17. ST GEORGE MARATHON Oct 3/09

WOW, what a great race! Though it was October, the weather was great, even a bit too warm, but there was a wonderful breeze for most of it that was awesome! It even misted a bit early in the run. Wonder how they did that? Considering there were
7500 runners plus friends to feed, the spaghetti bash the night before was very well organized with lots and lots of great pasta, choice of sauces, salad and cake and cookies for dessert! We picked up our packets the afternoon before and cruised through the Expo before heading to our lodgings right there in St George at a huge home owned by friend Dave Mugleston. Many thanks Dave! It was interesting to notice how many cars in town had 26.2 decals on them! Even got some for our own vehicles. The shirts they gave us are really pretty, dark blue with a white stripe down each side below the arms and St George Marathon stenciled up the side. On the morning of the run, dozens of school buses from all over the area trucked us to a valley way up north through a couple of quaint little towns, and up and down some hills to a spot where they had some bonfires lit and about a bzillion porta-potties. Probably the only major defect in their planning of the whole event was the shortage of toilet paper!

The clarion start blast sounded a bit before 7 am and off we went, with very much excitement and very much fun! It was awesome to be running with two of my kids who were kind enough to not run faster than their old dad, so we ran the whole race together, even holding hands as we roared across the finish line together! For those who believe the St George Marathon is all downhill, let me clarify a point. It IS NOT ALL DOWNHILL! Near the beginning there is a significant hill as we climbed up out of the little village of Vail with still a slight incline for another six miles or so, THEN the rest of the run is downhill! Believe me we were glad to reach that point where gravity started to be in our favor! Interesting highlights of the run included a very recently demised doe on the side of the road who lost out in an encounter with a speeding vehicle. Didn't take any pictures of that.

We did get pictures of a fellow racer with eight legs in the form of the four inch long tarantula spider. Crazy guy! We tried to tell him he was running the wrong direction but he ignored us and just kept on his merry way.









The rocks and hills along the road came in a variety of colors ranging from white to red, and even in one location, in both colors side by side. A phenomenon that surprised us along this race was the propensity of runners, male and female, to take advantage of bushes by the side of the road to answer the call of nature. I guess maybe nature calls louder out here in the country, no matter how many hundreds of people are watching!





The organizers were kind enough to set up a much appreciated shower on the side of the road that kept some of us from melting away completely!

The local community was really supportive of the race. The highway was blocked off completely to local vehicular traffic, with the exception of ambulances transporting over-exerted racing casualties off to some hospital back in town.






There were spectators along almost the whole twenty six miles, in the small towns we passed through and even out in the country, all cheering us on. I'm guessing our contributions to the local economy helped to make us so popular.

During this race we followed a technique advocated by a gold medal olympic marathoner named Jeff Galloway. We would run for about a half mile, then walk for a tenth of a mile, run another half mile and so on for the whole race. This kept us from injuring ourselves and gave us enough energy to actually run across the finish line. By that time many marathon runners are having trouble to just keep walking.

Then there are the medals at the finish line, if you are fortunate enough to make that far! I'm guessing these things are the reason so many silly people spend so much time and effort and expense to run marathons. These are about the only things that runners take home from these events that endure. Along with piles of photos and the satisfaction of having overcome inertia and accomplishing something significant of course!

19. LAKE CHELAN MARATHON - Again

Another marathon successfully conquered, making a grand total of four so far, and the second time for this one!And what a great marathon it was! There were 41 of us running the full marathon, with about 160 doing the half-marathon and a couple hundred the 10K.We full marathoners were taken by big old yellow school bus at 6:15 am nearly 20 miles up the south side of the lake to a spot on the road deemed 26.2 miles from the finish line which we could see tantalizingly close just across the lake to the north, and bang off we went! The bulk of the run was at or near water level and what an awesome view that was! For most of the way we ran through or by apple orchards and grape vines, so close that I was unable to resist the temptation to sample the produce. What I sampled would in no way detract from the growers' profits for the year, as I picked them up off the ground where they had fallen and would not have been harvested for sale. Delicious!

