Ok, so I admit i’ve been quite a bit lax in posting in my blog, however that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been running or living the good life. Much has happened since the last post, including a new car (finally dumped that awful Ford Escape), another PR at the Ocean Drive, an award at my first local race here and more importantly, a new attitude for running. Let me explain …

A few weeks back I found myself constantly hitting the wall while trying to increase my long runs on Saturday from 15 to 16 to 17 miles and beyond, and each week it just got worse. It was very demotivating to be attempting to ramp up miles, and the body just didn’t want to do it, I actually contemplated giving up running altogether until I realized that there is more to life than marathoning (although i’m sure some of you might disagree). I really think that by the end of last year, I had taken the fun out of running by just overdoing it with marathon after marathon after marathon. It turned out that I was running long distances because I felt I had to, not because I wanted to, and its terribly demotivating. I decided at that point to drop the idea of doing another marathon this spring … and actually break away from my hard training schedule and to to head out and run the distance that I want to run, not what I have to run. I still make myself get in over 40 miles a week at this point, but i’m happy with it, no complaints at all.

So what was the result? Positive, very positive!

First … I lined up for the Ocean Drive 10-miler last weekend, just expecting to have a nice run, not worrying about anything besides having fun. Turns out that I finished in 1:17, which is almost 2 minutes better than my best time ever at Ocean Drive. Now take into account also that the weather was decent this year, actually a tail-wind instead of a head-wind, but for being 10 pounds heavier than last year, I did awesome … what a motivator (and note that this was after deciding 2 weeks earlier that I wasn’t marathoning this spring)… I found that I finished 54 out of over 450 participants, that means I was in the top 15%!

Second … I lined up for the Emmaus 4-mile run that was put on by the Lehigh Valley Road Runners this past Sunday, and I came in third place in my age group with a time of 27:39. Take into note that I just changed age-groups last Thursday (lucky me) with my birthday, but i’ll take it. It wasn’t so much the place that I came in (42 out of 378), but the fact that I ran it well … I saved my burst of energy for the end and finished strong. I really didn’t expect to place, but at the speed I was running at in the last 1/2 mile, i certainly earned it. Again, for being a bit over the weight i’d like to be, I really rocked! Got a coffee mug and a gift certificate, can’t complain about that!

I do have to say that running with the runners in the Lehigh Valley is much better than in Northeast PA. The people are actually friendly, and I am now planning to join the Lehigh Valley Road Runners club, just because of it.

So one might ask what my next plan is … I think for now i’m going to just focus on smaller local races for the spring, and maybe train for the Fall marathon at the start of summer. I do have the Lehigh Vally half coming up in 3 weeks, I don’t see any issue with finishing that, but i’m going to focus on THAT race, not doing anything longer, because it just won’t happen this year…

I’m happy with my decision to scale back the running so that I can remember the reason why I started running … I also mentioned that I bought a new car, yup, if you recall I had issues with my Ford Escape last year, i’ve since dumped it because it was starting to act up again .. I don’t recommend buying a Ford Escape if you have the choice, I picked it up at 1000 miles, and after 1 year of no problems, it was nothing but problems after that ..

Anyway, maybe i’ll write more now, we’ll see, I just don’t have a lot to say …