Today's run was my third longest run - ever. The only runs longer have been an 11.01 mile training run back in April of 2007, and then the only half marathon that I ran back in May of 2007.

Did 10.15 miles - and somehow managed to maintain a 9:50 pace - which included two walking/water breaks and one walking/water/fuel break.

After about 8 miles, I was starting to feel run down, but kept plugging away at it, and eventually made it back home. I had to find some distance on today's route since I severely underestimated just how far ten miles was.

I also learned about another area that can chafe while running - my collar bones on both sides were pretty chafed when I got home. I never noticed any irritation on the run, just when I finished. Guess that in addition to a new pair of shoes here soon, I'm going to need to pick up another stick of Body Glide.

Speaking of shoes - I do believe that it's time retire a pair of my Brooks - the second version of the test GTS 8's that I was given in June of 2007 to run in. After last week's runs, those shoes now have over 360 miles on them. The first pair of test GTS 8's have just a bit over 300 miles, so those won't be lasting much longer. I do have one pair of brand new GTS 6's that I'll be using here pretty soon, but I know that I'll need to buy a new pair here this month.

Oh - also registered for my first race of 2008 - the 2008 St. Patrick's Day Dash up in Seattle. I ran this race last year, and I've been itching to do a race here one weekend, so this was as good as any. Besides, the last couple of races I've thought of entering, I never got around to it. My only concern is that on the day of the race, I'm scheduled to a 12 mile training run. Might have to this run in two parts - 3.5 in the morning, and the remaining 8.5 when I get home.

December was my third highest mileage month for 2007 - and my fourth highest mileage month ever. I managed to run 73.78 miles this month.

For 2007 - I ran 700.13 miles (obviously my best year since it has been my only complete year of running.) For comparison, I ran 463.67 miles in 2006.

I ran:

2 5k Races
1 5k+ Race
1 Half Marathon
1 HTC Relay

The Furry 5k was ran in both 2006 and 2007 - 2007's pace was an improvement of approximately 44 seconds per mile.

After HTC (August 24th and 25,) I took approximately two months off to nurse my right hip flexor back to health - 20.22 miles in September and 15.75 miles in October - my two lowest months ever.

Maybe I was waiting until it was actually St. Patrick's Day to write about my race. (Or maybe I just haven't had the time.)

The morning started out in the worst possible way - I had forgot about the time change. I had gone diving the night before, late, and in my preparing for going to bed (showering, looking at some of my pictures) I completely forgot to change the clocks ahead. All I remember is waking up and seeing the clock say that it was seven something. The first words out of my mouth were "Oh shit!"

My plan was to take a shower (yes, even before a race,) grab some stuff for Kristy (whom I was seeing that morning after the race,) a change of clothes (since rain was predicted,) some coffee from Starbucks (every race up until this point has featured coffee beforehand,) and still have enough time to drop by my work and grab my hat and rain coat (which I had forgotten at work.)

This race was a little different than my others that I've run - you park your car at the finish line, and then you are bussed to the starting line, so you had to be down by the football and baseball stadiums in time to catch the bus up to Seattle Center. Plus I still had to have enough time to pick up my registration information.

Long story short - I barely made it in time. Caught the second to last wave of buses heading north, and managed to find where I needed to pick up my registration information at. Since April didn't come with me like we had planned (she worked until nearly midnight on Friday, and all day Saturday, plus the weather was pretty crappy) I had to somehow carry our t-shirts with me. My plan was to roll them up and store them in my water belt that I had brought. I didn't need water on this short of a run, but thought that the shirts would fit where the water bottles normally lived. No such luck - I couldn't get the shirts to roll up tight enough to fit in there, so now I was stuck wearing a water belt with no water, and having to carry two t-shirts in my hands for the entire run.

The run itself is a 3.38 mile (5.44 km) run that goes from Seattle Center, down the viaduct, to the stadium area. Not quite a 5k, not quite a 3.5 mile run either. I had no idea what sort of time I was going to have. But I did learn from my experiences at the Jingle Bell Run to register in the faster (all runner) wave so I wouldn't get stuck in the runner/walker/stroller/clueless wave.

Supposedly there were 15,000 registered runner/walkers, but official number are impossible to come by. Especially since the weather was bad. So bad actually, that I was the only one from my running group of friends to actually do the run. My reasoning was that I was a scuba diver - a little rain isn't going to stop me. The rain didn't - in fact, the rain wasn't even a factor until the end of the race - probably the last 1000 feet or so is all that it rained. (That sounds funny - the rain didn't start until the last 1000 feet of the course, and continued for the remainder of the morning - plus it was windy which made it a tad cold for me walking back to my car - all sweaty, rained on, and walking into the wind at every turn it seemed.)

Overall, the run was decent. This was the first race that I ran, where I actually had to stop and walk for about a minute or so. When I came out of the tunnel, I had a horrible side stitch. I blame it on the viaduct - when I ran here in July (Torchlight 8k) I had a horrible side stitch for the entire run. Not sure what it is about the viaduct . . .

Even with all the people, and the short walking break, I still had a pretty good time overall (not too bad for my first race in four months.)

Total time: 30:32
Pace: 9:01

Looking at my Garmin, excluding the first 1.12 miles, and the fifty-eight second walk break, I had a sub 9-minute mile pace, which does please me. I'm not in as good of running shape as I was in September when I did my 10k (at least I don't feel like I am, so it's nice to see that sub 9-minute mile pace again.

And a picture to close . . .


Note the t-shirts in my hands.

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After the race, I headed up to Kristy's friend Julie's house for brunch. The group of us - Kristy, Janise, Julie and Nate, were all planning on running, but the weather turned them all away, and somehow during our e-mails the week before, it seems that I had invited everyone over to Julie's for brunch. The kicker is - Julie hadn't been checking her e-mail the Saturday beforehand, and had no idea that we were all coming over. Whoops. But it worked out - they let me take a nice warm shower and we all got plenty of food - home made blueberry pancakes, mixed fruit, sausage (veggie for me and Janise) and mimosas and coffee.

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Looking at the calendar - my next race will probably be my half-marathon. Scary.

Not tonight, but I will eventually talk about my race on Sunday.

First Official Race of 2007!

Henry Weinhard's St. Patrick's Day Dash

From what I've been told (by Kristy and Jenise) - the whole point of this race is to run to a giant beer garden.

Can it get any better than that?'

It can - especially if you found a link that allows you to register for the race for free. Score!