I completed the first week of half marathon training.  It was tough but in the end it was enjoyable and I managed to lose 2.4 of the 13 pounds I had gained back toward the end of 2009.  The hardest part was the long run on Saturday but I think that was because I need to move the Friday run to the morning before I go to work.  Running Friday night and then trying to go for the long run on Saturday morning just does not work… not enough recovery time.  Week 2 starts tonight.  I’ll see if I can keep up the 9:00ish pace I have been running.

I ran the US 10k again today.  I waited until about a week ago to make my mind up but decided to run it again after all.  I just remembered how brutal the course was last year and wasn’t sure I wanted to do that again.  In case you think I am kidding here is the elevation chart that my Garmin watch produced from the run this morning:

I did better than last year with an unofficial time of 56:12.  You can’t complain when you shave 6 minutes of you race time from the previous year.  If I could  shave off another 6 minutes I may earn a medal next year.  They give one to the first 1,000 finishers.

I managed to get a 3 mile run in while I was on vacation on Miami.  I was able to run on the beach since there is a road-like surface that vehicles use to service the beach.  It was noticably harder though with the wind, sun, and softer surface.  Here are the run stats.

Last night the Atlanta Track Club posted the official times from the Peachtree Road Race.  My official time was 54:31.  This is 2 seconds faster than the time I had recorded.!  I placed 6,808 out of 50,009 runners and 5,117 out of 26,171 men that ran.  My friend David finished 9 seconds in front of me in 6,708th place.  It is crazy to think that in only 9 seconds 100 people finished the race… in front of me.

Mark another one off the list this year… run the Peachtree Road Race, the world’s largest 10k.  At 7:30a David Huey and I joined 55,000 of our running buddies at Lenox sqaure in Buckhead to start the 6.2 mile trek.  This is the most relaxed I think I have ever felt in a race and it was reflected in the mile splits.

Of course, this is nowhere near the 4:20 miles that the winner was putting down at the start of the race.  Or, to think if it another way, the leader was nearly a 1/2 mile into the race when I crossed the start line!  Unofficially I finished in 54:33 which, if they don’t change the qualifying times, should qualify me for the same running group in next year’s Peachtree.

Here is the race summary in case you are interested:

I am already planning to run it next year.  Anyone else interested?