Race Week!

First of all, congrats to Martin Lel for winning the Mardi Gras 1/2 Marathon on Sunday! Samuel Wanjiru finished 2nd, in a pretty quick race. Lel broke away at the 9th mile, and no one could really keep up. Pretty exciting way to start the racing year, the spring marathons should be awesome. Also found a cool treadmill blog posting for those who have been busting them out indoors this winter.

Weekend running actually went pretty decent. Saturday, woke up feeling poopy, but made it out for the long run. Mike joined us, so we did an out and back on the Glen Carbon trails. Weather was cool, but sunny so that was nice. Planned workout was 1:40 (3/1) run, so we were hoping for around 13 miles. Went out feeling ok, but after a few miles my lungs felt about half the capacity so was breathing pretty hard. Wasn't affecting my running, although I was tired mainly from crappy sleep and being sick. After the mid-way point, started slowly increasing pace. Got to our marathon race pace, stuck with it through the end. Was running towards the sun at this point, so was getting pretty hot. Last mile, had to work a bit, but finished pretty strong. 1 mile cooldown, was tired but felt pretty good. Total mileage: 14 miles - splits were: 8:35, 8:10, 8:19, 8:13, 8:09, 8:15, 7:59, 7:57, 7:53, 7:16, 7:14, 6:59 (GPS beeped too early, prob more around 7:15), 7:05, 9:19.

Stretched afterwards, drove back to Peoria to see the family and help celebrate Dad's birthday! Came back Sunday afternoon on a gorgeous day, texted Crystal to see if she had run yet (she hadn't), so squeezed in a late afternoon run with her. Gorgeous outside, low 40's and very sunny. She wanted to get in 10, which after arguing with her decided to go for it just for the extra miles. We went pretty slow, enjoyed a nice run on the Glen Carbon trails. Did a small variation and went a different direction instead of typical Meridian. Felt pretty good, breathing was a lot better and never felt tired. Total mileage: 10 miles - splits were: 8:52, 8:24, 8:30, 8:36, 8:29, 8:35, 8:34, 8:39, 8:13, 8:08.

So had a great weekend of running, feeling a lot better so that's good. Somehow got in 39 miles this week, which with 2 abbreviated workouts seems pretty crazy. My schedule is a complete mess this week with the Sunday 5K, so doing a long run with Mike on Wednesday night, and adjusting everything else accordingly.

As promised, a few pictures from Mardi Gras celebration:

Barrel and I

Soulard Group Photo

Random, I know

Feeling pretty good about life...