We stayed the previous night at the gorgeous Best Western Motel actually at mile 16 on the route, where Mom waited to greet me, along with a troop of enthusiastic Boy Scouts, before she drove off to the finish line to be there in the event I actually made it that far!!! As usual, most everyone was ahead of me, but I did catch up to one fellow, who, it turned out, wasn't even a runner but a volunteer walking up to work at one of the aid stations handing drinks to the marathoners going by. You know, I was tempted to throw my race number in the ditch and join him there! But I resisted by repeating over and over how much fun this was, and kept on running!

The aid stations were manned by various groups, like the Boy Scouts shown above, and these two serious actors dressed up to add color to the event. Towards the end the stations were still there but mostly un-manned given that the volunteers had been there since early morning and now about 5 hours later, they had retired. The drinks and cookies were still there and much appreciated!

I kinda got carried away at first with the challenge of keeping up with the pack until I noticed that I was breathing really hard, so I wised up and slowed down. I was able to get my breath back and got started on my 'run-half-a-mile/walk-a-tenth' cadence, which kept me going just fine until about 18 miles, when my feet and legs refused to switch back to 'run'. For the rest of the way, it was 'walk-two-steps/walk-another-two-steps/and-another-two-steps!' That did the trick as I made it across the finish line in only 5 hrs and 35 minutes, but still vertical!

This run kinda convinced me that I'm able to run the first half of marathons quite nicely, but that somewhere early in the second half my legs and feet give out and make life miserable, so why not just be satisfied with half-marathons? The glory is practically the same, as most folks are sufficiently impressed with a guy my age (or most any age!) running 13.1 miles, and the finisher medals are usually the same except for a swatch of some different color! Maybe with more intensive training I could conquer marathons better, but I'm really not interested in training that much. I'll make it through one more marathon at St George for a grand total of five real marathons to brag about for the rest of my days, and just tally up halfs instead. It seems to me that two half-marathons should equal one whole one, so having run five halves to date means I will be short just ONE half-marathon from my goal of eight marathons!

The last three of us to finish the marathon were all over seventy. I was the second last having just barely crossed the finish line before a really phenomenal Bob Dolphin, to my right, who a couple days short of his 80th birthday, just completed his 451st marathon, all within the last twenty years! The fellow who finished just before me was 78 year old Mel Preddy for whom this was marathon number 364! More power to them! I'm content to just have my picture taken with them!

So, I have yet another Finisher Medal, and a nice Age Group Second Place. My wall really jangles now as I walk by! And I don't even think of the hurt they cost me, just the glory! What a great way to cure a post-mid-life crisis! (I was gonna call it a life's end crisis but that sounds a little too scary!)

18. THANK YOU JEFF GALLOWAY!

IDEAL PLAN FOR THE ELDERLY I've noticed that nearly all the other runners disappear down the road ahead of me and make it to the finish line apparently without ever slowing down, with the exception of a few in worse condition than I, whom I eventually catch up to and pass. BUT with the years and miles I have on these old bones of mine, my goal is to simply make it to the finish line and cross it VERTICALLY, not FIRST! AND this great plan of Galloways with restful walk-breaks every half mile seem to be doing the trick for me, maybe for nobody else, (though he seems to be selling a lot of books on the subject!)

Tonight I made it all the way through a 20 mile long run, by alternating running 4/10ths of a mile with a 1/10th of a mile walk. Towards the end it was getting harder to keep running, but the thought of that rest reward less than half a mile ahead kept me going! I know that my time of 4 hours for 20 miles is no great shakes, but FOR ME it would have been a lot worse without the motivation to keep going and suffering 'til that next break. Plus my feet and legs held up. My toes and calves started hurting but they calmed down during the breaks.

There were hills and distractions that slowed me some, but my average pace was about a 12 minute mile. I'll accept that, because I made it all the way to 20 miles and could have kept it up for another 6. The alternative could've had me lying on the road somewhere like a pile of road-kill hollering for someone to come drive me home!

