DRC 1/2 Marathon!

I felt really great coming into this race. I got some good speedwork in and sharpened up for the last few weeks, so I knew I could race well.

My goal was to run 6:00 minute pace, so the plan was to go out somewhere between 6:10-6:15 for the first two or three mile and then to start rolling after that. The adrenaline got the best of me, though, and my miles were as follows:

1 - 5:59, 2 - 6:02, 3 - 5:53, 4 - 6:01, 5 - 6:01, 6 - 6:08, 7 - 5:57, 8 - 6:05, 9 - 6:17, 10 - 6:15, 11 - 6:20, 12 - 6:25, 13 - 6:21, .1 - :37

After the first mile at the pace I wanted to average, I decided I better go ahead and commit to trying to maintain the entire race at that clip. As you can see, at the end of mile 8, I hit the wall pretty bad and was just happy to finish up at the pace that I did - 6:07 avg pace. The course was hillier than I thought it would be, but I am happy with the overall result.

I got 15th place overall, out of more than 3,000 runners, including 2nd place in my age group (25-29).

This has been a great year of training, giving me a good base going into the winter and spring track season. Next up, 10 days of rest and relaxation before getting back at it with some extra speedwork for my mile race indoor at Arkansas in January. I'll definitely run the turkey trot (8 mile) in Dallas on Thanksgiving and then the White Rock 1/2, but those will be more of easy runs instead of hammering.

I'm really excited about revving up the speedwork for track season.

I'd be more excited if we can win a state championship in XC in two weeks, though!

Longest training run ever, ready to sharpen up for Nov. 1st...

I was excited yesterday because I went 7 miles out and back for 14 total, hitting the first half of the run in 51:04 and coming back in 47:48, an average of 7:03 for the whole run. This is the longest run I've ever done, which felt great.

I ran the 1/2 marathon in March in 7:08 pace, so it's fun to see the benefits of hard training. Today, I was on a 6 miler and thinking that maybe my mileage may have been off. So I got on the USATF "Map my run" page (http://www.usatf.org/routes/map/)and charted out my 7 out to make sure. It was actually 7.25, so my run yesterday was 14.5 miles, averaging 6:49 for the whole thing, 7:03 pace for the first 7.25 and 6:31 for the last, including a 6 flat last mile.

I am starting to think that progressive runs are really great workouts and should be a part of any distance runner's workout regimen. They start out easy, but you always feel sharp and fast at the end.

2nd to last mile repeat workout tomorrow; countdown is at 19 days until the DRC...

Mile Repeats, 10 milers and the DRC 1/2 Marathon

My training has really progressed as well as I could have hoped for when I started getting serious about running again in January. From 10-12 mile weeks at 8:00-8:15 minute pace to 45-55 mile weeks pushing sub 7:00 pace for the majority of the miles, I really feel strong and ready to run some fast times.

One of my goals was to be fit enough to run the varsity workouts with the guys on the cross country team. I started out doing mile repeats at just under 6:00 pace with 5-6 minutes rest in between. I am able to consistently hit sub 5:30s on the repeats now with under 4 minutes rest, helping our #5 runner close the gap to our frontrunners in the process.

Something else that I really missed in these years of fitness limbo was the ability to run 10 miles at a decent clip, reasonably comfortably. This past weekend, I ran the OSU Jamboree 8k in the University division. It was a painful experience but also a fun one. I wanted to run somewhere in the 28 minute area but ended up running 30:15 (6:03 pace) after drastically underestimating the course. That was the most difficult, demoralizing course I've ever experienced. In the end, I really wasn't too disappointed with the time. The soreness set in directly afterward, despite a good 3 mile cool down. We got back home late Saturday night, and I planned to get a 10 miler in on Sunday morning. I was really sore as I set out, but I made it a point not to look at the watch until the run was over. I ran as comfortably as possible, finishing up in 74:14, a clip just under 7:30 pace. I was excited, specifically because I never picked up the pace at all and stayed in my comfort zone the entire way.

