This morning, I was supposed to take the hour-long drive into Connecticut for the Colchester Half Marathon, but when I got up at 7 a.m. and took a look out the window, it was snowing. What a surprise …So instead of braving the elements (and the slick drive), I stayed home and went back to bed. I learned my lesson from running in the monsoon known as last year’s Amica Half Marathon in Newport (I could write for hours on how miserable an experience that was) and decided to put my health before a good race. And this was a good call on my part, because I went online and saw how bad Connecticut was getting pelted with snow.
This has been a bad winter to run and train for a marathon. I’ve jumped all over the few good days we’ve had and got in some strong runs at Lincoln Woods in Lincoln, the East Providence/Barrington/Warren/Bristol bike path, and picturesque Brown Avenue on Johnston heading into Greenville and Smithfield. But during the bad days -- and there has been a lot of them -- I’ve had to retreat to Bally’s in East Providence and do 80-90 laps around a 13th-of-a-mile carpeted track. One time last year, I actually did somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 laps before I started hallucinating and running a little bit off track!
Anyway, I know it’s been a while since I have blogged -- work, running, and everyday life has occupied my time -- but I'm going to take some of the hour-and-50-minutes it probably would have taken me to finish today's half marathon and catch up on some things:
-- The drive to raise money for the American Cancer Society before my run in the Boston Marathon continues, and to date, I have raised $450, which will soon turn into $500 once a matching gift has been accepted. Again, I am very, very, very grateful to everyone who has donated to my cause, and I still hope to raise more money because every little bit (even a $5 donation) helps people who are less fortunate than us and have to deal with this crap.
I had promised to run in two races in a tight leopard-print skirt and Catholic school socks, but it looks like I’m going to be off the hook! I went an entire week without raising a dollar, and it looks like things are starting to run out of steam. Then again, you never know. Someone might be reading this and saying, “Oh yeah, Eric? Think you’re in the clear? Screw you …”
-- Last weekend, I ran in my first road race of 2010 -- the Old Fashioned 10-Mile Run in Foxboro, Mass., which is a pretty popular race at this time of the year, especially for runners planning to run in the following weekend’s Hyannis Half Marathon on the Cape.
Last year, I finished this race in the 1:22 neighborhood, but this year, I just wanted to concentrate on running nine-minute miles and ended up finishing in 1:28:20 (8:50 pace). My fastest mile was the first (8:33, I guess I got too pumped up for the start!) and the slowest was the eighth (9:34, the toughest hill on a slightly-rolling course), but the other eight miles were in between 8:41 and 9:20, so no complaints here.
-- Earlier this month, my running club held its annual Awards Banquet. It was a big improvement over the past couple I attended, only because of the food, which was prepared by the club’s master chef and featured excellent baked fish, stuffed chicken, and desert, and it took place in a larger facility, the Warren Soccer Club.
During the awards ceremony, I received my third Ironman plaque in a row for covering over 250 miles in road races (301.6), but the highlight of the night was the infamous ‘Yankee Swap’ that involved wrapped gifts in the $10-20 range. If you donated a gift to the Swap, you received a raffle ticket and tried to strike gold with it by either keeping a good gift you unwrapped or swapping it for someone else’s unopened prize.
The rules are simple. Raffle ticket numbers are called, and the person who is called first grabs a prize, opens it, and keeps it on their table for everyone to see. The next person does the same thing, but has the choice of keeping it or swapping it for the first person’s gift. The third person then has the option of keeping their gift or swapping it for one of the other two, and so on.
Once everyone has picked (or swapped) a gift, the first person who picked a gift then has the pick of the litter and can take any gift that was opened, and that wraps up everything. So as you can tell, it pays to have the first pick or even one of the latter picks, but you’re in trouble if you get one of the picks immediately after the first.
I ended up getting one of the middle picks, and to make a long story short, I had a 12-pack of Heineken’s taken away from me late in the Swap for some bottle of white wine, but after the Swap, I made a side trade with someone and exchanged it for the Runner’s World Complete Book of Running. And it’s a great read and a nice addition to the library of running books I already have! After reading a couple of chapters, I feel like I’ve made the biggest trade since the Celtics landed Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves!
-- Next Sunday, I will be running in the ever-so-tough Stu’s 30K in Clinton, Mass., and in two weeks will be the ING Georgia Marathon. Again, I have to keep reminding myself that this is a training run and a time of 4:30-4:45 would be good enough for me. I obviously have bigger fish to fry in April in the Boston Marathon!
In between Georgia and Boston, I think I’m going to have a little fun and run in some short-distance races. On the last Saturday in March is the Run the Reservoir 15K in North Scituate, and that could serve as a nice recovery race for me. Of course, there is the Giunta 5K, and in between those two races is another 5K at Goddard Park in Warwick, which is my favorite place to run a 5K. We’ll see what happens …
No comments:
Post a Comment