Wow, it's the end of June, and that means that the year is half over now!  Where does the time go?  Halfway to 2007?  Sheesh!

 

Running-wise, I think the only thing to report is that I have finished the first half of the year with 560.1 miles.  That's well above last year's pace (850 miles for the whole year) but slightly below pace for my yearly goal for 2006, which was 1200 miles.  However, I think it's entirely possible that the difference can be made up before the end of December becuase I intend to work very hard to prepare for a fall marathon (probably Vegas on Dec 10).  Knock on wood that I stay healthy enough to get there...

 

Now, in an effort to write about something in this blog besides running, I will give my Major League Baseball All-Star vote for this year.  I filled out an online ballot a couple days ago.  Yes, you are allowed to vote something like 25 times, but I only voted once.  I didn't feel like taking the time to vote 25 times.  I may have too much time on my hands, but not that much.  Anyway, here's my vote:

 

AL
1B D Ortiz BOS .267, 22, 66
2B R Cano NYY .325, 4, 27
SS M Tejada BAL .312, 15, 54
3B T Glaus TOR .248, 21, 53
C J Mauer MIN .368, 5, 31
OF M Ramirez BOS .295, 20, 51
OF V Wells TOR .322, 20, 62
OF J Dye CWS .296, 20, 54

NL
1B A Pujols STL .313, 26, 67
2B D Uggla FLA .313, 13, 43
SS J Reyes NYM .302, 8, 36
3B D Wright NYM .336, 18, 64
C J Willingham FLA .267, 9, 36
OF J Bay PIT .290, 20, 56
OF C Beltran NYM .285, 20, 59
OF C Lee MIL .271, 23, 60

 

If I was voting now, I'd probably make a few changes.  I'd probably have Utley at 2B instaed of Uggla, and McCann at C instead of Willingham.  Some other close calls were Cano-Lopez, Glaus-ARod, Tejada-Jeter, and Wright-Cabrera.  Also, it's a little odd that Ortiz made the ballot at 1B when he's only played 5 games there so far.  And Thome (who may be the MVP of the league so far) wasn't on the ballot at all. 

 

Nonetheless, there it is.  If any of my loyal readers have any comments/complaints/threats, I'd be thrilled if you contact me. 

 

Well, the wife and I are heading to Boston for the long weekend.  We are both taking Monday off, so we've each got a 4-day weekend.  So we'll be in Boston until Tuesday.  Should be fun, and hopefully relaxing.  We'll see old buddy Dan Valentine, and hopefully see another old friend, Scott Aftuck as well.  Good times will be had by all. 

 

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

 

How depressing!  I told my parents about this blog and asked them to check it out.  My mom's opinion of it?  "It's stupid.  It's about nothing but running."  Wow.  "Stupid"?  Well, yeah, maybe.  But as true as it may be, OUCH!  Geez, Mom.  Aren't you supposed encourage your child?  Sheesh.  It may take a while to get over this one...

 

Anyway, I realize this a very simplistic blog that won't hold much interest for... well... anyone.  But that's not going to stop me from posting here.  At least not until I get bored with it...

 

But since that hasn't happened yet, I shall now describe my latest adventure, the Fairfield Half Marathon, in Fairfield CT.  My two goals for this race were to finish in two hours, and to run "negative splits", meaning the second half of the race would be faster than the first half.  In my marathons, at least, I always slowed down considerably in the second half.  While this was obviously a much shorter distance, I wanted to get used to pacing myself well so that I could remain strong throughout. 

 

There has been a lot of rain in this area lately, and there is more rain predicted for the next few days.  But the morning of the race was basically rain-free.  And it wasn't terribly hot.  But wow, it was humid.  I was sweating pretty good after only about a mile.  And nobody had told me that the race course was so hilly!  I was figuring "This is by the beach, so it's gotta be nice and flat".  Well, no.  The start/end was at the beach, but it ran inland and got very hilly very quickly.  So between the hills and the humidity, it wasn't an easy start. 

 

I do think I was going at a good speed up the hills.  I was sweating a lot, but I felt pretty good.  Unfortunatley, there was no indication of the halfway point, so I really don't know what my time was when I reached it.  I was a little over an hour, but I don't know exactly how much.  Probably it was about 1:02 or 1:03.  I knew that I'd have to run faster in the second half to break 2:00, but I didn't know how much faster.

 

Thankfully, because the first half was mostly uphill, the second half was mostly downhill.  That made things much more pleasant, and I really think I felt stronger in the second half than in the first.  But I could tell that I wasn't gaining enough time to make in under 2:00.  Around the 10-mile mark, I officially decided to myself that I wouldn't make 2:00, but that I wouldn't be far behind.  I was guessing 2:02.  It wasn't much, but I knew it was too much to make up.  So I didn't kill myself to try and erase those two minutes.

