Back home from Denver

My business trip to Denver was great!

It was the optimal mix of business and pleasure. I got to see so much, meet so many people, enjoy a useful conference, hang out with great friends and even run a really fun race. And I even set a PR for my 5 miler by about 10 minutes (my previous 5 mile races have always been closing in on an hour).

I finally was able to find my Cherry Creek Sneak 5 mile results and learned my chip time was: 46:17, this means my pace was a blistering 9:15! And this race was at altitude. Imagine what I could have done without

a) the pre-race 3 mile jog...to the race site
b) the headwind (which there definitely was one even though all the other runners said it was a protected course!)
c) the lack of oxygen:-).

Well perhaps this will help as I try to run the Frederick Marathon this weekend in a sub 5 hour time (well unless I take too many side trips...I know the course goes right by a Fractured Prune Donut and a Bruster's Ice Cream; why do race directors challenge me so much??)

I am really bummed this trip is now over, although it is nice to be back with the whole critter family. The dog was excited to see us when we picked him up from Billy's house (the old english sheepdog we babysit). And became even more excited when we took a side trip to Brusters Ice Cream and Yogurt to partake in "second scoop free" because it was raining.

And reality will set in tommorrow when I deal with my expected pages and pages of e-mails...I am one of the statisticians hired specifically in preparation for a potential pandemic influenza and as the swine flu has gotten more and more publicity over the past several days I am very afraid of my workload...but I am a 100 miler so I am tough!

In fact tommorrow I may have an abbreviated workday because my re-scheduled procedure from back in March is to be tommorrow. After this, I will have to make the decision if I should simply take the rest of the day off or if I should work slightly loopy. My baseline is slightly loopy so I might just gut it out:-)