personal best

This is a training update, so I must warn that you are about to be inundated with all kinds of numbers and running lingo. Well, at least one or two.

Today I ran a four-mile race in central park and had my best time ever, a 9:51 minute mile, net time for the race 39:25! It was 50 degrees, and raining. The park was still dead and cold from the winter, trees barren of life. None of that mattered, running felt natural and fluid, I was in the zone from beginning to end.

This time means more to me than a notch on a board, it says to me that I can finish the marathon in my goal of four and half hours or less. Honestly, my times have been so mediocre that I have had doubts. I still have to shave off a couple more minutes (I have to run a 10K with an average 9:35 mile) by July 3rd when my training regimen begins, but now I have that little piece of me that knows I can. For gods’ sake, how much faster alone when I knock of these last fifteen pounds? Like lightning, I tell ya.