That Stupid Minus Sign

That stupid minus sign has started showing up next to the number that represents the current temperature. Minnesota in January -- what did I expect? It was -3 on my drive in to work this morning, and still is now. Ouch. Last night, I had my LSR (that's long slow run, in marathon geek speak). I had to do it indoors, do to the bitter wind. 12 miles on a treadmill, with the incline set at 1.5% to try to make my legs think they're working outside. Not fun. To top it off, the next episode of Heroes that I had queued up on my iPod Touch was corrupted for some reason, and I didn't want to watch them out of order. So I spent a half hour watching Entertainment Tonight -- who watches that crap? Why do so many people care what Brittney Spears does? -- and one hour watching the new American Gladiators. Both were in closed captioning while I listened to random music shuffled off the iPod. Needless to say, it was painful. On the plus side, I ran it in just under 2 hours. After my warmup of a couple miles, I ticked off around a consistent 9:45 mile. That pace isn't going to impress many people, but it gives me hope that I have a shot at a four hour marathon, which is the goal that I fear is slipping away.