I've purchased the new Garmin 310xt Sports Watch with the hopes that it would be an improvement over my 305. Well, it has possibilities with it's 20 hour battery life (instead of 6 or so for the 305), faster satellite location and more accurate measurements. Plus it fits on one's wrist like a watch should. To the present I've been using both devices to test how close they measure. They're actually really close, so there's no problem there. The one problem is that the new 310 occasionally has some trouble displaying and uploading data, which Garmin Tech Services assure me is being fixed and they'll send out an up-grade as fast as they can.

I've signed up for the Lake Chelan Marathon again this year on Sat, Sept 19th, since I've had to drop out of so many of those planned ones, and there are very few that aren't on Sundays! Then Jared, Diane, John and I will be running the St George Marathon on Sat, Oct 3.

17. REVISED RUNNING TECHNIQUE

TRAINING WITH AN AWESOME VIEW! I get to run along a ridge where for nearly three miles of my run, the view is from high above the world famous Chambers Bay Links Golf Course bordered along it's far side by a tiny Burlington Great Northern track humming with passing trains every few minutes, all silhouetted against the Puget Sound and framed along the edge of eternity by the beautiful Olympic Mountains. And at night the sunsets can be spectacular! Sometimes it's hard to turn around and head back home!

Just so you know I'm NOT SLACKING OFF off due to summer heat or old age or sumptin, tonight I managed 10 miles in 1:58 at an average 5 MPH, and av pace of 11:47. No great shakes, BUT, I've modified Jeff Gallaway's technique from - RUN one mile, WALK 1/10th of a mile - to walking 1/10th of a mile, every HALF mile, and what a difference!

My total time for a given distance has gone down, my average pace has improved and I really don't have pains in my lower extremities, with just an occasional exception, but it quickly goes away!

It's so much easier to make it to the next half mile for a break, than it was for a mile (which most of the time I never made anyway!) At the end of this ten miles tonight, nothing hurt! According to Galloway, those walk breaks give your running muscles time to rest and subsequently last longer.

Galloway claims that marathoners who consistently use the walk breaks DO NOT HURT THEMSELVES yet come in with great times. I'm all in favor! At least it's working for me on my regular training runs. I'll give it a good test on my next long run.

I don't know if you've ever noticed, but I run past a cemetery on my runs, and in the evening you can detect a distinct unusual smell in that vicinity. Interesting!!!

Someone suggested it was just me starting to smell ripe by that time which could very well be the case! We'll see if mom starts locking me out as I get back from my runs!

16. CHOTEAU Grizzly Marathon Aug09

PEACEFUL Choteau, Montana Population about 2000, not counting grizzlies. There are definitely no traffic problems here! I'm not sure there is even a traffic light! But it is a really progressive community! Obviously - they hold an annual marathon that this year brought in around 450 runners from all over the country. They even located a really ferocious grizzly to add to the fun! Seems he had a friend with a camera. We ran from town out some thirteen miles, then turned around and ran the same route back again. It was nice to see the elite runners coming back as we were basically just getting warmed up. We were also encouraged by seeing that we were ahead of at least a couple other runners!

There was an early start (5am) for those needing extra time to make it back before the roads were opened back up to the public at noon. Stephanie was suffering from a sore hip, and I had stupidly put my back out the previous day playing hockey with the grandkids, but we were determined to do this marathon so we decided to start early and walk it.
In the mean time, the kids all won medals by doing the 5 K. A couple of them got bit by the running bug and seem determined to run again. We know what that leads to!


We made it to the finish line in only 7 hours and 47 minutes, a bit sore but not really hurting, and got these really neat medals! I came in first in my age group 70 to 74! Of course that's easy to do when you're the ONLY one in the age group!

When we arrived the day before the run, we were greeted by a community Farmer's Market with a few produce and handicraft stands, including one put on by a local Hutterite Colony. There was also a little bluegrass band entertaining with some good ol' country music. Great reminder of the good old days of my rural upbringing!