 

Sure enough, I finished at 2:02:34.  I missed my goal, but not by much.  I'll take it.  Maybe I can blame those two and half minutes on the hills and humidity.  Heck, I blamed two minutes in the New Jersey Marathon on the sun and the temperature, so why can't I blame the conditions here as well?  Hah.  I guess I'm getting good at blaming other people/things for missing my goals.  But hey, since I'm missing by so little, it's not worth getting upset over it.  And besides, I'm fairly certain that I did succeed in the negative splits goal (although I can't prove it).  And I have the hills to THANK for that. 

All in all, I'm pleased with the day.  I felt good, and I had fun.  I am very happy that my wife and my parents came out to cheer me on, and that they were willing to sit around and be bored for the 2:02 that it took me to run.  I really appreciate the support that they show me in my hobby.  Even if they might think my blog is stupid...  :)

Wow, look at this!  A midweek post!  And a second post this week!  I wonder if I'll ever do this again.  Don't worry, I'm sure that it won't be long before this blog drops into one-a-year territory...

 

Anyway, I tried another tempo run last night.  But for the first time, I did it around a track.  This means I know exactly where the mile markers are, and I was finally able to get accurate split times.  The first warmup mile was done in 9:21.  I really tried to go very slow, but that time was faster than I expected.  I guess it's hard to go slow at the beginning when you've got a lot energy.  Anyway, Miles 2 and 3 were both exactly 8:00.  Down to the nearest second, they were exactly the same pace, and were exactly the speed I was trying to go.  Frankly, I write that off to good luck more than anything.  Now if I could just get good luck like that in the next Mega Millions drawing...

 

Anyway, I picked up the pace a little more in Mile 4 and did it in 7:38.  Too fast?  Maybe.  My heart rate was 184, which is pretty darn close to my Maximum Heart Rate.  I think I would have been better off keeping that mile at around 7:50.  I had just wanted to make sure I did it faster than the previous ones, and I think I just pushed too hard.  Oh well, not a big deal.  The fifth mile, then, was done in a very easy 10:02.  So all in all, I think that was a successful Tempo Run.  And I think it's further indication that I don't know where the mile markers are in my usual 5.25 mile route in my neighborhood.

 

In related news, I finally registered for the Fairfield Half Marathon in Fairfield CT on Sunday June 25.  I haven't done many long runs lately (other than the 11 miles this past weekend), so I might not be in the best shape for this.  But since I've never run a HM before (I've done the New Haven 20k twice and two marathons, but never anything at exactly this distance), I'll be sure to set a PR no matter what I do.  I'd love to break 2:00, but I won't be too upset if I don't.

 

And in other news, congrats to both the Carolina Hurricanes and Miami Heat, who both won their first titles.  I gotta admit that I didn't watch all that much of either the NHL or NBA this season, but I did watch a bit in the playoffs, especially the NHL.  And I did see all the highlights and read the recaps.  The Hurricanes sure did deserve the title.  The Heat?  Maybe not so much.  For years, my problem with the NBA is that the refs basically decide the outcome of any close game.  They could realistically call a foul on almost every possession if they wanted to, so the outcome of the game is often decided by which ones they do call and which ones they don't.  Game 5 in Miami was certainly one of those.  You gotta feel bad for the Mavericks, but hey, they should have won last night at home.

 

And that's all for now...

Time drags on, without anything terribly interesting happening.  Such is life, I guess.  No races this weekend, and I suppose that's a good thing.  I can't push myself too hard every week.  I did manage to get out for a nice long run on Saturday.  I had started out intending to do 10 miles, but I felt good and pushed it out to 11.  No problems.  And with a Half Marathon on the agenda for next weekend, it was important to get in some kind of distance if nothing other than to prove to myself that I can still run that far.  And since there were no problems, I think it means that I should be able to run the 13.1 next Sunday without collapsing (knock on wood).

 

Also this week I continued to tinker with the concept of Tempo Runs.  For those who don't know, what the heck are you doing reading a runner's blog?  No, seriously, for those who don't know, a Tempo Run is basically a run that starts off slow and then increases pace in the middle, and then ends slow again.  There seem to be many ways to do a Tempo Run, and this is why I'm not sure that I'm doing it right.  I tried one this week (see my Running Log, from the link at left).  I have set my Tempo pace at approximately my 5k race pace.  Is that too fast?  Too slow?  Hmm, I don't know.  For what I'm doing now, it may be fine.  But once I start marathon training again, it might not be enough distance.  We shall see.  For now, I just want to survive next weekend (my first Half Marathon race) and then take it from there.

