My last training run—a nice 2 miler—is in the books!

I ran in the same area in Tremont in which I struggled to run 2 or 3 blocks back when I started running in June 2012. During those days, running 1 mile seemed like an enormous accomplishment that I might never be able to do, and the fact that I’ve been able to go from 0 to 13.1 (Lord willing) in less than a year’s time still blows my mind sometimes.

More than anything else, this entire experience has been a great reminder that I can accomplish great things in my life with hard work, dedication, tenacity, prayer, and perseverance. It has been a great reminder that the truly greatest accomplishments in life are not easy and that nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice and investment. Running has been a great reminder of how I can achieve my goals if I refuse to give up and refuse to allow temporary frustrations and obstacles to deter or distract me.

Greater Cleveland has a great community of runners, and I don’t think that’s an accident.

Why?

We’re a tough town that is filled with people who know how to deal with adversity. It’s in our DNA as Clevelanders. Some people have difficulty adjusting to the concept of running through pain, of pushing through that last mile even when every cell in their bodies is crying out for relief, and of trudging out for a training run when the weather is awful. Not us.

You think a city that fought as hard as we did for the Browns is going to be deterred by a few miles? Ha! (Image obtained from Sports Illustrated)

We’re a town that’s used to coming this close to a championship only to see our dreams dashed time and time again, and yet we remain a town that has the willingness and faith to believe that next year just might be our year.

Running 13.1 miles is nothing compared to dealing with the pain that Cleveland Indians fans felt after we lost Game 7 of the 1997 World Series in extra innings to an expansion team! (Image obtained from bleacherreport.com)

We’re a town that’s taken the brunt of the economic downtown, seen far too many people leave the region in search of greener pastures, and been the brunt of many jokes because of the nature of the city. Nevertheless, we remain proud of our great city and defend it against the naysayers. People may laugh at me, but I would never want to live anywhere else but Cleveland. I think it’s the greatest city in America. While I do enjoy visiting other places, I can honestly say that I am always glad to return home and feel a certain calming in my soul when I see the beautiful skyline of Cleveland for the first time.

I see the skyline from my house every night, and it still invigorates me and inspires me to dream big dreams for our great city. (Image obtained from velocitycleveland.org)

Back when I created my half marathon training plan, I said that I would write a post about why I picked the background that I did. I would imagine that most training plan backgrounds have dramatic images of people running proudly, but I chose to pick an image from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King that features Gandalf riding his horse Shadowfax towards Minas Tirith, the capital city of the realm of Gondor.

I still haven’t read the books, but I did read the description of Minas Tirith. The city was described as being a place of learning that was once very prosperous and thriving and that had attracted people from all over the world but that had eventually fallen on hard times because of corruption, weakness, and decay.

When I read that passage, I immediately thought about Cleveland. One simply needs to look at a few Cleveland history books to see that Cleveland was one of the nation’s leading cities back in the 1900s.

Antique postcard of Cleveland (Photo obtained from ancestorinfo.com)

Unfortunately, as we all know, Cleveland has fallen on some tough times over the past few decades.

Minas Tirith was eventually restored to its former glories, and I’m confident that Cleveland will soon be restored to its proper place in the list of America’s great cities as well.

Cleveland is filled with thousands of people who love our great city, who are proud to live here, and who are committed to helping revitalize our great city. Many of the recent articles about Cleveland that have been published in The New York Times and other nationwide publications like Smithsonian often refer to the fact that first-time visitors are struck by the fact that there are so many people in Cleveland who are passionate about making the city a better place to live. We’re not a city filled with people who are only here for a short period of time or a city filled with people who have no connection to the region. We’re a city filled with people with deep roots in the city or people who came here and loved it so much that they set down roots and can’t imagine leaving.

Those of you who are traveling to Cleveland to run the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon will have the opportunity to meet our fantastic running community, which is a community that enthusiastically embraces newbies like myself and provides us with support, encouragement, and guidance! If you haven’t already, you should check out the other Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon Official Bloggers!

Many articles have been written about our culinary scene, and anything that I would write would be redundant. I will say, though, that anyone who’s coming to Cleveland to run this weekend should definitely take advantage of all of the great food offerings that Cleveland has to offer! I highly recommend Barrio in our Tremont neighborhood, Happy Dog in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood, and Si Senor in our West Park\Kamms Corners neighborhood.

I’m thrilled to have the privilege to run my first half marathon in my favorite city in the world. Although I imagine that I’ll be pretty worn down as I run along the final part of the course through downtown Cleveland, I am looking forward to cranking up my favorite tracks from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and reveling in the glory of the entire experience as I knock out those final miles and end in a glorious finish at Cleveland Browns Stadium. It’s going to be a great day and a fun race, and I know I’m going to remember it forever.

I always hope that the last week or two before a race will be tranquil.

I have visions of heading into a race feeling fully rested, relaxed, hydrated, and confident.

How many times has that happened?

Once.

Ironically enough, I wound up having my worst race ever (the Run For Justice) when I headed into a race feeling great about everything. I do recall that my foot did hurt a bit the day before that run, but I do remember heading into the race feeling well-rested, stress-free, and excited.

If history repeats itself, then I’m shaping up to have a fantastic half marathon on Sunday at the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon, because last week was a heckuva week!

The end of the semester is always a busy time for educators, and I was swamped with grading and other work-related responsibilities. We also had a lot of activities going on with family and friends. As life would have it, many previously unforeseen commitments came up throughout the week as well.

Case in point: someone decided that it was a good idea to drop off a litter of kittens outside of my church (Scranton Road Bible Church) on Wednesday evening.

Seeing all of the kittens huddling together broke my heart. Dumping them and driving away was so cruel!

Since I was the only one there who wasn’t involved with our Good News Kids and Youth Group meetings, I took the kittens down to the Cleveland Animal Protective League so that someone could adopt them.

Fortunately, the APL agreed to take them. I wasn’t sure what I would do if they would have made me make an appointment to turn them in later in the month! Later that evening, we asked Butters if we should adopt one when we saw a stray cat walking across our lawn and he responded with a short, terse bark. Guess that answered that question!

In retrospect, this was a fun and unique experience. At the time, though, all I could think about as I watched the sun getting lower and lower in the sky was the fact that I was almost convinced that I would miss my run.

