Stupid Tree:(

On Tuesday morning we had an approximately 60 foot tree cut down in our front yard.  It was very old and lost branches every windy day.  With all the wind we've been having lately our neighbour was afraid it was going to drop a branch on their car or the new addition on their house.  They offered to help pay for it to come down so we jumped at that.  It's considerably cheaper to clean up the mess yourself but who knew it would be such a big job.  This is what the yard looked like right after they finished.

This was from the neighbours driveway

We have had to spend most of our non-working time getting it cleared up since then.  This means I sacrificed my running to either help with the clean up or entertain the kids while Adrian worked on the mess.  Thursday night a friend came with his chainsaw and a trailer and took a bunch away.  This morning I took off to run and the friend came back with his trailer again and loaded up some more.  My mom watched the girls until I got back.  I learned today that missing two training runs combined with the cold snap we are having is detrimental to my training.  The cold aggravated my breathing and even my inhaler didn't help much.  My legs felt like lead and I was just so tired.  I'm sure part of that has to do with the fact that I was also up late last night seeing The Hunger Games.  However I look at it, today's run was my worst run in a very long time.  I was frustrated as I made my way back to the store but reminded myself that it's better to have a bad run today than on race day and that the worst runs are often followed by the best.  I was supposed to run 100 minutes today and I think I probably got about 40 minutes in.  Tomorrow's another day though and I can try for that 100 minutes then.  If it's still tough then I will cut my losses and move on.

A slightly different perspective but this was Day 4 of operation clean up:)

The tree is almost totally gone from our yard and the last load will be taken away tomorrow.  Monday is the start of a new week and the weather is supposed to get back to more comfortable temperatures.  It's also a short work week and those are always great:)