A BQ, Two Things New and Race Plans

ORN: 3 miles, 29:09

So much to report, from big to banal…

BQ for The Running Chick! Blogging buddy Dianna, a.k.a. the Running Chick with the Orange Hat, qualified for Boston today in only her third marathon, setting a PR by over 20 minutes and beating the BQ limit by 10 minutes. Read her prerace comments and then the blow-by-blow race report. She’ll likely add her own comments in a day or two. Di is one of the best running writers in the blogosphere, you’ll enjoy it.

I did two new running-related things today.

Cross Country Excellence This morning, the second round of the Indiana state High School Cross Country competion went off about 4 miles from my house. Never having been to a cross country meet before, I decided to go and see it. Many thoughts, but the most striking was the start of both the boys and girls race. I watched it from about 100 yards down course. On a spectacular, crisp fall morning, the starting line was 100 feet long and about four or five runners deep. At the gun, a hundred lean, young runners broke quickly, instantly. It was beautiful. Not even thinking, I said this out loud. One of the attending Moms was next to me and we smiled at the amazing nature of it.

Surging into the 21st Century And then, for the first time, I ran with an MP3 player today. A gift from my recent birthday, I’ve never run with “sound” before. In fact, I’ve been a little critical of it. I’m still not sure. But since the unit has an FM radio built in, I used it to listen to Purdue play Northwestern in football (an epic stuggle between the movable force and the resistable object). We’ll see how much I use it…but it was a first.

The run itself wasn’t much. But I did run, not run/walk, three miles. My right knee felt better but not great. I cut it off at 3 and we’ll see if we can ease back into more enjoyable runs. Note to self: Probably not a good idea to run a hard 5 mile race six days after a marathon. Next time, I take a week off and then ease back into it.

Which brings me to my

Next Marathon Plans Man, I enjoy running. And blogging adds a communal nature to it that spans geography (witness the connection above). And here’s a cool illustration of same. Blogging pal Darrell and I have discovered a lot in common over the year. He’s actively trying to run marathons in all 50 states. Serendipitously, he expressed interest in the Tecumseh Trail Marathon in Bloomington, Indiana on December 2. After I wrote about A Hike up Pikes Peak in July with my son David, all of this started to gel, I got to thinking about trail races more. Long story short, I offered to host Darrell in his effort to knock Indiana off his list.

So, that’s what we’re going to do!! He’ll fly in, I’ll pick him up, we’ll head to southern Indiana and run for five or six hours through the woods! Neither of us has any major time objectives; indeed, I’ve talked with three local marathoners in the last few weeks who have run the race. They smile and say “Yeah, just add 90 to 120 minutes to your regular marathon time and plan accordingly!” We only have three real marathons in Indiana each year and this is hands-down the most unique. So why not have an interesting marathon to run in a far away state, eh Darrell??

I’m excited, despite how my knees feel and how his calves are doing, one week after he PRed in the Saint George Marathon. So, stay tuned as we blog about our preparation and the get together!

And, I guarantee you, we will both persevere.