The wait was worth it, though, because I absolutely nailed my 5 mile run once I finally got home and raced against the sunset. I ran the part of the Cleveland Marathon course that goes through down West 25^th and through Tremont in my run. I was shooting for a 9 minute pace but I wound up going much faster. When I saw that I had a realistic chance of finishing under 44 minutes, I decided to hold nothing back and I ran as hard as I possibly could. I ended up with a 43:48 time. That’s my best time ever for a 5 miler!

As the week progressed, I looked ahead and figured that getting in my longest run of my training schedule just wasn’t going to work on Sunday. Depending on how I felt during the run, I planned on doing between 10 and 11 miles. The awful weather on Sunday sealed the deal and I decided to postpone my run to Monday.

Of course, when Monday rolled around, something came up just as I was about to head out for my long run. I was already nervous about running 10-11 miles, and dealing with the added frustration didn’t help matters much.

I decided to run a round-trip loop that included the part of the Cleveland Marathon course that goes from Edgewater to the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge because I had never previously run in most of these areas. (My route can be viewed here.)

As I drove to Edgewater, the frustration and stress of the past week began to get to me. Driving downtown through rush hour didn’t help matters much. I wanted to drive on the part of the Shoreway on which the first part of the marathon occurs so that I could gain a sense of the elevation, but I probably should have picked a better time to do it.

As I drove, I heard the new Fall Out Boy song on the radio. I’m normally not much of a Fall Out Boy fan but I do like their new song! As I listened to the “light it up” chorus over and over again, I told myself that I was going to get out there and light up these 11 miles and that I wasn’t going to allow the stress of the past week to ruin several months of training!

I parked at Edgewater, stretched, said a prayer, and headed out.

When the first song that came up on my Pandora station was Kanye West’s “Stronger”, I knew that I was in for a great run.

The first 4 or so miles were very enjoyable and went by pretty quickly. Running through new neighborhoods was fun and I didn’t feel any fatigue.

I really enjoy using Pandora on my phone to provide me with a diverse selection of music on my runs, but there are times when connectivity problems can be extremely distracting. After I turned from West 74^th onto Franklin, my stream went out for about a mile. Messing around with my phone while I ran was a real hassle, and the stretch from Franklin to Lorain seemed to drag on forever.

I consumed a Strawberry Banana Gu while on Lorain Avenue, and I felt it kick in around the time when I turned onto West 25^th Street. The small incline on West 25^th isn’t insurmountable, but I imagine that it won’t be easy to conquer after I’ve run almost 9 miles on Sunday!

As I ran down Starkweather and through Tremont, I suddenly became very overwhelmed. I live in Tremont, and this part of the course is very familiar to me. I’ve run there on a weekly basis for almost a year now. I began my run at Edgewater, which is relatively far from my neighborhood. Realizing that I had a long way back to Edgewater and the end of my run was a bit daunting and doubt about my ability to make it back began to creep into my mind.

Around this time, I thought about one of the most inspirational scenes from The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. In this scene, Frodo is encouraging Sam to eat while they are on the journey to Mordor—a journey that few people expected Frodo and Sam to be able to complete, let alone return home alive and in once piece. Sam responds by telling Frodo that he is rationing their food. When Frodo asks why he was doing that, Sam responded by saying that he was saving it for the journey home.

I thought about Sam’s optimism and his stubborn belief that they were going to make it through the journey alive and in one piece, and I told myself that I needed to believe in myself, trust in my training, and keep going step by step until I reached my destination.

The miles through Tremont and Ohio City went by relatively quickly, and I turned from West 28^th onto Detroit knowing that I had conquered the majority of the run!

By this time, I was approaching the 9 mile mark. I began to feel a bit of pain in my legs as I ran down Detroit, but my feet felt fine. The unexpectedly long stretch down Detroit felt like an eternity, and I began to feel pretty hungry as I passed great restaurants like Happy Dog, Latitude 41, Sweet Moses, and XYZ. I had a few Clif Shot Blox on me, and I ate them in an attempt to trick myself into believing that I was eating.

Once I turned from Detroit onto Lake, I knew that the end was in sight. Although my legs were hurting slightly, I knew that heading into race day with the knowledge that I could do 11 out of the 13.1 miles would provide me with confidence and decided to push forward for 11 miles. Around this time, Tupac Shakur’s classic “How Do You Want It” streamed through on my Pandora station. I love this song and it carried me down Lake Road all the way to West Boulevard.

As I ran down West Boulevard and into Edgewater, I felt more joyful than I had felt in a long time. I reflected upon how strongly I wrestled with whether to do the 10K or the half marathon and how grateful I am for the fact that I had the faith and courage to believe that I should attempt the half. I took off my headphones and ran the last quarter-mile in peaceful silence, saying prayers of thanksgiving to God for carrying me through 12 injury-free weeks and for helping me to have the physical strength and confidence to be able to progress through my training plan during a very busy few months!

Looking down and seeing that my watch had changed over to 11 miles felt exhilarating!

The fact that my time was a bit slower than my target time was a slight downer. (My time would be more accurate if I was a bit more skillful with my GPS watch and I could trust myself to stop and start the thing without ruining my time!) I don’t think that 10 min\mile is an unreasonable goal for my first half marathon. However, I reminded myself that my primary goal for my first half marathon has always been to finish without stopping to walk and that I have plenty of races in the future during which I can set and work towards time goals.

I spent a few minutes stretching, walking, and enjoying the beautiful weather at Edgewater Park and admiring Cleveland’s beautiful skyline before heading home to a delicious dinner of Sheila’s homemade pizza and Season 2 of Game of Thrones.

I am so excited to run my first half marathon in the best city in America. I love Cleveland!

Although I’m planning on doing one short 2 mile run on Thursday, I’m grateful to have the majority of my training successfully completed and in the books. All sorts of people, ranging from those who I see on a weekly basis at church to people whom I only know via Twitter, have been incredibly encouraging. I’ll never forget seeing a near-unanimous vote in favor of the half when I asked my Facebook friends for help in deciding between the half and the 10K, and the fact that so many people who know me well believed in me has helped me to believe in myself. It’s been difficult at times, but it’s been a lot of fun too. Most importantly, I’m confident that the hard work that I’ve invested will pay off on race day!

If you see me at the Expo or on race day, be sure to say hi!

The winner of the VIP Brunch Ticket Contest is…

Jenna!

I also realized that I had two other tickets to the VIP Brunch that I was given because as part of my goodie bag for being an Official Blogger that I am not going to use. I did another drawing, and the winner of those tickets is…

Emily!

I’ll be contacting both of you via Twitter to get your addresses so that I can mail you the tickets today.

