I ran my first half marathon this past Saturday. Going into it I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I was surprised by the outcome for a few reasons. A little background: After graduating under-grad 1-1/2 years ago I took a six month hiatus from running...It has now been a year since I have been consistent, but this is the first year that I ran through the summer. I have had a very strong spring as far as my pace goes. That being said; in the past year I have not done many runs over 7-8 miles...I tend to get a little bored doing them on my own (yea it happens to everyone). I have been building a lot of base but have not done any proper training (in my opinion) for long distance events.

I was excited about the Brooklyn Half and thought it was a great route (this is prior to running it) and through the insistence of two friends I signed up. At which point I thought "I'm screwed, how am I gonna run 13.1 miles"... I received a lot of advice from my fellow runners and took it all in and knew what I had to do.

My goal was to run a 6:30 mile pace and hit negative splits on the second half of the course. Of course I had no idea how I would be feeling and if my body would hold up. The course was 7 miles in Prospect Park (Hilly) and then the remaining 6.1 miles was down Ocean Dr. to Coney Island (flat, flat, flat). In the end evertything worked out as planned...Mentally and physically I felt great - I was wondering if I could mentally push myself to complete that the distance, and physically if my legs would hold. I finished the race with a 6:29 mile pace (avg.) and a total time of 1:25:00 putting 24th in my age group. My Age Graded Percentage was a little lower than normal at 69%, but that's ok.

For my debut half-marathon I think it was very strong. Overall I am very happy, but deep inside I want another shot at it to prove I can run it faster... If you are wondering about Marathons...I have never run one and I don't plan on it anytime soon...Halfs sound nice as far as my "distance" events go.

I don't have another running race until 6/21 but have a Time Trial (cycling) next week @ Bear Mountain, NY. I have become more disciplined with my training and now I need to become more disciplined in the events I choose to race in. For instance, two weeks ago I ran three races in four days...Way too much "speed" in such a short amount of time. I am definitely going to scale it back a and start focusing more on my long term goal which is The Nations Triathlon. The event is September 13, 2009 and my swimming is poor poor poor. I need to get it up to a similar level of my running & biking. To do that I need to be consistent...I will let you all know how it goes.

I have a feeling I was a little all over the place with this post...feel free to comment and ask any q's...

Ok...

So it was something like two months ago that I started this blog...maybe it was a corny title, maybe it makes no sense...who cares?! The bottom line is that I am not much of a blogger...I always knew this and I thought "this time is different" - it's has not been.

I gave thought to a lot of blog ideas and I tried to rationalize what is people want to see/would be interesting...I have friends who are blogging all diff. topics and their interests...I share many of the same ideals and thoughts but don't think they are topics I can blog on...So digging deep it came to me that you have to "blog what you know" - I know that I love to train & have been focusing on my individual lifestyle for the better part of the last year...so maybe that's it...I don't know If i am up for offering advice at this point but maybe that will come soon...right now it is gonna be about me.

It might be boring and it might be egotistical to blog about myself, my running, biking and swimming...I hope that it is a topic that will become more that jut a blog but more of a chronicle of my rise/fall (hopefully not!) in the sports I am focusing on.

If you hate the idea...don't let me know!! haha...

define: cyclical ~ recurring in cycles or periods of time in which certain events or phenomena repeat themselves in the same order at the same interval.

define: cyclist ~ a person who rides a bicycle.

i will touch on this later, for now i just feel like going to sleep...good start right!