East Troy Run

I did a medium length run yesterday morning with Mile and Paul. Paul picked me up at 6:30 and we were unsure what the weather was going to bring us. On Christmas morning, it was -3 F, on this morning it was already 45 F. When Paul was leaving his house, he called and said it was pouring rain and wanted to know if we were still on for the run. I told him it wasn't raining here and the radar on the Internet showed mixed stuff. We decided to go for the run anyways.

We got to East Troy where Mike lives and met at "The Square". Again it was warm so we were all in shorts and 2 t-shirts. I found out way early in the run I should have just put on 1 long sleeve t-shirt as it was too warm with 2.

We started out at a nice slow pace of about 9:00 and we stayed together for about 2 miles. After that, I was feeling very sluggish and let Paul and Mike go ahead of me. Not long after that, Mike left Paul and we were all on our own. I could see them off in the distance but stayed at my slow sluggish pace.

Once we turned onto Cty D (about 5 miles into the run) I was feeling better. Paul was about 2 minutes ahead of me and Mike was way up there. I decided to pick it up and see if I could catch Paul before the end of the next 6 1/2 miles. Little did I know Paul was picking it up to see if he could catch Mike. Mike was running now in the lower 7 minute pace. I had dropped my pace over the last 6 1/2 miles over the hills to 7:50 which I was very pleased with but I kept getting further and further away from Paul and he was dropping it to the lower 7's trying to catch Mike. No worries, I still enjoyed the run.

Mike and Paul are running in 2 weeks at Disney World doing the Goofy Challenge. The "Goof" is a half marathon on Saturday and a Full Marathon the next day on Sunday. I did this 2 years ago and it was fun, Mike did it for the 1st time last year and Paul has done it every year they have had it. This will be his 4th "Goof"

Now I told you before how much of a Nut Paul is, 1 week after he does the "Goof", he will be running in the Icebreaker Marathon with me. He is also the one who challenged (and somehow got) me to do the "Heart of Texas Challenge". This will be 2 marathons in 2 days in Texas in Mid February. I have no idea what I got myself into by being friends with him. Well, I did say before I was insane so I will chalk it up to that.

And now for a little fun.

I also mentioned before how I like to go driving looking at Christmas lights, well, we drove past the local house I have given the "Clark W. Griswold" Lifetime Achievement Award to. I had my camera along and while it was foggy out, here are 2 pics of the house: These pictures really do not do justice as to the magnitude of lights this guy has. These 2 pictures are of the same house and you can see that in one picture, the house has colored lights all over it and the other one it has white lights all over it. It changes back and forth every 30 seconds or so. That big thing in the front of center of the yard looks like a waterfall with the lights blinking making it look like flowing water. Something must have happened to his big rotating globe he used to have displayed. It was missing this year but was about 6 feet in diameter.