Thanks to all who entered! Race day is almost here–I can’t wait!

The 2013 Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon is a week away!

I’m so excited! I’ve got one more “long” training run left to go and then a shorter run or two before a few “rest” days which will undoubtedly be spent taking every step with great caution so I don’t injure myself before the big day.

The race organizers have a great weekend of festivities lined up for us. I am looking forward to meeting some of the other Official Bloggers. Additionally, I’m excited for my very first Expo!

On that note, I’m excited to announce my first-ever blog giveaway!

I have two tickets for the VIP Brunch that will take place at the finish line. The VIP Brunch takes place inside Cleveland Browns Stadium, and you’ll have the opportunity to enjoy a spread of delicious food and celebrate a race well run. One lucky winner will receive both tickets!

Here’s how to enter:

1.) Leave a comment telling me which race you’re running during the Cleveland Marathon weekend! If you’re not running a race, please share a fun Cleveland-related memory.

2.) Tweet “I want to win two tickets to the VIP Brunch at the 2013 Cleveland Marathon from @ClevelandJoe! http://thefrolickingfells.com/2013/05/2013-cleveland-marathon-vip-brunch-ticket-giveaway.html” (Make sure to leave me a comment letting me know that you did too. You can tweet once per day!)

3.) Follow @ClevelandJoe on Twitter (and leave a comment letting me know that you did that too!)

The deadline for submitting entries is 11:59P.M. on Tuesday, May 14, 2013. I’ll choose a winner Wednesday morning using random.org and get the tickets in the mail to you by Wednesday afternoon so you’ll have them by Sunday. (The ticket says that you have to RSVP by May 1, 2013, but since I didn’t get these tickets until last Monday I don’t think it’ll be a problem.)

Good luck!

Have you entered my giveaway for 2 tickets to the VIP Brunch at the Cleveland Marathon? Click here for the post and be sure to enter by Tuesday, May 14th at 11:59PM!

After two great training runs during the week, I was stoked for my weekend long run! I was prepared to go 9.5 miles, which would be a 1 mile increase from the distance of the long runs that I had conquered over the past two weeks.

While I enjoy the tranquility and peacefulness of the Towpath, I figured that having at least one run on the final part of the Cleveland Marathon course would be helpful. Additionally, familiarity can often breed contempt, and I’ll need to get in multiple runs on the Towpath throughout the summer as I prepare for the Towpath 10-10 in June and the Towpath Marathon in October. In order to guard against getting bored with the Towpath, I decided to head downtown for my long run.

My goal time is 10 minutes per mile, and I headed out with an eagle eye on my New Balance GPS watch to make sure that I didn’t start out too quickly. The excitement of the day took over a bit, and I wound up with a 9:30 first mile. I didn’t feel tired in the slightest, so I kept on going.

At this point, the run started to take a turn for the worse.

As I rounded the corner onto the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, I was nearly run over by a group of young bicyclists who failed to notice my presence. Bringing up the rear was an adult who must have thought that I was invisible because he didn’t say anything to me either. I didn’t expect a profuse apology, but a simple “Sorry about that” would have been nice. I know this is small, but it put me in a really bad mood.

As I ran across the bridge, I noticed that all of the riders had dismounted and that some of them were hanging over the edge of the bridge in order to get a better view of what was below. This sight made me incredibly nervous because it wouldn’t have taken much for them to fall over! Although the chills that went through my body whenever I looked at them had the nice side benefit of cooling me down, I started to get very fearful whenever I looked over. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for me to go over and tell the parent that he might want to keep the children under his watch from falling over, so I kept on going.

Once I reached the other side of the bridge, I realized that I had forgotten about the prospect of a Cleveland Indians game. Sure enough, traffic was heavy in both directions and policemen were directing traffic. I needed to cross two streets and both of them had large amounts of car traffic. Ugh!

Ordinarily, I wait for a break in traffic and dart across the street. However, this approach nearly landed me a ticket for jaywalking back in 2007 when I was rushing against the light to The Q to watch a Cavs playoff game and a policeman informed me that I could have received a ticket.

I decided to play it safe, follow the traffic lights, and wait for the police to tell me when I could cross. This resulted in a great deal of running in place for several minutes, which totally threw off my time because I didn’t stop my watch. (I should probably learn how to actually use all of the features of my New Balance GPS Watch, right?)

After much frustration, I finally began the process of crossing the last street when I was startled by an insistent car horn.

I thought, “If this is someone honking at me for being in the street, I am totally going to flip out.”

With trepidation, I looked up…and I saw three people in a car giving me three enthusiastic thumbs-ups!

Their encouragement put a lot of wind in my sails, and when I put my headphones back on and heard Too Short’s “Player’s Club” (one of my favorite songs), I pinned my ears back and headed towards the lakefront!

Maintaining a slow and steady pace, I finally reached the lakefront at around the 45:00 mark of my run after I had conquered 4.3 miles. I’m pretty sure that my pace was slightly over 10:00\mile and that the remainder of the time was inflated by waiting at traffic lights.

For some added inspiration, I ran around the perimeter of Voinovich Park before I headed over to Cleveland Browns Stadium. Sheila and I went here on the night after we started dating way back in 2004 and hung out until 3:30AM! Needless to say, this park became a special place in our relationship, and I proposed to Sheila here on October 14, 2006 on a typically cold and wet Cleveland fall evening!

The magical night of October 14, 2006! Our friends set up a blanket with champagne, rose petals, a storybook about our relationship that I had written, and much more and it was there waiting for us when we got there.

I decided to try out Gu for the first time to see if my body would respond well to it because it’s been distributed at the water stop around mile 9. Most of the time, I consume Shot Bloks on my long runs, but since the Gu is available and free I figured that I should see if I like it in advance so as not to cause problems on race day. I consumed a very delicious Mandarin Orange Gu as I circled the park and enjoyed the views of Lake Erie.

Beautiful woman, beautiful city!

As I circled Cleveland Browns Stadium, my foot started to hurt and the run began to feel extremely long. Even though I was about halfway done, I started to find myself fading and I began to worry about how I would be able to power through the last 8 miles of the half marathon. Shortly thereafter, the Gu kicked in and I found myself ascending the infamous West 3^rd Street hill with confidence and increased energy!

From that point on, the remainder of the run passed pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the day was a bit hot and I started to feel extremely dehydrated as time went on. Running past the various outdoor bars on West 6^th and seeing patrons enjoy cold beverages didn’t help much.

