Sandy Runs

When my friend Ruth said that the Martian Half Marathon would be her come-back race after a break from the distance running circuit, I decided to join her. It was a bonus that I was able to join the pace team as the 3:00 pacer. I had heard good things about this race in Dearborn, Michigan, and it was only a 3.5 hour drive for me. Yes, I wore that hat during the race I drove up to Michigan on Friday afternoon and went straight to Ruth's house. Then we drove to the expo. It was a smallish expo with a lot of booths representing other local races. There was some gear for sale too. After the expo we went for dinner with Ruth's daughter Sarah at the Michigan Beer Company . They had great food and we could order flights of various Michigan brews. Selfie with Ruth and an alien at the expo; they had inflatable aliens everywhere  The expo  The next morning we needed to leave Ruth's place at 7:20 AM. It was nice that we didn't need to get up super early. The Mar...

I've posted my individual race reports from the Rome and Paris marathons, which I ran in early April. Here is a direct comparison of some of the aspects of each race. It was easy to do a direct comparison since I ran the marathons only one week apart. They were both good, but I preferred Rome. Part of this is because I feel more of an affinity for Rome and for Italy in general, so maybe I'm a little biased. However, I would recommend either of these marathons without hesitation. Just be sure you're up for a big city marathon. Rome had about 20,000 participants, and Paris had over 40,000! Rome medal on the left, Paris medal on the right Maratona di Roma April 2, 2017 Marathon de Paris April 9, 2017 My Grade A- B+ Overview I love Italy and I love Rome, so I was in a positive state of mind going into this. There were thunderstorms on race day and I was soaking wet before mile 2, but I still had a fun race. Not everything was perfect, but I think ...

It's time for a 1st Quarter assessment of my 2017 running goals . I watched the Boston Marathon coverage yesterday and got inspired to improve my fitness and my race pace. So now I've put together a training plan for 2017. During the first quarter of the year I didn't have a plan. I was just winging it. That's not going to be good enough. Almost all the goals will be met if I follow my new plan, and also make an effort to eat better (I'm a hopeless snack-a-holic). I've upped my initial marathon time goal and want to go after a PR this fall. Here's where things stand. I  will focus on consistent running.  I'm doing so-so with this goal, and I can do better. I need to run at least three days a week, and I've done that some weeks, but not others. With my two local running clubs, I have multiple weekly opportunities for easy runs, long runs and speed work. I just need to take advantage of all of these things, and my new training plan does. I will...

I ran the Marathon de Paris on April 9th, one week after I ran in Rome ( Rome race report here ). I planned Paris first and invited friends to join me. Abbi and Kristen accepted. After Rome, I spent some time in Belgium (loved it!) and then arrived in Paris on Thursday, the same day as Abbi and Kristen. We all went to the race expo this first day. The expo was a long metro ride away and I wanted to get it out of the way in order to fully enjoy Friday and Saturday. This was a large expo, which was fitting for a race of more than 40,000 runners. We picked up our bibs and soft nylon backpack and then Abbi and I spent some time walking around the expo. We each bought a shirt at the Asics booth; otherwise, we wouldn’t get a shirt until finishing the marathon. Like in Rome, I wanted to buy a jacket but didn’t. While Rome didn’t have a marathon branded jacket at all, Paris did, but there was only one boring design with a very inconspicuous logo on the front; if I was going to get a Paris ma...