Monday, September 7, 2009

What a difference a year makes....

YES YES what a difference a year makes. Its too bad that I dont have a post for last years race because I have grown leaps and bounds as a runner and person. For some reason I do not show up on official results of the race. I assure you I was there on the heals of my wife as we finished in about 2:15. It was a new course record for me, trumping last years time by 10 min. I cruised. I walked with her, I ran with her, I felt no fatigue or pain. Today i am sore but no more sore than any other long run. I looked around, I took pictures, I hung out with my wife. She struggled. She had a lot of trouble breathing and "pressure." She is the only person to ask a medic for a kleenex. Most runners just snot rocket. Not my wife until the medic had no kleenex. Funny.

I have to give it up to DIsney. The know how to run/organize a race. They start on time, they plan the corrals well, they have excellent volunteer support including local people, cheerleaders, marching bands, mariachis, and other groups. They also have a good course which included a route through California adventures, Disneyland, throughout the streets anaheim, around the Honda center (where the anaheim ducks play), and this year since the Angels are out of town a "victory lap" through Angel stadium, finally finishing back through Disneyland and Downtown Disney. It was awesome. Angel stadium was the best part since the whole stadium had cheerleaders, boy scouts, various other loud yellers so when you entered the stadium they were loud. The announcer said as many names as he could over the loud speaker and the jumbotron was in full effect. Awesome.

One thing brought to my attention was that no bloggers knew that I run with a big group. All in all, there are 9 runners in my group from Las Vegas and it is our second half marathon as a group. We have some creative people in our group who designed t-shirts that we all rock together. The girls had pink ones and guys wore black ones. They all had our "RUN CLUB" logos on the back. A turtle with a caption that reads "slow and steady wins the race." In the front we modified the fight club movie logo on a bar of soap to say run club. We get a lot of comments about them. We enjoy them. Special thanks to Chuck for hanging out and running a bit with us after his 1:31 time. Way to go chuck! Pictures to come.

So where does this fit in to my training? It means that the next chapter is purely getting ready for Silverman. Start a big block and get my overall mileage up. Lets do this.... quote:

“The key to success is to keep growing in all areas of life - mental, emotional, spiritual, as well as physical.”
Julius Erving quotes

Its fun to realize the growth.

4 comments:

Chuck said...

I really appreciated Julie and you inviting me to dinner the night before the race. It was so nice meeting all of your friends and family. You have a awesome group of runners! It was so encouraging for me to be around so many dedicated young athletes. The shirts were really cool! I was able to spot you amongst the 16,000 runners before the race because of your shirt.

Congratulations to Julie for hanging tough and finishing the race really strong! I can also assure everyone that Ron finished the race. He was serving as an offensive lineman for Julie. He opened a nice hole for her to sprint though over the last 800 meters.

Ron, this race should be a huge confidence builder for Silverman. Now you know that you can easily cruise a half marathon. You did not even look tired after the race!

Unknown said...

Enjoyed your post on Disney. I'm running the Disney Marathon (Orlando) in January and very glad to hear they are good at organizing a race! Great Job on the time improvement too!

Big Daddy Diesel said...

Congrats to both of you

Jen Feeny said...

Congrats to you both!!!! Where are your pictures mister???