Monday, March 22, 2010

Week 4 - "Recovery Day"

“You are you. Now, isn't that pleasant?
Dr. Seuss



In life, we tend to try to live up to expectations of others. Bosses, parents, colleagues, spouses, friends and even rivals.

As life moves forward and your wisdoms become greater, expectations for others are less important. This is not to say that you become a burden on society or your family by being a slug or a couch potato. This is clearly stating that you do what you do and you do the best at whatever you do. If you are happy with yourself and believe, you have done your best that is what ultimately matters. Even thing else will fall into place.

The weekend ended a whirlwind week at our home. My oldest daughter, Grace was in a middle school play, “The Wizard of Oz”. She had rehearsals Monday-Wednesday and performances, Thursday-Saturday. We went to the Saturday night performance and I have to say as a proud father and a patron of the arts that the play was awesome. The kids were really entertaining. Earlier in the day though, Ellie and I took a trip into ATL to pick up my race packet. We saw Michelle as we were leaving. We also walked around for an hour eating all the freebies and grabbing all the giveaways as well. Ellie and I spun the wheel at the U.S. 10K Challenge booth and we won a free entry to the September race and also a free baseball cap. I guess I will be running the 10K in September.

After the Expo we headed into Dunwoody and had lunch at the Taco Mac, just the two of us. It was a nice day to spend it with at least one of my children.

Sunday brought me downtown for the 4th annual ING Marathon and Half Marathon. There were 18,000 runners that participated. I ran the half marathon and treated it was a barometer for Boston. In the back of my head throughout the whole 13.1 miles I had to remind myself not to push it but go at a even pace. I hooked up with the pace group but right out of the chute they were knocking off 6:45’s. This was a little too fast for where I wanted to be so I dialed back to 7:00’s and finished 8 out the 13.1 pretty much solo. I found it amusing when runners would pass me they would say, “Keep it up, you are almost there.” I was not hurting or even slowing, I was just going at my pace and not worrying about the runners around me. I would say, “Thanks and you look strong, keep it up”, but held my own knowing that I had bigger things on the horizon.
I finished the race at a respectable 1:32:18 and ran another mile to even out 15 for the day. Grabbed some grub, got my bag and headed for the car. I was planning on meeting up with Carmen, since she was going to offer me a beer. Carmen’s sister wanted to have a beer after finishing the half and I was going to crack one up with them, but the rain started to become steady and I started to shiver, so I high tailed it out of ATL.


Later on I found out Susan Allen qualified for Boston on the ING full marathon. I think the count is up to 6 and growing. Hokan, also ran the full marathon and with all the “issues” he had on the course, he came in with a very respectable time. Congratulations to these two runners.

Also, congratulations to Michelle, Rebecca, Seth, Jonathan, Tony, Mike and anyone else I am forgetting during this senior moment. Great race, tough course and now you can mark it in the book, DONE.

I arrived home at 9:30AM, showered, ate and started on some chores I have been neglecting due to the busy schedule we have been keeping lately.

Sunday night brought comfort food. With the rain, it was more than fitting to roast a bird, mash some taters and cook up some of them there greens, green beans that is. We all ate a great Sunday dinner together, which had been the first time in over 2 weeks. I think we are back to normalcy since the play is over.

Monday morning I had set it up that Ann Marie would hold me a spin bike for Brian’s class. She nabbed me a bike next to her spin bike as I showed up about 5:20AM.
I spun this morning to relieve myself from some of the stiffness of running hills in ATL. The hour spin class helped breathe some life in the legs.


Monday’ s lunchtime workout was leg weights. I had held off on weights all last week due to the pulled hamstring, but now I needed to get back at it. 3 sessions on the legs and 2 on the upper body for this week as I plan for my 5 and final 20 miler on Sunday. The plan is to hit the Columns in order to save the legs some of the pounding they have been through over the last 12 weeks.

I am coming into the home stretch of Boston training. It has been tough, but I have been realistic and true to myself on the program and so far, knock on wood, I have only missed on track workout, and I am pleased with the way it has gone so far.

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