As You Head Out to Your Next Race

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I've had a spectacular couple of weeks at work, where I'm getting things done and embarking on my next big project. A lot of runners who love following training schedules also are project-driven in other areas of their lives. Me too. Unfortunately, it's left little time for life's other pleasures. I'm looking forward to tidying up the house this weekend, restocking the refrigerator and then kicking back and catching up with everyone in blogland. (Including contributing another meme for Juls!)

The price of regular unleaded gas came close to $4.50 here earlier in the week. It's now back down to an average $4.39, as if that's an improvement. There's also strong talk about mandatory water conservation by this fall. Add in soaring costs of food, thanks in part to ethanol production and the aforementioned fuel inflation, and I've got to wonder if road and trail race entries will inch or shoot up as well. I pondered the cost of out-of-town races in an earlier Complete Running article. An accompanying poll asked if a recession would impact race decisions. Just more than half said it wouldn't, but I wonder about that percentage now that people are starting to feel the pinch.

Speaking of gas prices, many of you may already be familiar with sites that provide the cheapest gas prices within an area. But just in case: Here's one I use that's been fairly accurate.

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