GREAT WEEKEND

What a great weekend; great weather, great family time, great 20 mile run, great race weekend with the 10 miler and marathon, etc. Then you top all that off with the tWINs winning their division on the last day of the season. Sweet! I could go on-an-on about the tWINs, but about 99% of the people reading couldn’t care less. So I’ll point those interested to two baseball blog’s; Pat Neshek’s and Batgirl’s . I am curious though. Why are the playoff games in the afternoon?

I started the weekend by getting in my last 20 miler before Chicago. As much as I’d have loved to sleep in, I had to make up for running and watching a race last Saturday – on my wife’s birthday. So I was out the door by 5:30. I ran the first 10 miles paved paths. Once it was light enough I ventured onto the Lebanon Hills trails.

I’m really pleased with how this run went as I felt strong the whole way. I only ate a piece of banana bread and drank some water before heading out the door. I had one gel with me and took that 2:10 into the 2:42 run – more so to practice taking gels than anything else.

At the beginning of my marathon training, my long runs usually leave me tired – to the point where I just want to lie down for awhile once I get home. Of course, with 2 girls at home and having been gone for 2.5+ hours, that’s usually not an option. The good news is this run didn’t wipe me out. I felt great the rest of the day.

This run gave me 75 miles for the week and I closed out September with 295 miles. My previous high for September was 245 miles – 11 years ago.

Hmm, this is already getting long and I haven’t even started talking about the TCM weekend. Here’s my quick take.

It looked like great weather – at least at the start. It was 40 and calm when I woke up. It was probably 45 for the 8 AM start and around 66 at noon. The skies were clear, so the course seemed to warm up pretty good. Hopefully there was enough shade to keep the runners cool.

I watched the 10 mile race just before the 3 mile mark and watched the marathon around miles 16 and 21. I’m not sure if watching has scared me or fired me up for Chicago. Watching strong runners that I know walking up the hill at 21 was not fun. Seeing large positive splits in the results is not fun. I guess if nothing else, I’m reminded to respect the distance and run a smart race. Hopefully I can remember that 3 weeks from now.

Remember the "10K" that I ran last weekend? Well I was happy to see that the guy who finished about 20 seconds behind me ran 1:01:30 for the 10 miler. That calculates to a 2:52 marathon. I’m not sure I’m in that kind of shape, but it provides more feedback than I got for my $25 a week ago.

I’m stealing today’s quote of the day from letsrun.com;

“I still run as fast as I used to. I don’t see anything that makes me think I’m getting slow.” – Mbarak Hussein after winning his second straight TCM at age 41