after the view tonight luke t. challenged me to a run because he is convinced that he can run a marathon now – who knows he might could. anyhow the end of our conversation was that we are now racing each other around the baton rouge lakes twice. this should be taking place saturday morning if you want to come and watch.
13.1 stories
my legs have rested and i’m moving better now so i thought i would write out a few interesting stories from the half-marathon i ran yesterday.
- i didn’t get to see this but pam did and told me about it – there was a 1.2 mile fun run that was organized along with the half marathon. the last person to finish the fun run was a 6 to 7 year old boy who had down’s syndrome. he had run the whole race by himself. when he got close to the finish line his mother jumped out to stand at the finish line. she began shouting to her son “i am so proud of you! you can make it, just keep running! i’m so very proud of you!” when the crowd realized what an amazing moment this was they all jumped into the act. the crowd began to scream wildly for the little guy. he was just focused on his mother and she kept shouting how proud she was him. the whole scene ended with him running into his mother arms and everyone else cheering. of course, pam couldn’t see this because she was too busy balling her head off.
- the start to my race was a little more exciting than i had hoped for. i run with an mp3 player. when they started the race with my brother-n-law, sister-n-law, and i in the middle of the pact i pressed the “play” button on my mp3 player. it was at that very moment that my mp3 player fell out of its strap and onto the pavement. when i turned around to get it i was face to face with 400 people who were running straight at me. for some reason these people didn’t seem to understand that i needed to go back the twenty feet to my mp3 player. i swam upstream towards my player moving people out of the way. when i got to my mp3 player and reached down for it things didn’t get much better. now instead of me avoiding bodies that were coming towards me it was my hands quickly avoiding feet that were coming towards them. even though i finally was able to get my player back it was probably the scariest part of the entire race for me.
- the water station at mile 6 was manned by men and women in red dresses – every single one of them. it was a very odd experience. some of them were very ugly guys in very skimpy dresses.
- the whole event got me very excited about the music city marathon that we are going to in april. it was fun running with 1,000 people. it will be incredible running with 20,000 people. my brother-n-law is blogging about his training for the marathon. you can read his blog here.
- i just found out from the race results on the mobile press register that i was 214th out of the 410 half-marathoners.
SIDE NOTE – i’ve started watching the dvd edition of the “firefly” tv show. it’s really good. too bad the series only lasted one year.
been there, done that, got the t-shirt
today i finished my first half marathon. i’ll tell y’all more about the interesting things later (things like my mp3 player falling on the ground at the start of the race and me having to bob and weave backwards through the start of the race to get it from in between hundreds of runners’ feet, or the struggles i had with a desperate need to use the bathroom and no option available). i’ll tell y’all those stories later. right now i’m tired and i don’t really want to think about exerting myself (even mentally). the only thing that has probably been harder in my life was climbing a shear cliff on a mountain within the sangre de christo mountain range in colorado. this was a very close second. i would have never been able to run all 13.1 miles if it had not been for pam or my brother-n-law and sister-n-law.
my run for the day
distance – 13.1 miles
time – 2:09:39
pace – 9:53/pace
13.1
tomorrow morning i run my first half-marathon. we’ll see how things gone because i have been completely lazy this week and only run two days for a total of 12 miles. i tend to think that i will be dead.
btw, i finished “fast food nation” by eric schlosser and it was great.
my run for the day
distance – 4.8 miles
time – 46.23
pace – 9:39/pace
i wanted to do this before i turned 40
next year (november 18th) i’ll turn 40 so if i’m going to run a marathon before i turn 40 it has to happen some time within the next 11 months. thus today i signed up for the music city marathon. it’s in april so if i fail on finishing it (because we all need to remember that i am old) then i can try again later. i owe my brother-in-law and sister-in-law (jim & jill) a big “thank you” on this because i never would have signed up to do a half marathon if it hadn’t been for them and if it wasn’t for the half marathon training i wouldn’t have become convinced that i could make it through a full marathon. jim and jill or going to nashville for the marathon also.
