Marriagioma?

My long runs are in the double digits now. I've been following a running plan to increase milage without injury, and so far it is working. I have never been able to run every day without incurring some sort of ailment, so I thought I'd give this plan a try. It's a four day a week plan, which suits me since I bike a couple days a week, too. The plan started with a couple three milers, which were painful just because you spend more time preparing and cleaning up afterward than you spend actually running! Hardly seems worth it, but now, eight weeks later, no major ailments, and weekly milage approaching 30... it was worth it! Where this will take me, I have no idea! (The plan is similar to Hal Higdon's marathon plans if you are interested.)

A couple interesting things I saw on yesterday's long run, a completely perfect maraschino cherry, stem and all, in the middle of the road (how random is that?), and a 60-80 foot tree that had been hit by lightening the night before... a bolt came down like a drill bit on fire and went right through the trunk, diagonally, about halfway down the tree. I had to take a closer look at that, to see the char marks. Natures fury...

Usually after five miles or so, I seem to go into "deep thinking" mode (to relieve the pain I suppose. Haha, thinking of Kung Fu now!). Yesterday it was the realization that words that end in "oma" really suck! My cousin Traci was just diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma (leiomyosarcoma), and after fervent prayer for her, I had to analyze my whole "words that end in oma" theory. I came up with diploma and aroma, and pretty much, all the others... you never want to hear! (I didn't know the -oma suffix meant tumor or growth until sitting down to write this blog.) The other thing I contemplated was affairs, the cancer of marriage (a.k.a., marriagioma... yes, I just made that up, not one Google reference to it, ha!). Unfortunately, I had to pray for friends in that regard, too.