Saturday, July 25, 2009

Lebanon Area Fair 5K

After my success at the beach, and two good weeks of training, I decided to enter the Lebanon Area Fair 5K.

I was hoping to break 19:00 minutes again, but there were two factors working against me: 1) the race was on a rail trail, and 2) it was humid.

I started out well, and hit the 1/2 mile mark at 3:02 and the mile at 6:04. During this time I was challenged by two other runners, but was able to make a successful surge and opened up a 10 meter gap on them. At the two mile mark, I knew I was wilting a little, because my split went to 12:32. I held on for the remainder of the race, and was able to reel in one more runner to move up a place.

Final time: 19:33; 13th place overall (again); 3rd in my age group (40-49)

All in all, this was a great race, and well run. I'll do it again next year if it works out.

Congratulations to my current training partner, Chop Leader, who won the 60-69 age group in 20:30.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Livestrong Philly, 2009

The team "Fish or Cut Bait" is assembling, and we're ready to ride. The date this year is August 23rd, and I/we have begun our fundraising. If you'd care to help us, please visit http://philly09.livestrong.org/fishmagic

Livestrong!!!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Press Coverage

Usain Bolt is not the only one who makes the running news: http://www.capegazette.com/pages/sporunng.html

Monday, July 13, 2009

Rehoboth Beach 2009

It's Monday morning, and I guess vacation is officially over. Well, the vacation within a vacation seeing as how I'm a school teacher, and the summer break is only half over.

We had a great time at Rehoboth Beach. The weather was perfect; I was reminded of the low humidity days of late summer into September. We didn't have a drop of rain, and every day on the beach there was a cool breeze.

We left on Friday the 3rd and stayed the first night in Dover, DE. We have found that this makes for less stress when packing and traveling. The hotel we stay at, Country Inn, has an indoor pool, which the kids love. On Saturday, we can then get up at a leisurely pace and finish the drive to Rehoboth, beating the heaviest traffic.

Our days were eventful, and followed this basic routine: Arise, breakfast, go to the beach, late lunch, Funland/the Boardwalk, supper, then the boardwalk. Of course, nothing was set, and we did vary things, such as going to Jungle Jim's Water Park, and for me, running some races, which I'll report on at the end. Tried doing some fishing, but the croaker weren't in, and ended up getting skunked the one morning that I was out.

It was nice to be down there, Rehoboth is funky and a lot of fun. And, our family had a nice week to bond without the distractions of every day life.

Here are two new finds:

Great Breakfast: The Retro cafe and Grill
Great Mexican Food (try the fish tacos): Dos Locos

And and Old Standby:

One of the best brewpubs in the East: Dogfish Head


Here are some photos:




Race Reports

Jimmy's Grill 5K: 19:17; 18th overall; 2nd in AG.
Seashore Striders 5K: 18:49 (PR); 11th overall; 1st in AG.