Sandy Runs

I just completed my first job as a pacer at the  Georgia Marathon . I paced the 3:00 group for the half marathon as part of the  Marathon Maniacs / Half Fanatics  pace team. If you’re not familiar with pacers, these are people that the race employs (usually via a complimentary race entry) to run an even pace for their assigned finish time. A pacer usually carries a sign indicating their pace and/or finish time, and should be dressed to be easily identifiable on the race course. They lead and encourage the runners as necessary, providing motivation and answering questions. In Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, after finishing my first pacing gig My first experience running with a pacer was at my third marathon: the 2006  Columbus Marathon . There, I ran with the 5:00 full marathon pace group for more than half the race, then I had to drop back. My problem was that this pacer did not take walk breaks, and I had been training with walk breaks. I could run a...

The inaugural Raccoon Mountain Marathon, Half and Relay was held in Chattanooga, Tennessee this past Saturday. I knew I wanted to run this event as soon as I heard about it. It was to be part trail, part road, the race website and Facebook page had a fun, low-key vibe, and it was organized by Run Chattanooga , a major local running club. Since I’m choosing my full marathons selectively, I registered to run the half marathon. And then I added another event on Sunday to make this a double half marathon weekend. I flew to Atlanta on Friday and drove to Chattanooga. I’d be returning to Atlanta after Raccoon Mountain to run the Georgia Half Marathon and then fly home. Getting out of Atlanta during rush hour proved frustrating, and it took me about an hour longer than I planned for the drive to Chattanooga. I went straight to The Terminal Brewhouse , which had good beer and conversation at the bar, and was located next to the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo , an old train terminal and ...

I’m trying something new. The winter has not helped my plan to stick with training. It has been too easy to use cold and snow and ice as an excuse. I could try harder to make use of the treadmill and recumbent bike machine. Alas, I have not. But now I’m motivated to try something new. Many people have heard of the Beachbody programs like P90X and Insanity. Well, I’m going to try Focus T25 with Shaun T. It’s a program of intense 25 minute workouts each day (and twice on Fridays) with Saturdays off and Sundays as a stretching/flexibility day. OK, I'll try... Purchasing this program was atypical for me. Scot and I watched the infomercial, and then I found it on Amazon. Because Scot said he’d try it, I decided to go for it. The buddy system is definitely a help to me in sticking with a workout plan. I had never tried something like this, but why not? Scot had never tried anything like it either, but it sure looked like a good workout. So, now we are two days into t...