And now for something completely different: A post about running

So, I've noticed a trend here: Lots of posts about dieting and not much about running. This post is an attempt to rectify that problem.

I have four races on my calendar in the coming weeks:

Bare Bones 5K, May 25

China Grove 5K Main Street Challenge, June 7

Peachtree 10K Road Race, July 4

Grandfather Mountain Marathon, July 13

First, the Bare Bones 5K this coming Saturday in Salisbury. This is mainly an opportunity to check my fitness level as I come off of my recovery month after Boston. As the weather starts warming up, I generally start slowing down, so a big challenge for me this summer is to see how well I can adapt to the heat. So far the forecast is actually for relatively cool temperatures -- low 60s -- on race day, so maybe I'll be able to go all out.

Next, the Main Street Challenge, which is a nighttime race, and an opportunity for Roberta Villneff to try to break the 5K state record for her age group. I'll be running right by her side at her planned 21-minute pace, and I'm very much looking forward to it! I think I'll bring a camera to this one.

The Peachtree 10K is a chance to run in an absolutely enormous event:

55,000 runners participate each year, making it more than twice as big as the Boston Marathon.

My 5K PR of 18:03 puts me in the seeded wave, which is going to be fantastic -- I'll be just behind the invited runners right at the front of the pack. Needless to say, in Atlanta in July, it's going to be hot, so once again I don't plan on PRing in this race, but I would like to break 40 minutes if at all possible. 

Finally, the Grandfather Mountain Marathon is a notoriously tough race in the North Carolina mountains, but I'm looking forward to it as a "no pressure" event because I will certainly have no chance of PRing. That said, to prepare for it I'm planning to do more hill work, and this past Sunday was a prime example. I had an 18-mile run on the calendar and I knew it was going to be a muggy morning, so I started early, at 6 am. Jeremy joined me for the first 6 miles, an out-and-back on Grey Road, the hilliest road in town. Next we joined the regular Sunday 7 am crowd for 10 more. I still had two miles left as I slogged back into town, but fortunately Sam was willing to run those miles with me, so I had company the whole way. It wasn't a fast run, but I got my hill work in, and I feel like I'm starting to get back to prime running shape, so that's good news. Details of Sunday's workout are below.

Notice the 1,047 feet of cumulative vertical. That's more than 200 feet more than Boston - but still considerably less than the 3,200 vertical feet I'll be enjoying at Grandfather Mountain!