Officially entered

I received my official notification of my entry to the Boston Marathon yesterday. I searched through the entrant database to see if there were any names that I recognized. There were six others from Cedar Park entered - none that I know personally but a few names that I recognize from area race results. When searching to see who was entered from Austin, I noticed the name of a guy that I knew from my days at Compaq Computer Corp (now Hewlett-Packard) in Houston.

3M Half Marathon

After "tweaking" my right knee during Friday's five mile run (I believe it was some ITB irritation, which I've had before), I was apprehensive about running this morning's 3M Half Marathon. Part (a large part I may add) of running a marathon is completing the training without suffering an injury that either hampers training or, in the worst case, prevents the runner from running the race at all.

On an absolutely perfect (44 degrees, winds two mph or less) morning, I crossed the starting line for the 3M hoping that my knee would not cause problems. During the first two miles or so, I could feel some minor "something" going on there, but it certainly wasn't enough to cause me to stop running. Soon after that, I didn't notice it anymore.

With knee problems out of my thoughts, I concentrated on the real reason for being among the 5300+ participants - the run itself. As my training schedule called for an 11 mile run today, I figured I would run the 13.1 mile half marathon at a moderate pace, not pushing too hard, with the goal to finish without collapsing when crossing the finish line.

Sometimes things don't go as planned. While I did run the first half of the race at my target moderate pace, I found myself feeling great running in the great conditions and decided to see how well I could do in the second half. With each passing mile, I continued to feel strong, so I kept up something more than a moderate pace. I ended up finishing the race in 2:04:56.

Now that kind of time doesn't win one any awards in these types of races (the winner finished in 1:03:12), but for me ... let's just say I was happy with that result. Even more satisfying was that while I was in 2607th place at the halfway point, I finished in 2318th place - passing nearly 300 runners in the second half of the race. It was a good day all around.

Fund raising

I sent an email update to all of my usual mailing lists last weekend and with generous contributions from a number of people, as of this writing, I'm now at approximately 68% of the way to my fund raising goal. Based on online contributions only, this puts me in first place on the Melanoma Foundation team. Thank you to everyone that has contributed to this effort.

On the training front, a ran two laps of my five mile neighborhood route last Sunday and followed that up with a leisurely six miler on Monday and a pair of three mile runs yesterday and today. Yesterday was the first day in a while that the weather was a warm enough that a short-sleeved shirt and shorts were the appropriate attire. It turned much colder last night so it was time to put on some layers again today.

I'm planning to run the 3M Half-Marathon this coming Sunday. So far at least, it looks like the weather should be OK.

Toughing it out?

I had a pretty good week of training this week, although I must admit I bailed on my scheduled four mile run on Thursday morning. Temperatures were in the 30s, which by itself isn't so bad, but with 15-20 mph winds blowing, I decided an extra day of rest was called for.

While I technically didn't "make up" for it today, I did hit the streets for a five miler in mid-30 degree temps plus rain! It sprinkled a little during the first four miles, but was coming down pretty hard in the last mile. I'm sure the driver of a car that passed me a couple of blocks from home must have thought I was insane.

Beautiful day

I went to Lady Bird Lake for a seven mile run this morning. The weather was beautiful! Temps in the mid-40s, sunny and just a very light breeze. I ran fairly well today - didn't make any water stops as I do when going longer distances. I was surprised when I noticed a short, kind of pudgy young woman start on her run shortly before I started only to have her blow past me with about two miles to go. First of all, I couldn't figure out how I got ahead of her and second, that she was that fast! Maybe I'm just that slow.

Six days

This week marked the beginning of the six-days-per-week portion of my marathon training schedule. From now until the week beginning Sunday, April 6, I plan to be on the streets or trail every day but Saturdays. The vast majority of those runs, other than the Sunday "long runs," are from three to six miles. There are just a handful of weekday seven and eight milers, all on Fridays beginning in about a month.

If my training for Boston goes anything like the training I did for the New York City Marathon in 2006, it is a sure bet that I will really enjoy sleeping late on Saturday mornings.

This week thus far has been unseasonably warm. In fact, it was nearly 70 degrees at 6:00 a.m. today. This will change by tomorrow with temperatures forecast to be in the lower 40s.

The New Year

New Year's Day marked my final scheduled "off" day except for Saturdays until the week before the marathon on April 21. Most weekdays involves runs from three to six miles at varying paces. There are a handful of seven and eight milers in the few weeks prior to the race. Sundays are for the "long runs." The weather has gotten much colder the past couple of days - it has been in the high 20s the past two mornings, but with almost no wind, so they certainly could be a lot worse, much like the weather many of my fellow Melanoma Foundation team members have been dealing with in the Boston area.