Week 2 Update and San Francisco Photos

Week 2 of my marathon training program is just about complete. I did a 4.5mi run today, and I still have a 1hr walk tomorrow. 4.5mi felt kind of long today. Not good, because the Saturday runs only get longer from here. But, I feel good that I haven't missed any workouts these first two weeks.

Here are some pics from my San Fran trip last week:

Had a really nice hotel room

Here's the view from my hotel room

Bay Bridge, as seen from the starting point for my runs along the Embarcadero

Another view from the starting point for my SF runs

Something I can't do in Ft. Worth - run out onto a pier!

Looking back at SF from the pier

I also visited the Golden Gate bridge

There's plenty of foot traffic on the Golden Gate bridge. I didn't run it this time. Maybe next time.

A view from the Golden Gate bridge

A Chill Pod - looks like a good place to relax after a run!

My turn-around point at the end of Pier 39. That's Alcatraz Island out there.

Another view from Pier 39. Sea lions like to hang out here.

Rascal Roundup 5k Race

Thoughts on today's race:

- It was COLD! - about 30 degrees when we arrived.

- It was really alot of fun watching my wife and kids run a 1k together. It was my kid's first race. They had a blast, and all want to do another one some time.

- It was also really cool to see my step dad David run his first 5k (that's him in the Harley gear in the photo below).

- Even though I didn't PR today, I still had a pretty decent time of 24:28, which was good enough to take third place in my age group. So I scored my first age-group award, which is a medal that is like a dog-tag (there was a kind of camo theme to the race, so I guess Army dog tags go well with the theme).

- Post-race, they had some fun stuff for the kids, including a bounce house (behind me in the photo above) and face painting.

As I mentioned above, I didn't PR, but I'm still happy with my time. My splits for the first two miles were right about on target (7:39; 7:48). The third mile, things started to unravel (mile 3 - 8:08!?!). Here's my excuse:

See that hill around the 2-mile point? It killed me.

So what did I learn? I think it turned out to be a good plan to go out easy and save something for the end. It helped me get through the hills. I'm sure I finished faster than I would have if I had burned up too much during the first half of the race.

I need more hill work.

Foto Friday

A cool gift from my wife - it's a photo collage of 2010 running pics:

Foto Friday

I started here - Aug. '09:

Then I spent the past 12 months doing this:

And now 75lbs lighter - Dec. '10:

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Photo Friday

It seems like "photo Friday" is a popular blog topic, so I'm giving it a shot this week.

My favorite part of every race...

is seeing my family after the run...

especially my kids, who are always so proud of their dad, and curious about the race.

It's good to be a runner, but it's great to be a Dad.

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