As I ran towards home, I felt myself gradually regaining strength and I knew that running 9.5 wouldn’t be a problem. However, I also knew that I didn’t want to leave too many miles to chance on race day, so I decided to bite the bullet and go for 10 miles.

In order to do so, though, I knew that I’d need to get more water. My water bottle was empty by this point. I had a water bottle set out on my porch and told myself that I would enjoy a big gulp of water as I passed by my house, but I began to realize that I couldn’t run for another mile without some water. I ducked into a local coffee and record shop called LOOP that was on my route, filled my bottle, and dashed right back out. The water was a bit warm but its invigorating effect on my body was indescribable!

Even before they served as an oasis to this weary runner, LOOP has been one of my favorite places to go in Tremont. Their iced tea is fantastic and I can’t think of one instance in which I’ve been there and they weren’t playing great music. (Photo obtained from their Facebook page)

I also consumed another delicious Gu. Those are definitely a hit in my book! The orange and lemon flavors are my favorites.

I swung by my house at about the 9.3 mile mark, rehydrated, and kept on going through the southern part of Tremont until my GPS watch displayed double figures for the first time in my life!

10 miles in 1 hour and 47 minutes. Not too bad!

During my cool down walk, I thought to myself, “Wow, you just ran half the distance of the longest training run that you’ll need to do if you run a marathon!” Although I wasn’t feeling totally exhausted at that point, I definitely couldn’t imagine running 10 more miles. Then again, I couldn’t imagine running one mile when I first started running last June and could only run two or three blocks before I got winded…and now I’m able to run 10 miles and cautiously optimistic about my ability to run the entire 13.1 without stopping on May 19^th at the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon Half Marathon! .

For those of you who are training for the big day on May 19^th, I hope that you are feeling confident, injury-free, and excited!

Whew! It’s been a crazy two weeks. I have no idea where the time goes these days!

I was somewhat dreading Week 8 because it marked the first time in my half marathon training plan during which I would be running a new distance. Although my 7 miler during Week 7 went relatively well, I had previously run 7 miles in February. As my long run mileage grows longer and longer, I am afraid that my body may suddenly say, “No more!” during one of my long runs and I will then have a long, lonely walk home filled with questions about whether I’ll be able to successfully complete the half marathon. My other greatest fear is that my body may act completely fine during my runs but I will proceed to wake up the next morning and find out that I reaggravated the foot injuries that I suffered last year during my long runs.

Our weekend getaway during Week 7 and the Kinsman KTown 5K meant that I had to rearrange my schedule a bit, so I scheduled my long run for Monday instead of Sunday.

Sheila was out of town, so I decided to treat myself to a nice, long run in the Metroparks in the Rocky River Reservation. I grew up in West Park, and my mom and I used to go on picnics in the Metroparks pretty often when I was younger. I don’t think that I’ve been back there in over 20 years, so I figured that would be a good, new place to run!

I fueled up in the morning with a smoothie loosely based on Mama Pea’s Ginger Berry Green Lemonade.

My dad hooked me up with a gigantic stash of Clif Bars and Pure Protein bars over the weekend, and I enjoyed those before and after my run.

Preparing for races and training runs in new places often seems to require only slightly less planning than the Normandy invasion, and I was convinced that I forgot something even after I double-checked that I had my Clif Shot Bloks, my Nathan water belt, my music, and my running gear.

After a quick pit stop to take care of my mom’s cats (she was out of town too), I drove down to the Metroparks and parked my car at what I thought was the halfway point of my route. The weather was beautiful when I began my run at 5:45PM, but I was afraid that the temperature would become colder as the evening progressed, so I decided to make my car the halfway point in case I needed to add a jacket or get some more water.

I dawdled around a bit more, but I realized that I had a lot to do that evening before Sheila’s flight arrived and I figured that being rushed would make the entire run more stressful than necessary. I finally bit the bullet, said a prayer, and took off.

My goal was to run a 10:00\mile pace, and I paid close attention to my New Balance GPS watch as I ran my first few miles to make sure that I wasn’t going too fast. Despite my best efforts, I wound up a bit under that goal for the first few miles. I didn’t feel tired at all, so I didn’t worry too much.

The paved trail ran right along the Rocky River, and the sun shining on the river made for some spectacular scenery. The pleasant temperatures and beautiful surroundings made for one of my most enjoyable training runs thus far, and I felt very little fatigue as my mile totals steadily grew.

When I saw Fairview Hospital high up on a hill, I knew that I had gone about 3.5 miles and that I should turn around. (Needless to say, I completely misjudged distances and the plan to make my car the halfway point didn’t work out.) Fairview Hospital has been a big part of my life literally ever since the day I was born, because that’s where I burst onto the scene way back on March 11, 1981 at 2:30ish in the morning. My mom has worked there for over 30 years as well.

On a sad note, Fairview Hospital is the place where I bid farewell to my beloved grandpa on October 22, 1994. As I turned around, I thought about how much he would have enjoyed having the opportunity to see me run. He was a great athlete during his time in the Navy during World War II, and I wish I had taken the time to write down all of the stories that he often told about his time as General Douglas McCarthur’s personal chef.

The temperature fell slightly on the way back, but the coolness felt pretty good!

I kept expecting to start feeling exhausted, but I still felt relatively strong even as I reached mile 7. As I was running, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” came on and I felt so great that I had the energy to play some air guitar during one of John Fruisciante’s amazing solos!

One of my most favorite concert memories is seeing John completely lost in a solo during “This Is The Place” during the Chili Peppers’ show at Blossom in 2003. Great show! (photo from bestguitarsolo.info)

Once I reached mile 7, I started to feel a bit nervous and began to steel myself for a sudden onset of fatigue. Although I did start to feel a bit tired around mile 7.25, my adrenaline kicked in as I realized that I was extremely close to reaching my goal.

Along the way, I passed pretty close to some deer and I stopped briefly for a few pictures.

They probably were laughing at me for going so slowly!

The weather continued to cool down, resulting in great running conditions. As I neared 8 miles, I still felt great and decided to keep going. Although I was worried about overextending myself, I thought that leaving so much energy unused on such a great evening would have been a shame! I wanted to leave myself a bit of time for a cooldown walk, though, so I cut myself off at 8.5 miles.

I wasn’t paying much attention to my time during my run, but I was pretty pleased with the fact that I knocked out those 8.5 miles in 84:05!

