Doing

I Ran the Philly Distance Run

When I ran the Philadel­phia Dis­tance Run last year, it was a tremen­dous relief just to be able to run at all. I’d spent the bet­ter part of a month suf­fer­ing from seri­ous ten­dini­tis in my right ankle and had­n’t even been able to run the week before the race. For­tu­nate­ly, the rest did me good and I was able to run. I fin­ished with 7:58 splits. I ran about half a minute faster than I expect­ed to run and felt great about it.

This year I haven’t had any of those set­backs, but I was still uncer­tain about my goals for this race. Should I take it easy and treat it as a prac­tice run? Should I push myself and try to hit the 7:15 pace I need to qual­i­fy for Boston in Novem­ber? I met up with Kris­ten ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing think­ing that I’d do the for­mer. My mind was made up, or so I thought. I did­n’t want to be dis­ap­point­ed if I tried to hit marathon pace and failed. This was a fail­safe. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Vacation!

We’re in Corol­la, NC, for the week. It’s rainy this year, which is some­what dis­ap­point­ing, espe­cial­ly since we’ve had radi­ant weath­er in the past. In any case, it’s nice to be out of town, spend­ing time with family.

Some­thing I’ve fig­ured out this year: good food, even BBQ and seafood, are tough to come by. We dis­cov­ered Pig­man’s BBQ last sum­mer, but I hoped a lit­tle research would turn up a gem. No such thing exists!

If you have any sug­ges­tions, feel free to chime in!

(Tell me that’s not an amaz­ing pack­ing job! That’s what a week at the beach with a baby looks like for the uninitiated.)

A Cleanr Look

If you’re one of the dear souls who sub­scribes to this under­used blog you already know how I’ve ago­nized over a suit­able theme. The search may final­ly be over. I think I’ve final­ly found a winner!

I chose Cleanr. It’s a straight­for­ward theme that fits my strict aes­thet­ic needs. I’m in love with the right rail, too! There you’ll find my Twit­ter updates, Flickr pho­tos, and Google Read­er shared items. I think it’s the best inte­gra­tion I’ve found yet. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about that space is that it’s prone to clutter.

I’m look­ing to add a Last.fm cov­er­flow wid­get to share the albums I’m check­ing out on Lala.com. If you can rec­om­mend one with a lay­out sim­i­lar to the Flickr wid­get, let me know!

On a part­ing note, I need to say that Word­Press has real­ly made it easy to update and change themes and wid­gets. I’m a total noob, yet I felt very com­fort­able try­ing things out in the new dash­board envi­ron­ment. It’s amazing!

Marathon Training Update

I haven’t been slack­ing with run­ning despite not writ­ing about it here very much. In fact, I’m off to what I believe to be a much bet­ter start than I was last year. This time last year I was bat­tling ten­donitis in my right ankle, an injury made worse by an inad­ver­tent kick in the shin dur­ing a beach soc­cer game in mid-August. I was hob­bled and had to take a week off after see­ing a doc­tor. A steady diet of pain med­ica­tion and stretch­ing got my back on track and I was chomp­ing at the bit for the Philadel­phia Dis­tance Run. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

My Second Marathon

I ran my first marathon last year. It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence that got me off the couch and back on the trail for the first time in ages. I nev­er looked back.

Now I’ve start­ed train­ing for my sec­ond marathon. It has­n’t been easy. It’s been far more chal­leng­ing to moti­vate myself. Being in bet­ter shape than I was at this time last year is no guar­an­tee that I’m going to be more effec­tive as my train­ing progresses.

I have 19 weeks to see if I can pull it togeth­er for this year’s Philadel­phia Marathon. It’s going to be a wild ride!