Continuation

A photo of me in the early stages of the Mount Desert Island marathon. Apologies for the poor quality, but I'm too miserly to pay for the real thing.


It has been two weeks since my marathon. The first week following it, I did very little running, completing 5k just a couple of times. One of those was a race - the 5k as part of the Legs for Literacy running event in Moncton. I completed it in 22:58, and felt no lingering aches or pains from the marathon. Check out Mike's blog for a great little video of the race, including both my finish and his.

This past week I ran four times, including 12.5 miles yesterday, in the first snow flurries of the season. Unfortunately, after 11.5 miles, I had a familiar pain return in my calf. Not learning from my past mistakes, I continued some combination of walking/running for another mile before returning home. It was quite tight and painful last night, but a little better today. Hopefully this will pass quickly.

Faith Ann also ran the 5k in Moncton. After taking a hiatus from blogging for a while, she has started it up again. Check out the story of her run here.

What's next for my running? Not much in the way of racing in the short term. I'll probably do a 5k race on New Year's Day. I'm also going to run the Arizona Rock'n'Roll marathon in Phoenix on January 16th. If you had to think of two completly opposite marathons, it would be MDI and the Arizona Rock'n'Roll marathon. To wit -

Location:
MDI: Centered around Bar Harbor, population right around 5000
Arizona: Takes place in Phoenxi, the fifth largest city in the United States, with a population
over 1.6 million

Scenery:
MDI: Very scenic, voted most scenic by Runners World
Arizona: By many accounts I have read, not so scenic - unless you're into strip malls

Audience:
MDI: Caters mostly to marathoners, although they have added 2 and 3-person relay teams
Arizona: Last year had 21,000 half-marathon finishers, compared to just under 5,000
marathon finishers. This year they even added 2-person relay teams for the half-marathon!

Organizers:
MDI: Largely run by race director Gary Allen, along with other locals
Arizona: Part of the Rock'n'Roll marathon series, organized by Competitor Group, Inc., a sports
marketing, management and publishing company.

No matter - I'm sure when I'm lining up at the start, I'll be just as excited and nervous to get going. I'm going to shoot for something under 3:45. In the mean time, I need to draw up some type of training plan, and perhaps if I feel social I'll join some local runners occasionally on these cold, dark autumn/winter evenings.