i haven’t finished the run that i am supposed to do for the day (i’m supposed to run 12 miles today) because it has been raining pretty hard in baton rouge today. it stopped raining for a little while early this afternoon and i started my run then. by the time i had gotten dressed and stretched out it had started lightly raining. that’s not a problem because i love running in the rain. a light sprinkle makes for a great run. of course, the light sprinkle changed into a good rain about a mile into my run. this really wasn’t a problem either and thus i just continued running. around 6:30 p.m. it was getting pretty dark and i was feeling pretty heavy from all the water that i was carrying around in my clothes. it’s when i finally got home and took my clothes off for a shower that i finally noticed that my torso was covered with red streaks. it looked as though i had an allergic reaction all over my arms and torso. the problem was that i didn’t feel like i was having an allergic reaction. i wasn’t feeling odd or itching so i was pretty confused by the whole thing until i looked down at my soaking wet clothes. that’s when i realized that i had been running in a relatively new long sleeve, red t-shirt (a.k.a. it’s been worn and washed once). the rain washed out dye from the t-shirt and it stained my body. some of it came off by means of a hot shower but my arms still look like i am in need of some benadryl. it freaked pam out when she saw it.
my run for the day (thus far)
distance – 6.8 miles
time – 1:08:16
pace – 10:02/mile
what’s next?
i haven’t even finished my first half-marathon yet (that will happen january 14th at the first light half-martathon) and my brother-n-law has convinced me to go ahead and start planning for a marathon in nashville – the country music marathon. this is probably stupid but somehow in my mind i have convinced myself that since i was able to run the golden fliers 10 miler this past saturday i should be able to run a full marathon. it’s makes since since a marathon is only 2.6 times the length of the 10 mile race. i’m not sure that my logic is too great on this point.
my run for the day
distance – 4.0 miles
total time – 37:21
pace – 9:20/mile
10 miler
today i ran my first >5k race. i ran in the golden fliers 10 miler this morning. it was a double lap race around the lsu lakes. i’ve done this distance and longer before but i’ve never done it in a race. everything changes in a road race. i don’t like being passed by people. this wouldn’t be a problem if a was fast but since i’m not i just try to judge how fast various people will run and then start off with the ones that i think will run at my pace. this usually means the eighty year old runners. of course, it never works out that i actually judge correctly. i always seem to pick the fast 80 year old to hang around and therefore my pace ends up too fast. that’s why races are hard – trying to push myself but not burning out. this means choosing the correct pace. i was worried that i would start out to fast and burn out half way through the race. i finished the race in 1:34:29 (a pace of 9:26/mile). i was pretty pleased because of two things:
- a had energy left over at the end of the race – which means that i could have continued the pace or a slightly faster one throughout a half-marathon of 13.1 miles.
- i passed an 80 year old lady in the last 100 yards of the race. i laughed at her while i was passing her and it made her break down and cry. i don’t even think she finished the race. she just walked away in defeat before the finish line. it felt good. 😉
now i have to continue training for the first light half marathon january 14th. as things are going presently i think i may even try a full marathon.
my run for the day
distance – 10 miles
total time – 1:34:29
pace – 9:26/mile
the chikcen biscuit
i found out this week that pam and the boys had never actually tasted a chick-fil-a chicken biscuit. i felt as thogh i had failed as a husband and a father. so this morning i corrected this problem. early in the morning while taking adam to school (noah was off school today because of a parent/teacher conference) we went to chick-fil-a and grab a chicken biscuit for pam, noah, and i. the sad thing is that try as i might i could not convince adam to try that small piece of deep fried joy called a chicken biscuit – he settled for hash browns. in the end i was only able to truly convert one of my family members. noah now swears that a chicken biscuit is a piece of heaven that has fried and wrapped in tin foil. pam on the other hand was quite as moved by the awe of the chicken biscuit. she thought it was good but that was about it.
she’s still a wonderful person even though i now know that her taste buds seem to be inaccurate.
my run for the day
distance – 4.8 miles
total time – 46:19
pace – 9:38/mile