At this point, my confidence level is at a high going into the DRC 1/2 marathon November 1st. The goal is to run sub 6:00 minute pace, which would be a shade under 1 hour, 19 minutes. That would put me over 14 minutes faster than the 1/2 back in March, which was 1 hour, 33 minutes. If I get 8-10 miles in and feel great at pace, I would love to be able to put my foot on the gas a little bit and dive a couple of extra minutes under 1:19.

The summer base and fall training will give me a decent background for a spring season that will see me attempting to run the mile/1500 at various track meets. I think the whole project is really a two year plan leading to the spring of 2011 to really run a fast mile/1500. After that, who knows? I am most certainly not going to be lucky to hold on to any speed I might still have for much longer, and I'm definitely not getting any younger. The next step would be to really get serious about the 1/2 marathon and focus on that year-round.

I heard a great quote the other day from Mark Wetmore, the coach at Colorado. He said, "If you are not enjoying the journey, chances are you're not going to like the destination." That's probably an accurate assessment. I'm really enjoying the journey, so I hope I am content with the destination.

3 Adventurous Years (this is an epic tale)

On August 12th, 2006, I began a lifelong journey with my best friend, Jessica as we exchanged vows and started our marriage. We celebrated our 3 year anniversary yesterday with lots of rest and relaxation but before I get into that, I wanted to take the time to chronicle what all we have done over the course of our first 3 years.

I still wonder sometimes how I got so lucky to marry such an amazing woman. We were initially very cautious when we first started dating. We were both coming out of long relationships but had known each other since 7th grade. We didn't want to ruin our friendship, but we also didn't want to lose a chance at something special. Finally, we made it official, knowing we would end up sticking together forever.

When we got engaged, I was teaching at our alma mater, Poteet High School in Mesquite, Texas. Jessica was working at an insurance company as a supervisor, making great money but hating the job and being very unhappy at the end of the day because of it. We talked about her finishing school, which had been something she had wanted to do for a while. I was secretly rooting for her to choose a career in education, and it looks like I may get my wish. :) We knew it would take a lot of work and would be tough with one income for a while, but we made the commitment and decided to take our show on the road to Lubbock, Texas!

I enrolled in a post graduate teacher certification program at Texas Tech that gave graduate hour credits since I was not fully certified yet. Jess enrolled in classes with the Human Sciences department and after some research, decided she would be interested in pursuing the teaching aspect of it in high school. That semester was so much fun. We rented an apartment with our adopted brother, Dwayne and another one of our buddies, Andy. It was funny because it was the same apartment complex that I had lived in my sophomore year. We both got jobs at Blockbuster Video, making barely sufficient money and watching lots of free rentals! During our Lubbock tenure, our good friend Andy was abducted by World of Warcraft, an apparently widely addictive online computer game, and we scarcely saw him the last month. By the end of the semester, I had interviewed at a few schools in Lubbock ISD, but nothing really came to pass, so I started looking back in the metroplex, and we made plans to come back home. Our plan was to buy a house, rent Dwayne a room, and live the American Dream if I could only land a job.

I interviewed at Rowlett High School and accepted a job as a Spanish teacher, which lasted all of 8 days due to certification conflicts with Tech. Region 10 (my teacher prep & certification place) said they would give me a certificate in English, so I decided to go for it. Now all I had to do was find another job, in the middle of January, in the middle of the school year.

Throughout this process, we were living with my grandparents in Oak Cliff. Jess was taking the commuter bus out to UNT for school from downtown Dallas. I would drop her off in the morning, go substitute or whatever I had going on during the unemployment phase, and then pick her up between 4 and 5 in the afternoon. We got to know the downtown McDonald's quite well during this stretch.

The girls' basketball coach at Poteet when we went there was still there my first year teaching but left at the end of the year to take a job at Royse City. As she was on her way out her last day, she told me that if I ever needed a job to give her a call. Royse City had posted a middle school Reading position, and I called her to see if there was anything she could do. We were in Oak Cliff, not anywhere close to Royse City, but a job was a job. I was subbing at a few places, including Royse City when I landed the English job. The head of Human Resources told me that if I "didn't pass the certification test in April, I would not have a job in the fall." No pressure or anything.

