Ah, bank holidays. I totally recommend them. Happy Columbus Day!

By late last week, we already knew that Chicago was going to be warm, but who would have expected to hear the reports coming back from there? I'm very glad that my plans were changed. I don't know how I would have handled that heat. How exciting to have such close finishes at the end for both the men's and women's marathons? If you haven't seen them yet, check out the video here: http://cbs2chicago.com/

Sticking to the training plan, last week I did 4.5 miles Tuesday, 7x400s Wednesday, 4.5 miles Thurs, and 8 miles on Saturday. Although this training plan calls for 5-6 days of running a week, so far I've been able to stick with it. That'll change while I'm on vacation next week, but I hope to get a lot of hiking and some trail running in.

I bought my first pair of trail running shoes earlier this week. The store had a limited selection and the pair that felt best on my feet happened to be bright lime-green. I guess a nice thing about trail running is that no-one will be around to see the shoes... and if anything bad should happen to me out there on the trail, it'll be easier for the search party to spot me.

It was a great idea to sign up for a Thanksgiving Day race, since with all of the visiting family and friends over the past month or so and the upcoming vacation - it's hard to avoid eating like a cow.

The ING Georgia Marathon has announced on their site that the races will now start and finish at Centennial Park. There will also be a staggered start by pace this year, which is all good news. I'm expecting that race to be a lot better organized this time. The hilly route is daunting, but I am on a mission to do the full marathon.

Enough rambling for now and onto another cup of coffee. Once all the saps who have to work today get their butts off of the road, I'm going to venture out to enjoy my Columbus Day!

Runners Lounge

Social networking is all the buzz lately... I signed up on Linked In ages ago (maybe 2 years ago?) and it was kind of quiet until recently. Facebook is also heating up. Something has happened to make everyone want to connect virtually lately.

Now, there's a social network just for runners (as reported by Toronto Runner on the Running Blog Family). I'm really excited about this new Runners Lounge tool. I am happy that I can set up and manage my own profile, search for other runners in my area or with common interests. It's still in the early stages, but I'm sure it will soon take off like all of the other social networking sites are. What's even better about this one though is the focus of the community.

The other networking sites almost seem too wide-open - with no real community focus - so there's less motivation to be active. For example, I have a fair number of connections on Linked In, but I don't really know what I'll do with those connections yet. A lot of them are people I'm already connected to on a day to day basis via email, etc. Now, with the Runners Lounge, I know immediately that I can review what's happening in the running community and I know there will be people interested in my running stories in ways that my connections on the other sites won't be. Not to write a super-long essay here, but suffice it to say, I'm excited about Runners Lounge.

I let the leaders get away from me about half way through the run, but finishing 7.5 miles on hills at an 8:48 pace ain't all that bad! Running with a group definitely does my pace some good.

Lately I find that my biggest issue with running is not the hills, motivation, injuries, or any of the usual complaints you hear from runners... my issue seems to be with the breathing part. A few months ago the heat, pollen and smog ganged up on my sinuses, making them expand and block passage of air through my nose. Now that the weather is cooling down, my sinuses are releasing everything they've been accumulating all summer long. A constant nasal drip during an hour-long run is more than annoying.

It's gotta be a sign of true love that MOB and I can easily move from the topic of home-improvements to snot-rockets without missing a beat. While demonstrating the proper form, he says a good blow will solve the problem but I just can't bring myself to let it all spray... especially now that I'm running with a group. Before I resort to that, I'm going to try my own solution which is to invest in a few handkerchiefs to take along with me.

My first run with the new half-marathon training group last Saturday was great. The intermediate group is pretty strong but I was only steps behind the leaders coming in from the 6 mile run out and back on Peachtree. The leaders in this group were probably averaging an 8:30 pace.

Everyone in the intermediate group seemed pretty friendly. The ATC's new executive director showed up to run with the beginner group, which I thought showed a lot of support. I did feel bad for the beginner group - it didn't look like they were sticking together as much as the intermediate group was.

Now that the evenings are starting to cool down, I went out to the Oakhurst Wednesday night running group. It felt great! I ran an 8:20 average pace for 5 miles on hills! (and I was still the second to last person in - this group is incredible.) A lot better than I was doing out there in July and August.

