Changes in Latitudes

Long story short, I missed my PR by 42 seconds. Darn!! But now I'll go back to the beginning. I had some great training weeks logging over 40 miles a week before we brought home Pancho. The last six weeks of training were average, but not stellar; at least not quite up to a standard for a PR as with my half-marathon training. And I think the problem was mainly that and that I didn't have as big of a breakfast as usual because I worried about feeling sick during the race. In addition, I read last night that poor core strength leads to poor posture later in the race thus setting off a chain of events that lead to muscle cramps in the legs. Friday before the race I worked a half day, and Marius and I loaded up the car and headed east to Oslo - an 8 hour drive from Bergen over the mountains. We gave Pancho a motion sickness pill, before we left only to realize too late that he should have taken the pill 90 minutes before we left. So he got sick in his cage, and then I had...

Last weekend (the first weekend of September), Marius and I were invited to join REN (Marius' old employer) on their annual trip. Previous trips that we were both included in were St. Petersburg, Paris, and Rome. This year was Budapest, and it happened about a week after the refugees and migrants made their way into Hungary. It was definitely adding a different perspective to the trip while we stayed in a 5-star hotel and ate a 5-course dinner. Pancho spent the weekend with one of my colleagues who also has a dog. It isn't too hard to find puppy-sitters right now since I work with animal lovers. And who doesn't love puppies? So Marius and I got in on Friday night and took a cab to the hotel with another couple on the trip. The European Cup soccer qualifier was that night, so our driver tried to go around the soccer hooligans and the possible chaos at the train station, but it was pretty quiet. We ended up driving by the train station a couple of times, but it wasn...