10:58

So yesterday's sucky day at work followed Monday's sucky day at work. How come the phone never rings unless I'm on a deadline?

Along with that, I found out that my health insurance wasn't going to pay for some of my kid's bills leaving a few hundred for me to pay, the tickets for Deb's visit to see Paula Deen on Sunday never arrived and they have no record of my order and an on-line payment I made on the Amex card never got posted from a few weeks ago.

Oh yeah, and we had two uncarved pumpkins on the front porch.

I had all that going for me.

I got home after 6 and Deb was on her way out with the boys to get flu shots and pick up dinner. I declined to join her in those festivities, preferring instead the couch, the remote and pre-dinner snack. In her infinite wisdom, Deb suggested a run on the 'mill. "I wanna see you sweaty when we get home!"

Great idea. It had bee 10 days since my last run. I needed it and there was no time like the present.

The house was now quiet so I changed and headed down stairs to the basement to run. As I got started, I was feeling really good. Everything was moving right and there was no pain anywhere. I finished the first mile in just over 11 minutes. Pretty good, but I'd been there before, always to slow in the later miles. Two miles down in 22:15. Good pace, feeling good. Three miles in 33:15. Now I'm rolling. One more mile to go. Can I break an 11 minute average? My PR on the 'mill is 11:20 for 5k. In the last mile, I have to walk more than I had hoped, but I pushed the final half mile and finished at 43:53 -- an average of 10:58. Now that felt great!

I fired up the computer to log my time and found that my old PR of 11:20 was set in June. I've been struggling with the times since then, often running 12's or slower, even for shorter distances. I'm thinking that the weight loss over the past month -- about 7 pounds -- is finally showing up on the clock.

As I logged in my time, I also noted a couple of other milestones. That 4 mile run included my 500th mile since I started this program 15 1/2 months ago and 296 so far this year. Not bad!

But enough resting on my laurels. There are two months remaining in the year. I've definitely got 100 miles in me -- well, make that 104 to get to 400 for the year. Need to get serious for the Columbia Metric Marathon, just 32 days away!

L'Chaim!