The Rowe Family Blog

I often see strange things while running though I’m rarely in any sort of danger.  One run stands out in my mind as being packed full of notable events.  I was running along the Erie Canal Trail as I often do.  Unfortunately I was alone for this run, abandoned by friends and coworkers.  They missed out on an eventful run and also don’t believe all of my stories.

The run started out normal until I saw a what I initially thought was a large snake swimming in the canal directly towards me.  Read the rest of this entry »

On our way back to Orlando from Treasure Island we decided to take a slight detour to see Clearwater Beach.  Donna has been there many times but we hadn’t so we wanted to see what it was all about.  We had considered staying in Clearwater instead of Treasure Island.  You could say we were researching future vacationing possibilities. Read the rest of this entry »

The most important type of run while training for a marathon is, not surprisingly, the long run.  The goal is to get out and run for very long distance so that your body can adapt to the distances and running for such a long period of time.  Nearly all marathon training plans will have you run a long run once per week.  The training plan I’m following for the 2008 Marine Corps. Marathon calls for four 20 mile runs.  Those are the longest runs in the plan.  I prefer to get some runs in before the race at 22-24 miles in length.  When the plan calls for a 20 mile run I plan to do a minimum of 20 and hope that I feel good enough at the end of the run that I can add a couple of miles.  This weekend was one of those runs!

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After spending a couple of days in Miami we packed up and headed North to Treasure Island.  Treasure Island is the actual name of a town.  It’s not a theme park or resort.  It’s weird, I know.  It’s just a few miles South of Clearwater Beach.

On the recommendation of a friend we stayed at the Bilmar resort.  Read the rest of this entry »

The second part of our vacation was to spend a couple nights in Miami with Donna.  Read the rest of this entry »

For one of our nights in Miami Donna watched Cassie while Mary and I walked around town. When we got back Cassie was asleep (Donna is an excellent babysitter!) and had left us a note:

Dear Ma Ma and Pa Pa,
While you were out Aunt Donna taught me excellent penmenship.  I wanted to thank you for my excellent day.  You let me go topless in Miami in the best sand box ever.  I really loved scrubbing off Mommy’s skin.  My nap under the palm tree with Da Da was a gift.  Oh yeah, I also really loved my nite with Aunt D.  I clapped all nite and only farted once.  For this great day you gave me I will reward you by saying “raar” on command.

Sincerely,
Cassie Bear

Yesterday, at around 1 PM I hit a new milestone in my running “career.”  I ran my 1,000th mile in 2008!  In 2007 I didn’t keep a full record of the miles I ran.  I’ve crushed my mileage for 2007 and I still have 3 months left in the year.  I expect to post high mileage (for me) for the next 1.5 months.  After the big day my mileage will drop but I’ll probably keep it around 30-40 miles per week.

I haven’t been posting much about running.  I’ve been running.  A lot.  I’ve been roughly following my training plan since returning from vacation.  This year has been fantastic.  During my runs my effort hasn’t increased but my times keep dropping.   That’s not to say that training is easy for me.  It takes up a lot of time, is tiring, and makes me incredibly hungry.  The time I spend running is time that I almost always enjoy…except maybe the last few miles of 20 mile runs!  It’s tiring but that helps me to sleep well.  I’m hungry and eating like crazy but not gaining any weight.  For many people that’s a dream come true (if that’s your dream then just start running!).

My most important runs while training for a marathon the long runs.  Read the rest of this entry »

I had expected flying with Cassie to be difficult but it turns out that she did a lot better than I did.  When the plane took off she went to sleep!  It was a long, tiring, and irritating day of travel for me that had nothing to do with Cassie.

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Recently I rented a car from Alamo for a family vacation.  I was amazed at how successfully car rental companies rip people off.  Some of the ways are obvious and some are not quite as obvious.

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