IT IS OFFICIAL!

HELLO EVERYBODY!

It Is OFFICIAL!!!!!

As of 8:45am on Friday, July 31, 2009 I have registered for the 2010 Walt Disney World Marathon! After the entrance fee and the Processing Fee through active.com for registering ($125.00 and $8.63) I am now out $133.63 and could not be more excited about it! JANUARY 10, 2010 at 5:50 am I will be at the starting line (or a good mile back LOL as 20,000+ other runners will be there also). I encourage you all to come out and run it with me. We will have a BLAST!

ALSO, in other exciting news, I have decided that I too want to venture into the podcasting world! I want to join the rest of my friends on the run-net community and contribute another running podcast for all to enjoy. I just downloaded Audacity for editing everything and also opened an account with Podbean. Now, I just need to go out and get a Digital Audio Recorder that has a USB input and a Microphone. (I will gladly accept donations or if anyone has an old one that they no longer use).

I am 5 days into my training plan and things could not be better.

I will keep you all updated

Til Next Time

My Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon/Disney Marathon Training Plan

Here is my training plan for both the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon on October 3rd and the Disney Marathon on January 10th. The 2 plans overlap by 4 weeks.

I was gonna do the Runner's World Smart Coach Plan for the Half and the Hal Higdon Intermediate II plan for the full. This however was not easy to do because of that 4 week long overlap. So I decided to merge them together and make 1 big 24 week long training plan that I call the "Hal Higdon Smart Coach Intermediate II Plan". Kind of a long title, but it is exactly what it is, a combo of the 2 plans put together.

Training Schedule

Random Pics

Here are a few random pics from one of my recent runs where I ran from my house to the Santos Trailhead, a loop in there, and then back home. Hope you enjoy!

Don't mind the picture quality as these were taken with my phone instead of my regular digital camera


I came upon him on my run to the trail. As I took my phone out to take the picture of him, he walked right up to me






Here is the entrance to the Santos Trailhead (actually is a mountain bike trail, but I love to run it) - This is actually a part of the Cross Florida Greenway a trail that runs right through the entire state, coast to coast

Which trail should I take?

Why the yellow one of course (It is the easiest one, and remember these are mountain bike trails, so none of them are that easy on runners)

Here is a quick snap shot of a part of the trail (one of the only parts that actually are in open space not surrounded by trees)

One last picture which I did not take but I figured I would throw in anyways as it is another show of the Santos trailhead taken with a much better camera then my junky little camera phone.

Citrus Summer Showdown

Hello Everyone!


So, this past Saturday I ran in another race. This makes 2 races in 2 weeks! This race was the Inverness Citrus Summer Showdown which is a 5K trail run in Inverness, FL. I ran this same race last year, and I must say that this is a TOUGH race. This year though, I had the pleasure of my mom doing the race with me as this was her 2nd ever 5K. The best part about this race is that it is completely FREE. That's right F-R-E-E, FREE!

We were running behind and did arrive at the race site pretty late. I basically had time to get my bib number, get my chip timing device, go to the bathroom, and then off to the starting line! My friend Grant was supposed to be running this event also, but he got sick the night before and decided to skip it. Me and my mom did not get to line up together at the starting line though as the women started their race 15 minutes after then men did.

As the race started I took off with the pack! About a quarter mile into the race I looked down at my Garmin and saw I was running at a 6:30 mile pace. I thought "What the hell am I doing!!" and proceeded to slow my pace down (this way I could FINISH the race - LOL) I passed the 1 mile mark at 7:48 and was feeling wonderful. About another half a mile in, at around the half-way mark, I came to the only water station on the course where I decided to go ahead and take a cup. I did however only take a small sip of the water then doused my head with the rest of the cup. This felt GREAT as trail runs in Central Florida during the midst of summer do not bring about good temperatures or humidity! I finished the 2nd mile in 8:04 and was starting to feel pretty tired. The final mile was dragging on as my body was becoming more and more tired as I am not used to running on trails and keeping an eye out on the trail for roots and other things to make you lose your footing. I finished the 3rd mile in 8:09 and was ready for the race to come to an end. I finally crossed the finish line in a total time of 24:11, which is actually my 4th best 5K time to date (nothing to complain about). I then went and met my dad and my two sons as I awaited my mom to cross the finish line. She eventually reached the line and finished in a little over 52 minutes. This was about 1 minute slower then her 1st ever 5K but I was very proud of her as this was probably by far the hardest course she will ever do AND she had not really trained at all for.

