I drove by a gas station with working pumps and hardly any line this morning so I pulled in and filled up. I also called everyone I knew that might need gas and let them know where to get it. Maybe the problem is starting to ease up a little bit. I should be good through the end of next week at this point. Other items of interest:

• I ran a 3 mile hill course in my nieghborhood last night. I was very pleased with my 27:19 time. I am looking forward to an official race on a flatter course to see what I can do a 5k in at this point. I am considering an event in Kentucky in a few weeks since I will be in the area visiting the in-laws.
• One of my neighbors is planning a 5k event to help raise money for the schools in our area. Since one of my kids goes to a school that will benefit I am planning to run in it. If you are interested in this October 25th event let me know and I will get you an entry form. I am nagging him to get the race up on active.com but until then we have to use the old fashioned mail order form.

Since there were several things I wanted to comment on today I decided to do a bullet list to try and keep it short:

• I did a 20 minute trail run with my friend in Colorado. This was my first trail run and I enjoyed it (after not during). I had to walk a few sections but other than that I thought I handled the new type of running and lack of oxygen pretty well.
• I did not watch all of the presidential debate last Friday but my favorite part was when Obama said (and I paraphrase), “I have a bracelet too that was given to me by srgt uh uh um by tthe mother of srgt uh…”. He finally got the name out but it was such a “me too” moment that totally backfired on him.
• The gas shortage in Georgia is really starting to become an issue. I am not sure if this is an actual supply problem or if people around here are just stupid and creating the problem with their panicking. What’s funny is that I hear we are the only state having these issues right now.
• I got to play Duke Nukem 3D this weekend on my Xbox 360. This was a huge game when I was in college and we spent many a day with wires spread between our rooms or having LAN parties to play this game. Now I can play it across Xbox Live and not have to drag by computer to someone’s house to play Dukematch.

Today was day 2 of running in Colorado.  At dinner last night a friend of mine, that is a Colorado native, told me that the second day of running would be harder than the first… he was right.  I had no reason to doubt him but to hear it then experience it just drove the point home harder.

Since this my first trip to Colorado since I took up running I decided to give running a try while I was here. First problem… its cold here. It was not unbearable but it was something new to deal with. It will eventually start to get cold in Georgia so this was just a sample of what is to come as winter gets closer. Second problem… there is not as much oxygen in the air here. While I could tell a difference I compensated by running at a slower pace but I could tell it was a little harder. I plan to run the next two mornings I am here as well. More later.

OK, so I stole that title from the last series at my church but it applied twice in the last 14 hours so I thought a little plagiarism was in order:

1. The same 2 mile run that I ran on Tuesday night in 18:54 on Tuesday night I ran in 17:47 last night. That is a 8:49 mile and the best mile average I have ever run. Not sure if the cool nights are helping or if I have experienced one of those mystical breakthroughs that all the running books and articles talk about.
2. I just saw something from our R&D guys that has me so excited I can’t sit still. I can’t say anything at all about it other than that it is very cool and that I can’t wait for the world to experience it. Stay tuned!

What “No Freakin’ Way” moments have you experienced lately?