Lately...

Wow. I got caught up in other things and really neglected my blog...

First Day of School!

The summer is coming to an end. I mean, the kids are back in school, so yes, their summer has ended, but the temperatures here have lingered in the HOT range. This is the first school year that all of our children are in school, meaning that we have about 5 hours every day to do whatever. Whether that's having a lazy day at home, doing housework/yard work, working out, volunteering in the kids' classes...whatever we want.

To wrap up my summer race series, I had up and down results. There were a couple of trail races, which I wasn't thrilled about and my performance was down. I had such a good feeling from the first race, to just trying to get the same time or not far from it. I ended up finishing 5th in my AG and 6th overall. The last race, on the same course as the first, I was able to fight through painful feet and finish 19 seconds slower than the first, but still under 7 minutes per mile. Disappointing, but now I know I'll be better for the winter series on the same course.

Final Mens Point Standings

Once the Sunset Through the Trees series was over, it was time to ramp up training for my half marathon. I actually ran a half marathon distance training run two days before the last series race. Then I teamed up with 2 buddies to run another one the next weekend. Both training runs were consecutive unofficial half marathon PRs (1:48:56, then 1:46:28; fastest race was 1:53:54).

The week after the second half training run we raced in the 36th Whiskeytown Relays, a 20 mile relay race around Whiskeytown Lake outside of Redding. Our team consisted of 3 guys (myself, Chris, and Scott) and 1 Gal (Heidi). It's a challenging race in which 3 of the 4 legs have substantial hills to overcome. I ran leg 1 and had to climb a hill measuring about 350 feet in elevation gain and covering just over 1 mile. Once I crested the hill it was all downhill or flat, and I cruised to a 6:29 pace for the last mile handing off to Scott in 13th place. I ran the leg in 29:16 or 7:22 pace. We finished 13th overall out of 119 teams and a team time of 2:31:51 or 7:36 pace. Not too bad!

I'm getting excited about this weekend. I'm running the San Jose Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. It's a flat course, so I know I can take about a minute off of my last training half's time. I'm shooting for a sub-1:40. It's attainable, as long as I run smart. My training has gotten me this far, now I need to execute. I'll blog my results...I promise.

It's also nice because it doubles as a date weekend for my love and I to get away from our busy-ness lately with work and school. That catches you up on some of what's been going on. Look for more regular posts soon.