Perhaps more importantly, I woke up the next morning with only slight pains in my feet that went away as time progressed. I think that some of the pain may have come from the fact that part of the Metroparks trail was a bit slanted and the fact that I had to run on a bit of a sideways incline at various times caused my feet to be aggravated a bit.

On Sunday, Hal Higdon lined up a 10K race on my schedule. I figured that my slight foot pain in the days following my last long run was a sign that jumping ahead to 9 miles wasn’t a good idea just yet and that another week at 8.5 miles would be prudent.

The weather was absolutely horrible last Sunday, and when The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers popped up, I was pretty tempted to stay in and enjoy the movie. Eventually, the rain stopped and I decided to head out.

I headed down to the Towpath for this week’s long run. If the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon half goes well, I’m planning on doing the Towpath Marathon in the fall. Many people have indicated that the lack of crowd support is an issue, and I hadn’t thought much about how crowd support and isolation affects me for better or for worse. I figured that a longer run on the Towpath on a crappy day might help me gain a sense of what the Towpath Marathon will be like, so I headed down and I was off and running pretty quickly.

Week 8 was a near-perfect run. Week 9 was pretty horrible in just about every way imaginable.

The constantly changing weather made it hard for me to select the proper clothing, and I wound up being incredibly overdressed. I was overheated by mile 2, but didn’t want to turn around and run back to the car to take off my jacket because I couldn’t imagine running that distance over again because it’s relatively hilly.

My laziness proved to be helpful, however, because the rain kicked back up around mile 3.5 and continued until approximately mile 7. Although I was grateful for my rain-resistant jacket, I wound up running with a soaked jacket and pants for much of the run. The rain and body heat also caused my glasses to fog up constantly, and wiping them off every few minutes became pretty annoying.

I decided to do an out-and-back course of 4.25 miles, and when I reached mile 4.25, I looked up and saw I-77 towering above me. At this point, I felt both scared because I was incredibly far from home and proud of myself for being able to run so far!

In retrospect, this was another very beautiful run. I wish I had forced myself to think a bit more positively and to enjoy the peaceful, tranquil Towpath. Instead, I dedicated most of my energy to dwelling on how far I had to go and how awful I felt. Bad decision! I never really felt like I couldn’t go on or that I wanted to stop, though; I only felt like this run was going to last forever and that I was hating every step of the way.

On a related note…the more I run, the more I realize how “mental” the sport truly is. Early on, I thought that being a successful runner would only require me to build up my lung capacity and strengthen my legs. Nothing could be further from the truth! I have learned the hard way that a short 3 mile training run can feel like an eternity when I’m not in the right frame of mind, but a long 8.5 mile run can be one of life’s most enjoyable experiences if I’m controlling my thoughts and thinking positively. For those of you who are training, I encourage all of you to pay special attention to your thoughts as you train and to work hard to stay in a positive, motivated mindset from the moment that you head out until the moment when you hit your goal distance for the day.

Nevertheless, I powered through the 8.5 miles in something like 86ish minutes. Although Week 9’s time was a bit longer than Week 8’s time, I’ll chalk that up to the fact that I was toting around wet clothes for most of the race, I was overheated, and I was in a bad mood.

I shouldn’t complain too much, though. I was able to run the entire 8.5 miles without stopping, and I have had a relatively pain-free few days over the past week. One year ago, I couldn’t run more than 3 blocks without stopping on a perfect day. Being able to run a significant distance on a horrible day without stopping shows how far I’ve come in the past 10 months, and I’m so grateful that God has been with me every step of the way.

The Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon is less than 3 weeks away. Are you ready?

I ran the Kinsman KTown 5K this past Saturday. As mentioned in my earlier post about the Kinsman KTown 5K, I was really excited about this race because I would have the opportunity to run in front of my grandparents and aunt who live in Kinsman!

Kinsman is an hour and twenty minutes from Cleveland, and I headed out at 7:25AM hoping that I wouldn’t encounter any delays en route. I had high hopes for getting there earlier and trying to scope out at least part of the course, but that just didn’t happen.

When I left Cleveland, the sun was shining. As I drove east, though, the skies became increasingly grim. With the Cleveland Marathon approaching in less than a month, I am becoming increasingly safety-conscious during my training runs and life in general, and I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of running on slick pavement in an unfamiliar place.

The lack of traffic on the roads made the drive down very easy!

I listened to a steady diet of upbeat music on the way down and I was pretty pumped when I turned onto the familiar town square of Kinsman and saw the runners beginning to congregate. Kanye West’s My Dark Twisted Fantasy and Kanye\Jay-Z’s Watch the Throne never fail to help me get my focus!

I arrived at my aunt’s house at 8:40AM. She lives within spitting distance of the starting line, and I made it to the registration desk with what I thought was plenty of time to register, use the bathroom, warm up, and get ready for a great race.

Unfortunately, the line for the port-a-potties moved at a glacial place. I would have just waited until after the race, but I had hydrated myself exceptionally well on the way down (TMI? Sorry!) and I knew I couldn’t wait. In retrospect, I probably should have just ran to my aunt’s house to do my business because this would have been faster and provided me with a warmup run.

I managed to stretch a bit and improvise a bit of a warmup, but I didn’t feel loose at all when the announcement for the beginning of the race came over the loudspeaker.

As I headed towards the starting line, I attempted to start up my GPS watch. I have done this multiple times without a problem. Of course, I encountered a problem at the start of the race! Although I eventually got it to work shortly after the start, I was slowed down a bit by this issue.

Murphy’s Law was in full effect during the first mile, and I probably don’t even need to mention that fumbling around with the uncooperative track wheel on my iPod also served as another distraction.

What’s the moral of the story? Get to the race site with more time to spare!

To make matters worse, my water bottle burst open in my jacket and my right side was soaked. Thank God that I kept my phone and iPod on my left side! Unfortunately, the water spillage made it look like I had wet myself. (Probably TMI again…)

When I finally checked my GPS watch after about 3\4 of a mile, I noticed that I somehow was far ahead of my ideal pace time. I actually think that I ran faster while dealing with all of the distractions because I was feeling panicked. As was the case during the Bay Village Snoball 5K earlier in the year, I wound running too fast early on and this made the second mile a bit difficult.

Fortunately, I saw my family waving signs outside of my aunt’s house shortly after the first mile. This was very encouraging, and their enthusiasm helped me power through the beginning part of the second mile!

