Run & Shoot

On Tuesday morning, my running group completed our two mile time trial. 

We all ran down to the high school track together (a 1.8 mile warm up), well not really together - the fast people went really fast, but my semi-fast running friend stayed with me. 

The two mile time trial is supposed to be a benchmarking tool to help set goal paces for workouts.  Our coach's instructions were kind of vague - go as fast a pace as you can maintain for two miles (but not further) and try to have something left to push the last half mile.  Turtle translation: jog fast, don't collapse and at the end, jog a little faster. 

Two miles is easy (well, at my normal turtle pace it is), but eight laps around a track is BORING.  Even at 6 AM, it was humid and gross and every lap felt like it took forever.  Finally, I finished (not last, but second to last) - 16:38. I was very consistent:

1st half mile: 4:15

2nd half mile: 4:11

3rd half mile: 4:08

4th half mile: 4:04 (that was as much as I could push it)

If you put my two mile time into the magic calculator - these should be my race times:

Marathon:	04:23:39 (10:03/mile)
Half Marathon:	02:05:01 (09:32/mile)

Those times would make me really freaking excited.  Now (apparently) I need to start training at these paces when ever we do a "mgp" (marathon goal pace) run.  This might hurt a little.

**WARNING - NEXT PART INVOLVES THE SHOOT PART OF TITLE**

My semi-fast friend and I jogged back together discussing our kiddos (she has two) and running.  We were jogging in a neighborhood when we noticed a police car do a really quick u-turn and head towards us (like driving on the shoulder of the road, coming right at us).  Just then, we noticed an injured baby deer immediately in front of us on the shoulder of the road and the police man was parking behind it.

As we passed by the officer and deer, we made "awe" faces at the baby deer who had an obvious broken leg. I wondered (to myself and then aloud to my friend), Is he going to put that deer in the back of his police car and drive it to a vet?  My friend (her name is Tamara) gave me a funny look.  Then the following statement actually came out of my mouth  - Well, I know from watching Law & Order that the police have to file a report every time they discharge their weapon, so certainly he's not going to shoot the deer - think of the paper work. 

Can you guess what happens next?

Step . . . Step . . . Step (that's us jogging by). 

BANG!

We both jumped and I said - Holy s--t pickles, he just shot the baby deer!

I know deer cause a ton of damage and there probably wasn't much that the police man could have done for the little deer, but I still didn't like being so close when he shot it.

***END OF SHOOTING STORY***

Now, the moment Liz has been waiting for - Cub trying to eat an enchilada.  

 

Probably not as messy as she was expecting.