More Running

This month saw me running the Colorado Mini-Marathon, a 15 mile race down the beautiful Poudre Canyon and finishing in Old Town Fort Collins. Yeah, I can't believe I can run 15 miles either. This was the race that I've been training for since the SuperBowl. I finished in 2:51:05. That's 11:25 miles, 11 seconds faster than my half marathon in April. And my half marathon split was nearly 5 minutes faster than my time in April.

I also ran my first Bolder Boulder on Memorial Day. I walked this popular 10K event last spring (and by popular I mean 50,000 runners/walkers). The company I work for sponsors any employee who wants to run or walk the Bolder Boulder. We had 13 people participate this year and had would have had more were it not for 3 training injuries that kept runners out of the race. That's a pretty good turnout for a company of around 115 employees. Last year was our previous high with 12. I like to take credit for the surge - I am proof that anyone can get out and run if they put their mind to it. I finished in 1:04:01. Only my second 10K, but a PR by over 9 minutes! And over 31 minutes faster than last year.

Having completed the Colorado Mini-Marathon I have turned my mind to my next running challenge. In the next year I would like to run a full marathon. There several I'm looking at in the May/June time frame next year. I will spend the rest of 2007 maintaining my half-marathon shape, increasing my speed, and building a strong base to start marathon training upon next winter.

I'm still losing weight, averaging 1 lb/wk since switching back to the FLEX plan in March. I'm at 213 here at the end of May, just shy of 130 lbs gone. My next weight loss goal is to weigh less than 200 lbs by my birthday in August. I probably last weighed less than 200 lbs as a freshman at UW-Oshkosh in 1987.

My wife's digital camera was in the shop most of this month, so no new pictures to share. Thank goodness for extended warranties though -- the repairs were thus "free".