Going negative

One more step to the marathon is complete. It's not quite as motivating as that fast 5k from last month, but not to shabby. The Pirate and I did a simulator half-marathon to see what running downhill for an extended period of time would be like. I did the race in 1:30:10 and it puts me in good shape for a sub-3hr marathon. How does that work? you may ask: I'll explain. The point of the race was just to go and have fun and see where I was at; there was no taper, no getting to the front at the starting line, and enjoying the aid stations, do negative splits through the race, and save some energy for the drive home. Oh and we were also supposed to do another 6 miles when we got home to stay on the training schedule. The last race I did negative splits at was the Sioux Falls half-marathon forever go when getting ready for my last marathon. It makes the event super fun because you pass people the whole way. It's also a good way to practice not blowing up early. In any case the first mile I did was 7:55 and the next 7:30 all because I didn't push to the front. I didn't think I was that far from the starting line, but with all the people it took 90 seconds after the gun just to start my watch. Normally I wouldn't stop at an aid station (usually just sloshing as much as I could into my mouth). Today though, I stopped at miles 4, 6, 8, and 10 and also stopped to tie my shoe. The time for all that was about 4 min. Given all that I think I probably should've had a time 5 min faster. Running downhill is brutal on the shins: I'm still sore 5 days later! The plan here is to run downhill on the easy days. The coolest part about that half-marathon was the Pirate PR'd again! She's averaging less than 1-minute behind me now and she was feeling well enough to way out train me in the last few days. That's the norm usually, but I didn't know how she'd be after a long PR. Apparently it's nothing so, how far, how fast can she go? We'll see.

Was thinking about making a GUI in Flash player this weekend. That's way down the road, but their graphics are just so smooth. By the time I get ready for it I'm sure Java will have something just as fancy. Didn't make a lot of progress this last weekend; my body was just too broke down to get motivated.

This weekend we're off to a Warrior Dash (my birthday present to myself) and then we might try and check out the end of the Leadville 100 which will be going on just up the road. Our good buddy Mighty is running that and I'll be curious to see what he looks like when he's tired. 100 miles should do it right?