Dog Days recap

It was quite a busy weekend.

Our deck project officially started on Saturday, although the deck itself looks very similar today as it did three days ago. Most of the last two days were spent clearing out all of the crap around the house and yard so we can start the real demolition work soon.

The running-related highlight of my weekend was Saturday's Every Dog Has Its Day 10K, otherwise known as "Dog Days". As is our traditon, a few of us started early in the morning and ran 15 miles before the race, at an average pace of about 8:00-8:30/mile.

I ran the all-downhill 10K in 37:17 this year. My memory must be slipping, because in my previous post I reported that last year's time was in the low 37s, but it was actually 36:49. So I'm a little slower than one year ago, but not by much.

My time in 2003 was 37:13, and three months later I ran my best race ever at Big Sur, so I'm right in that same ballpark this year.

(Curious readers will wonder why my Dog Days time in 2005 was faster, but my Big Sur time slower. There's a story there, too. But that's for a later post...)

So I'm pretty much right where I want to be for my spring racing season. There's still a lot of work to go, of course, but the race was a good assessment.

Attached is a picture of Saturday's race. That's me in white. The guy on the far left in gray is Mike Dove, the co-author of my Monterey Herald column. It's worth mentioning that the guy is almost 59 years old, did the same pre-race mileage that I did, and I only beat him by about 5 seconds in the 10K.

He's really amazing. Every day I run with him I feel like Luke Skywalker training with Yoda - there's no end to the things he has to teach, and he continually impresses me with his abilities at an advanced age.

This picture tells another story, too - one that I'll elaborate on in my next post.