Time for Summer

I was originally going to entitle this blog post, "Wet Runs," in light of the recent weather, but I thought better of it.

Last Saturday, I ran my last race for the season, the Aquarium Half Marathon. I was running with a buddy of mine who just started running a few months ago. My goal was to come in at 1:50 or better. I assumed my friend would be able to do the same despite his relative newness to running because he was already hovering around the 8-minute mile mark in his longer runs.

We chatted for much of the first half of the race, maintaining a brisk pace (for me) of around 8:10, with occasional dips under 8 minutes, and occasional lags around 8:30. It was faster than I typically start, but I am typically running a full rather than half, so I figured I'd roll with it and see what happened. About 5 miles in, I passed several of my Runner's World friends coming from the other direction (not racing), which was a nice boost. At about 8 miles in, I passed Kathy going the other direction (racing). I contemplated throwing a Gu pack at her to get her attention, but she seemed to be pretty immersed in conversation, so I let it go.

We passed a water table at the 9-mile mark. I slowed down to drink my water. My friend did not. He took off ahead of me, and we didn't meet up again until the finish line. He came in at 1:45:15 with an average pace of 8:03. I finished at exactly 1:48 with an average pace of 8:16. I have to admit, I was a little sickened that my friend, who is so new to running, beat me by 2:45, and he beat my first half marathon time (Route 66, 2008) by 13:43. Despite this sickness, I was happy for him that he completed his first marathon. (I would guess that a full is in his near future.) And I was glad that I came in under my goal time.

Now that the Aquarium Half is over, I will have a 5-month break from racing. I plan to embrace the heat and the summer training in hopes of breaking the 4-hour mark this coming fall. This past week, I continued my Monday-morning fartlek (hee hee) on the Creek Turnpike trail starting east. (I really wish they'd hurry up with the construction around Memorial!) Yesterday, I had a great, relatively slow 8-miler. I missed this morning (my third Thursday in a row to miss). I can't post any stats below because bimactive.com seems to be having problems this morning (I think they have been since this past Saturday).

My next race will be in October. I'm still waiting to hear about attending a business trip in Denver. If I go, I will run the Denver Rock and Roll Marathon on October 17. If I do not attend, I'll drive up to Kansas City for the KC Marathon October 16.