Busy Weekend (May 1 - 3)

Note- I wrote most of this a week ago, but never finished, and didn't have a chance to complete it. I'll catch up on the rest of my life shortly :)

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There's no rest for the weary as I packed a lot into the weekend. Friday after work Dana & I headed up to Healdburg (a little north of Sonoma) to go wine tasting with Julia (Stamps) Mallon. I think of all the people I still keep in touch with, who aren't from Tennessee or Georgia, I think I've known Julia the longest, considering I met her at the Foot Locker XC race in high school. It's cool to see her now married, with a baby, and still running fast marathons. Dana & I had fun hanging out up there with Julia, her mom, and a another couple that we just met.



Saturday morning, we continued the apartment search. We've seen a lot of good places that have come down in rent this year. I think we're just waiting for that perfect place. We thought we had found it two weeks ago, but it turned out the owners were a weirdo lawyer couple the lived right above, and wanted us to sign a lease that said we'd be personally liable for any mildew, and that we could keep bikes anywhere in the apartment or garage except for in a closet that was too small to fit a bike. NEXT.



After that it was off to a Kentucky Derby party. That was a fun event, where woman were wearing the southern style hats, one guy was dressed as a jockey, and one guy even dressed up as a horse! A friend had given me a pretty good handicapping sheet for the race with good writeups on every horse. Well, every horse except for Mine That Bird where he just said "If this horse wins I'll never bet on another race again, and I'll vote for Jim Doyle for re-election" (I guess he's a Wisconsin Republican). Well... if you watched the race you know that Mine That Bird flew from last to first on the inside of the rail to shock the field. In fact it was the 2nd longest longshot win in the 135 year history of the race. All I can say is maybe there's hope for me to run a 5k PR again.



After that party, I drove North to meet up with Baylor teammates Jeff Edmonds & Andy Anderson as they were running the Avenue of the Giants Marathon in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. My plan was to run the first half and provide them any assistance if needed, and otherwise just enjoy the workout. I decided not to register for the race just in case I was tempted to go the whole distance. It was a good thing because I was tempted. The course was two out & back legs through the secluded redwood forest. It was a bit lonely at times, but beautiful. The first out and back was a very slight uphill, but it went on for most of the 6.5 miles. All three of us were a bit more strained than we'd hoped, but we kept a solid 6:05-6:10 pace (the plan was for the to average 6:00 for the race - a 2:37). We turned around & were able to pick up the pace, get our legs back, and hit the half marathon just 45 seconds off 6 minute pace. My one contribution to that effort was to play crowd control when the half marathon runners, who started an hour after us, came toward us taking up the whole width of the road. At least they did a great job cheering for us. Between 11 & 13 miles, Jeff started to struggle a bit, so our pace was somewhat inconsistent. We hit the 13 mile mark in 1:18:45 (6:03 pace), then ran a bit slower the next two miles. I finally turned around at the 15 mile mark (1:32) and ran two miles back to the start. About an hour later I see Andy in the back of a park ranger's truck. We was looking and feeling great, but his lack of running caused a hamstring cramp that he couldn't shake out (his fitness came largely from his back country avalanche patrolling). A short time later Jeff emerged - weaving between the 10k joggers - and won the marathon in 2:48. It was over 10 minutes slower than what he had hoped for, but I was impressed at how he hang on given how bad he was hurting that day.

All in all, great to see both of them! For me & my run/workout/mini-race, I felt great when I turned around at 15 miles. I had told myself this past year that 1 marathon was enough (I ran California International in 2005), but now all of a sudden I feel like I'm curious what I could do. My 2:43 was a great effort in 2005, but I'm way more fit now than I was then.