Catch up...

Chi recap, NYC News, Boston shocker, Meb, and elites.

Went to Chi a couple weekends ago to watch a pretty thrilling marathon. Was a super hot day, but still got to see my friends tear it up! Congrats to Candace on hitting a very solid 3:07, and Gabe for just killing it with a 2:55!!! Got to spectate right outside my sister's place, and see all the elites and almost everyone I knew that was running. Jumped in for about a mile or so with Candace, so got to participate somewhat this year :) Pretty thrilling finish with Sammy Wanjiru and Kebede dueling back and forth in some of the craziest tactics I have ever seen, and Wanjiru finishing off his victory with a massive kick!

Well, the big news that is rocking the running community is the 2011 Boston Marathon registration. In order to hopefully accommodate the fall marathoners, the BAA pushed back it's registration time till October 18 (yesterday). Well, as I predicted, there was a mass rush to register, and the inevitable happened. Luckily, Shane, Crystal, and I all registered and were able to get in so it looks like I will be taking my talents to Hopkinton in roughly 6 months! But this is bringing up a pretty big controversy with the marathon filling so fast, and many ideas are being thrown out there - most notably, raising the women's qualification standards by 10 minutes. This, I wholeheartedly agree with, and needs to be done. No way women need a 30 minute buffer - as it is, the elite men are about 15 minutes ahead of the elite women, so 20 minutes is plenty. We shall see how the race directors deal with this, because this situation isn't going to get any easier with the marathon becoming more popular year after year.

Well, a quick update over the last couple weeks. Got in a small Lakeshore run, a tiny bit on marathon day, then headed back home for minimal work to prepare for my pacing duties with Crystal at the Indianapolis Marathon. Headed out there on early Friday to see a few friends, most of whom were running. It was a good day to run, and the course was very pretty with a ton of trees and a decent sized field that wasn't overpowering. Ken, Mick, and Pat all ran the half marathon, and Tim and Crystal did the full. Pretty fun to be on the other side of the ropes, especially since a lot of my friends have come out to support my running efforts so it was nice to be able to reciprocate. Saw everyone at a few different points, then jogged over to the mile 14 marker to catch Crystal. She came out a bit earlier than we had planned, but settled in and started cranking out the miles. Felt pretty awesome, and breathing wasn't too big of an issue.

Went through a trail through the woods around mile 18, then had problems with pacing because of the tiny road and the many turns. Coming back, Crystal started having problems, but worked with her to get her back on track and then engaged in a pretty fun duel with the 4th place girl. Kept passing each other, but finally grabbed control at the end and gapped her pretty good. The last quarter was awesome getting to see everyone, and Crystal kicked hard to drop a nice 4 minute PR in 3:12 and also won 4th overall female! A great effort on a tough day, and I'm proud of her for gutting it out and finishing strong when she was pretty much about to quit.

Came back out to try to find Tim and run him in - ran out a few miles and quickly realized how hilly that course was, especially when I ran the last 2 miles back (pretty much a continuous uphill). He was having some knee problems that hurt his pace, but was able to finish and I got to run him when we decided to stage an impromptu race. He just killed the last quarter mile, and took off like nothing I had ever seen! 4th marathon for him, and a fun one at that - congrats Timmy!

Mick, Pat, and Ken all ran awesome races, and it was great to see everyone and enjoy a fun weekend. Hoping Ken registers for the Dallas Marathon in Dec for his BQ quest, and there are talks about joining him and cheering him on. So I got in almost 19 miles of running around, and ate/drank myself to a stupor over the weekend, effectively undoing everything I had done in roughly a 24 hour span. Back to the grind over here, and hopefully back to some good runs. Going to hit some easy mileage tonight, then hopefully do a workout with the Big River guys after work.