I eventually settled into a decent race pace around the first water stop, which was located shortly before we ran past Kinsman Lake. Although I have visited the area dozens of times throughout my 32 years, I never knew that such a big, beautiful lake existed in Kinsman!

I thought we were going to have to run all of the way around the lake…probably should have paid better attention to the course map, eh? 

As I ran by the lake, I slowly felt my strength start returning as I intentionally slowed my pace a little. The water stop was placed in a manner that allowed me to get another drink before the final stretch.

The view on the way back…so beautiful!

As I turned onto the final stretch, I saw Kinsman’s famous Octagon House. This the home in which Clarence Darrow grew up! For those of you have seen Inherit the Wind, Darrow is the lawyer who defended John Scopes, who was a teacher who was arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee back in the 1920s.

I’ve always wondered how the octagonal shape of the house affects the layout of the rooms. Never been inside though.

I misjudged the distance of the Octagon House from the finish line and thought that I had much farther to go than I actually did. (This may have been a good thing, though, because the finish line was located at the top of a small hill!) Nevertheless, after checking my watch and conserving my energy for just a bit longer, I saw that a PR was possibly within reach if I pushed myself to the limit, and I summoned up every bit of adrenaline in my body and did my best to sprint to the finish line.

My aunt’s house is located almost immediately prior to the turn for the finish line, and my family’s cheers once again provided me with a much-needed boost!

As I turned, I saw the finish line and the small hill on which it was located. I saw the clock and again thought a PR was within reach and did my best to power up the hill, but I was pretty worn out by that point and didn’t have much left.

I took full advantage of the water, bananas, and oranges that were located in the post-race spread. The organizers had several boxes of pizza that looked very delicious, but my stomach wasn’t in a condition for anything but water and fruit at that point. Darn!

As I waited for the awards ceremony, the sky began to get increasingly greyer and snow began to fall. April is more than half over and we’re still getting snow…so unbelievable!

Believe it or not, this picture was taken in April 2013…not February 2013.

Before the ceremony began, I walked around and took some pictures. Several generations of my family are buried in the town cemetery that is pictured below. For several decades, the cemetery had a tree that had a scythe within it. My grandparents told me long ago that a local man hung his scythe there before he headed off to fight in the Civil War. Unfortunately, he never returned home and the tree eventually grew around the scythe!

My great-great-great-great-great grandfather (give or take a few greats), Cassius M. Fell, fought for the Union during the Civil War and is buried here.

The awards ceremony eventually started. Much to my surprise and delight, I finished first in my age group with a time of 25:24.8!

I thought my time was a bit lower than that, actually.

This is the first time in my life that I have ever placed in my age group! Sure, there were only three runners in age group, but I still think thought that finishing first was pretty cool. My excitement got the better of me, though, and I pulled a Kanye West when I went up to receive my award when I asked the woman to repeat my time. I honestly did it because I was so distracted by the thrill of winning that I didn’t listen to my time, and I didn’t realize that she was going to repeat it into the loudspeaker. I hope people didn’t think I was trying to brag!

My humbling quickly came when I pulled up my time from the Bay Village Snoball 5K and saw that I had missed a PR by three-tenths of a second!

At first, I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t set a new 5K PR. However, I put this into perspective by telling myself that my late arrival and pre-race disorganization contributed to my uneven start and that I should be grateful for my first place age group finish. I also told myself that the Bay Village 5K was relatively flat and that the Kinsman 5K had a few small hills which probably slowed me down a bit. Additionally, the fact that I came so close but ultimately was unsuccessful will definitely give me motivation to run a smarter and more focused 5K with a faster final two miles in the future!

Despite the myriad number of difficulties that I encountered during the race, I really enjoyed the Kinsman KTown 5K. Racing in a rural setting was a refreshing change of pace, and I’d like to do it again next year if my schedule permits!

Once the race was over, I went to my aunt’s house for a cup of coffee and then decided to finish out my training schedule for the day. I decided to re-run part of the 5K course so that I could actually take the time to enjoy the view of the lake without worrying about my time, and I took the pictures that were displayed above while knocking out 2 easy miles.

Probably my favorite picture from the day. So serene! 

I proceeded to head over to my grandparents’ house for a bit, where I was greeted by the adorable Ginger!

I think Ginger’s got a bit of spaniel in her; she looks a bit like Butters, don’t you think? 

I didn’t stay too long because we needed to maintain the ruse that I was just there to shower and eat lunch before heading back to Cleveland…when in actuality I was heading to my aunt’s house to get ready for my grandpa’s surprise 90^th birthday party!

My grandpa’s been through a number of health problems in recent years, but in recent years a combination of God’s blessing and modern medicine has helped his health improve dramatically! Needless to say, I was excited for the party, and I was very grateful that the surprise wasn’t ruined. Because I was so paranoid about being “that guy” who ruined the surprise, I didn’t even mention the surprise birthday party on my previous post about this race!

Happily, my grandpa was completely surprised and I could tell that he was really touched by the fact that so many people came out to celebrate his big day.

Happy 90th Birthday! (My grandma’s reflection is in the mirror; she’s the woman on the left.) 

His actual birthday is on Tuesday, which is also the day on which he and my grandmother celebrate their 64^th (I think—it’s either that or 66^th!) wedding anniversary!

I enjoyed a delicious dinner of stuffed chicken breast, garden salad, three-bean salad, and cake. Between the two of us, I think my brother and I drank eight iced teas!

After saying goodbye to everyone, I headed back to Cleveland accompanied by the sounds of Radiohead’s classic Kid A. I stopped and took a few pictures of the sunset at Mosquito Lake because it was so beautiful!

This picture doesn’t do the sunset justice…where’s Sheila with her paints when I need her? 

I always like driving between the two sections of the lake, especially at night.

I also grabbed a picture of a historic Mail Pouch Tobacco barn located nearby.

Pretty cool shot, in my opinion.

By the time I got home to a happy Butters at 10:00, I was pretty pooped but also pretty happy and very grateful for a blessed and enjoyable day!

I have no idea why I have so much trouble getting race recaps up shortly after the race…but I do.  The Bay Village Snoball 5K happened almost two months ago and I still haven’t knocked out a recap!

Having said that, I think I should probably get up a recap of my last 5K before I write about the 5K that I did this morning, right?

I think so.

