Running in Circles

It was pouring rain yesterday in New Orleans and the region; the rain and wind actually caused some building damage around the region.
But for us, that means we had to--for the first time in the four months of marathon training--run inside at Loyola's Rec Plex.
Luckily, we only had to run 4 miles yesterday, or 32 times around the upstairs track. It actually was refreshing, in a way, to run in such a stable environment. I didn't have to worry about tripping over uneven or hilly sidewalks, and didn't have to deal with crossing cars.
But at the same time, I don't think I could do much more than 4 or 5 miles on the track in the gym. For one thing, keeping track of the laps gets difficult, especially when you are talking to someone. Second, running around a short track requires a level of mindless repetition that is hard to maintain for a long period of time. During the 14 and 16 miles I did by myself in NYC over Christmas, I got better at being able to "turn my mind off" and stop thinking. But a track offers no distractions at all from your mind. It is very hard to tune out while running the same route over and over and over and over....
But the run worked out pretty well. We actually maintained a pace much quicker than our normal pace, though we may or may not have excluded the final lap.

I've been getting great responses from friends and family who have begun checking this site for our updates and info on St. Bernard. Kathleen's post has some more info on it below, and here are the two important links for it:
Learn about St. Bernard Project
Donate to St. Bernard Project
Here's another pic from Shrockin. Jenn is in the middle with the sweet pigtails, and Liz, the founder of St. Bernard Project, is the blond at the bottom. Loyola volunteers are here with part of a family that they helped last fall.
-bob