[30 minutes, good pace]
It was a gorgeous blue-sky day yesterday and the air was dry. I did a short, tempo run since today is the long run...[19k, I believe]. I tried out my new Asics and they are great. It's the most money I've ever spent on a pair of running shoes (with the water proof spray, $193). I can't believe I spent that much money on shoes. Hopefully, this will help my knee. I read an article about IT band problems and it said that those who suffer from this injury often suponate which means, that their foot doesn't complete the roll inward that it should and so therefore, shoes allowing for more movement will help the problem...well the Sauconys that I had been wearing were very stable - so these Asics should help as they are very flexible. Let's hope this theory stands up.

Well, if you think my posting here has been irregular - that's because my running has been too.

I just got back from spending 10 days in Ireland - 5 of them on a bicycle. I did a cycle tour of the county Kerry (beautiful - highly recommend) which averaged about 50km per day, so although I wasn't running, I was still conditioning.

I ran 10km yesterday - very slowly with Cynthia. We did it in about 1 hour 5 minutes. The week before I ran 8km with Stefan in 45 min. Quite a difference! I don't mind going slow, though, because I know that will help me avoid injury. This Sunday is going to be the true test of knee and the rest of my body as we are running 23 km. I'm completely breaking the 10% rule (don't increase more than 10% each week in mileage or speed). Oh well. Can't be helped, now that I have this slacker mentality when it comes to marathon training.