Cold Wet Nose

As expected, the Nike+ Human Race in Austin was hot… Some 93 degrees hot. And despite my doomsday prediction and the one “runner on medical cart” sighting, the race barely registered on the local news. So while the heat certainly made the race a bit slower then it could have been, there were no major medical stories here… yippie.

This was Gwen and my third race together, and the first that we’ve run side-by-side the whole way. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re running in the Nike+ Human Race this weekend. At this point I’m sorta having mixed feelings about the event… but since I’m generally an optimist, I’ll start with the good stuff, then the bad, then the weird…
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With 18 weeks to go, we’re officially starting our training program for the San Antonio Rock and Roll Half Marathon. Gwen and I flirted with a number of ‘official’ and ‘coached’ training programs, but none of them really seemed like good value for the money. (Of course, being graduate students, money has a lot more value than it used to…) So we’re left to come up with our own training plan. This is probably best anyhow since we can tailor it to our lives and our current routines. And while I hope it doesn’t happen, we can change it up if we get injured or something.
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Today’s my birthday… yippee! Not only that, but today also marks a week since I met my (original) weight-loss goal. It’s been some 45 weeks, 500+ miles, and 55+ pounds. So this year, “basic fitness” is my gift to myself.
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Another great run in the hills north of Oslo. The trails that I took for this route were all well maintained gravel roads. Most of these roads can be seen from above on Google Earth if that’s any indication. Though I typically assume that roads are less picturesque then single track trails, these roads were gorgeous. The scenery is striking in every way, and the few people that I did encounter didn’t break the solitude that the back-country provided. The first and last half-mile of the run was on city streets, but this was completely acceptable to me since I was able to use the metro to get there and back. Yeah public transport!

I was finally able to use the “follow this route” feature of my GPS (which turned out to be a god-send). The area has several gravel roads that cris-cross all over the region, so having my gizmo tell me that I did or did not need to turn let me relax a bit more and enjoy the run. In retrospect, there are a couple areas that I would have put in more way-points, but in general it worked very well.
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