Okay, so maybe there is some truth to the comments I keep hearing about me stretching myself too thin and committing to too many things. But sometimes it is hard to know when to stop, especially when you combine wide and varied interests with a helpfull personality and (the perception of) free time.

I was/am the Course Director and Volunteer Coordinator for the Marathon Sports Super Sunday 5k/10k that was held this past weekend on Super Bowl (that's right, I said it) Sunday in South Boston; an event which has grown from 330 participants to maximum capacity of 1,500 in only 2 years.

That in itself is enough to have kept me busy these past few weeks but of course I pile more on top of that: a return to Miami to lead the 3:20 (7:38/mile) marathon pace group for the ING Miami Marathon, racing to a 26 second PR (13th place - top 0.9%) finish in the Tropical 5k the morning before, ushering for the NewRep Theater's production of "Cabaret" , taking on the Director of Sponsor Relations duties on a newly formed Race Director Committee for the 24-hour Around the Lake: Ultra.Marathon.Relay that takes place at the end of July in Wakefield, MA, volunteering for the WGBH family and kids day activities at the studios (I get to be the official event photographer), and of course all of the other stuff that comes with life as a married highway engineer.

But don't get me wrong, I obviously enjoy doing all of these things or else I wouldn't put myself in these situations.  I just have to figure out how to better distribute them across the year so that they don't all jumble over each other like has been happening recently.

So obviously I have still been running and am now preparing myself for my next full out effort at the sold out Boston Marathon in April.  But before that I will be making my first ever trip to Arkansas to lead the 3:30 pace group for the Little Rock Marathon on St. Patrick's Day weekend (what a lousy time to be away from the Boston area) and to visit with my good friend Susan who I met when we were on the FHWA PDP training program back at the turn of the century.  I need to get more core work and hill training in between now and then because I am still feeling last night's 14 mile run on the ice/snow along the Charles River and back to my apartment (into the wind...uggh).  I was toying with the idea of going to yoga tonight, but the prospect of walking home in the 6-degree temperatures at 7:30 when I have so much to do around the house (including catching up on this blog) lost out to a quick 30-minute workout in the gym and an overheated bus ride home.

But the cats were not going to feed themselves (they made that much clear when I finally got home), the laundry, the filing, the dishes, the sorting, the vaccuming, the...wow, this is depressing.  I just can't think about it anymore.

Good night everyone.

I realized that my email distribution list wasn't as inclusive as I thought when I was asked today about my experience from last weekend's Blackberry Curve Challenge event in Boston.   It was hard, it was tiring, it was amazingly fun.  And I am not just saying that because my team finished in the top 30, therefore winning a Blackberry Curve 8330 smartphone for my 3 1/2 hours of effort.

I am saying that because the scavenger hunt clues were difficult, the check point challenges were...um...challenging, and the need for speed and efficiency paramount to score highly and finish well; all things that matched well with my expectations of the event and my own competitive nature.  Unfortunately, we probably made things harder on ourselves by not taking some time early on to make sure we fully understood all of the directions and all of the clues.  But hey, looking back I just appreciate that I was still able to get my hill work in afterall from running up and down  4 times before we solved the previous clue and were allowed to enter the monument...and run up more than 250 stairs to reach the observation platform at the top of the narrow spiral staircase.

Then it was off to visit the planets in the Community Solar System, with a detour through Harvard Square, a tour of the Back Bay, and a trip to the oldest baseball park in America.  Then we got to bob for apples in a lobster tank and complete a couple of obnoxiously difficult physical challenges.

But you know what?  It was an absolute blast and I am really looking forward to doing it all again in San Francisco as the winners of the Boston competition.  Yeah, I know, not the best photo.