What a crazy weekend. My wife is out of town so her sister and I played tag team on watching kids. I have 3 and she has 4 of her own (single mom even). She originally offered to watch all 7 for the entire weekend and give me some alone time, but I wasn't having any part of that. Instead, I picked up all 7, plus a friend of the oldest, and headed for the woods.

But not until after I got a long run in with my running partner. He had texted me and said he wanted to do 15 miles with 3 or 4 of them at a 6:30 pace. I said sure, why not? It was a great morning for a run. When it came time to pick up the pace, he began to leave me behind despite my Garmin reading 6:26. Eventually he slowed down, but so did I. I ended up with miles 12 through 15 being between 6:42 and 6:59. And our route ended up with 16 miles with an overall average of 7:27.

Then I showered, got last minute things together and went camping with 8 kids ranging from 2 to 12 years old. Saturday's forecast had showers and thunder showers in the forecast. Luckily we experienced both while there, but only mildly. I even managed to start a fire as it began to rain, thanks to a good tree canopy. Two packs of hot dogs and a package of marshmallows later, they were happy campers.

The good: Talking to the deer that looked at our pancakes forlornly, seeing the kids work out the tent arrangements without my intervention, and sleeping in a hammock with one of my daughters.

The bad: Watching my nephew fall out of a tree (though I semi-caught him). He was fine and back in another tree 2 minutes later.

The ugly: The bump on the 2-year-old's head that appeared after he threw a fit and learned that head butting asphalt is not the same as the carpet at home.

Mileage this week (still aiming for 4 minimum):
Mon - 4.13 in 31:34
Tue - 4.25 in 30:30
Wed - 6.37 in 48:40
Thu - 4.01 in 30:13
Fri - 4.14 in 16.14
Sat - 16.14 in 2:01:04
Sun - 4.18 in 32:40

See also: CAMPING SLIDESHOW

Last week was a family vacation in Florida's pan handle. I took the opportunity for some flat(ish) cycling and running. I biked a 50 mile loop on my first morning there. It was windy enough that the first half was tough, but the return trip felt good. In building up mileage for the upcoming marathon training, I did one long run of 12 miles at about 7:40 per mile. I felt pretty good, probably mainly due to a pretty flat route that paralleled the beach. That is about 15 seconds slower than I'll need for a BQ.

I did one more run that was meant to be a 5 mile tempo, but about halfway through the tempo part I wasn't feeling it and gave into the humidity. I still did 7.5 miles, but just slowed it down and enjoyed the scenery more. One more 32 mile bike ride and I felt the week's workouts were pretty good.

Though it is not running related, I did a vacation video starring my children (with cameos by some grown-ups).

The 16 week FIRST training program I am looking at using officially starts next week. For running, it calls for two days of speed (intervals & tempo) and one long run day. For cross training, I'll probably alternate between cycling and swimming two days a week.

The only scheduling challenge I hope to figure out is fitting in an additional long run with a running partner who is training for the same marathon, but for a slower pace. My long run pace calls for a good 30 or more seconds faster per mile than his plan (he is using Higdon). I'm thinking I may double up on long runs instead of one of the cross-training days. He is willing to do his long runs a bit faster than the plan says, so maybe every other week I can slow up some and meet him half way.

I'm taking it a bit easier this week. Sunday was an easy 11 miles. I'll do 5 or so tonight and maybe 7 on Thursday and Saturday with a bike ride somewhere in there. Good luck to everyone getting started on their training.

I just posted another video on YouTube. This is from our camping trip a couple of weeks ago. I don't want to persuade the opinions of any critics who haven't watched yet, but I think Emma steals the show again.

Here is the link to watch it on YouTube. I put this on because it actually shows a little larger there than in the version below. Enjoy.