First Triathlon of the Season

     This post is a little overdue since training has been taking up a lot of free time, but here it is!  Since I mentioned training I'll start with that.  It's been pretty crazy putting all the time into swim/bike/run lately.  I've gotten up to 11hrs/week already and I'm only in the base phase, which is the beginning segment of a schedule that pretty much gets your body used to the training regimen.  None of the workouts are hard or intense, they just simply need to get done and so far it's all been at a low heart rate.  If you know what Ironman is, you'll realize that for most people (myself included) it's not a highly intensive race.  To swim 2.4mi, bike 112mi, and then run a marathon is really a test of endurance so most of the training is at level that one can sustain for quite a long time.  So yeah, it's mainly just putting in the time and preparing your body to go the distance...I'm sure you (whoever you are that's reading this) can do it to!

     Well, next phase is the build phase and it starts next week for me.  A little bit of intensity is added and training hours increase to about 15hrs/week.  I'm pretty much looking forward to all of it except the addition of a third swim!  Not that I don't like swimming, it's just the most inconvenient to do.  Go to the gym after work, change, swim, shower, change, and then I'm out at the perfect time for traffic...and I still have to either bike or run afterward!  I'll try to stick with it, but, of course life does sometimes get in the way of training...or is it the other way around haha!

     Ok, so we had our first triathlon this year on June 24th at Bigfoot State Park in Lake Geneva, WI.  It was another group event that turned out really well.  We headed out there the evening prior and went out to dinner, pasta and beer of course!  I ended up getting this beer that was described as being hopped only at the end of the brew so that the hops only flavor the beer and not bitter it.  Being a homebrewer I thought that was weird but I'll try it anyway...wasn't too crazy about it, a good malty, hoppy beer should have some bitterness to it.  Alright, sorry for the beer snobbery...back to the race!

     After dinner we stopped by a supermarket to pick up things for the morning and then headed to the hotel.  When we arrived and got all our gear together just about to walk through the front door and the two ladies working that night were outside smoking (Country Inn and Suites near Lake Geneva by the way).  As soon as I wheeled my bike past the door one of them started to tell us we can't have the bikes in the hotel rooms.  Every triathlon I've done except Chicago I've stayed in a hotel and this has never happened anywhere else.  We were quite surprised and tried persuading them to let us bring them in explaining to them that our bikes probably cost more than their cars!  It was a no go, so we ended up bringing them back to the car and locking them up inside.  We were all a little nervous but they were still there in the morning.

     Finally race morning!  We got up early, had some oatmeal, a banana, coffee, and sipped water/Gatorade.  It was nice getting up and leaving early since we got to take our time setting up our transition area.  Usually we get there with only just enough time to spare which is no good since you're more likely to forget something.  After the transition area closed we hit up the port-o-potties and then headed over to the start at the lake.  The triathletes doing the sprint distance went first, of my friends those were Katie, Arlie, Jeff, and Hector.  I saw Katie's wave start and tried to get her attention but she didn't hear me. Then the rest of us (Marty, Chrisy, Maureen, and Peter) doing the olympic distance met up and got in the water to warm up a little while we waited for our wave.  Marty and Peter went first, I went two waves after them I think, then Chrisy, and finally Moe.

     The swim was great!  Very congested at first, as usual, so I had to fight my way to as far in the front I can get.  Once I got a good position I made sure I was heading toward the buoy and as close to it as possible.  I set into a good pace which was actually faster than usual since this was mainly a fun race for me and I wanted to push it a little to see how my run came out.  It was ok for a while until I started catching the other waves ahead of me and it got a little congested again, but nothing like the start.  Near the swim finish I caught a guy in a red swimming cap (started two waves ahead of me) and he wouldn't let me pass him.  Ok, fine...I stayed with him the last 100yds or so and took off on him as we got out of the water heading to T1 (first transition).  Finished 4th in my age group in the swim.

     Got to my bike in transition got through it pretty quick.  Well, quick for me as I usually take a little longer, but there is definitely room for T1 improvement.  There was one guy in front of me getting out of transition and I recognized him, "hey, that's Peter!"  He's a good swimmer and he started two waves ahead of me so I was thinking he took his time in transition!  Once I got to the mount line I hopped on my bike just to Peter's right and my foot slipped getting into the pedal.  I ended up bumping into him, getting on my bike, looked back and said "sorry Peter!!".  Luckily it wasn't someone else, I think that calls for a penalty.

