Anyone out there?

Wow.

I really really let it drop this time. How to catch up? It's probably easiest to list the last few races I've done, and those that I'd like to do this year.

Working backwards:
Cinco de Mayo 5K: 21:16 1st place age group, 9th place overall
This is the 4th year of this race, haven't missed one yet. Hopefully they get the City to work WITH them and make this an event everyone wants to run. The wind this year was really strong...in our face. One half loop around Clark Park in the opposite direction of the runs in past years, straight out to Livernois and loop around the tire store and then straight back in to the finish. You'd think the wind would be at our back on the way in. Nope. Square in the face. I had the benefit of pushing my 3 year old son in the jogging stroller, and he's mocking me for not staying in first place. "What's the problem Daddy, why aren't you in first place anymore?" "Everyone is catching up Daddy, go faster!" Nice race overall, felt good, but definitely felt like the effort was 18:16 not 21:16.

Glass City Marathon: Trained someone at work (I'm looking at you Jeff) under less than ideal conditions. Ultimately I'm satisfied with HIS results, but I know that with more time to train, he can drop some serious time off his PR. For a first marathon, he ran 3:40:26. I ran the first 6 to establish a conservative pace. Stick with that pace and things would turn out perfect, that was my thinking at the time. At 6 the Half Marathon splits off to the right, so I turned off and picked up the pace to 6:30ish for 2 miles, then realized I needed to turn LEFT at the fork in the path over the covered bridge. Had to double back and run through the park. Ran out to the 17 mile marker (After stopping to help set up the water/GU station at 18) and waited for Jeff for roughly 30 minutes. Thankfully, his brain kept his passion in check. When we split off, we were roughly 3 seconds behind 2 college aged girls in uniform running a pretty even pace. When I saw him coming, he looked strong, a little flush, but only 3 seconds ahead of the two college runners. I took the lead pace from there, hitting 8:24-8:29 at each mile marker all the way in. Even though I didn't run the marathon, I did put in a total of 24.2 miles if you include the 2 mile "warm up, calm down" run I put in before Jeff got to the start line (3 minutes before the race started). Good times.

Martian Half Marathon (4/10/10): 1:44:24
This was designed to be a controlled up tempo run that started out near my intentions for Jeff's Marathon training, and then drop a few seconds off of each mile through the finish. We did exactly that. Each mile was faster. We talked the entire way. Easiest half marathon I've ever run. The only difference between our race is that I did not allow him to sprint in with me. There's roughly a 20 second difference in times over the last .1, and if 4 people would have moved out of his way, he would have averaged 7:59 officially. Not bad for starting out at 8:30 at the first mile.

New Year's Eve Belle Isle Run: 1 Mile and 4 Miler
1 Mile run in 6:25, did not run that on purpose. The 4 Miler I don't know exactly what my time was, and I can't look it up as Motor City Striders don't usually keep results beyond the first few people. I think I was 27:00ish. Didn't really feel good about that run. Probably should have run the "warm up" somewhere other than the 1 mile run.

Big Bird 4K: 15:46 6:20 pace, 13th overall.
This race took me completely by surprise. Not yet one month after the Chicago Marathon I had done approximately 3 "speed" sessions integrated into my Thursday night runs. First mile I came in at 6:15 and knew I was running way out of my league. Tried to back down, but looked back and saw no one. If I backed down now, I was going to drop way way back. So I stuck with a pack of 5 and we ran together until approximately the last .3 when everyone started really getting at it. Still having the fear of phantom hamstring issue, I stuck at the pace we ran, and just let the people sprinting take off. Happy with my performance overall, glad to have been able to shoot the 10K for RunMichigan.Com and in a nice cool down afterwards.

Chicago Marathon (10/11/09): 3:26:51 7:53pace 3000th male.
First time I ran a marathon without looking at my watch to make sure I was on pace. Just ran what felt good, felt relaxed, felt right. Phantom hamstring pains at Miles 24/25/26. Last two miles were roughly 12 minutes each. Not really happy about that, but considering that 85% of the training program was at 7:57 pace, and only in the last 6 weeks did I entertain going 7:40ish, I'm happy with the end result. Just wish the BS phantom pains didn't happen to me. I'll live to run another marathon, the way I want to, when I want.

Milford 30K: 2:28:11 7:56 pace
Talked with some guy (I'll have to look him up in the results) the entire way. We worked together to make sure we didn't go too fast. Ran really strong and relaxed all the way through. Little scary part at mile 16 when I stopped sweating. Proper hydration? Probably not. I thought I was taking in enough. Guess not. I'll call that race my breakthrough race. It gave me the confidence (at the time) that everything was going to be alright. I knew then that I'd be fine with setting 3:30 as my goal.

Crim 5K:
Ran with Veronica, we ran 9 mins, 8 mins, 7 mins for each mile. It was supposed to be a jog. The day started out by riding on the back of a motorcycle shooting the elite professionals in the 10 Mile race (for RunMichigan.Com)

Solstice 5K 22:06
First run in the new age group, 35-39. Didn't race it, just tried to take it easy and stay near the marathon training program. Never warmed up during the race, felt stiff throughout the run. Took 3rd in the age group.

Martian Half 2009: 1:48:56
Had only been running 3 or 4 miles a day 3 days a week, then ran it on a whim just to wake myself up. Things were going fine at 7:40 pace for the first 10 miles, then I cramped up and had to walk/hobble/jog in the last 5K. Stupid stupid stupid.