So this is where the addiction comes in.  I'm already wondering about my next Marathon.  What I want to do, what I'd do different... or the same.  It's going to be a while before I run another one (I say that now, but...) - going to take it somewhat easy for a little while.  New baby is due in just 10 very short weeks - we will see what kind of running schedule I can keep after that.  It will probably entail a lot of running after and away from "the toddler" to keep him entertained.

Still, its in my brain... munching away up there like some kind of parasite. 

"I can probably do that better."  or "I'd like to do this other one sometime, too." That's really what it all comes down to.

At long last, a race report from Boston. I began typing everything, but realized I was boring even myself.  I decided to pare it down a bit, but its still pretty long.  If you aren't in for the entire story, then the short version is:  I ended up running the Marathon pretty much exactly the way they tell you not to, but I still had a great time and it was a great race.  I finished in 3:32:44. 

If you are in for the whole thing, click below...

1) Someone gave me a medal that says  I traveled from Hopkinton to Boston on foot, with 25-someodd thousand other people. More on this when I have time to write a report and post it.

2) The mystery of the toe blood has finally been solved.  As it turns out, it is from blisters underneath callouses.  Sneaky little buggers.

Ok.. that's it for the moment.

We're officially here.  I've officially got an official paper number to pin to my (official) chest.  I officially bought the official jacket at the official expo.  And yesterday, while driving West on the Mass Pike, I officially go my first real taste of race nerves.  When we were passing the Framingham exit, after driving for what seemed like a long time at 70 miles per hour, I realized we were not too far past the halfway point, and 26 miles is officially a long way to run.  That little bout of nervousness has since turned back into excitement, but I am sure its a taste of what is still to come. I did my last official last training run this morning, and I'm officially ready to go!

Twelve years ago, I lived and went to school in Massachusetts.  I also worked for a subsidiary of IBM which was responsible for the maintenance and repair of their army of tan cash registers with triangular blue buttons.  I used to drive all over the Eastern half of the state fixing these cash registers when I wasn't in class or asleep.  It was actually a decent job, as boring as I just made it sound.  Anyway, while much of Massachusetts has Patriot's Day off, places like CVS and Star Market do not, which means neither did I.  At least for the morning - my classes were in the afternoon on Mondays.

I remember that day being strange.  Driving East on I-90 to get to one of the first CVS stops, there weren't all that many people on the road.  But I noticed that about half the Westbound traffic consisted of a long line of buses.  I remember thinking to myself  "What in the hell are all these buses for?"

I did my work and moved from one store to the next.. gradually forgetting all about the buses.  Getting to the last stop of the day required an unexpected detour - the road I intended to take was closed.  But I managed to get there after consulting my book of maps.  Normally these little drug stores were pretty busy this close to noon, but not this time.  I remember thinking that it was probably because they had that main road closed off and it was more difficult to get here.  At this particular store, the staff were all gathered around watching a small TV that had been set up on part of the counter. Normally they would have been lounging around behind me, waiting patiently (or not) for their register to get fixed. 

At one point the manager came over and asked me how it was coming along.  I said I was almost done and asked him what everyone was watching.  He said that the Marathon was about to start, and I was welcome to come over and watch with them if I had a spare moment.  In fact, if I was up for a walk I could head "that way" about half a mile to some road (I don't remember where "that way" was, or the road's name for that matter) to see the runners... they'd probably be starting to come by in the next half hour or so.

My response was something along the lines of: "Oh, thanks... but I have to get back to Worcester for a class."

Really, I wanted to get back to my apartment and take a nice nap for a couple hours before my first class. My normal Monday routine at that time was roughly: 1. Go to bed at 4AM. 2. Wake up at 7, shower, and work for about 4 hours, hoping the last stop was somewhere near home. 3. Get home as fast as possible.  4. Take a nap (this was the most important nap of the day).  5. Eat some ramen and head to class.  6. Come back and take another nap.  7. Go to Big D with my roommate to get some ingredients for dinner. 8. Do a combination of homework, TV watching, and goofing around until 4 on Tuesday morning. 

Twelve years ago, I was an ex runner who couldn't understand why anyone would want to subject themselves to something like a Marathon.  It wasn't even until last year that I put two and two together and figured out what all those buses were for. 

I'm sure my nap was excellent that day, but I find it amusing how much my perspective on things has changed.

