So I Bought Another Pair of Shoes.....

So with birthday money in hand I walked into my local (30 minutes away) running store with the intention of trying on 3 pairs of shoes.  1. New Balance Minimus, 2. Saucony Kinvara 2, 3. Saucony Hattori.  Guess which one stole my heart?

Now with what is left of my birthday money I plan on entering the Haunted Hills Half Marathon in Middlebury, Indiana on October 29th.  Which leaves me less than 4 weeks of training time.  I feel good, I just need to be disciplined enough to bump up the Sunday long runs.

This is the best time of year for running (in my humble opinion) have fun out there.

Peacock Strut 2011

I made a trek up to Kalamazoo the other weekend to run a 10K, oddly named the "Peacock Strut."  There were no peacocks involved, in fact the only image of a peacock I saw anywhere was on the XXL shirt I received instead of the large I had requested.

I haven't been training much since the half I ran back in June.  Not much at all really.  But I surprised myself on a 4 mile run on the morning of my birthday. I went out for a leisurely jog and ran it in 8.5 minute miles and I felt strong.  That's pretty fast for me and like I said I haven't been doing any conventional training.  I have, however, been working on a roofing crew for the past few months.  Going up and down a ladder with a bundle of shingles on your shoulder gets you in shape pretty quick.

So the morning of the 10k myself and about 194 other people are standing at the start line when a police officer climbs a ladder with a bullhorn in his hands.  Watch out for deer, he explains.  Apparently they are camped out in various lawns along the route, ready to take out unsuspecting runners.

Whilst drinking Bells Oberons the night before the race I decided that I would go out strong, run hard the first part of the race and suffer through the latter half.  You know, really find out what I'm made of.  This is different from my usual, pace myself and finish strong approach.  It worked.

November 25th, 2010  Turkey Stamped 10k - 56:45.5

September, 17th, 2011 Peacock Strut 10K- 49:51

I think I'm on to something.