and I took a scuba diving class! We are going to Aruba this spring, so we thought it would be fun to get scuba certified while we were there. We took the class room and pool portions here this weekend, and now when we go on vacation we are ready for our open water dives. Here we are after completing all of our pool training:

Katy is my “buddy”, so here we are underwater.

It was very fun and it was great to do something with the whole family. It’s also great to look forward to some warm weather actitity! For now, I’m hoping to kick this cold to the curb in the next day or two so that I can get back to running in the ice and snow.