I was ridiculously excited for the Bay Village Snoball 5K for several reasons. First of all, this race was my first race of the year and I was itching to get out there and see how I would do. I figured that I had a great chance to improve upon my previous 5K PR of 28:07 and I was ready to begin the year on a positive note. Additionally, as I mentioned in my earlier post about this race, I spent a lot of time in Bay Village growing up and I looked forward to running on the streets of my youth. Lastly, my brother—who has had a stellar career in track and cross country at Bay—would also be running with me. At the risk of sounding like a big cliché, I still remember holding him when he was a newborn back in February 1995, and the time since then has truly blown by! I can’t believe that he’s 18 and preparing to head off to college in the fall.

I started getting really excited after I laid out all of my race gear.

Of course, I had trouble sleeping on the night before the race. However, when I woke up at 7:30AM on the morning of the race, I was more than ready to roll.

After taking Butters for a quick warmup walk around the block, I headed out for Bay Village and got there in plenty of time. I got my race number and eventually located my brother, who had woken up only 15 minutes earlier. I have no idea how he was able to do that and still knock out a 19:06 in the race!

I took some time to stretch and mentally prepare myself before heading to the finish line. I never like to get to the finish line too early because the waiting makes me nervous. As I approached the finish line, excitement filled my body and I actually felt a few tears in my eyes! Don’t laugh…Ray Lewis teared up before games too.

Shortly thereafter, I heard the starting bell and knew that it was time to move!

Before the race, I told myself that I needed to get off to a solid start so that I wouldn’t feel like I was falling behind and needed to catch up. Running with a sense of panic often makes me overexert myself and detracts from the enjoyment of the race in general. However, I know that many race experts like Hal Higdon warn against going too hard too early, so I planned to do my best to strike a balance and run a 9:00 first mile. I run 10:00 training miles, so I thought that cutting my time down by one minute wouldn’t be too hard.

My excitement got the better of me, though, because I quickly noticed that I was on pace to run something like a 7:30 first mile! I tried to slow down, but wasn’t too successful and ran my first mile in something like 8:25.

My fast start wore me out pretty quickly, which meant that the next mile dragged on forever. Mismanaging the water stop didn’t help matters. If I ever find out that I ran this mile in anything less than 9:30, I’ll consider it a major miracle. My legs felt incredibly dead and I felt like I was running in quicksand.

Every time I checked my watch, though, I saw that a PR was easily within reach if I kept plugging along. Part of me thought, “If you stop to walk, you might get enough energy back to really go hard during the final stretch”, but I had trouble discerning if this was common sense or my weaker self feeding me those thoughts. I kept chugging onward, fueled by the thought that I had been working on my running for months and that I was more than half done with the race.

After what seemed like an eternity, I turned the corner onto the final stretch of the race. The end of the race was in sight, and this gave me a shot of adrenaline for one final kick.

The map indicated that the run would end on the Bay High School track, and for some reason I thought that we would have to make a loop around the track before hitting the finish line. Much to my delight, the finish line was located relatively close to the entrance to the track. I also saw that I would definitely set a PR unless I completely broke down before the finish line This sight gave me another shot of adrenaline, and I dashed across the finish line while somehow avoiding the only icy patch that I had seen all day.

I was dazed after I crossed the finish line, and I was grateful that my brother was waiting there with a bottle of water for me!

After consuming the bottle in under a minute, I sat down on the football field but found myself cramping up. Although standing up and walking again seemed like a herculean effort, I figured that it was better than risking an injury. My stomach was in knots as well, and I figured that a walk might help.

Shot of the finish area!

Fortunately, I recovered relatively quickly and we headed into the gym for the awards ceremony and buffet. The volunteers organized what looked like a delicious spread of breakfast food, but I was in no condition to eat anything! I did, however, spent a lot of great quality time catching up with my brother.

My brother and I after the race

Additionally, I met fellow Cleveland Marathon Official Blogger Jessica, who won an award for her age group.

The race results were posted shortly thereafter, and I learned that my chip time was 25:24. This was an improvement of more than two-and-a-half minutes from my previous 5K PR of 28:07, and I was thrilled!

All in all, I was very pleased with my performance in the Bay Village Snoball 5K. The relatively flat course helped me set a new 5K PR and start off 2013 on a very successful note and I had a lot of fun running along the streets on which I grew up. Can’t wait to do it again next year!

After another stressful week last week, we headed out of town for a much-needed getaway. Although we weren’t gone for a long period of time, we were blessed with an enjoyable and relaxing trip! I’ll put up a post about our trip within the near future so that all of you can see that there’s more to my life than running and showing off Butters more fervently than most parents show off their kids.

My bride and my Butters

Many of you who know me in real life know that I have a love-hate relationship with my phone. While I enjoy being able to make last-minute fantasy football lineup changes after church on Sunday (contrary to popular belief, I don’t do it during the service itself!) and am grateful to be able to access email at all times, I absolutely hate talking on the phone, especially when it involves matters that can be dealt with via text or email. Nevertheless, I never put my phone on silent unless I’m at the movies. Why not? I’m my mom’s only son, and I want to be there for her if she needs to reach me in an emergency.

However, one of the reasons for going on this getaway was so that Sheila could escape work-related stress, so after her phone happily died 10 minutes after we were out of town, I decided to put mine on silent for the duration of the weekend. We work at the same organization and our jobs often intersect, and I wanted to make sure that she was kept unaware of anything that occurred at work while we were on our getaway. Although I did periodically check my phone, I didn’t spend much time on it at all.

Of course, this meant that I didn’t find out about the tragedy in Boston until I got home and was beginning to prepare for the 7 mile training run on the books for the week.

Ordinarily, my first reaction when I hear about mass shootings or terrorist attacks is one of sorrow and dismay.

This was different. When I heard about this attack, I was instantly incensed. As a runner, I have the utmost appreciation the hard work that each and every one of those runners invested throughout their lives to qualify for one of the most prestigious and storied marathons in America. I know runners who train incredibly hard and give their all who have tried to qualify for Boston but who have been unable to do so. Those who are there most likely looked forward to April 15^th for months or even years.

I just couldn’t bear the idea that someone would be so cruel and callous as to want to render all of the hard work, blood, sweat, tears, aches, and pains invested by the thousands of runners completely moot with a terrorist attack that targeted completely innocent people. What did they do to deserve this? What did the spectators do to deserve this? Terrorists often strike on American soil because they have problems with America’s wealth, military power, or government, but the Boston Marathon is not related to any of that at all. Why, then? Thinking about the pain of the dashed dreams of thousands of runners, as well as the physical pain suffered by far too many innocent individuals, made my blood boil.