     So coming into the bike I was a little terrified of my impending doom...HILLS!  We read that the course was rolling to very hilly and with us being from Chicago those hills were bound to kick our butts.  I told myself I'm going to power through it, though.  Where there's an uphill there's a downhill, where there's a headwind there's a tailwind the going other way.  No matter what I told myself, those hills were a killer and the lactic acid build up in my quads felt like it was going to burn a hole right through them!  I felt the second half was a little better since there was mostly tailwind.  There was a really good few miles where I just felt like I was flying and I hit 31mph at one point.  I was relieved to see the bike course ending soon so I took my feet out of my shoes, slowed a bit, and jumped off before the dismount line and ran into T2 (second transition).  Came 27th in my age group on the bike.  T2 was uneventful, just took off my sunglasses and helmet and put on my running shoes and got outta there!

     Ah, the run...my favorite part!  So I pushed the swim faster than usual, I hit the bike hard averaging 20.05mph even with those hills...I was wondering if I'd overdid it.  I was already breathing hard coming out of T2 and I was hoping to keep a 7:10/mi pace for the 10k run.  I wasn't sure about that pace since the run course was mostly off road on the grass and had really short but steep climbs and uneven surfaces.  It was a 2-lap course and I'm glad the last mile of each lap were the easy miles!  I pretty much kept under the 7:10/mi I wanted except for the first and fourth mile, that was a tough section of the course.  It was also nice to be passing some people since I got my butt kicked on the bike.  To those who passed me on the bike, thanks for being my roadkill on the run haha!  I remember getting to mile 5, pretty dead by then, thinking "one more mile of pain, that's it, just one more mile".  So I went into my pain cave, I embraced the pain, I made the pain bow down to me!  That last mile, as much as it hurt, I cranked out a 6:52 and ended up 6th in my age group on the run and 8th place age group for the race...AND, if the bike course was 40km instead of 38km I made a huge improvement of 8min since my last race of this distance (which had WAY less hills)!

     Overall a good race!  Everyone did well and put up some awesome times, especially considering the difficulty of the course.  A special mention to Maureen for completing her first olympic distance tri, great job!  Afterwards we went to the same place that we had dinner the night before and chowed down on some burgers...it's becoming quite a tradition to have a nice big greasy burger after a race.  Oh, and then we had some ice cream...can't forget that!

Knocked out after those burgers

     From here on out it's strictly training and racing geared toward the November Ironman.  Ok, except for this mud and obstacle course 5k at the end of July that I just had to do since everyone else is doing it...peer pressure lol.  Happy training everyone!
   

Ragnar Relay - Team "Better Off in the Long Run"

     Well, it's all over...the most fun, meaningful, and special race I've done to date.  I want to thank all my friends/teammates for coming aboard and making this happen.  Thanks to Chrisy and Maureen from team "12 Drink Minimum" (my former team from last year) for getting a good deal on the hotel and for beating my work's discount on the vans, Melissa Pizarro for bringing me to Costco and for making the race bible binders, Marty for being my right hand man in planning the trip.  Thanks, of course, to Dan, Derik, and Quinn for all the comic relief before we headed out and help with picking up the vans before the race, Ramen for being such a beast of a runner and getting us tons of roadkills, Lisa for bravely joining us last minute (I can imagine Ragnar is a tough last minute decision!), and Katie for keeping our competitive spirit alive.  Definitely a big thanks to George for keeping us entertained and for being an awesome map reader and not getting us lost once!  Thank you Jonathan for coming along and being our cheerleader, next year you're running!  And last but not least, a special thanks to Lindsay and David Mast for coming all the way up from Atlanta to do this with us and for making that awesome video!  I think that each of us watched it at least three times the day you posted it up!

     I'm telling you, there really isn't anything like Ragnar and I don't think I'll have another race compared to this one in terms of how fun and special it is.  All the races I've done are primarily individualistic in nature (sure you can do a triathlon relay, but then you really didn't do a triathlon).  They are serious races where I'm focused on a serious goal.  If that goal isn't met I'm sure to be disappointed.  But with Ragnar, the goal is to have fun...which is pretty hard not to do!  Ok, we also want to have a lot of roadkill (people you pass) but in the end...that's just for fun, too.  I'm not saying it's easy either, there is definitely a test of physical and mental endurance.  It took us just over 32hrs to finish...that's 32hrs mostly in a van with very little sleep and running anywhere between 13-20+ miles.  Believe me, it hurts!  Especially that third leg when all you want is for it to finish.  Well, it did finish and all our team can think about is next year.  Some of us, including myself, are experiencing a little bit of post-race blues coming way down from the 32hr high we experienced.

