13.1 miles

In June of 2008 I had hoped to run the half-marathon portion of the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run, and was in pretty good shape to do so ... but illness prevented me from it at the last minute (an extremely heavy cold that I got from my wife, who got it from her students). For over three years now, I've had the goal of getting back to it and doing that half-marathon. (I did two marathons before my 1993 accident, in 1984 and 1991, both times at a slightly more than 8-minute pace, which astonishes me now.) But recently I committed to trying to do one, and so now am training for the Somerset Stampede, near my brother's home in Somerset, Michigan, on Saturday, August 20. I would have been in immensely better shape to do it three years ago, when I was doing long runs of 12 miles, and could knock off 10 miles at a pace of just over 10-minute miles. Now, according to the training schedule I'm following, I'm due to run 10 miles two days from now, on Saturday - it'll be the furthest I have run since doing 10 miles on April 23, 2009. And I'll consider myself fortunate if I can do it in 2 hours - or a 12-minute pace.