15. SEATTLE ROCK & ROLL MARATHON June 27/09

MUSIC? They could have left out the 20 some odd bands as far as I'm concerned! None of them played what I call music!
ONLY 25,000 RUNNERS SHOWED UP! That's all the organizers would take probably 'cause they couldn't find enough porta-potties for any more than that! Diane took off on her own for the full marathon, while Stephanie and I did the half. They grouped us into "corrals" of several hundred runners. Stephanie and I were in corral 23, and there was still no end of corrals in sight behind us! That's a LOT OF PEOPLE! Fortunately they thinned out as the race progressed, so there was hardly any congestion along the route.

There were a lot of groups of CHEERLEADERS from various local schools cheering us on and crowds of on-lookers all along the way hollering kind words and even spraying us with water hoses. It was a really level track with hardly any inclines, so we didn't have to stress much. We ran through some pretty classy neighborhoods, of course given we were running along the waters edge a lot of the time.

THE SCENERY WAS AWESOME as we were running along tree lined streets and through very pretty parks and even right along the lake with the water lapping up along the sidewalk next to where we were running! We watched motorboats zipping by as we ran which was unusual for a race. Normally on a race we're dodging cars and trucks and all sorts of wheeled vehicule traffic, not boats!

Then they ran us through the I-90 tunnel which was unique to any runs I've ever been on! Of course the Garmins didn't work in there so it wrecked the record of the race according to our race watches! They had a band at the end of the tunnel but fortunately their music didn't carry very far. Guess all those moving bodies acted as sound barriers to dampen the accoustics.

This is now us running on I-90, the trans-continental highway that starts in New York City and ends up here in Seattle. Wow! I guess that should be a thrill! It is probably the only time we'll ever see the pavement and overpasses that close and going that slowly! Normally driving along here in a vehicle it's at 50 or 60 miles per hour in bumper to bumper traffic and you get schmoosched if you slow down at all!

And finally the medals and the pictures. The smiles usually are grimaces of pain camouflaging the fact that though some of the lower extremities are just plain numb, a vociferous bunch of still living muscles are screaming their discontent at having been force-marched over thirteen or twenty-six miles without any logically acceptable reason!

All this for just a hunk of ribbon and a cheapy little piece of metal? These Rock and Roll organizers seem to

have gotten it down to a science, as everything appeared to run smoothly with all these thousands of runners running around, and they even sent me a great little souvenir certificate, a couple weeks later, giving me recognition for finishing the Half Marathon successfully, in only 2 hrs, 40 minutes and 29 seconds! This put me in 12th place among 70 -74 yr olds, 3475th place among all men, and 10741st place overall! Very cool for them to figure this all out! Makes me feel like I accomplished something!

14. LAKE WOBEGON - MINNESOTA May 9, 2009

GARRISON KEILLOR would have been so proud. His fictional town of Lake Wobegon where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," is being put on the map. I was even sure we were running past THE Lake Wobegon, when another runner indicated there was no such thing!

That beautifully level straight trail behind Diane in the first photo was once a railroad that community-minded citizens thoughtfully paved for use as a biking, running, skate-boarding, snow-mobiling trail. It's even handicapped accessible, obviously, since they let intelligence-challenged marathon runners use it, nearly 200 of us at this the Second Annual Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon. One community even built this cute covered bridge on it.

Unfortunately my recent "accident" wiped out several weeks of training and I was inadequately prepared for this race. Diane had dedicated herself to running with her daddy, and we did great until about half-way, when my legs took to seriously complaining about having to run, then they took to complaining about even walking. But we had planned this project to "do a marathon" and we weren't about to quit! So we made it to the finish line, not with a PR to be sure, BUT WE MADE IT! At least my legs had quit complaining. They were just plain numb! It was a couple days later before they returned to more or less normal functioning!

Kevin achieved a PR of 4:34:30, at a pace of 10:28, then after an hour or so of worrying, ran a couple miles back down the trail to see what had happened to us, ultimately doing over 30 miles that day!

