In which I belatedly greet the New Year and blather some

This blog is haunting me like unfinished business will do. But I haven't had much to blog about and have been in a midwinter funk which I thought I'd spare the world. (And yet, they know. Must be my loud ranting and lizard eyes.)

Running has been "eh." Things still don't feel right and I've got some weird ongoing thing up with my foot. But hey, I ran a half marathon today! It was fun, for the most part. Not being accustomed to temperatures much above zero, I overdressed. Could have used a much lighter wicking shirt, but at least I didn't make the mistake of wearing a coat! I did see some people dressed in puffy coats. Maybe they were waiting for the 5K. I don't know. It was a little strange. Kerstin's hubby drove us to the start and we waited around with some cool people she knows. I didn't manage to find any of my imaginary internet friends. I did see one of them running and then at the end as he was leaving. He said he'd had a bad race, but still PR'd for the course. Way to go, Dom! And then Kerstin and her buddy and I went for pancakes. Mmmmmm. Pancakes.

As usual, I hated the elevation changes, which were slight, but more than anything I'd been running since I'm a chicken and have been running in my basement since the first thaw we had in December. When it was nice and cold, with very short days, the pavement was good and dry, so I had little fear of wiping out. But, I haven't run outside since the morning I ran across the guy with the broken ankle. I managed to fall twice that morning, too. He'd slipped on the lake path on one of the downhills. Poor guy.

So. Today's little thing. I was unprepared, as I'm coming off an 82 mile November, a 73 mile December, and with today's race, I've run 79 miles in January. I did run 12-ish miles last Saturday and had a 35 mile week without too many whiny aches, but I went into the thing with a main goal of not falling down. As it soon became apparent that although wet, the pavement was not slippery at all, my secret goal came out and started nagging me... can I finally break 2 hours in a half marathon?

Let me rework that a little. I've run a couple other halfs. August 2005, I ran a 2:10 at the Gopher to Badger Half, my first. May 2006, I ran a 2:12 at the Brookings Half and my hip was killing me from mile 4 on. October 2006, I ran a 2:11 at the Big Woods Run, a trail race with some nasty hills. I do know I that can run 13.1 miles faster than two hours. I've done it twice: once last fall in training (1:55) and the first half of my marathon was either 1:55 or 1:56. So I know I can do it, but I haven't yet done it in a race where the point was running 13.1 miles. Let's also say that last fall I was in a lot better shape than I am now, with a 184 mile July, a 211 mile August, and a 196 mile September. I'm sort of dough-like now. So the challenge was could I run this thing in a shamefully undertrained state and break 2 hours?



Yes. I can. 1:59:19.