Sandy Runs

I ran the 2015 Petersburg Half Marathon in Petersburg, Virginia this past weekend. I needed to get in a long training run, and knowing my track record lately, I knew that I needed to register for a race if I wanted to guarantee getting that run into my schedule. I decided to run Petersburg on pretty short notice, just a week or so ahead of time. It was just south of Richmond, not far from home, and looked fun. I drove down to Petersburg after work on Friday and met up with Letty for dinner at a local pizza place, Vincenzo’s . The pizza was good and I got to try some beer from Richmond. Letty was kind enough to share her hotel room with me, and we got some sleep after dinner. The next morning, our drive to the start area was not far. We managed to park a couple blocks away from the start/finish and met up with Sid. Before the race with Letty Pre-race pic with Letty and Sid; you can see the cobblestones Union soldiers at the start We congregated near an old tr...

I ran my 5 th Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run this year (here are my race reports from 2012 and 2014 ), except that this year the course was cut short. I also had some problems of my own. It’s a good thing that the cherry blossoms were in peak bloom and that it was a beautiful day. Otherwise, I’d be bitter.  The 2015 t-shirt design and matching medal The race experience started on Saturday when Scot and I went to the race expo at the National Building Museum . He wasn’t running, but he likes race expos and he also wanted to see some of the speakers. Dane Rauschenberg , a fellow Marathon Maniac was scheduled to speak, and Scot had met him a few times. Dane talked about some of the ambitious racing challenges he had set for himself, and accomplished, and he motivated others to set their own goals. We also got to listen to legendary marathoner  Bill Rodgers speak. Bill was very low-key and a little humorous. After the expo, Scot and I spent a little time taking pict...

It’s time for another throwback race report. This one pre-dates Facebook, so I’ve had to dig into my archives to find details. The Dublin Marathon was my second marathon ever, as well as my first international marathon. I trained with the now-defunct National AIDS Marathon Training Program, just as I did for my first marathon in New Orleans , and had to raise thousands of dollars for my race entry. After a few weeks of training with my pace group, several of us decided to stay in Ireland for several days after the race and road-trip around the country. I’ve lost touch with these folks now, as our primary connection was this race and the Ireland trip. But we had a great time! In the finish chute at 2005 Dublin Marathon Training for Dublin began in the spring of 2005. I had just run my first marathon in February at a glacially slow pace. Part of that was because I was a novice runner when I started training, and I was simply just slow; part of it was because I had tendinitis in ...

My first marathon was in February 2005 at the Mardi Gras Marathon in New Orleans, Louisiana. This was the last running of this marathon before Hurricane Katrina hit and devastated the city. The marathon did not take place the following year, and eventually the race was taken over by the Rock‘n’ Roll Marathon Series , the organization that owns it today. But in 2005, it was an independent marathon, and my reason for visiting New Orleans for the very first time. Horrible photo of my first marathon medal I was not a runner in 2004 when I received a mailing from the National AIDS Marathon Training Program. I normally throw out such “junk mail” but this one I read. They promised me that they would train me to run a marathon, even if I was a beginning runner, and that they’d send me to New Orleans to run, if only I would help raise funds for DC’s Whitman Walker Clinic . I had finished graduate school, so I had more free time, I was ready for a challenge and to meet new people. I ...