A low tempo 200th post

Nothing extraordinary about today. I was supposed to do a speedwork day, and the assignment was hills. I don't want to do hills, there aren't real hills in my neighbourhood, plus isn't Chicago flat? I figured I survived the big heat wave and I'm just happy to go out for a normal, run of the mill, run. (by the way, it's soooo much cooler! 23 degrees this morning)

So instead of a speedwork session, I did a 10K (6 miler) that before this marathon training began were the meat and potatoes of my weekday routine. Instead of running tempo pace, which is anywhere from 4:15 to 4:30kms I chose to stick close to 5 minute kms. Which is fast, but not even my marathon pace.

Oh yeah, the 200th post. That really crept up on me. I've been blogging since December, 2005, not really expecting much but a way to track my runs and to have a place where I could write (or on certain days, not). I used to rave to R. whenever I figured out that someone from outside my circle had checked my site.

Now, 200 posts later, I feel like I'm part of something more. The running blog world is not a massive community, but it's a passionate and compassionate one. We come from different walks (or jogs, strides?) of life, we haunt trails only known to our shoes. We hail from cities, from small towns, from rural areas. We live in hot climes, in froster areas. We love Asics, Saucony and every other brand name(does anyone like Nike?). We train for a marathon, a key race, or just to keep on going. We write our daily log, and we check each others, giving each other encouragement.

I started this blog knowing that my Chicago marathon training was on the horizon. Now, in addition to running the marathon with two friends of mine, I feel like I have a bigger group. All of a sudden, a daunting race of 40,000 people has turned into a run with a good bunch of people (rounded up in nicely by Bob).

I've worked in publishing for a long time now, from putting out weekly university newspapers, to quarterly magazines, from working as a cog on big dailies to running a by-the-second news site. The thrill of publishing has been in my blood, dating back to my grandfather, who penned books and newspaper columns in another era. But in my editing and writing life, I never really covered something just for me. Until December. Until now, for the 200th time. Thanks for checking in.