Yup, not only did I manage to get through the US Air Force Marathon, the Army 10-Miler, the Chicago Marathon, the Marine Corps. Marathon, and a local 5.2 miler in the span of just over 5 weeks, I set new personal best times in the 5.2 mile, 10 mile, and 26.2 mile distances at each of the races where I ran my own pace.

So now what?  Well for one thing, I have been busy trying to catch up on all of the household/familial responsibilities that had been piling up while I was away just about every weekend (including attending my wife's operas as the official videographer last weekend in Hingham and Duxbury, MA and this weekend in Lansdale, PA).  Next weekend I will be hosting a group run / breakfast clinic out of Karma Yoga Studio in Harvard Square.  Feel free to join me if you are available; we will be starting the 4-5 mile run at 8:30am and enjoying free Bear Naked granola with yogurt and fruit after we finish.

But this is all just filling time until Nov 20 when I will be heading down to Maryland (with a detour to hopefully visit with my mother for her birthday) for the JFK 50 Mile Memorial, my first official ultramarathon race on Nov 22.  Wish me luck on this stepping stone to next summer's Vermont 100 Miler.

I know, I know, I should devote as much time and attention to my garden or maybe organizing my photos into albums or finishing that letter to my brother or any of those other "important" things in life instead of running through the woods for 10-30 hours.  But none of those things give you a spiffy medal like this one when you finish:

Welcome to October. Let the racing begin.

I decided to skip the track workout last night in favor of a long overdue Yoga session to help prepare myself for the next round of races. Probably not quite as effective as a good theraputic massage, but I don't have time or $ for that right now (I know, famous last words). My medium-long runs over the weekend felt much harder than they should have.

Even accounting for the temperature, rain, and terrain my Saturday morning run through the Middlesex Fells felt like more than 12 miles. And holding myself to an 8:00/mile pace for Sunday morning's 15 mile run in the rain was also harder than I expected...and not because I had to hold myself back from going too fast either. So I squeezed in a nap on Sunday afternoon before work at Karma, rested on Monday, and kept my pace slow and easy running from work to yoga and yoga to home last night. I just need to keep tonight's NikeTown run nice and easy, make sure that I sleep well tomorrow, and I should be good to go for Sunday's 10-miler. Besides, I still need to break in my new Nike Vomero 3+ shoes before the Chicago Marathon so I don't want to push things too hard on their maiden run.

My primary goal is to finish no further back than my bib number (#985), but I would also like to see if I can manage a steady 6:12 pace through the first 9 miles and then let the final mile determine how far under 62 minutes I can get. Thinking positive thoughts and dwelling on the fact that I have never raced 10 miles before. I know that I can do this.

Just like I know that I can manage running 3 marathons in 36 days, because I did that just this past spring. But unlike this time my hardest runs came early in that series while now I am almost "tapering" my way into the Marine Corps. Marathon.

Okay, so maybe the motivation and inspiration provided were not to sit behind my computer cropping and resizing digital photos before trying to milk my thoughts into a logical progression so that I can share how the events of last Sunday morning helped me push through to a new PR at last Monday's Boston Marathon.

But I expect that you probably respect me more for getting back out there and running Wednesday night, conducting 5 project inspections Thursday and Friday (including two night time Interstate resurfacing inspections in the wee hours of Friday morning), and putting in a decent 18 on Saturday; pausing for 15 minutes to cheer for the participants of a 5k that overlapped my route than for writing this earlier.  And if I am wrong...so be it.

Sunday, April 20, 2008 saw 146 of the best female distance runners in the USA absolutely conquer the 4 loop marathon course through Boston's Back Bay and the East Cambridge waterfront during the 2008 Olympic Team Trials.  Though only the top three finishers will be travelling to Beijing in August to represent their country in the marathon competition, 47 of those women qualified for the next Olympic trials with their performances.  41 women ran new personal best marathon times, including 13 or the top 15 finishers.

