I finally made it to a local high school track to get a more accurate idea of my mile times.

According the results, I'm running a 12:33 mile. Granted, this was on an entirely flat surface, which I think helps with maintaining a consistent speed.

I'm only runnning 30 minutes at a time now, and I'm perfectly happy to stop after 30 minutes, so if I wanted to finish a 5k I estimate that I'd need to work up to 36-38 minutes.

I had planned on doing a 5k in early December, but I might hold off to January until I can work up to the increased time. I could also walk/run the December 5k. We'll see.

A lot of the blogs that I read are writing about food and the upcoming holiday season. The tone is one of worry. I had never realized how lucky I am not to have this problem. The Thanksgiving tradition in my family is to rent a ranch house with some other families at a church camp in the Texas Hill Country. So while Thanksgiving for me has always meant lots of tasty food, it also has meant lots and lots of hiking. It's not a surprise, then, that Thanksgiving is my hands-down favorite holiday.

And this year, instead of just hiking the trails I think I'm going to try some actual trail running. Happy holidays!