Thursday, August 17, 2006

Racing this Weekend, Road Trip

ORN: 5 miles, no watch, held self back

There must be a corollary to Murphy's Law that says "On the afternoon before a vacation starts, the computer network will crash." Which is what happened today as I was hoping to get going, get packed and head for Parkersburg, WV tomorrow morning. Instead, I'm still at work at 9:45pm. But we got the job done...and that keeps the machine rolling.

I'm running the Parkersburg Half Marathon on Saturday. Why Parkersburg?? My sister lives there. And I like to do races in places I can visit family and friends. (Gasp...did you really think I only do that to have a free place to sleep??? Shame on you...)

I'm using the PHM as a shake down for the Portland Marathon in only 6 weeks. The schedule called for a 12 mile run on Saturday as part of a step-back week, followed by 8 at marathon pace on Sunday. I'm flip-flopping the pace, as I want to do 13.1 at my now-determined MP of 9:20 on the Garmin. I want to see what that feels like in a race setting. With about a thousand runners, and a rolling-to-hilly course, it will give me a feel of what sort of discipline and concentration I'll need in Portland.

Last weekend, my niece Amy, who has run this race 4 times, gave me a lot of good advice about the course, even down to the spots where various physical ailments attacked her. Amy is a new mom of a very healthy 4 week-old girl and is already looking forward to running again. I would love to run the race with her in a year or two.

And it will be great to see my sister Karen and husband Frank. I'm blessed with three sisters and we are all close. That alone is amazing and unusual. Karen will be doing the two mile walk event at the same time. And she and I will both be wearing T-shirts with our Dad on the back, photos from his days of football at Notre Dame in the late 30s. Dad would think it a real hoot that the two of us would be in an athletic event together. He'll be smiling from above. Frank is a good photographer, so I'll share both a report and visuals later, thanks to him.

Yeesh, it's almost 10pm...gotta go pack.

Persevere. Even when the network crashes.

1 comment:

Darrell said...

Dang, I got here too late to wish you well. I hope the race was good for you and look forward to the full report.