     On top of all that, it's hard for me to believe it's over because of the time I put into it with all the planning.  I was also privileged to be chosen as a Ragnar Relay Ambassador which it was my job to create awareness of Ragnar by running with groups and doing clinics with Q&A sessions.  Then I also volunteered to help manage the race at the start line giving each team their race packet, shirts, and goodie bags.  The experience has really made me feel that Ragnar Relay is a part me and if there is something I'll be doing every year...it's this.  If you're a runner and you haven't done one yet, I highly encourage it.  Many of us take our endurance sport hobby way too seriously sometimes, but in the end it really just is a hobby (a healthy one at least) but we still get caught up in finishing times and places that we forget to have fun, which is what hobbies are for.  Ragnar Relay will definitely remind you, or even renew why you run.  Don't simply run to be faster than the guy/gal ahead of you, run because you love it, enjoy it, and live it!

     Honestly, what beats doing something you love with those that are close to you?  And if you just met someone on your Ragnar team, you're sure to bond well enough!  I remember thinking to myself before it was our vans turn to run, "I wonder if they would be on our team next year?", referring to those whom I just met (Lisa, George, Lindsay, and David).  After our 2nd leg we went to this little breakfast shack in Racine, WI and I asked all of them if they'll be with us again next time.  We made such fast friends an were having a blast that they all agreed to come back...even Lindsay and David coming from Atlanta, GA!  As of right now, barring any crazy circumstances, everyone will be back next year.  The team has already begun some planning, I brought up shirts, Dan bought a camera so we can make sure both vans get part of the video, and we are also in the process of making two teams with one of them being an ultra team (6 or less runners). Team "Better Off in the Long Run" is a family, you just don't come away from an experience like this as anything less!

     Ok, I started out thinking I was going to tell you the crazy details of our journey from Madison, WI back to Montrose Beach in Chicago, but that would have been just another boring race report.  Instead, and I'm guessing it's because all of the emotions we're going through since we finished, I decided to show you our passion for this race.  Well, we'll be back next year most likely with two teams and possibly doing multiple Ragnar Relays. Question is, will you be there?

    

 Now presenting:

Team "Better Off in the

Long Run"

(Mostly Van 2)

To the team,
     I can't wait to do this with you guys again so keep your eyes toward next year's race.  We'll come back stronger, more prepared, and ready to rock it!  Until then, I'm sure I'll see, run with, and drink with most of you anyway!  Congrats and awesome running to all of you!

RAGNAR!!

     It's been a while since I posted something up so I'll recap the little that's been going on.  Since transitioning to Ironman training, workouts have been more enjoyable since I get more variety with swimming and cycling.  I'm actually enjoying swimming this time around because even though there was about a 6 month period where I didn't swim at all, I feel I'm almost back to where I left off.  I think this comes in part from doing way more swim drills and working on form for 800yds every workout (2500yds is a typical workout for now).  What sucks about swimming is it takes up so much time, from driving to the pool, changing, swimming, changing, and driving back.  A 50min workout can pretty much take up 2hrs of my day.

     Cycling is a different story.  I'm not that great of a cyclist in the first place (my fault since I don't put that much mileage in), but I haven't gotten back to where I was in October.  Actually I never really know how well I'm doing until I race anyway since riding streets and paths there is so much stop and go that looking at my average speed means nothing.  Oh well, I'll just keep at it, can't go wrong with being consistent!

     We did have a half marathon a few weeks ago in Rockford (Chrisy, Marty and I) that went as well as it could.  It was a warm day and I doubt that neither of us were acclimated to running in warmer weather yet, but we toughed it out.  Anyway, everybody else racing had to endure the same conditions.  When I finished I waited a little bit for Marty and when he got there I went to see if they had times/places posted.  I looked at my age group and my name was on the top!  Hey, it goes as they say, you never know who shows up on race day.  Luckily for me there weren't any especially fast 30-34 year old males running that I was able to get the age group win with my 2nd slowest half marathon time!  I'll take it, hardware is hardware.  Marty did an awesome job and ended up 7th in his age group (25-29 males), yeah...I think he's catching up!  Chrisy came into this with a goal just to finish.  She's had a few half's within the past month with a pretty good PR 2 weeks prior so I think this is a good add-on to her being a Half Fanatic (a group of crazy people who do a ton of half marathons haha).  She was walking at some point taking pictures and posting them up on Facebook!  That's awesome, and no matter to me because when most people were sleeping she traveled 13.1mi on her own legs.  Good job Chrisy and Marty!

