It is time to ask you once again for some recommendations and it is also time to update the iPod library with some new tunes. I have mentioned Webjay & Doppler before but I am seeking for some input from all of you.

I plan to spend $10 from the iTunes music store. What 10 songs do you recommend I check out? What are you listening to these days?

Mark October 20th on your calendars since the Arizona Cardinals defeated the St. Louis Rams 38-28 on the road!. The Cards had not won a road game for more than a year so this is a great way for Kurt Warner to get his first victory wearing the red and white.

Today we had our 17 mile outing, in my mind this is a significant mental point in our training since we only have 18 and 20 runs after this, and it was rough! I don’t think I ever realized how far seventeen miles can be feel or feel. I know that we still 9 miles away from the full length marathon but its good to have this training under our belt.

The details are certainly not record breaking but I feel good about it. We went out to the 8.5 turn around point in 1:06:40 (7:50 pace) and completed the 17 miles in 2:15:11 (7:57 pace). On the way back I had a 8:24 mile which I think really threw me off as far as timing goes. I had been running with Kelly since the turn around point, when Glenn turn onto chase mode and left us behind, but with about 3 miles left I thought I had enough to pick it up a notch. My right foot arch was bugging me a little bit but didn’t think much of it. The pain increased with about 2.5 miles left and running on my own I lost track of the time. With about a mile left, Kelly came back and we finished a strong last mile at 7:51. Good finish for this distance.

Today my foot is still sore which is something that I am going to have to research a little bit before next week’s run. Can I exercise my flat feet to give them some strength to avoid this pain at the end of the long runs? On another topic, I learned when getting into this kind of distance running, I need to eat a couple of gels not just the one like I have done in the past. So the adventure continues today and we are moving forward.

This weekend’s update is certainly a few days late, my apologies. Saturday was a short run of 12 miles to let the body recover from the previous weeks. It was not a great run for me although I still managed a very goo time. I recorded a time of 1:31:47 which is a 7:38 average mile. It was a little too fast, certainly much faster than my projected marathon pace, maybe because we knew it was a shorter run than what we had done before? I kept up with Glenn for about 9 miles and then he kicked it up a notch to chase down another runner. I was a little bummed out when I could not keep the pace up but when I noticed my time I could not complain.

This coming saturday we step it up a notch and go for 17 miles. One good thing is that SRC has moved up the Saturday morning run to 7:00am instead of 6:30, that extra half an hour of sleep will be nice to have. On other related news, over the weekend we caught the opening of a large sports store, Sport Chalet, so we went in to check it out. Most athletic gear had a 25% discount so thanks to Sarah’s influence I signed my contract with Adidas — in the form of a credit card receipt — and now I own a long sleeve running shirt, as well as a pair of running shorts. Sarah wanted to throw in the matching hat to complete the outfit but that is where I draw the line!

On other related running news, we officially signed up for the PF Chang’s Rock N Roll Marathon over the weekend. Again, if you would like to come out for a weekend of fun, music, and great weather then you know were to find us.

Today is the start of our last trimester of formal course work, after this we only have a capstone project to work on and graduation in May, finally. I am taking a project management class from the supply chain management department. The department is very well regarded within our School of Business so I am looking forward to this course. As usual, given it is a business class we are on a five week compressed schedule so things will move in a hurry. A lot of reading and plenty of discussion drive this course, I might even post a few things here just to keep them handy.

The other class is from the computer science department so it falls under the normal 10 week schedule. Given the holiday break we have in December, the class runs through the middle of February. The class is named Modeling and Simulation and I am certainly trying to understand just the title of the course. This only means I have yet more reading to get done!