From the very beginning Magdalena Lewy Boulet, 5th place finisher in the 2004 Olympic Team Trials, took ownership of her own destiny by opening a commanding lead of nearly 2 minutes from the rest of the pack.  Her determination to run the race her way on her terms had most of the spectators around me wondering (1) who was this woman, (2) could she hold on at this pace until the end, and (3) what will the other competitors do in response?

Magdalena Lewy Boulet showed no fear of failure, no chance for regret.  She went out there and sent a message to the world that the USA Women's Team was not going to be  "Dena +2".  I can honestly state that I was so impressed and astonished by how easy she made this look that it took a few hours for the magnitude of her accomplishment to sink in.

And some of that was due to the performance of the pre-race favorite 2004 Olympic Marathon Bronze medalist Dena Kastor, shown here making her move to separate from eventual third place finisher Blake Russell (far right).  During the final 6 miles of this race Dena overcame a 1:17 deficit to overtake the leader at Mile 23.5, a feat I missed while fighting my way through the crowd 10 people deep lining the course so that I could watch the final 100 meter stretch leading up to and across the very same finish line that I would be chasing after less than 24 hours later.

But I was there to see Dena Kastor brandishing an American flag picked up along the course as she sprinted through the finish to win with a 44 second margin over Magdalena Lewy  Boulet.

The crowd exploded in celebration as Massachusetts born Kastor merrily pranced back down Boylston Street to the Lord & Taylor before stopping to accept some congratulatory handshakes, pose for some photos, and even sign a few autographs while the remaining women streamed in to the finish behind her, including 1984 Olympic Marathon Gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson as she broke the US 50+ record with her time of 2:49:08 in her final competitive marathon.  Joanie, as she is known far and wide in this part of the world, has never finished a marathon slower than 3:00.  Which in an amazing coincidence, I have never finished a marathon faster than 3:00.

Perhaps I should shoot for never finishing slower than 4:00, which is a positive statistic that I currently hold and can feasibly maintain.

I was incredibly inspired by all of these amazing performances, by the sheer emotion rolling off of the crowd, and the determination pouring out of these fabulous athletes racing for pride.  As much as I should have been off my feet and resting in advance of my impending marathon, I didn't care.  If anything, I am writing it off along with the 16 hours spent on my feet working at the Expo the previous two days as conditioning for next month's Western States Endurance Run Training Camp - my first ultra running experience.

First and foremost, take it slow, start small, and accept that your windows of free time are going to be closed down dramatically if you are starting from scratch (like I was). If you are currently participating in zero physical activity, start doing something, anything really, that will get your body used to exercising. Take a cardio-class at a local gym, start building some base mileage on a treadmill, walk/jog around the neighborhood, take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, bicycle, swim, just do something more than you currently are. This worked for me. I was able to learn how to fit exercise into my daily schedule, how to make it part of my routine, and how to get my joints and muscles used to the new demands I would be placing on them.

I began walking the 1/2 mile to and from my local grocery store, which is also more environmentally friendly than driving, when I did my shopping. I enrolled in the twice weekly 45-minute cardio-fitness class at my office gym and started running 15-20 minutes on the treadmill. I subscribed to Runner's World magazine for education and inspiration on running. I bought some running specific technical apparel and got fitted for appropriate footwear based upon my biomechanics.

I started participating in more local events as both a runner and a volunteer to gain better exposure to the running community and to learn tips on good locations to run, groups to run with, clubs to join (which I still have not done), and other events to participate in. After about a year of this I felt ready to test myself with a Half Marathon, the 1st annual Boston's Run to Remember in March of 2005. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be, even with the fresh snow and ice turning the course threaded through downtown Boston and the industrial port area into an especially fun filled treat. When I finished I found that I was only about 7 seconds per minute off pace for my age group to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I was completely amazed at how far I had progressed and how attainable my goal seemed to be. I say "seemed to be" because those 7 seconds per mile combined with an additional 13.1 miles were not quite as automatic as I had thought that wonderfully blustery March afternoon. A fact that would become all too clear 7 months later in Hartford, CT.