     Well, as the title says, Ragnar Relay is this week.  Races are usually pretty serious events for me as I train hard for them so I try to give it what I got to see how far I've come.  Ragnar can be another serious race if you want it to, for me I feel it's a break in my season for some fun.  Not that other races aren't fun, they're usually tons of fun!  But Ragnar Relay is on a whole different level.  Wait a minute...you must be thinking, "What the heck is Ragnar Relay?".  It's a ~200mi relay that's done with 12 runners.  There are a bunch of them across the country, but we are doing the one around here from Madison, WI to Montrose Beach here in Chicago.

     How it works is we have two 15-passenger vans, each with 6 runners.  Van1 starts while Van2 heads up to the 7th leg which is the first major exchange.  During Van1's turn the first runner heads off to start the 1st leg and the van drives up to the exchange at the 2nd leg.  The first runner hands off to the 2nd runner and the process repeats.  Once all 6 runners in Van1 run, the 6th runner hands off to the 7th runner which is in Van2 and they repeat the same process as Van1.  Van1 will drive up to the next major exchange (leg 13) and get to rest until Van2 gets there.  Each van will go 3 times so each runner runs three separate legs running a total of 14-20mi (all legs are different mileage).  At the end, as the last runner is within about 100yds to the finish line, all the runners get together and crosses as a team.  Then it's time to gorge on burgers, pizza, beer, etc.!  As crazy as it sounds, it's a really fun race.  I may try to make two teams next year, if you're a runner and you want to be crazy like us let me know and you've got a spot!

     So yes, this is my fun race for the season...I did it last year and it was a blast!  It's only a few days away but I still can't wait.  Well, I'd like to mention everyone on the team so here's our team name and our roster in the order we are running:

Team Better Off in the Long Run
1.  Derik Pham
2.  Melissa Pizarro
3.  Dan Ly
4.  Marty Bernardo
5.  Quinn Huynh
6.  Ramen Tomaneng
7.  Lisa Chavez
8.  David Mast
9.  Lindsay Mast
10.  George Drase
11.  Katie Villacres
12.  Tim Bernardo

We'll most likely be posting live updates as the race goes on.  I'll have details about that soon!

Marathon Done and it's Officially IM Training Time! (Race Report Included)

Team Mizuno!  Yes, we're all wearing 'em!

     We (Marty, Chrisy, Becky, and I) had another great time at an awesome event!  I encourage any marathon runners to do this race.  It's well organized, lot's of spectators, and a great course.  If you like to collect medals you can get three of them, one for doing a 5k on Friday which is the night before, one for the day of the marathon for running either the 10k, half marathon, or full marathon, and one if you do both the 5k on Friday and one of the Saturday races.  Can't beat the finish line that ends on the football field at Memorial Stadium, any Illini fans?

50 yard line finish

     The four of us did the 5k Friday evening.  Tons of people, just over 5000 people I think so it ended up being really crowded.  But, no worries, we took it as an easy run and ran all together...didn't want to mess up our big race for the next morning!  It was fun, the finish was also on the 50 yard line in Memorial Stadium.  To tell you the truth I can't remember having this much a good time at any other 5k!

     Well, here's a recap of the marathon.  First of all, it's good the race was fun because it helped level out some of my disappointment (ok, I'm only a little disappointed).  I trained hard for this race, probably harder than any other race I've trained for including last year's half iron distance races.  From races and training paces I feel I know what I'm capable of, but I didn't even meet my "I'll settle with" goal.  In the end and looking back I think it was nutrition choices and bad pacing.

Cool medals!

     The race started out well, I went out at a pace that felt good, but my Garmin watch was showing a pace of 6:58/mi.  I decided to hold that pace until I got to the mile marker since the GPS can be a little off sometimes.  I got there at exactly 7:00, so yeah, my GPS was right and I was going too fast and had to slow down to keep it between 7:10 and 7:15.  Even after slowing down I think I was still averaging 7:10/mi most of the time.  I remember smiling to myself at mile 3 because I was feeling GREAT at this point, this pace feels like nothing!  Kept feeling good until mile 10 or 11 when the feeling of effortlessness started to go away, not that it felt bad, though.  Then came the halfway point just after mile 13 and the pace somehow felt better again and my mile split was 6:43!  Not sure what I was thinking, but I think there was a runner in front of me who I wanted to catch...must have forgotten I was running a marathon!

