Running is therapy

I have been dreaming about the Harrisburg Marathon since I posted about it yesterday. However today I am still training for the Lehigh Valley Half Marathon, since it’s 6 months earlier.

Eric and Bill came down to Carlisle today to run a 5 miler with me at my personal stomping grounds, the War College Barracks.

It was great run, I felt pretty good the whole time, even though I really felt like we were pushing the pace. It was good to go out and exert myself for a longer distance.

With the longer distances (yes I am now calling 5 miles a long run) I will post (and be more concerned about) my 1 mile splits:
9:05, 8:30, 9:00, 9:06, 8:41

Really uneven splits, but I will take them. I think that is purty fast for this being the beginning of week 4.

Motionbased Link

Some stats:
Distance: 5.01
Time: 44:25 (pace: 8:51)
Average Heart Rate: 154 bpm
Calories Burned: 724

Eric decided to tell me he was running the Harrisburg Marathon, via this blog post, so in return, I will tell that I accept, via *this* post.

Harrisburg it is. Harrisburg was my first choice all along, so I am pleased with the decision, however I would have run Steamtown too.

I am planning to start training for it on July 6th 2008, giving me 18 weeks before the November 9th starting gun.

That is perfect as far as I can tell. It accomplishes a number of things I wanted to do this year. I wanted to run Hands-On House half marathon again, and still can if I do Harrisburg. I wanted to have May and June be free running so I could mess around and rack up some 5/10K t-shirts in the beautiful weather of late Spring and early Summer. I also think it is likely that it will be much cooler at Harrisburg than it will be at Steamtown which was run early in October this year.

And Steamtown isn’t going anywhere, maybe next year.

Maggie always does the ThursdayThirteen…it looked like it might be fun, so I talked Mark into it as well.

Thirteen Things I like about Cats! 1. They are hairy, and that can be warm when you sleep with them. 2. They don’t need you, THEY DON’T NEED ANYBODY! 3. They sometimes miss the target when they jump and act like nothing happened. 4. They will stare right at you and puke on your carpet. 5. They suddenly need to be upstairs. 6. They can open cabinets to look for items of interest. 7. Unlike me, they sleep most comfortably in sinks. 8. When the rapture comes, I will have fur that I am saving on my carpet to make warm clothes. 9. Other cat people will give you the “Crazy Cat Person” handshake…if there were one, which there isn’t. 10. Girls can stay over and bring their cat, because you are already outfitted for it. 11. You don’t have to walk a cat on Saturday morning. 12. How can you not respect a beast that sleeps 18 hours a day. 13. They go to the bathroom indoors, like other civilized animals (see: humans)

I picked up some new glasses.

I also managed to get the built in web cam on my laptop to work via Vmware.

**Edit: I changed the picture to something more flattering.**

I feel like crap. On top of going out to dinner and eating a really greasy portobello sandwich with greasy fries 3 diet sodas and some cheese slathered bread, and a possible head cold coming on…it didn’t make for a great run tonight.

I am not positive I am getting sick, but I have felt kind of run down lately.

I also picked up new eye glasses tonight and they are making me dizzy.

Blah.

One Mile Splits: 9:32, 9:46, 9:09

Motionbased Link

Some Stats:
Distance: 3.01
Time: 28:27 (pace: 9:26)
Average Heart Rate: 153
Calories Burned: 435

The second week of my 14 week training program came to a close on Saturday, making today day 1 of week 3.

I had a 4 miler scheduled and I was juiced to get out there. I drove down to Newville Rails To Trails and did an out and back run.

I am addicted to using those rails to trails as out and back runs. You should get into it.

Motionbased Link

Some stats:
Distance: 4.02
Time: 0:38:04 (pace: 9:28)
Average Heart Rate: 148 bpm
Calories Burned: 586

I had intended to swap Friday and Saturday and do my cross training Friday night, and then lift on Saturday. Well I didn’t make it to the gym on Saturday so I ended up going for a 5 mile walk. Two days of cross training is better than nothing.

I am going running today…and I can’t wait!