Pictured here starting at the left are a fellow from England who came to run his 160th or so marathon, a 72 year old from California just a couple runs from completing "A Marathon in Each of the 50 States" the SECOND time, for a total of some 147 marathons, me - just barely completing my second marathon, a real crazy Minnesotan who has completed the 50 marathons in 50 states thing FOUR TIMES, Kevin who's great at humoring his dad-in-law, my Diane who sacrificed a potential Personal Record to keep dad from becoming a railroad fatality statistic, and Sharon Hobbs who is the very kind and capable race organizer.

Many thanks Sharon. Let it be known that we HIGHLY recommend this marathon as one that is well organized with lots of great volunteers, lots of food and drinks, great medal and shirt and LEVEL like a train track!

13. ANOTHER PHYSICAL CHALLENGE

The week following the Salt Lake event, I was just getting back home from a great 10 mile training run, glanced at my Garmin not seeing this idiot root on the path, and subsequently found myself draped over the curb. It didn't seem like all that big a deal, but the gash on my knee was right to the bone, and the pain under my arm was a cracked rib! Unfortunately that kyboshed any further training for the up-coming Lake Wobegon run. The knee took more than a month to heal over and the rib even longer.

12. SALT LAKE HALF MARATHON Apr 18 / 09

OVER 10,000 RUNNERS! My first BIG race where thousands got in my way. However, it turned out there was room for everyone. The race started way out at the U of U campus, where there was absolutely no parking, and ended downtown where there was lots of parking space, so we were all asked to park downtown and were given free rides on the city transit train out to campus.

The fast guys get right up at the start line to be first away after the gun goes off, then the rest of us just shuffle over the start line as space between runners permits. Many of us were still in the portapotty line (like Jared there in the first picture) when the gun went off, but we still made it into the race before the last of the 10,000 did. The timing chips on our shoes recorded when we crossed the start line and again when we crossed the finish line and the difference was our race time, which for us was 2 hrs 34 mins. Average pace on my Garmin 305 was 11.37 min/mi.

The weather was cloudy and cool at first but cleared off and warmed
up nicely towards the end. I started with a jacket which I was able to shed later and wear around my waist.

I was carrying my lil' red camera with me and there was absolutely no problem getting someone to take pictures of us. These fluorescent shirts make it really easy to find one another in a crowd, even in the dark, as illustrated by Jared in the first pic above.

It was very nice to have the streets of downtown Salt Lake all to ourselves, including State Street and South Temple Street. Traffic was either not allowed on streets we were using or restricted to a lane or two along the side. There were hundreds of cops, and an equal number of volunteers all along the route blocking or stopping traffic for us.

We were just getting close to the finish line when the fast marathoners, who had gone a different route, started shwooshing past us doing the whole 26 miles in less time than it took us to do the 13. Mind you, Jared could probably have done as well, but he was sweet enough to stay back with his aging daddy to help him make it.

There were lots of people along the route cheering us on. Some were out playing violins and other musical instruments. There were a couple of two or three man bands, and even a ladies quartet serenading us. One character was giving away cans of free beer, and another was cooking bacon and handing it out. We ran through an older residential area with lots of old folks sitting in their folding chairs watching us. Kinda made me feel guilty, and maybe some the other way around!

I got a SECOND PLACE ribbon for my age group which includes thousands of 70 plus year olds in Salt Lake. Fortunately the very vast majority of them did NOT come out and run, so it was left up to me and one other old guy to fight for the prizes, and I graciously let him have the FIRST PLACE ribbon, since he crossed the finish line about 30 minutes before I did!

All runners that made it to the finish line got a Finishers Metal with the yellow ribbon, then the place winners got a different colored one like my red second place one. There were also money prizes, but neither Jared nor I was inclined to run that fast!