And I have decided I am not sick, it is just all the green crap falling off the trees that is doing this to me.

Every time I see a motorcycle with a sidecar in real life, I fully expect it to tip over when it turns.

I'm not counting next weekend's 8 miles, but I am counting the longer run I have planned for the 21st.

Today, I ran with Glen.  Glen was another member of Gundi's training group this year who is also headed to Boston, and we're about the same speed (though his Boston goals are slightly more ambitious than mine).  We started at Barton Springs pool this morning for a few reasons:

1) It is close to the trail + water-supported running.  Since neither of us wanted to go through the trouble of depositing water bottles all around town, this was a good idea.

2) It seems like a good place to meet, which I discovered on my run with whyiron a couple weeks ago.  Oddly enough (or maybe not so oddly), I saw him (whyiron) at the Mopac water stop in the middle of the run today.

3) I've heard rumors that there are gorgeous naked women all over the place in the early morning hours, and they'll let you take pictures of them.  Unfortunately, it must have been too chilly this morning for them to show up. I forgot my camera anyway.

We ran an 18-mile run that was a combination of some hills (first ~8 miles around on Scenic and Pecos), and some not hills (last ~10 miles around the damn dam loop).   It was a good run, and it was once again good to have someone to talk to.  I think Glen is starting in the corral behind me at Boston, and his plans are to go slightly faster  than what I am thinking, so we're going to keep an eye out for one another and maybe run a few miles together if we connect up.

Also today - I think I am getting sick.  I haven't been sick in a long time, and kind of forgot what it feels like.  Basically I have a sore throat. I think that's the beginning.  But  I mowed the lawn yesterday and was breathing all kinds of nasty dust - that could be part of it.  I'll tell myself that, but drink even more water, just in case.

Not in the traditional sense of "hey the weather is nice out".. as far as that goes, it was actually a bit on the humid side.  But the weight of work  and other things was on my shoulders today, and heading out for a run at lunch ended up being a good break from it all.

As I was headed out the door, I (figuratively) ran into Agustin, who was also on his way to run.  His plan was an easy 4 miles.. mine was an easy 4-5.  I convinced him that we could run together and just do 4 miles.  Then, I convinced him to go the opposite direction from where he was headed, and we'd just turn around at 2.  Then... we decided to keep going on the route, and we ended up running about 5 miles at a pace he later admitted was "a little faster than I was going to run.. but good."  Hopefully his coach doesn't get too angry with me for messing with the workout schedule.

We ran a loop that Mandy and I have gone on a few times in the last month. It includes part of town lake, part of shoal creek, some trails, some  pavement, some flat, some hills, some forest, some city, some highway... a little bit of everything, really.  The only problem with the run today was that Mandy is normally the navigator, and I don't pay enough attention to my surroundings.   It could have been worse - I only made a couple wrong turns which were identified very quickly, and as effendi pointed out a few days ago, "wrong turns = more training".  In this case, I think we got about 40 feet or so of extra training.

So to make it 4 in a row, I'll post about a random topic that is almost related to running.

A post on teambaraka's journal a few days ago got me thinking about music (while running.. see I told you it was related).  I don't wear any kind of music player when I run, but I always have something bopping around in my head if I am out there on my own.  It is usually the last thing I listened to before that particular run, even if it was hours or days ago.  Sometimes it is a song I am making up as I go along.  Since August, about the only thing I have been listening to in my car is a band called Pinback.  And so it follows that pretty much the only music in my head while I have been running for the past 8+ months has been Pinback.  I can't say that it is particularly well-suited to running.. some of it is.. others stuff maybe not so much.  I had "Good to Sea" and "Walters" from their latest album stuck in my head during most of Austin - here is where the running-related stuff ends.  

Their music manages to hit the right nerve with me,  and I find myself singing along, even when I don't actually know what the words are. This is one of those bands I kind of wish more people knew about (and also kind of don't).  A small part of the attraction, admittedly, is that they are just two geeks in the basement with a computer, a microphone, and some musical instruments. It would be a shame to ruin that.   Most of my obsession with them though, is that they make really good music.  They have these interesting vocal harmonies in nearly every song that are strangely compelling, and the rest of the instrumental parts all just kind of "fit" and work together.  Anyway, since I'm out here kind of pimping them... there's a few samples on their myspace page if anyone is interested in taking a listen: Pinback's Myspace Page