7 Minute Miles has totally been neglected for almost a month. Facebook and Twitter seem to get all the attention these days, but I need to get back to the original programming here too.

The holidays were great, but I got sick right before them and there is still this damn cough that just doesn’t seem to go away. This was especially bad, as I was signed up to run the 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon yesterday. I ran a total of 12 training miles the entire month of December and hadn’t run at all in more than 3 weeks. The lack of training, combined with a really hot and humid day, led to a very slow time of 5:07:51 (more details on my Facebook page – bah).

Aside from the physical pain of running a marathon, it’s amazing I haven’t keeled over from an anxiety attack at work. I spent hours and hours the week before I left for vacation trying to pin down some network problems at HSRA and was sure I had it fixed the day before I left town. Everything was humming along the morning I left, but the dreaded call came an hour before I was supposed to get on the flight. I’ve been on the phone a lot since we got here with a contractor, but I’m mostly mad at myself for not building a more robust infrastructure. I guess it is aging, but it makes me look stupid.

I’m trying my best to actually be on vacation the rest of the week. We are planning to just hang out tomorrow, then go to Animal Kingdom on Wednesday, dinner at the Animal Kingdom Lodge Wednesday night, lunch at the Canadian pavilion in Epcot on Thursday, followed by some additional time in the Magic Kingdom. We travel back to MSP on Friday, then head to Las Vegas on Sunday for two nights to celebrate my 40th birthday.

I’ll try to be better about spreading the news around all of the sites – although I might be busy looking for homes and jobs in Florida the next few months…