What a weekend

I ran the Run for Read 8K on Saturday morning. Honestly, with intentions of winning my age group and the whole race. Michael Harlow, you Richmond folks will know him, was there with the intention of winning. I got out with him and a couple others at the start. Before I go any further...Coach K had told me to try and hit a 7 minute first mile, knowing that I'd probably be around 6:45, then descend...Imagine my surprise when I hit the first mile and looked at my watch and saw 6:05!! The problem was that it actually felt pretty good. Follow that up with a 6:38, then a 9! Yes, a 9 minute mile in an 8K. Between miles 2 and 3, I got one of the most painful side stitches I've ever had. It turned out to be a combination of going out WAY to fast and being suffocated by my clothes. I was wearing a sleeveless compression shirt and my Dominion running singlet over top. I was anticipating much colder weather and rainy conditions. No rain and very humid. I was getting a feeling of suffocation and the heat wasn't being released. Once I pulled off the shirts and took a couple deep breaths, I was okay. Finished up with a couple 6:30 minute miles. All in all I had a decent race. PR'd by almost a minute (34:55), placed 2nd in my age group and was 10th overall. In my age group, the first place guy and myself smashed the rest of group, the third place guy was almost 5 minutes back!! Coach K was very pleased that I was able to work through that bad mile and finish as strong as I did. In the longer races, I'll have bad spots and the key to doing well, is being able to deal with them and move on. I could have bagged the whole race at that point, but I decided I was gonna make myself mentally stronger by resolving the situation and getting back on pace. What makes me mad is that I knew better. I've been working so hard on pacing and just got caught up in wanting to be in the front running with the leaders. If I'd stayed more controlled in that first mile, I could have easily dropped 1-2 minutes off my time. I would have won my age group and been close, if not in, the top 5. Race and learn I guess. I did win a pretty sweet messenger bag for placing!

After my race, we had to head straight over to Logan's soccer game. It was rainy and cold at this point. Pretty bad conditions for a soccer game. Then we headed home to watch the Hokie football game. What a terrible loss. Both QB's went down with injuries and we are now starting a WR as QB. He didn't do too bad. I'm glad we have a week off to work through those issues before our big Thursday night game against Maryland. Our first home game in almost a month. I can't wait to go back. Thursday nights in Blacksburg are electric. I'm truly bummed that we'll miss the beautiful foliage through the mountains. Just too long between home games this year.

Sunday morning I did my last 3 hour run before the marathon. Had a really good run. Put the iPod on and it turned out to be a pretty robot like, autopilot, run. Very consistent. Averaged 9:06. Not a single mile was way off that mark. No aches or pains. Right where I wanted to be for that run. A shower, 2 bacon egg and cheese biscuits, and 4 hash browns later, we all headed up to Carter's Mountain for some apple picking! Beautiful weather. We all had a blast. I have lots of pictures that I'll put up once I get them off the camera.

Oh yeah, and Allie no longer has the cone head! She got a nice bath and is all clean!

Perfect...

I must just bring the rain. Beginning with Lake Placid, my last two races have been in the pouring rain. Looks like this weekend's race will be no different. I do apologize to all my friends running the Richmond Marathon with me this year. You have about a 99% chance that it will rain.

Inject a little speed...

Nothing like a great track workout to cure an ailing weekend.

• My long run on Saturday was a bad one. Nothing really went terribly wrong, just felt really bad. Couldn't really recover, even late into Sunday.
• The kids had a very bad "non listening" weekend.
• Our Hokies lost to Boston College, again. I'm beginning to really dislike BC. They are the only team to have beaten VT on ESPN Thursday night games (We are 14-3 on Thursday night) and our only two ACC road losses (we've been in the ACC since 2004) have been to them.

At any rate, I'm back feeling good. Talked to Karen who reassured me about the bad long run. Track tonight was really good. Finished up with 2 200's that I ran in 30 seconds and 29 seconds! I still love me some speed!

Nikki's 5K a few weekends ago went really well. And she's been having some really good long runs. I'm so proud of her and what she's already accomplished.

Allie is still running into everything in the house with her pink cone head. We laugh at her when she tries to scratch behind her ears, "it's just not working, Allie". Poor thing. I spend quite a bit of time scratching her ears for her. The scab looks much better. I think after a bath and nail trimming this weekend, we'll retire the head gear.

I love speed!

Great track workout tonight. Dropped 5 seconds off my quarter mile time! 68 seconds for a quarter mile! I'm liking going fast and pushing myself way over the edge of discomfort.

On another note, our poor Allie scratched herself pretty bad this past weekend and now has a nice collar. It's funny and sad to see her run into everything with this thing on. She'll have to wear it about a week until her face heals. Doc said she either got bit by something or just scratched too much causing a "hot spot" that just irritated her, causing her to scratch more.

Been awhile...

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Lots going on.

It's budget time for the Richmond Tri Club. As the Marketing Coordinator I have a pretty complex budget. But I'm working on some really cool things for next year! New apparel and various advertising ideas. Our club has grown to become one of the top 5, if not top 3, largest triathlon clubs in the US. I absolutely love doing this stuff! Guess that's why I ended up majoring in Marketing-Management at VT.

Work is going well, lots going on right now. Way too many meetings than I care for, but it's all part of the job. My boss got me a BlackBerry. I now know why everyone calls them CrackBerries. Email is so instant, you just want to check all the time. I've already gotten the evil eye from Nikki, while looking at my email as I'm fixing dinner. The good thing is, with getting well over 200 emails a day, it's helping me stay on top of things.

My marathon training is going awesome! All my workouts are going well and I'm really enjoying my runs. Two weekends ago, I ran my first 20 miler since the Ironman. Actually turned out to be a really good run. Last weekend was a 2 hour run and this weekend is a 2 1/2 hour run. My speed work is so much fun right now. I'm getting faster every week. My quarter mile time is down to 1:13. That's 73 seconds for a quarter mile! I've added the Run for Read 8K to my schedule at the end of October. Last year, I ran 35:52 and placed 2nd in my age group. I can't wait to see how I'll do. And I'm still looking for a 5K to get those 3 seconds back.

Nikki and the kids are doing great. Nikki has a 5K this Saturday. I'm so excited for her and can't wait to see how she'll do. We signed up Logan for the Kids 1 mile race prior to the marathon, so he's pretty excited and wanting to "train".