Part of me began to think irrationally and began to wonder if a subsequent attack was going to occur later that evening, and I began to consider skipping my run as it was already dark.

Eventually, I calmed down. Reading many of the thoughtful tweets posted by many of you helped me gain perspective on the situation. I thought about all of the people who didn’t finish the marathon and how they would have given anything to be able to finish out their last few miles. I thought about all of those who perished or suffered severe injuries and may never run again and how they wouldn’t want their injuries and lives to be lost in vain.

I laced up my sneakers and headed out for seven extremely satisfying and rewarding miles. I started off on a nice, easy pace and maintained it pretty well throughout the entire run. Although my phone had major problems with streaming music throughout the run (most likely due to the high traffic on the networks related to the Boston tragedy) and I had a particularly scary moment in which I landed awkwardly on a curb and thought that I hurt my foot, I quickly put these small annoyances into perspective as I thought about the thousands of runners who carry the memories of Monday with them for their entire lives.

I didn’t set any records for speed on Monday, but I did take several steps towards standing up in the face of fear and darkness and I was able to honor the memory of the fallen and injured in my own small way.

7.01 miles in 74:53

If you’re a runner, I hope you do something to honor our brothers and sisters in Boston over the course of the week. For those of you who live in Cleveland who are looking to honor those in Boston by running with others, there is a great event called the Silent Saturday Run taking place this Saturday morning in downtown Cleveland. I won’t be able to attend because I’ll be running the Kinsman KTown 5K, but I urge you to attend if you feel moved to do so. The strength, resiliency, and positivity that exemplifies the best aspects of the running community has really shone through over these past few days, and I would imagine that Saturday’s event will be a very cathartic and inspirational time of fellowship, running, and remembrance.

I’ve never been much of a comics guy, which probably explains why I didn’t like The Avengers very much (I feel like a bad Clevelander saying that!) and why I was completely lost during the X-Men movies.

However, the one comic strip that I have consistently enjoyed throughout my life is Calvin and Hobbes, and the title of this post is a homage to one of the compilations of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons that I still have somewhere in my mom’s house. My mom used to leave funny Calvin and Hobbes cartoons along with notes for me when I got home from school, and I still enjoy the strip to this day. While I understand Bill Watterson’s desire for privacy, I would love to see a Calvin and Hobbes movie during my lifetime!

Although I definitely am grateful for the benefits of adulthood, I would be lying if I said that I never wished to be able to take a trip back in time to the days when I was Calvin’s age. These past few weeks have been packed with a variety of stress in just about every aspect of our lives. Hence, I completely dropped the ball on blogging about Week 5 of training. One picture will explain why:

The above picture was taken in the MetroHealth emergency room. Although Sheila’s got a pretty good attitude in that picture, I can assure you that her condition was far worse than that only a few hours earlier after she asked me to come to Target and pick her up because she didn’t feel well. I’ve dealt with some pretty tough things in my lifetime, but driving one’s wife to the emergency room while questioning whether she had a stroke and wondering if life as we know it is about to change forever is at the top of the list.

Fortunately, my bride has made a (mostly) full recovery and she was even discharged that same night. The doctors ran a battery of tests and everything came back normal, and they think that she either has an ulcer or had a bout of gastritis. The entire experience provided a much-needed wakeup call to us with regards to dealing with some stressors in Sheila’s life. While the experience was scary at first, I don’t think that we would have addressed these stressors for quite some time otherwise, so I suppose that’s the silver lining in the entire situation.

Needless to say, we did our best to take it easy for the rest of the weekend. God has been very good to us, and the support that we’ve received from family and friends has been great.

Later in the weekend, Sheila did feel well enough to attend a bridal shower on the east side of Cleveland, and I took advantage of the opportunity to knock out my training run at Horseshoe Lake. Heading into the run, I felt a bit worn down from the eventful start to the weekend and very frustrated with some work-related stressors. Fortunately, the conditions were ripe for a fantastic run, and I had my most enjoyable run of my half marathon training thus far! I knocked out 6.75 miles in 60:07 and could have easily gone for another 2 miles.

Horseshoe Lake was beautiful!

Over time, I have found that running has turned into one of my biggest sanctuaries in life. When I’m facing difficult times in life, my first instinct is to turn to God and pray for strength and a resolution to whatever is going on. However, as anyone who has waited on God for an answer to prayer can attest, sometimes the time between saying “Amen” and God’s answer can be difficult. Regardless of how tired or stressed I have felt in recent weeks, I have desperately craved my training runs and I felt a million times better when I was done. On that day, I was grateful for the bright sunshine and fantastic weather that allowed me to have a lengthy run during I could pound the stress related to Sheila’s health scare into the pavement!

I had a bit more free time last week because of spring break, and I took full advantage of it! Last Sunday, one of my friends asked if I was doing the Towpath 5 Miler. Prior to then, I hadn’t thought much about it. However, after I looked at the race website, I realized that it started very close to my house. After I knocked out a great training run on the Towpath on Tuesday, I decided that I definitely wanted to run the race. Hal Higdon lined up a “5K Race” for me on my schedule, and I figured that running a 5 miler wouldn’t be overextending myself.

Thursday’s run took me to a small park in Brunswick with a lake and a completely flat trail. After I decided to run the Towpath 5 Miler, I told myself that I wanted to set a new PR for a 5 miler and I decided to use Thursday’s run to gain a sense for what I’d need to do pacing-wise. When my adrenaline kicks in, I often have trouble starting slowly, and this often results in a lack of energy for the middle of the race before my “finish-line adrenaline” kicks back in during the last mile. I need to figure out how to pump myself up without losing control over my pace!

Anyhow, I knocked out 5 hard and scenic miles and had a fantastic time of 41:16 to show for it afterwards. Here’s a few pictures of North Park in Brunswick that I took during my “cool down” walk:

My legs were pretty sore afterwards, and I was afraid that would affect me on Sunday’s race. Fortunately, that didn’t happen… but you’ll just have to come back later in the week for my race recap to see how the race went!

Despite having much turmoil in the rest of my life, I’m thrilled with how the past two weeks of training have gone. With over half of my training plan in the books, I am very grateful for how my body has held up and for how I’m feeling about running in general. Lord willing, this optimism will continue as I head into the first double-digit training runs of my life. However, looking back and thinking about how I am now able to successfully conquer long distances that were previously daunting only a few months ago gives me confidence to believe that my training, my faith, and my determination will help me to conquer the distances that lay ahead!

How is your training going?