The half-marathon training calls for track workouts and tempo runs on alternating Wednesdays, so I'll get to run with the Oakhurst group for tempo one week and meet up with the ATC coach at the track the next.

I'm pretty excited about this plan. It calls for a lot more running than the previous 3-4 runs a week that I had done. The paces of both groups are pushing me but they are not out of reach. So far though (and it's only been a week) it feels great.

As if my blog addiction needed more fuel... active.com now offers a blog service. I'm playing around with it. I don't have any issues with blogspot, but I like the idea that I may automatically be connected with other runners through active... I've been a member of the CRN Running Blog Family for some time and have found a lot of good running blogs through them, but for some reason my entries never show up there even though I'm signed up. Maybe it's a problem with my feed, but it makes me feel lonely to read all these other running blogs and not really be a part of the gang. Active.com may not work out either, but I like having something geeky to play with.

Here's my first post on active.com's blog:

http://community.active.com/blogs/runningatlanta/2007/09/17/titles-are-required-huh

It's been a busy month, thus the lack of posting... that's my excuse anyway. My lack of posting of course would not have anything to do with my lack of running or doodling would it? No!

At first not having a specific race to train for or group to run with was uncomfortable and I was a bit whiny about it. I had gotten used to always having both. My enthusiasm suffered for about a month or so. But then something interesting happened... I continued to run on my own, when I could, about 3 times a week, with no real goals, sometimes without even wearing a watch, and usually only going between 3-6 miles, just the way I used to before I joined any groups or had any goals, and it started feeling good again. I actually feel stronger than before - I think the biking has been helping a lot.

So, I'm ready to step up the running again. I just signed up for the Atlanta Half Marathon training group - although I've already missed their first run and will miss their second as well. Off to a great start!

It will be good to have the discipline of a group again and meet other runners who are all training for the same race. Another nice thing will be that I don't have to pull out an excel sheet to figure out a training schedule - all the thinking will be done for me. Hopefully this group may carry over into training for the Georgia Marathon in March.

Within 5 minutes of signing up for that, I found that there is a 10K this Saturday that starts and ends a block away from my condo. How can I pass up running a 10K on my home turf? Although it's a 5k double loop, not my favorite kind of 10K, but whatever...

Today I ran only the second 5K race ever for me, and probably the first one that counts since the first was the Breast Cancer 5K and I ran with a co-worker, encouraging her for the first couple of miles.

This 5K was a low-key race organized by the Atlanta Track Club. Small but almost all serious (and really serious) runners. MOB and I got up early and jogged over to the start area which was about a mile away. I ran into a guy I knew from the Galloway Time Improvement Group, but anyone else from my old running groups was most likely doing their long run today in training for their fall marathons.

I feel pretty good about my time, I would have placed second or third in the age group below me with a 25:56 finish but was way behind in my own age group and also in the next age group which I will be joining in November. There goes that idea that when I joined the new age group, I'd have a better chance of placing. I should have never got older - that was a bad idea.

I was right at an 8:20 pace on each mile split. It was a moderately hilly course and the last mile was tough. Maybe I'm just looking for excuses but sometimes I really start to believe that I must have some kind of heat-induced asthma issue. I'm sure the person I was following over the course of that last mile enjoyed my wheezing, gasping, groaning and spitting. Yeah, she'll be wearing headphones in her next race.

It was tempting, but no stopping and no walking.

There was one old guy at the start that I overheard telling someone that he signed up just to walk the course. He was tall, thin, and frail looking. As we looped back around and came back on the course, I passed him just as he was coming up on the mile marker. The course clean up truck was driving a several yards behind him. The dedicated volunteer at the one-mile mark started calling out the times as the old guy was still about 15 yards away, "18.31, 18.32, 18.33..." The old guy shook his head and called out to him, "c'mon, you're gonna make me want to turn around and go back now..." If I hadn't been so tired, I would have started calling "7.31, 7.32, 7.33..." - I mean if you're going to call out times to someone at that point, why not try to make them feel good about it?