What a weekend!

This was a very busy weekend for us. Friday night had Gina playing in the pre-game show at the high school football game. The 8th grade band joined the high school band on the field to play the fight song! She had a blast and we stayed to watch Twinsburg defeat Aurora.

Saturday was Gina's first X-Country invitational at Brecksville. Gina is on the right in the photo above, #1189. She dropped a minute off her time on a wet and muddy course. She enjoys the mud and had a lot of fun. There were lots of schools there at this meet and both Denise and I were inspired to see these middle-school kids running as fast as they do! I had no desire to run when I was in school, and it is neat to see these kids catching the 'bug' so early in life. Now if their parents would let them run w/o yelling at them...oops, that is topic for another day!

We drove her home instead of her riding the bus because we then had Abby's Birthday party! 8 of her friends met at our home and we loaded everyone up and went to "Hands-on Pottery" where they each selected and painted their own pottery piece. Back to house for pizza and Cake! Lots of laughing and screaming as only 8 11-year old girls can do.


This morning Denise and I ran in the Buckeye Half Marathon. Denise wanted a test to see how her training is going and a test of her marathon pacing. I went too because it sounded like a good idea... I have only run 36 miles total since Burning River and wanted to run with Nick who was pacing the 1:45 group. This is an 8-minute per mile pace... I have not run fast in a year and I knew that the distance would not be bad, but the 'speed' would be difficult.

The morning was cool and overcast; perfect running weather. Around the 10 mile mark, a light rain began to fall, helping to keep us cool. Both Denise and I elected to run w/o hats so our visbility was hindered by the rain drops on our glasses. At least this was a road race and you really don't need to see too much... :)

I held on to the pace group for 9 miles and then was not able to bridge the gap back after a water stop. My goal became to stay ahead of the 1:50 pace group. I managed to finish just under 1:47 and Denise was not far behind at 1:56. A very nice morning.

I feel worse after this 13.1 mile run than I did after 100 miles... I am not used to asphalt and I really should have run with the 1:50 pace group instead. But you never know unless you try.

We all learned in school that nature abhors a vacuum. This includes time. I look back and can't believe that I was able to run 50+ miles per week with 4-6 hours runs on the weekends. I do not know how I fit all of the training into life. I guess that the garage was not getting cleaned, I was not working as many hours, not attending some of the girls activities, etc. :)

Endurance training and participation is a constant battle of balance between family, work, and sport. Some days we get it right, some days we don't...

I am very thankful that Denise, Gina, and Abby tolerated the training of this past year. It is time to swing the pendulum back the other way a bit and catch up with some neglected items. Something growled in the basement... time to clean!