Friday, September 22, 2006

Oh, good. Cold, too? Great!

Both Tami & I are running a road race tomorrow morning. It's the Jack 15, which is 15.2 miles of lonely county roads. Tami's running in a 5x3 relay, and I'm running the whole thing. Naturally, I've been watching the weather forecast closely, and it's been steadily getting worse each day. Tonight I checked the National Weather Service, and they've finally gone all the way, saying the chance of rain is 100%.

[Update]

The weather turned out to be just about perfect. It rained early, but had mostly stopped by the time the race started. The temperature was just right, and the wind was from the north. Just over half of the race runs due south.

Tami's team won the 5x3 co-ed division.

Just before the race, I talked to a local long-time runner (let's call him "Bob." Because that's his name.) He ran his first Jack 15 in 1969, at the age of 42. I told him that I'd read that fact in the record book, and it inspired me to run my first this year at the same age. I said I wanted to be like Bob. He's now 80 (yes, that doesn't add up, but back then, the race was run earlier in the year). He told me that after running the 15.2 miles, which went pretty well, he told himself that a marathon was just 11 miles more, so he ran one that fall. He found out the hard way that there's no such thing as "just" 11 miles more.

That sure corroborates my experience. Not that I've run a full marathon, but my half-marathon 13 days ago went so well that I thought a full 26.2 miles was coming sooner rather than later. After today's run, I know better. The first 10 miles flew by, but the last five were really tough. I don't know if today's race just came too soon after my half, or if my training just wasn't good enough, but I know for sure that I'm not close to being ready for a marathon.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006