When I first started this journey, I really thought I would be Superman by now.

I thought I’d have lost almost all of the weight, built on a lot of muscle, become a superathlete, and so much more…

Early on in this journey, I had caught the running bug, and I set my sights on the Baltimore Marathon in October.  A few months back, thinking I was unstoppable, I had also registered for the Marine Corps Marathon (which I wasn’t going to really speak about until I saw how I did in Baltimore).

Yesterday, I decided to take a shot of reality, and decided that I will not be running any marathons this year.

Basically, I’m not ready.  I have done very little by way of training, I am not where I should be physically/mentally/etc…

I am deferring my Baltimore registration until 2011, and I have downgraded my Marine Corps registration to the 10k.  I wanted to at least run something, and I have a much better opportunity to train for a 10k by the end of October.

I’m disappointed and frustrated in myself.  I let my training and my journey fall to the wayside.  I never went in thinking I’d halfass it, but I don’t think I really grasped how big of a challenge this would be either.

The Marathon will always be there though, and I will run it.  It’s going to take a lot of work, but I will have this.

I will be a Marathoner.

Like…seriously!

 Since April it’s been largely off and on, and I feel like I’ve missed SOOO much.  I have had trouble keeping up with blogs (and haven’t been commenting nearly as often as I’d like), my own weight loss goals fall to the wayside every so often.

AND I ALMOST MISSED MIZBOORUN!

Say wha…?

Okay, so every so often I would see the #MizBooRun hashtag floating around on Twitter.  I was curious, but I didn’t investigate.

Until just now.

HOLY SHIT!

It’s a Half Marathon!

In FRICKIN’ VEGAS!

And a WHOLE BUNCH OF AWESOME BLOGGERS WILL BE THERE!

DUDE!  I want in!  Not only would I love to have another Half Marathon under my belt, but to see a whole bunch of my awesome blogging friends (some of them again!)?  That alone would be worth the trip.

I gotta see what my finances are going to look like (ie..how much crazy overtime I will be working…unless I can get a sponsor…hint hint…), but I’d to be able to announce that I will be going.  I’d also love to see who all is going by the time all is said and done, because there are A LOT of you that I’d love to meet!

So stay tuned, and hopefully I’ll have good news soon…or I’ll just go for it and deal with the finances later

Peace!

I wish I had a picture of it, but that was written one on of the signs I saw out today, and I thought it was pretty awesome

So today, I became a half-marathoner.  Despite all of the setbacks I’ve had this past month, I went out there, and I did it.  I really frickin’ did it!

WooT!

My gun time was 2:42:50, and my chip time (my first chip timed race, I was actually really excited about this! ) was 2:41:50.  You can see the full results here.

I have to admit that at first this didn’t seem like it was going to be easy going.  All of this past week there has been quite a bit of apprehension about today, especially since I’ve barely ran AT ALL this month. 

It also didn’t help that despite trying to go bed at 10:30 pm last night, I didn’t actuall fall asleep until after 2:00am. I also didn’t wake up either, I had my alarm set for 5:15am but for some reason it never went off.  If it wasn’t for me hearing my roommates alarm go off at 5:30, I might have slept right through it, d’oh!

But I got up, took a shower, had a nice breakfast of 2 No-Doz and 2 Aleve (I probably should have eaten something more substantial, but it always seems to bring on major sidestitch).  I then checked the weather and they were calling for storms all morning, but there was no rain delay announced.  I had mixed feelings about that, mainly because I was tired and in a bad mood about said tiredness.  Still though, I went on.

My roommate (who was there for support) and I arrived at the Timonium Fairgrounds at about 6:30, and there were SO MANY PEOPLE there.  It was crazy but still a bit motivated.  I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I was looking for people who were in similar shape to me, because I was starting to feel like a fraud surrounded by all of these people who LOOKED like runners.

At about 7:00, we were ushered to the starting line, listened to a quick speech and National Anthem, and then, BOOM!

Now, there wasn’t much invigoration right off the bat, in fact, the first couple of miles were psychologically dreadful.  It wasn’t that there were any huge hills or anything (that came later) but it just seemed to be dragging on, I felt myself going super slow and it my determination was wavering.  Thankfully that didn’t last too long, and by Mile 3 my attitude was turning around, and I was really starting to enjoy myself.  By mile 8 I started to get emotional, and was pretty much like that for the rest of the race.  This was something I NEVER thought I would be able to do, and here I was, running a half marathon, being cheered on, supporting a great cause…I’m starting to tear up again writing this too (I’m a big baby like that sometimes).

Overall, the course wasn’t too bad, some small uphill stretches, which sucked, but their accompanying downhill stretches rocked   The only exception to this was between Mile 7 and 8, which had a uphill stretch that didn’t seem like it would never end.  I had small periods of walking here and there, but I (and alot of other people) walked most of this.  It was mostly downhill from there though, a slow decline followed by a bit larger decline. The last half mile or so was back on Fairground property, with the last .1 mile or so being on the racetrack on the fairground…IN SAND!  Whoever thought that was a good idea was an idiot (I kid, I kid…kinda)

The race course.

