On Saturday morning, I went to Fleet Feet Sports to participate in the Winter Warriors Run. It is a nine week program that takes you through the nine coldest weeks of winter, and encourages you to run outside. We are currently in week five, and it seems that the group is getting bigger every week. We took off for a chilly three mile run around 8 am, happy that because of colder temperature, we would get more points for this run. The points transfer into entries for a drawing after the nine weeks, and the grand prize is $250 worth of Mizuno outer wear!

When we got back from the run, I was talking to Andy Roat, the owner of Fleet Feet Sports, and we were discussing a new run that was going to start at 10 am that very Saturday; a Resolution Run. Andy set up this run for people who wanted to either get into running, or those who were once runners and wanting to get back into it. I asked how many people signed up, and Andy said that he didn’t have a signup so he didn’t know if anyone would run.

I talked it over with my wife, and said I wanted to do the 10 am run as well. Julie is just getting into running, and had just completed her third Winter Warrior 3-mile run. I asked if she minded waiting almost an hour for me to run another two miles. I was happy and surprised to hear her say “I want to run it too.” This would be pushing her pretty far, as her longest run is four miles, and she had never ran twice in a day.

So we walked to a coffee shop, got a couple cups of liquid caffeine, and discussed the next run. We decided that since the route was pretty straight forward, I would use it as a training run, and Julie would run her pace. We finished our coffees and walked back to the running store.

There were about 10 runners total for the Resolution Run. We rechecked the two mile route and took off. It felt pretty good, and for running three miles an hour earlier, I finished the two miles averaging 8:48 a mile.

Julie came in not too long after I did, and after stretching and buying her new running shoes, we went for breakfast. We talked about the runs, and if we wanted to go to the gym later and do some swimming. We decided to take a little break, run some errands, and swim that afternoon. We made it to the gym later that day and did get our laps in, and I got to try out the new Garmin 920XT in the pool. It works great, but there are a few things that I have to get used to:

1. If you stop mid-lap, like I did when I stopped to see why Julie stopped (swim goggles were leaking), the 920 thinks you are done with the lap and it shorted me 25 yards.

2. The 920 does not include any distance for kick-boarding (there goes 100 yards).

But other than that, it was great. Now I need to learn all the information that it give me. I may soon know more about swimming than I ever cared to. 🙂

I have the next three days off work, so the plan is to swim, bike, and run … hopefully in that order.

Live healthy, be happy.

Travis