Another good year

I finished the year of running on an up note. But first the headlines:

• I took Mrs. T to the movies last night and we watched Babel which was an intriguing study of four families running into a lot of bad luck; each linked in some bizzare or non-bizzare ways.
• Son T went out late last night. That was normal but my cell phone beeped at 330am and it woke me up. I tried to call him back but he didn't answer. When I came home from running he wasn't home and I started calling his cell phone every hour to see if he was alive. He had turned the phone off. He finally showed up at noon. I don't use text messaging often enough to have realized he'd told me he was crashing at some girl's house.
• I am sunburned. I laid out by the pool reading a consuming fiction book, Wild Fire, yesterday afternoon. It was as good as it gets. I haven't laughed so much reading a book in years, if ever. I like my new color too.

So back at running: I woke up right at 700 which was too late to join the Sunday bunch. I ate a Cliff bar, had a bottle of water, packed my cooler and set off to Park Avenue. I got there 25 minutes late.

I entertained delusions of catching the group but resolved this was a good day to get in touch with my pace and form on my terms. I did a lot of that today and still managed to cross paths with Cathy, Rachel, Bob and Chris, though none of them were running in my direction.

I covered 11.3 miles in 1:43:57 which was the fastest pace (9:22/mile) I have covered all year in a training long run. That made me happy.

Everybody be careful tonight. Look out for the amateurs.

Final numbers for the year:

• Miles - 932; Lifetime (since 1999) - 4,445
• Average Week - 17.9 miles; Month - 78 miles
• Races - 2 Marathons (my first ever), 1 half, 1 20K, 1 10K and 3 5Ks. No PRs