We started looking for houses about a month later. We liked the idea of living in Forney, because it was about a half hour from both Royse City and Dallas. All the while we were looking, I was studying my butt off for my certification tests. One of the best weeks of my life was the second week of May in 2007. I got my test scores back from the English, Language Arts & Reading 4-8 test, passed it with flying colors, drove to Lubbock to get the rest of our stuff (we were still paying partial rent there), took the Pedagogy & Professional Responsibilities test at a computerized test site in Lubbock (the second cert test educators must take), passed that one, too, brought our stuff back home, moved it in to the house (a day before the actual closing date, yikes), and closed on our first home the next day. WHEW!

We had a great time fixing up our house that we had bought as a foreclosure. We changed up all the lighting fixtures, painted, and really put a lot of love into that house (we'll talk more about that part later ;) ). The '07-'08 school year was great because I got my first head coaching job as the cross country coach at Royse City. Towards the end of the season, we brought home our first child, Tony, the catahoula/greyhound puppy from Edom, Texas. We fell in love with our Tonyboy from the very beginning. He is really a great dog. He loved playing in that backyard at the Forney house.

In the springtime, we started with our baby talks. Always hearing that financially, "you're never really ready to have a baby," we figured why wait? So in March, we started trying. In early April, Jess took a pregnancy test, and it turned out positive. We were going to be parents! We talked about names and decided on Cecelia Raine if it was to be a girl and Declin William if it was going to be a boy. Jess had attended a presentation at UNT (where she transferred to from Tech) about natural child birth and had decided she wanted to do it. I was a little apprehensive about it at first because I was concerned about Jess's safety but after doing some research of my own, I was on board. We attended some child birth classes that were geared toward natural child birth, and it made me feel so much better. Women had been doing it like this for hundreds of years, so why not?

During Jessica's pregnancy, which went very smoothly, the school year ended and an opportunity presented itself at a new school district in Collin County. The Lovejoy Independent School District started its secondary program three years ago, and this year will be the first year they graduate a senior class. The head cross country and track coach has been a good friend of mine for a while and someone that I look up to as a coach. He was the head coach at Highland Park High School (vomit) and even though I hated the school, I always had a great deal of respect for his program. He was looking for an assistant coach so Jess and I talked about it and because of the great academics the district was known for, we thought it would be great for our kids to go there. We came to an agreement and decided it would be best to put the house up for sale and head North.

Just as Jessica was finishing up her 8th month of pregnancy, we sold our house, thanks to our wonderful Aunt Julie, who was our realtor through the sale. It was October, and Jess was due on Thanksgiving. We found an apartment in Allen, Texas, and Dwayne decided to move to Oklahoma.

My first year at Lovejoy was absolutely unbelievable. The high academic expectations made me a better teacher (6th Grade Pre-AP English), and I look forward to many more years with the district. I am also the head middle school cross country & track coach at Sloan Creek Middle School and an assistant at LHS. The cross country season was a blast and for the first time in the school's young existence, we qualified the varsity boys and girls cross country teams to the state meet (with NO seniors). As the state meet approached, Jess was about ready to have our first little one. Instead of driving down to the state meet with the team, I drove down with Dwayne on that Saturday morning and drove right back.

A week later, at 1:30 AM on Sunday, November 23rd, Jessica's water broke, and we were on our way to the Birth & Women's Center in Dallas. Jessica was heroic during the labor and at 6:56 AM, Cecelia Raine Allen was born. Our great friend, Carter Rose was our birth photographer, and he really has a gift for capturing some amazing moments. He made a great slideshow which will help us relive that day for the rest of time. I already had that week off for Thanksgiving, and I took the next two weeks off to stay home with our new little angel.

For the next few months, I was the proud papa around work, emailing pictures of Cece to everyone up at school. Jessica keeps an amazing website that keeps up with the day to day of our Cecegirl. I wrote an update for each of her months so far that can be found on the site as well.

Eight and a half months have really flown by. Cecelia is getting to be a big girl, pulling up to a stand, crawling around the whole house, and making cute faces and sounds all day long. She is a joy to be around.

