September 30, 2010

Forest Park XC

The first weekend I stayed in our new house in St. Louis I saw there was going to be a huge cross country race at nearby Forest Park. While the event was mostly aimed at high school runners, they had a 4K open race (2.5 miles). Having just whet my appetite for cross country at the DHS alumni race a few weeks prior I decided to run it. There aren't a whole lot of open cross country races around, so I wasn't really sure what type of people were going to show up. The answer is good runners. A lot of them.

It poured down rain all the previous day and night so the course was ankle deep water in many places. It only took a few steps of my pre-race warmup to give up all hope of keeping my feet dry. A sizable crowd lined up for the 7:30 AM open 4K and then we were off. The start was very fast and I was quite a ways back even after I started faster than I should have. The first mile was 5:32, and I slowed down from there. The second lap was a lot of back and forth, notably with a 13 year old boy and a 22 year old woman who went on to win the women's race. Around two miles in I repeated to myself "I'm too old for this shit", by which of course I meant races that short and that fast.

I finished in 14:50 (5:58 pace), 25th overall, and I somehow managed to get 3rd in the 30-39 age group. Despite the fact that I actually had a pretty solid race, I was a ways off the top 5-10% I would have expected for this sort of race... indicating the competition was really good.

Forest Park XC

I stuck around a short while to watch a couple of the early high school races before heading back home. It's been over 10 years since I watched a high school XC meet. It was a good time.

August Stats

Okay, so this is a little late, but I have a good excuse. We have moved and we're getting settled in to our new house in St. Louis.

In addition to everything else that was going on, I was foolish enough to migrate all my training log data for the past 10 years into a completely new software system. Right before we left Champaign-Urbana I wrote some scripts to convert all my old data into the new format. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to updating the scripts I use to generate these monthly reports so I was unable to do this August report at the end of August. Now, a month and a half later, I finally updated that code and, well, here we are.


Photo of the Day

August 2010 Photo of the Day

It was a real struggle to keep this going during the two weeks we were staying in the hotel, but I somehow pulled it off... mostly by taking crappy photos.


Running

First lap

The running actually picked up a little in August. I tried to hit as many group (Second Wind & Buffalo) runs as I could, thinking each one could be my last. I also had a fun time racing at the Danville High School alumni cross country meet the day we left for St. Louis.

MonthDistance# WorkoutsAvg per Workout
January109.05 Mile1010.905 Mile
February76.18 Mile89.5225 Mile
March84.86 Mile108.486 Mile
April83.15 Mile99.23889 Mile
May57.95 Mile78.27857 Mile
June17.98 Mile35.99333 Mile
July54.62 Mile86.8275 Mile
August65.78 Mile97.30889 Mile
Total656.97 Mile778.53208 Mile


Cycling

Three strollers and a bike

I had a few groups rides early in the month when I somehow wasn't packing (don't tell Melissa). Later in the month I mostly rode around St. Louis with Will in the Burley.

August 2010 by bike

BikeDistance# RidesAvg per Ride
Bianchi15.2 Mile43.8 Mile
Pocket Rocket80.05 Mile810.0063 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird127.75 Mile342.5833 Mile
Total223. Mile1514.8667 Mile

January - August 2010

MonthDistance# WorkoutsAvg per Workout
January166.25 Mile208.3125 Mile
February140.67 Mile1211.7225 Mile
March508.83 Mile1828.2683 Mile
April318.98 Mile1324.5369 Mile
May365.89 Mile2018.2945 Mile
June447.97 Mile2220.3623 Mile
July390.59 Mile1920.5574 Mile
August223. Mile1514.8667 Mile
Total2708.68 Mile15617.3633 Mile


Walking

Guys hiking

Will & I walked a lot of miles in St. Louis.

MonthDistance# WorkoutsAvg per Workout
January28.66 Mile93.18444 Mile
February51.45 Mile163.21563 Mile
March34.7 Mile103.47 Mile
April44.35 Mile114.03182 Mile
May48.75 Mile143.48214 Mile
June64.2 Mile164.0125 Mile
July56.3 Mile153.75333 Mile
August56.75 Mile163.54688 Mile
Total414. Mile1143.63158 Mile

September 12, 2010

We-haul

Well, the move is over. Everything didn't go exactly as planned, but we made the best of it and got it done. I can't thank my parents enough for al the help packing up boxes, loading, & unloading the truck.

Packing

Push, pop

Three strollers and a bike

26' U-haul

New office

Now we're in the process of unpacking the dozens of boxes lying around the house.