A friend asked me if I would retire from the Stockade-athon now. No shot. The obvious goal for next year is to improve on my mile pace, and sub-7:00 falls into the category of nice round figures that everyone seems to like. Three seconds less per mile is about a half-minute, which would get me sub-1:05 for the finish time. So there it is.

In the meantime, I'll scale back in training, maybe even shut it down this winter, but not entirely. Plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis were beaten this time, but they're probably looking for revenge, so I'll try to head them off at the pass.

I was as sore as you would expect on Monday, but at the same time, I went for a bike and even jogged around a little bit, and felt light on my feet, bouncy and sturdy. Moving easily. I'd like to keep it that way, which means sticking to this nice, healthy diet, for one thing. I did allow myself a walk down Murderer's Row (the cookie/pastry case at Villa Italia) and picked myself out a nice chocolate-covered chocolate cannoli. Couple beers, too, I guess.

While I was standing in the 15-Item Express line at Price Chopper, a chatty elderly woman ahead of me (10 cans of Friskies, you're good to go) said, "You a runner?", looking me up and down.

"Yep, just had a race yesterday."

"What place did you come in?"

"166. And I ran a few minutes faster than I thought I would."

"Good. Good for you. They should have that race on Saturday, though. It took me an hour and a half to get home from church."

"Well, it would cause a lot of problems on Saturday, too ..."

She and her Friskies were gone, and I realized that I had forgotten to hit the ATM before checking out, so I raised a finger to the checkout lady and sprinted 40 feet to the machine and back, which is how I found out that everything was still in good working order after that hard race on Sunday. My stuff was waiting in a bag when I returned with some cash, and nobody seemed to mind that I had held up the line a little bit. Rookie.