Chicago Marathon is 4 days and 23 minutes away!

So Jill and I have been training for nearly 19 weeks straight and the big weekend is right around the corner. For anyone interested we will be on the streets of Chicago Sunday morning. Look for us together – we will be the ones with the obnoxiously bright shirts. You can track us here, but you have to register.
Now for the packing list… GU, Wristwatch, ibuprofen, shoes, clothes… in order of importance.

Happy running,

James

ING Half-Marathon

Yesterday, Sunday, Jill and I completed our second half-marathon.  The race was the ING Inaugural Georgia Marathon-Half-Marthon here in Atlanta GA.  Overall they did a great job, except for the lack of structure at the start.  The start was huge blob of runners (marathoners and half-marathoners and walkers merged into one huge block) that spanned over 5 city blocks.   The problem was we were stuck in the back of the pack, and there were a huge number of walkers.  Jill and I spent the first 3 miles weaving around this group, and finally around mile 4 hit a really quick pace.

Our time finished at 2 hours and 3 minutes which averages around 9:23.  This was faster than our goal, but does not do justice to our race, because we were cruising at a great clip.  Moving forward we will be switching to cycling with some running during the week.

James

1/2 Marathon is here!

Here we go race fans… it is almost that day, and we are happy to be done training!  Below are some links and information about the event on Sunday.

• A map of the course – Google Maps mashed up with the race course
• Another map of the course – PDF w/ cheering sections highlighted (remember we are only doing the half)
• Link to main race website

The race is scheduled to start at 7am (we will send an update on Saturday if we hear different), and we will cross the finish line a wee bit before 9am (optimistically) – we’ve been training for a 9 minute mile.

For those that cannot make it to the race at 7am there is (geek heaven) an online tracking system that shows our progress throughout the course.  Technical info:  We will be wearing RFID tags and as we cross certain points in the race they will update their live race map.  Here is the link

Wish us luck – here we go

James

Half-Marathon – Check

Thanksgiving morning Jill and I finished our longest run ever (13.1 miles), and we did it with just under 10,000 other crazy people at 7 in the morning.  So while most of my family that had flown in town was in a warm bed, we were standing outside in 40 degree weather in shorts!

We ran very strong and the race was put together very well.  Next stop 26.2?  Our official time was 2:12:11 2:10:48.

Thank you for everyone’s support during these past few months.  Now we just need to find another race that is organized so well for March / April for our Marathon run… suggestions?

Weekend in New York

This past weekend I traveled to NY to visit my brother-in-law. We, of course, had excellent food and plenty of New York pizza. While we were there we went to a Knicks game, and sat somewhere in the roof. The picture below shows how high we really were. The Knicks lost the game, but it was great to be there for opening night.

The next days was the NYC marathon, and after a bit of navigation we made it to the finish line. We had a great spot and were able to see Lance Armstrong, and the winners arrive to the finish line. Below are the few pictures my phone was able to grab. The finishers looked pretty strong and it is a strong argument for me to run it, but than I am reminded that they are used to being chased by Cheetahs.

FYI – All the pictures above were taken with the Pearl built-in camera.  Not too shabby.

A simple 10k

Never would I have imagined the day that I would say we are running a “simple 10k”, but that is exactly what Jill and I said, as we got dressed at 5 in the morning on Sunday.  We are in the middle of our half-marathon training program and have already run that distance as part of our training.  In fact we are running 6 days a week and despite recent rain and the evenings getting later quicker we have stuck to our regiment.

Speaking of rain….  Sunday we awoke to the wonderful sound of rain hitting the ground outside.  This is normally a wonderful sound on a lazy morning, but today we were racing and that was NOT the sound we wanted to hear.  No worries we thought, it will stop eventually.  So, with coffee in hand we start driving out to the Alpharetta 10k.  The rain continues… and being around 45 degrees, dark, and very wet it was not making for a nice morning.  None the less, Jill and I got out in the rain (got soaked), and ran our race.  It was a slow run for us since we were miserable, but we are glad we did it.

This weekend we are running 7 miles (which is .9 more than the race above for all those none runner types), so the progression to 13ish miles continues.  The nice part is the weather – Saturday and Sunday look perfect!!

Enjoying the Fall,

James