We returned from the honeymoon yesterday after just over 20 hours of travelling. Today was back to work and tomorrow is the restart of my training. I only managed one 3 mile run and a 10 mile hike while away but I don't feel too bad. The 3 mile run was an 8:10 pace run around the Venetian Port of Chania in Greece. I was suprised at the pace given that I ran at 6pm in the evening and the waterfront is strewn with bars and restaurants with tourists ambling along without a care in the world. More than one time I thought I might slip and end up in water! The 10 mile hike was a picturesque 6 hour hike through the Samaria Gorge in Crete. We started at the top of a mountain and hike through the gorge to the sea where we sunbathed and swam the rest of the afternoon before taking a boat back to our bus.

Tomorrow I will be getting married to Melissa at 5pm in Cape Cod after over a year of planning and preparation. This week has been exhausting as my family all flew to Boston from England and I've shown them around the sights. Two days ago we even got to walk on the field at Fenway and look behind the Green Monster scoreboard thanks to her parent's neighbour who is the chief groundkeeper there.

We ran yesterday but the temperature in the mornings is down to a chilly 40 something with highs in the 70s later in the day. I only brought shorts and t-shirts so it's a little cold to start but it gets better later into the run. We've been doing a simple 3.2 mile loop around the neighborhood and I would recommend this to anyone in the final preparation for anything stressful like a wedding or exams. We both arrive home in much better mental states than when we leave and it helps keep us calm.

Kieran, one of my groomsmen, has offered to come for a run with me tomorrow so I just mapped out an 8.3 mile route from the hotel in Falmouth, MA along the beach and back called "Getting Married Today". It may be truncated depending on the festivities during and after the rehearsal dinner tonight!

It's the Monday before my wedding and my future bride and I managed to get out and run just over 5k today to help keep us trim before the wedding. The wedding is in Cape Cod so we're out by her mom's house near Boston for the week playing host as my parents arrive from England at lunchtime today.

The terrain here in Norfolk, Mass. is more like Wisconsin than Chicago with rolling hills and lots of trees. There was a cool low fog hanging around for the run so it was really pretty to see the fall foliage as we ran. Melissa and I had on our matching WalkJogRun t-shirts so it probably looked really nerdy but who cares! I'm so glad we run together - it really helps cut the tension of last minute wedding preparation, especially since we run together because it really helps us to reconnect when we've been getting testy about who sits where :-) Off to get the marriage license now so I'll get going.

I looked out of the bedroom window this morning and saw trees being whipped about by wind and rain. Hmmm, I think I'll do 3 instead of 5 today. I put on my long sleeved shirt on the assumption that it was pretty cold out there too and headed downstairs. The rain backed off almost instantly and left me running headlong into the wind for the first mile and realizing that the long sleeve shirt was overkill.

As I turned the corner to run along the lake front the wind was on my back so the next mile and a half I felt pushed along the path with rough waves crashing into the side of the breakwater I run on. My pace crept up almost a minute from the first mile as the wind pushed me along. That is until I turned the corner again to cut back by Belmont Harbor to head back to Addison. I had pushed the power song on my iPod to get my last 1/2 mile boost I usually run full out but as I turned the corner I got hit by the wind again in my face and I could only pick up my finish pace by fifteen seconds to 7:26 per mile.

It felt good to run in the light drizzle after all is said and done. Next time I have to run 5 in the rain, I'm going to suck it up and do it.

I scuttled around my 3.04 mile course in 23:06 or 7:35 per mile to try to beat a PR for my birthday today but fell short. Today I'm 32 and I wanted to see if I could break my 7:22 fastest mile or 21:55 for a 5k. Despite missing the target I still fell like it was a great way to celebrate.

Over the weekend I didn't make my 5 mile and 8 mile runs per the plan due to the pressures of my bachelor party in Atlanta but I was at least able to run 3.6 miles on Saturday despite a little hangover :-) I'm convinced it's the best hangover cure I've come across.

I'm glad to report that I'm still on track today after 3 miles today and 11 miles so far this week. Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day and then 5 at marathon pace on Saturday, 8 easy on Sunday.

It has taken me nearly a month to get back on a schedule after my first marathon at the end of July. I had read that it takes that long to recover physically but for me I just hadn't worked out what to run next. I don't know if deep in my brain, my body was numbing the ambition part of my brain to stop me from hurting myself with training too soon but either way, it's good to be back.

This time around the Intermediate I plan by Hal Higdon means only 1 true rest day and one day of cross training so I'm trying to eat much better than before. First I'm eating my oatmeal each morning and a one-a-day multi-vitamin. For my mid-morning snacks I'm eating a yoghurt and a banana, a sandwich for lunch and then almonds mid-afternoon. I've been drinking 32oz of water between 9 and 1, then the same again until 5. The net result is that I've been feeling less like snacking and a little less tired in the evenings, I've even been able to concentrate a little better in the new office too.

As far as my 55 miles in 4 weeks goal, I'm 5.2 miles ahead of that target at 16.7 miles with 22 days left. If I stick to my training plan I should smash that target and earn my first Nike+ medal.

This morning when Melissa and I walked up the steps to the running path along the drive I hit the Nike+ Sport Kit button to begin my workout to see the ominous message along the lines of "You must first attach the receiver before commencing your workout". That's what happens to me when I am tired. I had come down 9 floors in an elevator and walked 100 yards to the start only to discover that I had forgotten to plug the darn receiver into my Nano. Looks like I'll be back on my watch to keep time instead today.

We ran the 5 mile course in just over 48 minutes and then walked back to the apartment. In the shower I mulled over how I might add my workout to the Nike+ site since, if you're like me, I would never remember a week or two from now that my list of runs were missing 5 miles from today. I'm a bit of a stickler and a total nerd so I figured that there was something I could find on the Nano to be able to recreate my run.

I wasn't so much looking for accuracy, just to be able to capture the fact that I ran 5.15 miles. I have my iPod setup to act as a hard disk so I have access to the files on it. I also have my windows explorer setup to show hidden files, which the iPod files are listed as. A quick dig around the files on my Nano while it was connected shows that there are two key folders for tracking your runs. There is a directory for your historical runs: {ipoddrive}:\iPod_Control\Device\Trainer\Workouts\Empeds\{personal pedometer id}\synched\ and another for your latest runs which haven't been synched yet: {ipoddrive}:\iPod_Control\Device\Trainer\Workouts\Empeds\{personal pedometer id}\latest\ My synched directory contained a run from September 3rd over the same distance and roughly the same time. I copied the file from my iPod to my desktop and then opened it using WordPad to see the contents. It seems that the iPod tracks key events:

• power song
• pace check
• mile split
• km split
• pause workout
• resume workout
• stop workout

and it also keeps a list of distances taken every 10 seconds. Not wanting to fudz anything up, I found two parts of the file which refered to the date and time of the run so I updated it to show today at 6.29am in both places and saved the file. I noticed that the naming convention for the files was consistent so I followed the convention, renaming my new file "2006-09-06 07;39;54.xml". I copied it onto my iPod under the "latest" folder and ejected my iPod. When I looked at my workout history once disconnected from my computer, sure enough, I now have a 9/6/06 workout in place. The next and scariest step was to connect my Nano again while connected to the internet and visit the site to see what happened to my running history. Sure enough, my run was correctly added to my running history and happiness rained all around.

Use this information for good and not for any evil you may be considering but I am delighted this little hack worked! Of course, in an ideal world, this kind of hack wouldn't be necessary and the Nike+ site would allow you to add workouts you didn't do with your sport kit connected with some limitations like 1 per week or something to avoid people cheating themselves.