BolderBOULDER

Happy Memorial Day!! The BolderBOULDER was this weekend. It was great. It’s the worlds largest 10k road race. Takes place in Boulder, CO. With over 54,000 participants, it went amazingly smooth and efficient; couldn’t believe it. Yours truly finished inside the top thousand. With that said, the race personally for me was awful. My body started to fell apart right from the start. I never knew what role Altitude plays in endurance sports. Right from the start my body was hit with no O₂, and I could feel the lactic acid begin to produce and circulate. With each mile I could feel my body, and my race for that matter, begin to shut down. I finished over eight minutes slower then I ordinarily would for that distance; when we’re talking about a 6.2 mile race, that means over a minute per mile slower…ouch. I guess that means +1 for altitude training; -1 for sea level training.

Molly’s sister, Betsy, ran it too. Her first 10k road race…EVER. Go Betsy!!!!! For better or for worse, she didn’t even train for the event; she just went out and ran it, and pretty well at that. Kudos Bets!

Another fun thing, I got to meet Chrissie Wellington. She is perhaps the nicest and sweetest person in the world, yes the world; and so humble. When I introduced myself, and became speechless, she responds with (in her cute English accent) “Oh my goodness you’re speechless, you shouldn’t be, talk to me.” As we chatted for a few moments, she continued to ask ME all sorts of questions about my race, and my sports, upcoming events for the season. I couldn’t believe it, I had so many questions for her (the world’s fastest long course triathlete), and she was asking me questions. That's all for me. Until my next post.

Past Few Weeks

Well, it’s been quite busy lately, sorry for being MIA. Just now getting back into the full swing of training. I had a small 5k race last night. The NYRR Wall Street Challenge 5K. It was a great turn out of a little over 4,200 completers. The race was at night, which was a great change of pace from normal. I finished in 42^nd place, which I’ll take, considering I haven’t trained for, much less run a 5k since high school. It was also a great surprise saying as how I lost my Polar in CA, and had no watch to use during the race. I could only more or less “guess” I was going the right pace throughout.

This coming weekend I will be heading out to CO for the BolderBoulder 10k on Monday. It is the nations largest race, and one of the fastest 10ks. It should be interesting, saying as how I have never done high-altitude training, let alone racing. I can’t wait to get out there though and measure myself against some of the big boys in the sport.

I also am looking forward to after this hectice week of races. I will be able to sink fully into a great schedule of training hard, working, and all around summer fun. I just signed up for my first triathlon yesterday. So, I will now be including those additional two sports into my training. I will be participating in Flat As A Pancake Tri on Staten Island. They serve free pancakes after the race J Can’t wait!!! Well, I think that was a lot just now, so I’ll let you all go. I will update again after the race. Cheers, Alll!!!!

Catch Up

So, I am sitting thinking about my own training and some races coming up. I then start thinking back over the past few weeks of races and what I want to update on.  It then occurs to me; I have not congratulated my sister on a job well done in her race a few weeks ago.  My sis Sue ran her first ever 1/2 marathon here in beautiful NYC two weeks back.  I coached her through training over the course of 3 months.  Yours truly had her doing long runs, recovery runs, hill workouts an some tempo runs.  Come race day on the 26th she was ready to go.  She gets to the start line and because of shear heat, they cancel the full marathon, and turn the 1/2 into an unofficial fun run (no timing chips).  Even still she powers through and boasts an astounding 2:08:26 for her first 1/2 EVER.  How about that?  I got a call from her the next day saying she want to do another one; this running thing sure gets addicting.

So in this blog, I would like to give a HUGE shout out to my sister Susan, on an awesome job well done in the More & Fitness Magazine Half Marathon.  Congrats Sue, you should be proud.