Week of (insert dates here).

Only 10 weeks until Solstice!

Monday- Day off. I don't run on Monday. Call it a tradition, superstition or laziness, but Monday is my day off. Rest is underrated. For all of you who run 7 days a week ("streakers," I believe), consider this - even God took Sunday off.

Tuesday - I was supposed to run 6 easy miles but I only ran 5. It was hot and windy, my IPod ran out of juice and I got bored with my weekly pavement run. With a long day planned for Saturday, and prime numbers being preferable, it was easy to justify cutting some miles...

Wednesday - Ran "Brian's Loop." I'm sure Brian wants to know how this loop came to be named after him. Well, it was his GPS watch that determined the distance as 7.5 miles, and it's the only run that I can put an exact mileage on. If this loop were 9 miles, I'd run 9. Instead it's 7.5 and that is good enough for me. Also, this loop is about as long as I like to run without water. (an astute reader of my blog has already learned several great excuses for shortening runs, but this is my favorite. Who can argue with dehydration?). If I round the 7.5 down, I'm left with a prime number!

Thursday - 4 miles at practice, flat and slow. (I told everyone in the FCTRs that it was 5 miles, to sound cool). 2 miles w/u for HTTT + 5 at HTTT. Summit in 28:57 via Rock trail and Soderburg shortcut. Total of 11 for day, (solid prime number). I stood on top of the rock for 10 minutes, during last years HTTT I couldn't handle the exposure for 10 seconds. Exposure training is paying off, but I don't see Long's Peak in my future. Perhaps if I took off my high heels, I'd feel more stable (yes, I understand that this may be offensive to women.)

Friday - Friday is like Monday, with the addition of a few miles. The goal is always to make the weekend easier. Sometimes this means running a few miles, sometimes it means standing for 7 hours at a track meet - this week it meant doing both. 3 miles - and another prime number!

Saturday - Most of Golden Gate Dirty Thirty course. Thanks to the ingenious State Parks service, who has decided to mark trails with footprints rather than names, I learned all about the feet of Mule Deer, Snowshoe Hares, Mountain Lions and Black Bears. This was a fun day with 2 people who'd probably rather not be associated with me, and will thus remain nameless. If the Forest Service rangers followed the Bush Doctrine they would have preemptively sent search and rescue, based on how many times we showed up at their huge pick-up trucks, lost and asking for directions.

Sunday - I forgot to turn off yesterday's 5:45am alarm so I was up atypically early. I ran for about an hour, I'd guess it was 7 miles (I need 7 to hit my mile-goal for the week, so 7 it is). Once home I immediately fell back asleep. Woke up at noon and had a typical American lazy Sunday. It was great. Prime number!

Summary - I ran 6 days this week, and managed to hit 5 days of prime numbers. This is an arbitrary way to measure success in running, but I've found that if I measure in miles, time or effort I end up disappointed. By choosing to make prime-number-mileage-days the most important factor (pun intended) of a running week I've totally removed the incentive to run fast or far. I just plod along for 3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37,41,43,47 or 53 miles. If I hit one of those numbers, SUCCESS!

Am I excited that Run Rabbit Run actually measures to 101 miles?! YOU BETCHA.