What's Going On?

Lately I haven't had the motivation to write any posts...actually, I wrote some but erred on the side of caution and didn't publish them. As I've figured out, if I need to ask the nurse about a comment I'd like to leave on Facebook, I probably shouldn't comment. I carried this "revelation" to blogging. If I feel a post might sound highly critical or arrogant, I'm going to write it, give it a day and then read it over before I publish it. So, without further a due, here is what has been going on recently:

I was Co-Director of the St. Louis Triathlon Club's Frozen Buns Run 5k & 10k on Jan 19th. I was taken on since the club is going to start rotating RDs. Overall, everything went well. I can't think of any serious problems we had other than trying to get our logo on the fuel belt race number belts that we gave out instead of t-shirts. (You'd be surprised at how many people wanted a t-shirt instead. Personally, I only want t-shirts for bigger/longer races. I have too many race shirts as it is.) Race day went very well, except for the wind almost blowing away the finish line structure. There was one complaint but, it was based on a false rumor.

I also ran more races in the Frostbite Series. A 10 miler, 20k and half mary. They all went relatively well given my current state of training. I missed my PR for the 10 miler by about 30 seconds but my PR course barely had any inclines. The half-mary went okay. My long runs have been almost non-existent so the days of busting out 13.1 miles on a whim are gone for now.

Last weekend was the US Cross Country Championships in St. Louis. Since I was signed up for all 5 of the Frostbite Series, I also got to run the Community 4k as a bonus. I've never run a XC race before but, I wish I had ran the course at least once over the past month. It's amazing how much harder it is to run on grass than pavement. I've heard about the difference but never bothered to experience it. The race went well, it was a 2k course that had a decent variation of terrain. I figured the course was going to be crowded the whole way since they claimed there were 1,000 people running. (Looking around at the start line and the results proved this number to be highly inflated.) It was exactly the opposite, lots of room to run about 3.6k of the race. I'm not sure if I should be pleased with my time or not but I ran it in 22:40. I was thinking I would run sub 8s but then I ran a practice lap and realized that wasn't going to be possible. Either way I still had fun.

Later that day I headed back with the nurse and the pup to watch the Men's and Women's Open races. I don't know if I've seen an Olympic athlete in my life but, I did that weekend. Shalane Flanagan, Deena Kastor and Dathan Ritzenhein were all running.

Women's Start

Shalane Winning the Women's Race

Sara Hall

Ryan Hall chatting it up after Sara finished

Men's Start

 Chris Derrick Winning the Men's Race

 Dathan Ritzenhein Finishing Second

This would have been much funnier on Sunday night but, if you're still upset about the 49ers loss...there are some people (other than Raven's fans) who are happy about it.