NYC Marathon Lottery

The New York City Marathon Lottery is being held today!!! It brings back some exciting memories for me a couple years ago, when I beat the 7 to 1 odds and officially became an entrant for the 2007 NYC Marathon. I remember checking my bank account that morning, and noticing a $120 withdrawal from "NYRR", but excited to what it might have been. I was going out to an off-site meeting but had my sister, Barrel, and Shane check on the site to see if my name came up in the lottery. It was pretty exciting to get their texts confirming my entry, and the rest is history. Tim actually applied for the lottery, so hoping he too beats the odds and gets the opportunity to race in the greatest marathon in the world! Congratulations to Jeff Mead of New York, and Anette Hagen of Virginia Beach, Va, who were the first 2 names selected in the lottery this year!

Here is another interesting article I found on the New York Times website concerning marathoners. Marathoners are a pretty strange breed - our will to complete our goals is something that most others don't have, and it is pretty difficult to explain in words why that is. I will say it would take a major injury for me not to complete a race, no matter how bad I was running - there is no other option. It is interesting to see the amount of pressure runners put on theirselves for these big races - I have done the same with myself, and hopefully I can work hard enough and motivate myself to see it to the end.

So last night, went out for an easy run around town. Temp was 60 - breezy, and cool - absolutely perfect! Didn't really push pace, went pretty easy and just ran on the sidewalks/shoulders in Glen Carbon and Edwardsville. Felt myself picking up the pace on the 4th mile, and had to slow myself down. Legs felt good - pretty light, opposite of the run earlier. At the end, saw a couple walking that were about 200 yards ahead of me and pretty close to my street so practiced my finishing kick and picked them off - in the process, scared the crap out of them :) Felt awesome, quite frankly could have ran another 5-6 miles without breaking a sweat. Total Mileage: ~5 - no splits to report, didn't wear a watch.

Tonight, scheduled small tempo but subject to change. Left knee is starting to act up, so considering taking the day off especially since I'm on pace for almost 45 miles this week. But if weather is perfect again tonight, will do some sort of run. Basically, there won't be too many more days like yesterday night with the oppressive STL summer humidity dangerously looming, so need to take advantage of this...