This summer, I got a part time job working at Luke's Locker, selling running shoes, which is extremely helpful with the discount and my progressing redemption of my running career.

So here we are, 3 years later. Yesterday, Jess and I got a couple's massages (and became members at Massage Envy), went to eat at the Butcher Shop downtown, grabbed a coffee, went to see 500 Days of Summer (fantastic, by the way), and then stayed at the wonderful Hotel Belmont in Dallas. It was a wonderful, relaxing celebration of our 3rd anniversary. We had a wonderful breakfast this morning, and then took off to go pick up the family.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would be nowhere without my wife, my angel, the love of my life, Jessica Ann. We are blessed with a beautiful family with Cece and Tony and have unbelievable support from our wonderful friends and family. Here's to our third year of an awesome marriage and to many, many more. Jessica, I love you so much. To those of you who read this, I'll try to update the epic each year and hopefully still be a blogger in 2059.

The Transformation

WOW! I came across these pictures of me from 2007, almost exactly two years ago. Thanks to the wonders of exercise and somewhat healthy eating, I look a bit different! I still have a ways to go to reach my goals, but it feels great to start getting fit again!

Before

Now

Varsity Boys' Taos Distance Camp

The second week of camp was lots of fun, as we took the varsity boys the week of July 19th. Going back was easier this time because I knew what to expect. It didn't take me long to get acclimated to the altitude since I was there just a week prior. We encountered some nasty lightning on Tuesday afternoon, as lots of the storms start right there at the top of the mountain in the ski valley.

Speaking of the ski valley, we took a great hike from there up to Williams Lake, which was at over 11,000 feet elevation. I got some great pictures of the trip, including the Rio Grande River Gorge, which we visited on Monday and the bonfire on the last evening. The entire trip was full of beautiful scenery that can hardly be captured on film.

I'm looking forward to getting back to beautiful Taos next year, but this time with the Allen ladies in tow! It's a great chance for the kids to grow together as a team, and it makes for some great memories!

This is a picture of the road that led up to the ski valley. We ran 4 miles up the last day and 4 miles back down, a whopping 8+ minutes faster than the week before!

JV Boys' Taos Running Camp

Last Sunday, the Lovejoy Leopard JV boys loaded up into a 12 passenger van en route to Taos, New Mexico for a week of running at an altitude of over 7500 feet. It was an 11-12 hour drive through beautiful northwest Texas (sarcasm) and northern New Mexico (not sarcasm, actually beautiful). I knew it would be both a fun but difficult week, because I hadn't been away from my girls for that long.

We stayed in a cabin that was halfway up the mountain toward the ski valley, and there was no cell service unless you went all the way to the top (4 miles from the cabin). It was hard not talking to Jess some days until about 6 pm her time. I think Cecelia grew about a foot while I was gone, but she was so excited to see her daddy when I got back! :) I am traveling back out next week for the varsity boys' camp and it will be tough again, but at least this time we will know what to expect. I think I'll plan better this time for calling back home.

The running in Taos was great, with a low in the upper 30s to low 40s in the mornings and highs in the afternoon in the mid to upper 80s. I think it hit the 90s one or two days but with the dry climate, it was fantastic weather. I got a good 40 miles in in 5 days, though it felt like 60 at sea level with trying to adjust to the elevation. The last morning, we continued the tradition of the run to the ski valley. It is 4 miles up from the cabin and goes from 7200 feet or so all the way up to over 9000 feet. It was VERY tough, taking me 35 minutes to get all the way up (almost 9 minute pace) but only 27 minutes to come back down, with the help of the nice downhill on the way back.

The kids had a great time and set some good goals for the upcoming season and the next few years. It was an excellent team building exercise. The only downside for the kids was the inability to take me down in ping pong, and I was the camp champion!

At this point, my running is going very well, too. I'll get another 50+ miles in this week and hopefully get over 50 again next week at elevation. That will set me up for some 60 mile weeks in the next 3-4 weeks and 70+ after that. I am running a 15k on Saturday, so we'll see how that goes.

The picture gives you some insight into where my loyalties now lie when it comes to choosing a training shoe.