Single parenting, training with Riley, and The Hill

Kelly is off working down in sunny Florida so my training has been less than stellar this week. Instead I have been training with Riley. She's got the L.L.Bean 4th of July 1 Miler coming up so she's been getting ready. Seriously. On Monday she went out and ran a mile with Kelly. Yes, at 3 1/2 years old she had enough focus and stamina to run a mile. Even more remarkable, she took time to stretch and do jumping jacks when she got home. Boy was I the proud Dad. Now don't get the wrong impression; we are not forcing her to do this. She has been asking to go for a run so we finally obliged, thinking it was some passing fancy and she would stop after a few feet. Nope.

So she took Tuesday as a rest day and was back at it yesterday. I threw Quinn in the jogger and Riley ran about a mile next to the jogger. She would have kept going but I made her stop once we got to the end of our neighborhood and hit the more traveled road. I then set off, with both kids in the jogger, to the playground at the local school. All told, Riley got in another mile and I got in just under 12 yesterday, combining a lunch run with the 5.5 I ran with the jogger. What a great workout pushing 70 pounds.

So far this week has been pretty quiet on the running front. Until today, I have got some pretty solid runs in. Monday I felt real sluggish after the tough weekend, but by Tuesday things seemed to be working again. Today I took off due to a busy day at work and because of some allergy/head cold thing that popped up this morning. Hopefully it is nothing and will be gone before I attempt my ascent of Mount Washington on Saturday morning. As the saying goes, "there is only one hill." To get to the top I will have to run 7.6 miles and climb nearly 5,000 feet. So by my estimation I will be anaerobic for about an hour and a half. See you on the other side.