Run Lola Run

I am getting ready to leave the house to run the Houston half-marathon. The half isn’t actually until next week, Sunday the 17th, but I am running the course today, taking my time to do the whole thing, as my final long-run before the actual race.

I keep blowing my own mind when I think that less than a year ago I was training just to get through six miles. I remember thinking then, Hey, this is half of a half marathon.

Running’s been all in my head lately too. I was reading the wiki entry on Haruki Murakami and discovered that he is an ultra-marathoner, but that he didn’t start running until he was 33. Other people I recently found out were runners include Peter Sagal and Kai Ryssdal.

For Christmas last year CLH bought me a Garmin Forerunner 205. I’ve since graduated to a 305 (with heart rate monitor) and the toy has been amazing because it’s allowed me to nerd out by turning running into a numbers game. I’m all about the data. During hard runs I have to concentrate in order to prevent myself from looking at the watch every 30 seconds. But it’s also been a great motivator. In 2009, I ran 392.88 total miles, and that’s even taking six weeks off for tendinitis around May and also being pretty lazy in general about training.