 

Not much other news for the week.  Maggie and I have decided to both take off Monday July 3 which will give us each four-day weekends.  That'll be nice.  The plan now is for us to spend that weekend up in the Boston area visiting old friend "Screamin'" Dan Valentine.  I'm sure there'll be some thrilling stories to talk about once that weekend is complete. 

 

But until then...

I spent four days this week in Grapevine TX, which is very near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.  The town itself wasn't much, but the Gaylord Texan resort was pretty amazing.  (Heh, I still can't say or write "Gaylord" without snickering to myself.  Further proof that I have the maturity of a 12-year old). 

 

I'll try not to bore with the details of the Pro/E conference, so I'll bore with other things.  First off, I'll say that Texas was mighty damn hot.  I went for a run Tuesday afternoon thinking, "well, it's not humid, so it won't be that bad".  Well, it was bad.  The heat really did make the run difficult.  I made it thru about 4 miles, but it wasn't easy. 

 

Anyway, as for the resort, it was quite a layout.  Huge atrium with a little stream and waterfalls.  Numerous restaurants, all of which I heard were good but I didn't eat at.  Except for the sports bar, Texan Station.  I ate there Wednesday night and met up with a friend from my UF days, Joe Landon, who moved to the Dallas area many years ago.  I hadn't seen Joe in at least 10 years, and we really had only kept in sporadic email contact over the years.  But it was nice to see him again.  The sports bar, by the way, had one huge-ass TV, which I was told was 15 feet by 54 feet, and I was told it's the largest TV in the world.  I don't know if that's true, but even if it's not, it was still a pretty damn big TV...

 

Today, back here in good ol' New Jersey, I participated in my second 5k race in as many weeks.  This one was held in Newark NJ along with the Portugal Day festivities.  Armed with my experience from last week in Westfield, I was prepared to start out slow and have plenty of energy left for the stretch run.  And that's what happened.  This time, I felt great throughout the race.  I wasn't fighting it at the end, and I was able to cruise to the finish. 

 

So my time?  23:30!  44 seconds slower than last week!  Wow, I was really surprised by that.  So I suppose that means I took it TOO easy this time at the beginning.  There weren't time clocks at each mile so I don't have a very good clue as to my split times.  But I did notice a big number 2 painted on the road at one point, so I suppose that was the 2 mile mark.  I did not see a 1 at any point, but maybe I just missed it.  Anyway, I passed that number 2 at 15:19, which almost a minute slower than my 2-mile time in Westfield.  So yeah, too slow, I guess.

 

Oh well, live and learn.  I guess next time I'll try to average the two runs.  We'll see if that works.  But I think the next racing challenge will be a Half Marathon in Fairfield, CT in two weeks.  I haven't run much distance lately, I hope I can handle 13 miles...  Until later...

Ah, the all-important second blog post!  This one will be mostly about running, which will likely be the theme of many posts, since that does seem to be the #1 hobby in my life nowadays. 

 

Well, this morning was my first 5k race.  Yes, I've run 5-milers, 20ks, and even two marathons so far.  But I've never run a 5k race.  Today's race was in Westfield NJ, the Jill and Jack 5k.

 

Being that this was my first 5k, I was afraid that I wouldn't know how to pace myself.  And those fears were justified.  I was hoping to do between 23 and 24 minutes, which would translate to about a 7:30/mile pace.  But I ran the first mile in 6:50.  That was WAY too fast.  I started to feel it before the first mile was even over, and I was slowing down considerably.  I was at 14:20 at Mile 2, which means that mile was done at a 7:30 pace.  And I finished up at 22:46, for an overall pace of 7:19.  I guess that's not too bad, since it was slightly ahead of my goal pace.  But I do wish I eased up a bit more at the beginning, which should have left me more energy at the end.  Oh well, live and learn. 

 

I hope to try again next weekend on Sunday July 11 for the Portugal Day 5k in Newark.  My wife thinks it's a riot that I want to run in this race.  She's Portuguese, of course.  And our first summer dating we went to the Portugal Festival in Newark and I got rather sick eating goodness-knows-what.  Well, I'm not planning on eating much there this year, just running around a bit.  And hopefully faster than 22:46.  We shall see.

 

Anyway, I'm off to Dallas TX tomorrow for a Pro/E conference.  I'm looking forward to it.  There should be a lot to learn, and hopefully I can get a little time to relax as well...

 

Until next time...