I finished the race in 83rd overall out of about 300 runners. I was the 30th place "Adult" as this race is broken down into Middle School, High School, College, and Adult instead of the regular 5 year age groups. This race is actually full with a lot of high school aged kids as a lot of school's have their cross country teams come out and participate in this race and get them ready for the upcoming season.

We then gathered the troops and went out for a nice breakfast before coming home for the day.

I will soon be posting some pictures from one of my recent training runs where I just went out and relaxed on a nice 10 mile run.

Til next time!

4 on the 4th

Hello to all my fellow runners!

So,another race has come and gone. This past Saturday (The 4th of July) I arose by myself without any other members of the Central Florida 5Klub to participate with me in the God & Country Day Freedom Run 4 Miler. This is an annual event held in Ocala, FL to support the Marion County Veteran's Memorial Park. I arrived at the race 45 minutes prior to the start of the event and got my bib number (133), T-Shirt, and SWAG bag. I pinned my number onto my shirt and brought my bag and shirt back to my car. After lots of walking around and a short warm up run I was ready for the race to begin.

The race had perfectly blue skies and the temperature was great. The humidity was pretty high, but then again, this is FLORIDA. I passed by mile marker 1 in a time of 7:43 and was feeling great. After a small loop I finished the 2nd mile in a time of 7:47 and was still feeling pretty good. Shortly after the 2 mile mark I was getting a little tired and ran up to the only water station on the course. I was pretty thirsty at this point so I actually walked the water station to make sure that I got as much water in me as possible. I finished the 3rd mile in a time of 8:09 - A little slow, but not to bad considering that I had walked through the aid station. A little after mile marker 3, we passed by a guy that every single runner in the race LOVED. This guy was nicely standing outside of his house at the edge of the road where he had a hose that he put the water nozzle onto MIST and he refreshed everyone superbly with a wonderful misting that completely rejuvenated me. With about a quarter mile to go in the race, there was a person there handing out a small flag to all of the runners. I crossed the finish line shortly after with a smile on my face and a flag in my hand as my 4th and final mile was my fastest of the entire race which i completed in 7:28 to make my overall finishing time 31:07. This time put me in 55th place overall and 6th in my age group. I am not positive on the number of total runners as the results are yet to be posted online. My guess would be roughly somewhere from 200-300 runners. I did run into a couple of people that ran in the event that I had not seen for a number of years and it was nice to get to catch up with them.

At the awards presentation they actually were giving out some prizes by randomly drawing race bib numbers from people that ran in the event. I was shocked to find out that I actually had a little luck run my way and I, Mr. Never Wins ANYTHING, actually had my number drawn and I won a 3x5 American Flag complete with the mounting kit. I was happy to get this as I missed winning an age group award my just over 1 minute.

I then came home and spent a nice day with my family as we just relaxed and enjoyed the holiday.

I will eventually list the official results on a future posting assuming that they are ever posted online (which I assume they will be as prior runnings of this same race have been).

I do have a 5K race planned for this coming Saturday in Inverness, FL which is F-R-E-E FREE ---- AND you still get a t-shirt.

Well, I will keep you all updated.

Til Next Time

RESULTS ARE NOW POSTED

I got 55th out of 266 (top 20%) and 6th in my age group out of 13. Also I was the 46th place Male (meaning only 9 women finished ahead of me)

To see the official results click here.