The MS Runner

Ok, I know I suck because I haven’t written in like forever.  For some reason, I don’t feel creative anymore, and it is tough to get motivated to write more that a couple of sentences.  I’ll try harder though.

I ran the Platte River Half Marathon last month, just 3 weeks after my marathon.  I was recovered from the marathon, but not close to being trained for the half.  I ended up at 1:56:07, which wasn’t all that bad.  I did take a few walk breaks because my knee started hurting.  I was 15th out of 43 in my age group, and if I was a chick, I would have come in 2nd in my age group!

My next run was the Cherry Creek Sneak, which I had previously vowed never to run because there are sooooo many people.  I mainly ran it because it was promoted by Runners Roost, of which I am on the race team for.  There is a 1 mile run, a 5K run, and a 5 mile run.  I did the 5 miler.  Leading up to this race was the fact that I had been sick again.  Diane thinks I have allergies,of which I have never had before.  I believe she is correct!  When I got to the race, I hooked up with other Runners Roost race team members, and we decided to take off for a “warm up run”.  Yeah right.  Their warm up pace was faster than my race pace!  After a little while, I faked the fact that I had to tie my shoes, so they took off without me.  Thank goodness!  So I lined up with the many other million runners at the start, shoulder to shoulder.  My mistake here was I was about in the middle of the pack, and when we started, it was like an episode of the Keystone cops.  Everybody was running every which way and it was hard to maneuver around.  I weaved in and out for about a mile and a half, and I was exhausted.  I was running at the pace I wanted to be at the start, but all the bobbing and weaving left me with no energy.  The last 3 miles were not pretty!  I ended up at 42:35, which was 26th out of 103 in my age group, but it was 3 minutes slower than I should have been.  Oh well.

Next  weekend my son Jason is getting married in North Carolina.  This makes it all 3 kids that are married now.  My daughter Kari is expecting her first child in August, and she already knows it’s a girl.  Micheal has his 1 year anniversary this month.  It seems like yesterday they were all just kids themselves playing football in the front yard.  Time surely does fly.

I finally started running again this week.  My knee feels better and I did 15 miles altogether.   Today I did 6 miles and although it was a bit of a struggle, I pulled through.  My knee hurt in some spots during my run, but for the most part it was fine.  I’m pleased with the way things are progressing, and at this point, I think I can still got to North Carolina for the OBX Marathon, but I will only do the half.  My 2 boys were only going to do the half anyway, so this doesn’t work out too bad.  Maybe I’ll shoot for a later marathon such as the Rock in Roll Marathon in Arizona in January?

Jason and Michael (my 2 sons for those of you who may be reading this and don’t know) and myself are going to be running a marathon relay in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 8th.  I am running 13.1 miles, then Michael runs 3.1 miles, and then Jason finishes with a 10 miler.  It should be a lot of fun and it will be cool running a relay with my2 sons.  Hopefully the next time we run, we will all run together.  Jason and Michael are going to be running a half marathon on Nov 4, so it will be interesting to see how they do.  Jason has been training hard, and I know with Michaels work schedule, it’s hard for him to be consistent in his training, but he should be able to do it, just maybe not as fast as he wants.