Showin' some Ragnar Relay love post marathon

     Ok// now for the hard part, you might wanna close your eyes!  Well, at first it was fine, the next 7 miles went uneventful and I was still feeling pretty good.  Even mile 19 I was holding a 7:20/mi pace and my overall pace was 7:10/mi.  I was slowing down a little on mile 19 but I still felt Ok.  I even felt Ok enough that I told myself "you got this!".  If I slowed down it was fine, I would come close to my stretch goal of 3hrs10min and definitely beat my "I'll settle with" goal.  Mile 20 came along and halfway through it I felt my legs get heavy and start to cramp a little...finished that mile in 7:37.  10k left to go and my legs kept feeling worse and I slowed to get through mile 21 in 8:09.  Mile 22 was brutal, this is where I truly hit the wall and it hit me good!  I walked for the first time in after grabbing some Gatorade at the aid station, not too long but long enough to bring my mile down to a 9:04.  

     The next three miles were hard, I was in bad place, a dark place, swearing at myself for going faster than planned and realizing I hadn't had enough electrolytes in the first half of the marathon.  I really just wanted to get it over with.  I think the worst moment in the race was when the 3:15 pace group went by me and I tried to get up to their pace and I couldn't for the life of me.  That's where I gave up.  I even stopped by a port-o-potty not even having to really use it.  Funny thing is I didn't feel all that tired, I was breathing hard at all even at mile 19.  Mostly it was cramping in my quads and this is really what led me to think it was bad nutrition decisions.

Doesn't even look like he ran a marathon!

     I passed up mile 25 and thought "Ok, 1.2mi to go, I'm not going to finish like this."  I at least wanted to finish proud of the training I'd gone through, the sacrifices I'd taken, and the pain I've endured throughout the past 5 months for this marathon.  I have no idea where it came from, but I brought my pace down from well over 10:00/mi to finishing the last 1.2mi at about a 7:45 pace.  I finished strong with a time of 3:21:01, almost 52 minutes down from my first marathon 11 years ago so I guess I can't complain too much// but it still sucks knowing I didn't reach a goal that I should have.

     I've been saying I won't do very many marathons and definitely none too soon, but I think I will do this one again next year to redeem myself and possibly qualify for Boston.  But, for now, it's officially time to start training for Ironman Cozumel!  I'm excited to get back into triathlon after a long winter!

     I also want to congratulate Chrisy Tang on an awesome 15min half marathon PR, Becky Cohen on marathon #17 and second marathon since last Sunday, and my brother Marty Bernardo on a great finish for his first marathon!  Good job all of you, I had a great time!

My Awesome photography skills.  That's
Marty finishing by the way.

The End of My Marathon Training

Haven't updated this in a little while, so it's about that time!  Training has been going great hitting all my planned mileage and paces.  Lately I've been working on VO2max, which is pretty much a measurement of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during highly intense efforts.  I did these at the track by my house doing intervals as short as 600m and up to 1mile and all done at 5k race pace.  Pretty tough workouts!  I remember the first time doing them it was:

1mi warm up
5 x 600m @5k pace followed by 400m jog
3mi moderate
1mi cool down
(Note - I wouldn't recommend doing these workouts unless you're consistently running 40+ miles/week)

I had a really hard time keeping up the 5k pace for those intervals, especially still being fatigued by long runs and races.  I was wondering how the heck I was supposed to do that for the last VO2max session at 1mile intervals!  Well, I ended up doing the last workout on Wednesday and decided I'm going to hit this one hard.  It hurt, but the satisfaction felt great as I hit all the miles faster than all of the other shorter intervals I've done in the past few weeks.  It's nice to see improvement with all the running I've done since December.

