Forward Progress

This past weekend was the first really long run - 14 miles!  I ran with Amy this week and it seemed to make it go by much quicker.  I think the two of us running together gives us a little extra push as we both have somewhat of a competitive edge.  We ran a really good pace that would put us finishing the marathon at about the 4 hour mark.  I'm not optimistic that the pace will continue as we expand it to 26.2 miles, but I now truly believe that 4 hours and 15 minutes is easily within my reach.  

My brother got me a Garmin GPS watch for Christmas.  It's been somewhat of a blessing and a curse.  It was great to keep my pace for the 14 miler, but the next day I wanted to go for a slow 5k run and just loosen up.  Having the watch on drove me to push it.  I ended up running the 5k in a little less than 25 minutes, certainly not the leisurely run I was looking for.  I'm hoping Damien is around for more of these shorter runs in the future so I can focus less on the time and more on getting out and clearing my mind.

This past week I also took one final step to permanently burying that fat kid with no self esteem that once controlled me.  I signed up for an endurance event called Tough Mudder (www.toughmudder.com).  I figure if I'm able to compete in the tough mudder, I'm really not afraid of doing anything.  I owe Damien a thank you for pushing me toward signing up, and I owe Killian's Irish Red for the final step.  Turns out, once you run your mouth about signing up for something like this while you're out drinking with work buddies they'll hold you accountable the next day.  No turning back now!

Finally... it's Tuesday - weigh in day.  I'm happy to say I'm down 2.2 pounds this week and at 185.8!  14 weeks until the marathon 13.8 pounds to go!