PMETR

Today I ran the Pere Marquette Endurance Trail Run for the 16th time. It was the 28th running of the event. For the last ten years, it's also been a little weekend getaway for our family. The race is run on the trails of Pere Marquette State Park in Grafton, IL (about an hour from St. Louis). We go up the evening before and stay at the lodge there.

While I could have wrecked that by bringing some studies with me, I moved my off day to Saturday again. I will write up a full report next weekend. For this week, I'll just note two things:

1. My fitness is really falling off in a hurry. Despite very good conditions, I was nearly 4 minutes off my time from a few years ago. And, this is a race where 4 minutes is A LOT. Despite the term "Endurance" in the name, it's a 1-hour effort; pretty much full on the whole way.
2. Despite that, I'm still running well enough to enjoy these things. That's not to say I don't wish I could have run better (I do), just that I'm starting to accept where I am with less complaint.