National Half Marathon

This weekend I completed a major milestone by finishing my first 1/2 marathon. The weather was cold and breezy at 6:00 AM, about 2,640 others were there and I finished at 786th overall. I was very pleased with 1:50:57 and an 8:27 average pace. I ran with my pal Griff who kicked the fastest mayor in the United States' A$$ by finishing the marathon at 3:37:28! I was surprised I was able to stay with him because over the past several months, I have been running a route that, by google earth standards, is 5.7 miles; and every time I run the damn thing I finish at around 60 minutes. Because of this, I thought I was only going to be able to run a 9 minute mile at best. I guess I need to trust the training. I also learned one other valuable lesson from the griffman...I NEED to swing past every water station and consume some fluids. Normally, in the 10 milers, I never stop for a drink. The gatorade helped tremendously! Anyhow...I am very very happy with this accomplishment and I am more excited for the triathlon than ever...

DC Half Marathon

Signed up for the 1/2 today and I am really looking forward to it! Can't wait to get out there for a long run prior to the 10 Miler. I was really planning to have the Cherry Blossom as my first big race, but I think moving it up one week to this will be a great challenge. I have yet to run this far and I bet it will provide a little confidence when I finish. I hope it is a warm morning!

Discipline

So I have been riding on weekends with a friend who is supercrazyintense about weight loss. The boy talks about eating rice cakes and fruit all day long. I got a call last week to hear him bragging about how he finally droped below 170 and if you heard the voicemail message you would have thought Christ had come back because he was so excited. Despite his elation, and the purchase of a brand new bike, his discipline declined on Saturday when he called me 1 hour before our meeting time to tell me he wasn't going for a ride because of the ACC game between North Carolina and Virginia Tech. It was good he didn't come because I needed some solitude!

I headed out on the bike for a long ride. I planned to get about 30 miles in and was satisfied to do just that. I made a good decision to go to the park where I could do 3 mile laps without stop signs, cars, or stupid people. It turned out to be a great ride, because I really worked hard and stayed in the Aero position for about 20 of those 30 miles. I kept my heart rate up pretty high and really focused on keeping a high cadence. The wind was blowing quite a bit so despite the flat terrain, I felt like I was up hill on many occasions. I even made it back for the final 10 min. of the game and got to see the player of the year win it for the Tarheels with .8 second left on the clock.