I've also been tapering for the past 2 weeks, so long runs have been dropping in mileage.  The first long run during taper was a 16miler and I ran that with Arlie Ramirez.  He's an awesome runner training for the Leadville 100mi trail run...yes, that is One Hundred Miles!  I usually don't run my long runs at a hard pace, but Arlie pushed me that day!  It was a good confidence booster for this Saturday's marathon and I feel I should hit my goal.  The second medium/long run was a 12miler I ran with my son riding his bike.  Timmy (my son) is 7, but he can ride his bike for quite a long time without getting tired.  He actually gets bored before he even starts to lose energy!  But he had fun, especially with this being his longest ride so far.  I think he may be able to get to 15+ miles this summer.  We'll see!

Now that I've reduced some running mileage in the past couple weeks and some of the fatigue has left my legs, I'm finally getting excited for this marathon.  I've been dreading it for a few months, I think because the monotony of running day in and day out was getting to me.  I'm a triathlete at heart and love to mix things up with swimming and cycling.  I guess being tired often is part of marathon training and it takes a lot of mental toughness to keep going.  One thing I suggest is if you're doing your long runs by yourself, don't wear headphones as it's a great way to train your mental capacity and to really get in touch with your running.  Anyway, I'm feeling great and ready to see where this training has taken me.  And, of course, I'm ready to get this over with so I can get on my bike!

Shamrock Shuffle!

Bar Louie's Post Race

     Another crazy fun week full of friends and running like a mad man!  I'm tellin' ya, there's nothing like it!  There were about 10 of us from our group, Fit Lifestyle, at the Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8k.  So, it made for a good after party just hanging out at the race site having a few beers.  I owe a few of them a beer, I think Katie and Jonathan, since they brought me one against my will LoL!  Yeah, I had about my month's worth in that one day.  After the race we went to Bar Louie's and had a great post-race meal, a burger with a fried egg for me.

Muscles!

     

     The race itself went great and I ended up doing better than I thought I would since I trained straight through it, meaning no easier week (taper) to freshen up for it since I only planned to do it for fun.  Everybody in the group did well, too, seems like everyone was happy with their performances.  I'm missing some friends in these photos.  Maureen and Ed, if you're reading this and have photos from Sunday, I'd like to see them!  Well, here's my race report if anyone would like to read it  http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=431862

     Training was pretty crazy adding in the race.  I had to shuffle around a few days and I actually almost skipped my long run but was talked into doing it...glad I did!  Ever since starting to train for this marathon there was this one run I saw in my plan that I dreaded.  18mi long run with the last 14mi at my goal race pace.  It was tough but I nailed the paces, actually went 10sec faster per mile than I planned to.  Well, that's done and everything is smooth sailing from here except for the once a week hard runs I do.

Marty doing the smart thing and healing from his long run.  Most other runners are stubborn and would have raced!  Good decision and  thanks for taking pictures Marty!

Bar Louie's Post Race

Crazy week!

     Had a bunch of ups and downs in all areas of life this past week.  No different from anyone else I'm sure, just that the ups were too high and the downs were too low!  Ok, it's probably not as bad as I make it sound since I don't really go through big drops in energy or mood.  The good thing is the week ended on a positive note!  


     Started out on Monday with a perfectly paced 20mi run on a good part of the lakefront that I've never run on before.  I've been running so much lately on the same two routes that it's really wearing me down a bit.  A few times I've gone with Marty (my brother) driving to the lake instead of running and it's been nice not to have to run 3mi down the street to get there.  Well, the turn around point on that 20mi run was atop a hill that you can get a pretty good view of Chicago's skyline looking north.  I saw Navy Pier which was about 5mi away and it looked so tiny!  I couldn't believe that I had to do double of what I was looking at.  But, I was ready for it and feeling good so I ended up finishing the second 10mi with a good negative split (2nd half faster than the 1st half).


     The rest of the week was interesting since we've had some crazy weather.  It's still winter and people are running outside without shirts and that's unheard of here in Chicago in March.  As nice as it is to be running outside with only shorts and one shirt, I feel it was too high a temperature jump and it's tough to get used to right away.  I had a 12miler scheduled but had to break it up into two runs as the heat drained me and made me turn around early.  Good thing is I got all my mileage in this week, which I haven't done in the past few weeks.


     The week ended with a 5k race that I've done for the 3rd year in a row.  It's the St. Paddy's Day 5k/8k which was actually my first race after 9 years of no racing, so I may just do this every year as a sentimental thing.  So far, every year was an improvement and yesterday's race was big for me since I finally went under 20min for a 5k.  What made the race fun though, was being with friends and family.  My father and son came to watch and a few friends raced with us, too.  Just an overall good time as it is with any other race that you do with others.