04:27:54 A New Marathon PR

On October 28th I participated in "The People's Marathon"....AKA the Marine Corps Marathon. I had been training since late June with increasing weekly base miles and escalating long runs. The plan was to run a 10:00 minute per mile pace, with a little buffer, to finish under 4:30 hours. The plan mostly worked; went out a little too fast and had a difficult time on miles 20-23, but rallied to finish and meet my goal.

As usual the start was jammed with approximately 22,000 runners (see picture above). The course was new this year and a bit more challenging; two big hills at the start and a couple less than desirable course route changes. But the crowds and marines (who were present at all water and aid stations) were very supportive and there were the usual cast of runners in costumes that were very entertaining. In particular I remembered running for a lot of the race with three girls (picture at left) who wore patriotic running attire--very cute. The water stations were well organized and had enough water and gatorade---but what a mess to run through (see picture below on right)!

Jane, Judy and Elroy met me at mile 21 and urged me on. It was nice to have them there at the end. After I trudged uphill the last 200 yards to the Iwo Jima Memorial (where the finish is) I was pretty tired and had one major leg cramp that sent me in agony to the ground for a few minutes until I could get it stretched out. Glad to be finished with one race, we had to push our way through throngs of runners and spectators that overwhelmed the metro lines in order to get home.

Presidents Day Weekend

Over Presidents Day Weekend we took Judy and Elroy on a college visit to St. Mary's College in St. Mary's County, MD. That was on Monday and I'll post more on their college searches some other time. On Sunday, we took Astro for a long hike behind Magruder High School. The area, nameless as far as I know, consists of acres upon acres of open fields and woods. Although this area had clearly once been farmland, and would make a great park, it is destined to one day become a cross-county connecter between two nearby interstate roadways. Even though there are countless trails crisscrossing the fields and woods, we've never come across anyone here and we can let Astro off the leash so he can run around without fear of meeting other dogs and getting into a fight. Until this area is developed we occasionally bring Astro here for leisurely walks. On this day as soon as we arrived at Magruder HS the sunny sky turned ominously dark gray (see picture above), shortly followed by an intense winter snow squall.

It has been frigid here for the past two weeks and the last snowstorm had left four hard-packed inches of icy-crusted snow covering the ground. The ice crust was so hard it even supported my weight and one could just shuffle-slide across the top of the snow. As we ventured carefully out onto the icy crust, soft snowflakes began to gently fall around us. However, ripping winds soon kicked-up and turned those welcome snowflakes into deadly ice crytals that felt as through they could pierce any exposed, unprotected skin. The snowflakes were being blown completely sideways by the gale force winds. I had to stop and put up the hood on my coat to prevent the lethal snowflakes from knifing down my neck. I was able to just get off a couple of pictures (see picture of Elroy and Judy) before my fingers ached so much from the biting cold that I was forced to bury them deep in my pockets to rewarm.

The squall subsided after 15 minutes and the sky once again cleared and the sun shown. As we shuffled through the trails, there were signs of life everywhere in the dry brown thickets. Birds were flitting about, little mice were scampering under brambles and the many deer footprints frozen in the ice crust were evidence of their passing through. Jane and the kids found a large hill that they could slide down on their backs. Astro also slid down, unintentionally, which made us all laugh. It looked like a lot of fun, but I was too cold to try. We had come to this spot at the exact right time for an adventure and were not dissapointed.

Happy Black Friday

Today I've been informed is Black Friday, the first big shopping day of the holiday season and indeed, we have just came back from shopping at a nearby MegaMall. So.....Happy Black Friday. Uncle Mike, who came to visit yesterday morning, went to the Home Depot to shop, Elroy is playing computer games and Jane and Judy are napping--so it's quiet now.

Reflecting on yesterday, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We ate our Thanksgiving meal early, around 1 pm, and then went to see Casino Royale--the new James Bond movie. After the movie we came back home for dessert and watched the end of the Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Bucaneers game. The movie was pretty good, the new James Bond is a real hunk--Jane mentioned that I closely resemble the actor Daniel Craig who portrays Bond. So that was cool.....just kidding.

Speaking of good-looking hunks, for this year's Thanksgiving meal we had turkey breast roll stuffed with italian sausage with extra garlic, sage, rosemary and thyme (see picture at left). No parsley. This was really good; moist and juicy with interesting flavors emanating from the sausage and spices. And carving it was a snap! This was accompanied by a salad of field greens, grape tomatos and petite mozarella balls with a balsamic vinegarette, roasted garlic red-skin mashed potatos, green beans infused with orange citrus and cornbread stuffing with turkey gravey. Yum. It was pretty good, thanks go to Martha Stewart, Emeril Laggase and Rachel Ray for excellent menu ideas. This nice meal (see picture below) was complimented with a nice beaujolais nouveau that Mike brought.

This morning we got up and relaxed in the family room.

Jane was working on the computer, catching-up on some work (on the left in picture below), Mike was reading (on the right in picture below). Speaking of Mike he just got back from the Home Depot with a collection of tiles to make trivets from. Anyway, Jane had recently put up our holiday decorations--note the lights on the mantle, and the room felt very cozy. I hope my parents and everyone else had as nice a Thanksgiving.

Brookside Garden

The afternoon was sunny and very warm; Jane and I took a quick stroll through Brookside Gardens to stretch our legs and kill time. The sun was so bright that taking pictures was difficult but I managed to get a few that I was happy with.