Once I hit the ten mile mark I knew I was going to finish in under 3 hours, and that was really exciting to me.  My only real goal was to not come in last, but since last place last year was 3h47m, I was shooting for 3h30m.  My roommate was surprised to see me at the finish line when he did, and I was honestly shocked too.  I managed to maintain my usual running pace (about 12-12.5 minutes/mile) which was awesome   Maybe if I hadn’t had 3 hours of sleep I could have gone a bit faster though   Oh well…

Once across the finish line we were a Mylar blanket, and a bottle of water.  Walk a bit down the race track and there were ladies giving out bagels, granola bars and…bananas!  I grabbed a cinnamon crunch bagel (which was awesome) and a granola bar, but I left the banana for my fellow runners, ’cause I’m charitable like that   A bit farther down two ladies were giving everyone medals.  Once in the middle of the fairgrounds there was an awards ceremony, concession stands, and various other booths.  Since I had raised a some what decent amount of money ($600!!!!) I got to go into the VIP booth, were they served some other free food and drinks (the main concessions were for sale only).  I also got a cool Brooks Jacket and hat.

The SWAG!  My race shirt and medal, and the Brooks Jacket and hat.

Pretty sweet medal, eh?

Overall, I thought this race was very well put together, even though I had initially wished for a rain delay.  There were water/gatorade stations about every two miles for so, and people were all along the race route to cheer us on, which rocked.  It was pretty cool seeing the police section off parts of the road for us too, made me feel somewhat important   I am proud to have been a part of this, and am proud of everyone who participated.  Last year over $250,000 was raised for the University of Maryland Cancer Center, and I’m sure this year will be A LOT MORE! 

I can’t wait for next years half, but now I need to focus on my FULL MARATHON in October.  As of right now, I’m feeling okay.  I’m have a feeling I won’t be able to walk all that well for the next few days, and my left arm is sore (?), but I’m feeling good.  A nice little nap helped with that too, gotta be able to stay up for the Lost finale tonight

Oh, and why I don’t want to throw myself out there and say this 100%…I do think I’m back   If a half marathon isn’t enough of a motivator, then I don’t know what is!

Have a great day, everyone…and THANK YOU AGAIN for all of your support, whether it was donating, or cheering me on, or whatever! You are all truly awesome and I couldn’t have done this without you!

BTW…there are actual pictures of ME, but I don’t have them yet   Will post when available!

In 10 days, I will be running a half marathon…

Holy crap!

I’m super excited, but nervous as all hell.  I know I can do the mileage, and I know that ANYTHING I do is going to be a personal best, but I’d still like to have a decent time.  No matter how much (or how little, recently) I run, races still make me nervous

They’ve announced the official starters for the race.  Nine year old Sierra, and twelve year old Taylor, who you can see in the video below.

Watching that video choked me up a little bit.  Those two girls are about the age of my sisters, and have gone through so much.  I’m glad that I’m running to help benefit them and so many others.

Speaking of which, I’ve made goal, but donations are still more than welcome and GREATLY appreciated.  All of your donations benefit the University of Maryland Cancer Center.

You can check out my donation page here.

That’s all I got.  Hope you have a great day

Overall my weekend went pretty well, with one event in particular being the highlight…

I RAN ANOTHER 5K!

I swear, from what I saw on Twitter on Friday, it seemed like EVERYONE was running in a 5k this weekend.  Kat was, David was, Craig was, Ryan was, and I’m sure plenty of other people were!  CRAZY! 

I began to feel a little left out, and may or may not have even cried a tear or two…

…so I went and looked for a race, and lo and behold, I found one!

The race was the Finksburg 5k, put together by the Westminster Road Runners Club (who also did the Mighty Medford 5k).  I found the race, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to run it at first.  I hadn’t really been preparing myself to run another 5k, but hey, any running will only benefit my training efforts for the Half Marathon, so why not?

The race took place on the grounds of Gerstell Academy, which is a private school in the area.  It began with two laps around their track, and then you proceeded to run the grounds of the school.  It was a bit hilly, but no evil death hills like at Mighty Medford, which was nice.  Overall…I did okay.  My time was 32:07, which would be great, if it wasn’t 1:08 slower than my 5k in January.  The official results haven’t been posted yet, but I think I came in 34th place out of…45 maybe?  I’m not sure.  I placed 35th in Mighty Medford so I least I moved up a spot. WooT!

I was a bit discouraged about my time, until yesterday.  I went to the gym in the morning to get some cardio in, and I was able to knock two miles out on the treadmill.  In most cases, not a big deal, except that after my first 5k I couldn’t run, and could barely walk, for about a week.  This time I was able to get back to my regular routine with little issue.  So while my time may have been slower, I feel like that’s a sure sign of progress.

And if it’s not, well, don’t harsh my mellow.  I’m going to keep telling myself that

In a bit of other news, I’ve decided to incorporate some C25K training into my running routine.  I’m doing this along with Jess and Anthony, and the primary goal is to try to increase our speeds, so we’ll be mostly sprinting during the “running” portions of the program.  I don’t know if I’ll be doing C25K as 100% prescribed, because I’m going to need to get some more running in as well, but I feel like it’d be a nice addition and that I can do it without “overdoing” it.

ALSO!…I’m up to $280 in my fundraising goal for the Maryland Half Marathon!  Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far (Erin, my mom, my Aunt Carolyn). You guys rock!  There is plenty of time to help, and you can do so by visiting my fundraising page here.  Donations go towards the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center. Thanks

That’s all I got for now.  Hope everyone had a good weekend!  Feel free to share anything awesome that went down, I’d love to hear about it