Race: Steamtown Marathon (Scranton, PA) Date : October 13, 2013 Clock Time : 3:57:21 Chip   Time : 3:55:23 Average Pace : 8:59 Overall Place : 871 Age Group Place : 47 It's taken me some time to sort out all of my emotions from the  Steamtown Marathon , now over a week ago. All of the feelings I've had (except the physical ones) have been purely positive. I was trying to avoid the long blog entry that'd been brewing in my head for over a week by offering you a sort of time-elapsed recap of my experience--but I realized that just because I made a numbered list didn't mean I wouldn't ramble. My apologies anyway. A last-minute decision . My initial goal was to finish under 4 hours and 30 minutes. Then, when I posted my last blog entry before the race , I made a daring decision to change my goal time to 4:15. And then, while at dinner in Scranton the night before the race, I overhead a friend say that Chuck, a longtime (and fa...

I'm learning a lot about Florida, after living here for most of my life--and not just from the seemingly recent onslaught of bizarre national news headlines --but also from running in new places. This past weekend I finally went out to the city of  San Antonio , where runners and cyclists gather in hordes for hill training. I've known about this place for a couple of years, but I haven't really wanted to make the 45-minute drive out there so I could endure more difficult terrain on my already-challenging long runs. But because I chose a hilly marathon this year, it was essential that I get in more hill training than the one Ohio run I did the weekend prior. So Tim and I headed out there early Saturday morning to meet a bunch of others at 6:00am. I would be running with my run-buddy Nicole, and neither of us had been there before, nor did we know what route we were running. But luckily some veterans of the course gave us basic directions, and then then guys took off with ...

This past weekend I made my annual "pilgrimage" to Ohio, where I was born and lived until age seven. My dad has been organizing family trips back to Ohio for the past four consecutive years, and for the past three years I've taken advantage of the cooler weather and more varied terrain that Ohio has to offer for logging some training miles. The particular town (technically a village) of Yellow Springs is where we tend to spend the most time, and to my good fortune there is a bike/pedestrian trail that goes right through the area and its surrounding towns. Last year we stayed in Beavercreek in a neighborhood that was located right up against the trail, so it was no trouble for me to access it and get my mileage in. This year, however, we stayed in a bed and breakfast , which was about 3.5 miles from the trail--on the route I chose to take, anyway. When visiting with some old family friends on Friday night, I mentioned that I had 18 miles to run the next morning. I fi...

The Choice Marine Corps Marathon vs. Steamtown Marathon The Pros and Cons I missed Marine Corps last year because of an injury, and I really want a redemption race. I thought that signing up for the Nike Women's Half Marathon in DC next month might serve as a redemption race, but I'm not sure it will (although I'm still excited about the race!). Mainly, I'm afraid I'll always feel that I let myself down for that race. And then there's all of the to-do of Marine Corps that I keep hearing about: running through the historical landmarks, being encouraged by tons of local crowd-supporters, and being greeted by all of the Marines at the end (okay, that last one is the main draw). But that is both a pro and a con, because I don't like feeling stuck in large, overpopulated spaces. I don't think that would happen at nearly the same level at Steamtown, whch takes place in Scranton, PA (yes, of Office fame). Also, Steamtown is a net downhill race, which see...