Easy 5

It's been relatively cold this week. Thursday it hailed, then cleared up at night and was frigid and star filled when we ventured out for and easy 5 miles. It took about 2 slow miles to warm up and the shin didn't like it much, but after that I pushed the tempo up into the low 9s and kept it there for 2 miles, even on the inclines. Andy had been running backwards for a good while, so he struggled just a little, but for me it felt great, and so easy. For the first time, I could imagine keeping up that pace for a good long time. Not a 26 mile long time, but luckily I have another few months before need to start imagining that.

Some non-runner friends are running the 10k with us tomorrow, so we're going to try to stick together for a nice slow first loop (3 miles) and then hit the gas at our own paces for the second 3 (thanks Phil, for the game plan). We hope to beat them by a satisfying margin since we can't manage to pummel (or scrape by) them at Scrabble, even though, as writers, we gloat about our superior verbal skills, and even though one of them is from Spain and not a native speaker. In Spanish they would doubly kill us, getting 50 point scores while we floundered around making words like gato and hola.

Regardless of the outcome, it should be a fun morning. The run goes through Chinatown and North Beach, up along the waterfront to the Ferry Building, and back around. And if we don't beat our friends in the race, we'll still have one more chance - to win the betting pool at their Oscar party afterwards.