Last Long Run

The New Orleans Marathon is now less than three weeks away and if the popular training wisdom is true, I've put in all the work I can to be ready and it is time to taper.  On Saturday morning, I left the house with Nora a little after 10:00 and ran west up CR 38E.  We ran up to the south dam together where Nora took a right and ran across the dam and I continued west to run the loop around the reservoir following the March Madness (coming up on March 24 - more info soon) route.  It was a good 23 mile long run with a few stops and a very casual (yet still difficult) pace.  It was a beautiful warm day and I enjoyed the time to myself out on the trails. 
Saturday night, Maddie and I went to our 7th Butterfly Kisses father daughter dance.  This has been a February tradition since we moved to Fort Collins and it was so much fun to dress up, go out to a nice dinner and dance the night away with Maddie- you should see us doing the electric slide.

photo by Micah May

Sunday morning I ran the Fort Collins Running Club Tortoise and Hare 5K at Fossil Creek Park.  I was tired and sore from Saturday's run, but I figured it was good marathon training to run hard on tired legs, so I gave it what I had and ran 20:39.  It was not amazing, but not terrible either and it was fun to be out running hard with the tortoises and hares - and there was free coffee and bagels after.
Based on the training that I've done, past marathon experience, and some optomistic thinking, I am setting my marathon goal for NOLA at 3:15.