11. STEILACOOM HALF MARATHON - Mar 21/09

A NEAR MEDICAL CATASTROPHE My Garmin wasn't working this day so I ran too fast and winded myself early and never got over it, then ended up with chest pains for a couple days. Kinda scared me and I started having second thoughts about 8 marathons. Cancelled the Yakima one and cut the Salt Lake one to a half marathon.

BUT all subsequent running at the proper pace has shown no unusual chest pain so eight marathons are still on. We have to find a couple more marathons now, so Jared has agreed to join me and anyone else interested, for the St George, Utah Marathon on Oct 3, '09, (if we get selected!)

PREVENTIVE SELF-MEDICATION The truth of the matter is that all my life I have had chest pains following over-exertion, and have survived to septagenarianhood. So nothing is new. I'm sure the medical folks would advise me to stop strenuous exertion, like stump grinding and marathon running, and have me taking a handful of pills everyday. But Why? I've made it thus far and I'm thinking "if it works don't fix it!" Plus all my life, thanks to a wise wife, I have focussed on eating good stuff and avoiding bad stuff to keep from getting the various diseases most old folks endure, consequently I can spend my time running with my kids and grandkids instead.











STEILACOOM 1/2 MARATHON 2:23




UN-USER FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY!!! The Garmin problem this day was because that blankety blank 405 required a degree of nerdiness that was way beyond my capacity with it's touch sensitive bezel, tap here, rub here, slide here, for nigh unto a bzillion menus that appeared un-wanted, and usually wouldn't go away. The item wanted was usually no where to be found, and definitely not right now when it was needed.

So while I thought I had it set ready to go at the start of the run, it wasn't, and I ran without it. It has since been traded off for my blessed old Garmin 305, shown here, which is ugly as sin, fits like gramma's corset and keeps sliding where it's not wanted. But we understand each other and have developed a working relationship based not on heart-felt attraction, but upon it's ability to produce information I need, when I need it, in a manner I can comprehend, and it helps that it has red trim!

10. MARCH 09 5K - MVP

MVP PHYSICAL THERAPY RACE
This is a fun race sponsored as the first race of the season each year by my friend Pat Garlock who is owner of MVP Physical Therapy shown here with me n' Cassidy. It rained earlier in the morning, but the sun conveniently came out to make the event enjoyable. Not sure how he was able to arrange that!

HALF WONDERFUL ROUTE! The first half of the route was awesome, basically downhill! However, there is an old chinese racing proverb that states that all runs that finish where they start, must have step up for every step down! None-the-less it was not that difficult, and a lot of fun! It was great to have my own lil' cheering section, Makenzie and Cassidy, taking charge of things like hollering for grandpa and the photography duties.

MANAGED TO WIN Ya gotta love it when not too many seventy plus year olds show up at a race. It helps add to my collection of First-In-Age-Group prizes!

9. VALENTINE '09 10K

COSTLY PRIZE - See this little piece of glass? It cost four months of pounding the streets every other day, rain, snow and shine; a bunch of expensive clothing, footwear and gadgets; immeasurable pain and suffering plus getting up early on a chilly, rainy Saturday morning. But that makes it pretty precious, and I'd do it all again!

The funny part is that I'd have gotten it with hardly any of the above 'cause it was given for being the OLDEST guy to just cross the finish line!

The prize included a big two quart bottle of champagne, which really doesn't fit conveniently into an active Mormon's diet, so I politely refused it and gave it back to him! He was really tickled by that and promptly hid it for his future retrieval.

I was also FIRST in my age group, but being the ONLY one in my age group helped a lot there! I don't think my time of 1:11 qualifies me for the Boston Marathon, but I'm working on that! There were about 65 or so runners competing in the race during which we ran twice over a 5K course laid out in Steilacoom Park across from Western State Hospital.

They had included a couple steep hills that really got the heart pumping!

It was great having granddaughter Audree doing the run also. I forgot to tell her she really should let grandpa beat her across the finish line, but I'm guessing it would be too hard to tell her friends that her 71 year old grandpa beat her, so I'm not insisting on any concessions from family running with me.

