Back to running this week!

After a little over a week off because of my hurting right foot from the other weekend's ten-miler in Howard county, Maryland, I started back running today. I ran about 3.5 miles (a good portion of it was on the Hammond High School track in Columbia). The track is about 3/4's of a mile from where I start this route, and about 3/4's of a mile back to the start from the track, so I ran to the track, ran eight laps (which is 3,200 meters, which I covered in about 13:32 on the track, with the first 1,600 meters being about 6:39), and then ran back from the track. This whole run took me about 24:11, which would be under a seven-minute-per-mile pace. That's not bad at all. If elt like I was running at a lower-to-mid 6:40ish-per-mile pace, but towards the end I slowed while crossing a couple of busy roads. My right foot felt a little tender at some parts of the run, but it's a lot better than how much it was hurting during the recent Road Runners Club of America Ten-Mile Club Challenge the other weekend.

I'm hopin' to keep up the consistent running and stay away from those longer races... At least for a while. Not that I have anything against them, it's just from a lot of past and current experience that I seem to get hurt/injured from them, and for me it's not worth it right now. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why I have been running for over ten years and still have yet to run a marathon... And I'm not ashamed of that. God-willing, one day I would really like to at least do one and finish it!!

My next planned races are on the Maryland Eastern Shore this coming weekend when I go to visit friends from Salisbury University in Salisbury (Wicomico County), Maryland. On Saturday, March 8, 2008 I plan on running in the Mid-Shore Delmarva Family YMCA's Funny Bunny 5K a around 9:15 in the morning that runs through Salisbury's City Park. I ran that race two years ago and did fairly well there. It actually had a fairly challenging hill that runners would go down at around the first mile and then come back up towards the end (and that's fairly uncommon as that area of Maryland does not have very many hills). I ran 18:45 there, and at first I wanted to get under 18, but now since I took a little bit of time off, I don't even know if it would be reaonable to try and beat my best time of 18:45 on that course. I'll just have to see what happens, God-willing I hope I run well. If anyone is interested in the event, please check out: http://www.middelmarvaymca.org/Mid-Shore%20Branch%20Special%20Events%20Test%20Page.html

Then, at around one in the afternoon on Saturday, March 8, the Talbot County YMCA in Easton, Maryland is having their Talbot Kids Fun Run, a three-mile run taking place in North Park in Easton. I have not run this one before, but I heard about it last year just after I thought of pursuing my Maryland-wide running endeavor and sorta mentally kicking myself that I had missed an opportunity to get a running event in Talbot County in, one of the more challenging counties as far as finding year-around running events goes. As long as I feel all right after the Funny Bunny 5K, I'll make it over to this one and see what happens with that. If anyone is interested in this event, check out Talbot County's YMCA's internet page on it at: http://www.talbotymca.org/easton/youthfamily.html Then, click on the "Talbot Kids Fun Run" option and they'll give you details about it. When I called over there, they said you have to register at the YMCA in person, 'cause apparently you can't rgister online, so I'd say try and get to the YMA at around 12ish/12:15ish so you have time to register, get to North Park (which is apparently nearby), and then stretch/warmup.

All right, thank you for checkin' in! I'm gonna get going on some school work here. I hope you all have a good night and continue to have a blessed week :)