Marathon Me

I recently finished my 101st marathon or longer race in Houston this month. I am now elligble to join the 100+ marathon club. My brother-in-law has less than 10 states to complete the 50 states. As he approaches that milestone, I would like to join him for as many of these races as possible to watch his complete his goal.

This got me thinking about my collection of states, and so I updated my spreadsheet, and of the 101 marathons, I’ve managed to pick up at least a second marathon in 13 states. So I could join the club again, but it shows that I have a high concentration of repeats.

Here are my repeated states:

State	Total # Of Marathons+
Texas	24
Massachusetts	6
California	5
Idaho	3
New York	3
Oklahoma	3
Delaware	2
Florida	2
Indiana	2
Nevada	2
Oregon	2
South Dakota	2
Utah	2

Texas makes a lot of sense, since it is where I live. I was surprised to see Massachusetts ahead of California as it felt like I have done more races there. This summer I am looking to do a triple-marathon involving Idaho, Utah and Colorado. Sadly this will only give me one “new” state towards completing the 50 States for the second time.But it will put me at 9 states towards going around 3 times. Haha.

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New research from Cambridge University shows that running makes you smarter.

Now researchers think they have the answer. Neuroscientists at Cambridge University have shown that running stimulates the brain to grow fresh grey matter and it has a big impact on mental ability.

A few days of running led to the growth of hundreds of thousands of new brain cells that improved the ability to recall memories without confusing them, a skill that is crucial for learning and other cognitive tasks, researchers said.

And it allows me to eat lots of candy. Good news, good news.

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It has been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve decided to get back into the game so to speak today.  Last night we rocked in the New Year at three different events, culminating at a friends house for drunken Karoke.  We got home and went to bed around 3:45am.

Our local running store, RunTex, has an annual run on the 1st where you run from RunTex North to RunTex Riverside, which is a little over 13 miles.  It starts at the typically very generous 9am.  However, when I went to bed last night (this morning?) I gave myself a 50/50 chance of waking up and running it.  I decided not to set an alarm and if I woke up in time, then I’d go.  Well I woke up at 8am, and told myself that if I went back to sleep AND woke up again in time then I’d go.

Somehow I woke up again at 8:15 and I resigned myself to running it.  I was very, very slugish getting going, but managed to drag myself to RunTex north.  I got to see lots of friends I don’t see that often and we traded various war stories of who was out the latest and imbibed the most.  Needless to say most everyone had a late night but rang the bell at the start to make the run.

We start out and hit the first mile in about 8:00/M pace which actually felt too slow and too fast at the same time.  I felt like my blood had thickened over night and my heart was struggling to pump it.  I started speeding up and settled into a comfortable rhythm.  And the miles started clicking off, I joined some packs and left others until I needed to make a pit stop.  A quick detour into McDonalds and then I was feeling better and met back up with a different set of friends.  That felt a little too slow and so I picked it back up.  We hit the hilly portion with a lot of downhills and the speed just dropped, I was running in the low to mid 6s and felt pretty good.  By mile 7-8 my hangover was gone and I felt pretty good.  My blood was still too thick, but tolerable.

Finished the last 2 miles with another good friend and then headed to the porta-potty.  I left my gloves and headband on the ground in front of the porta potty so as not to leave it on a nasty floor.  While I was in there some ass-hat stole my headband but left my gloves. I’m hopeful that it was a homeless person who needed it more than I did and not some jackass just stealing for no good reason.

Afterwards Runtex really takes care of you, they had black eyed peas, bread, mimosas, beer and everyone got a commemorative shirt for completing the run. It was a great way to start the new year.  I finished the 13.2 mile run at 7:20/M pace. I’ve got the Houston Marathon coming up in two weeks and am starting to feel like I am rolling in to shape.  See you in two weeks.

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As we approach the 4th quarter I am closing in on my next milestone.  I’ve done 12 marathons this year (well, 11 marathons and 1 ultra) which has brought me very close 100 total marathons or longer races in my career.

A quick check of the Marathon Maniacs stat board had me ranked at number 184 in terms of total marathons with a total of 86, but since I hadn’t updated my stats in a while, I was curious how far I’d jump once updating my stats.   After updating with the 10 missing races for this year, I jumped up to spot #155.

100 marathons is currently good enough for #144, however to crack the top 100 you need 118 marathons.

I’ve got four more on the schedule for this year, so it will actually be a down year for me from last year (16 vs. 20 respectfully).

Not sure what the next goal should be after reaching 100, still pondering.

Here’s where I’ll be next:

10/3 St. George

10/24 Frankenthon (Directing, not running)

11/1 New York City

11/15 Rock and Roll San Antonio

12/13 White Rock (Marathon #100 if all goes well).

Hope to see you there.

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Al’s Ship of Fools has descended on Mesa Falls, Idaho this weekend. Around 15 runners have traveled from Austin along with one from Dallas to run the Mesa Falls Marathon tomorrow. Apparently it was such a big deal we even made the local paper.

We’re planning on taking home a lot of hardware tomorrow morning.

Afterwards we will journey to the Big Jud’s hamburger stand where they sell 1-5 lb hamburgers and a 15 scoop, 5 toping ice cream sundae. If you finish any one of these you get your picture on the wall.

Here is my son holding the dog big-ass mixing bowl:

We’ll let you know how the Ship does and if any big burgers or huge sundaes get taken down

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