My lower back aches a little bit and one calf has a knot in it that I'm gradually rolling out, so things are coming along just fine. Now to prepare for the half marathon coming up in five weeks! Oh joy!

8. GETTIN' READIER

Well, with the first of a series of increasingly more difficult races coming up, I figured it was time to acquire the neccessaries.

NEW RUNNERS - These Nikes I've been using have a year or more on them and are showing it.

My first requirement in runners is light weight and I've been fearful of finding another pair as light as these 9.5 ounce ones. Would you believe I found a beautiful pair of Saucony's at Fleet Feet in Bonney Lake weighing in at 8.7 ounces! Just like feathers! (My favorite color is red so that was an easy sale!)

I also bought a different pair of insoles with a higher arch support and now my toes don't tingle anymore! Thank you Paul at Fleet Feet!

MINI CAMERA - It occured to me that we're gonna be running through some pretty exotic scenery this year, and should carry a small camera to record the views, and us too, of course!

So Best Buy had this powerful little 8.2 mega pixel user friendly Kodak M863, brand new for a tad over half regular price. Who could pass up a deal like that, especially being it was red?

It has features like video, special settings, cropping, low light setting, flash, panorama, and photo enhancements all right there under a button. There is a built-in help menu for dummies on the screen for every feature, so no manual is needed. My kind of camera!

GARMIN 405 - I probably shouldn't read any more running journals lest I get roughed up by management of my fan club, but when I learned about the new Garmin 405, my 305 suddenly became unbearable and had to go! The 305 is big and awkward, doesn't sit on my wrist where I could see it easily, takes too long to find the satelites and wasn't as user friendly as I require (like it's gotta be simple, really simple, to use!) E-bay cooperated by providing me a brand new 405 at 2/3 new price! Unfortunately, it doesn't come in red!

7. TRAINING PROGRESS

A BREAK-THROUGH!
Today I ran my 6 miles without slowing down to a walk even once! I've been following Jeff Galloway's method of interspersing running with walking sessions, but I've been thinking it's time to see if I could run the whole way, and today I did!

However, my time for the 6 miles was only 3 minutes less than the run/walk technique since I was purposely running slower to make sure I didn't get winded. I was able to finish the last half mile at super speed, so it looks like I had energy left, and now I'll focus on speeding up. Right now I'm just training for the 10K Valentine's Day Run this Saturday. Next week I'll step it up to 10 mile runs every other day in preparation for the half-marathon in Steilacoom on March 21st.

GREAT NEW ENERGY BAR
I have been depending on Gu's for energy, but I've found an energy bar composed of about 30 organically grown super-foods called Greens+, which also includes high energy herbal extracts and Chia seeds. It contains NO processed sugar, salt, corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, synthetic sweetners, preservatives or genetically-modified foods of any kind. I'm impressed with it's claims and though I haven't given them a real test yet, I think I'm noticing more stamina and holding power as I run. More info at www.greensplus.com/chia

PELVIC TRAINING NEEDED
Also, I've been noticing my lower back is the only part of me that hurts any more when I'm running. Guess I've finally zero'd in on the correct shoes and inserts for my needs. Well, the March issue of RUNNER'S WORLD has this neat article about the need to consciously exercise the lower back at home because unlike the leg muscles, which get trained during running, the lower back muscles need special off-track attention. It seems almost all common overuse injuries are related to lack of pelvic strength. So I'll be adding their suggested pelvic exercises to my currently non-existant home exercise routine!

6. REGISTERED FOR FIRST MARATHONS

Bixby Bridge on the Big Sur California Marathon

OK, we're now registered for the ROCK 'N ROLL MARATHON in Seattle in June, The YAKIMA RIVER CANYON MARATHON in Ellensberg in April, the SALT LAKE MARATHON two weeks later in April and the BIG SUR MARATHON up by Carmel, California in September. Looks like I'm committed!

Also running a 10K just up the road here in Steilacoom on Valentines day, then a half there again in March, just to get in the mood for all these marathons coming up!