QC Marathon...Back to Work

On Sunday I had a ton of fun as a spectator at the QC Marathon. I enjoyed watching so many people chase a goal they had been working towards for quite some time. The QC Marathon is a spectacularly run event through the Quad Cities. There is a marathon, 1/2 Marathon, marathon relay, and 5k. My wife Jen ran the 1/2 marathon against a really tough field assembled this year thanks to an offering of prize money in the 1/2 for the first time. She had not run a 1/2 marathon in about 5 years. Today she beat her best time by nearly 5 minutes running 1 hr. 21 minutes and 58 seconds. She finished 2nd to a gal from California who is an Olympic Trials qualifier at the marathon distance. Jen looked great as she made her run through the QC. It was also awesome for me to see so many people running in Live Uncommon shirts. The movement to get people active and healthy is growing tremendously! I am so proud to be affiliated with Live Uncommon. If you want to know what it is all about visit http://www.liveuncommon.org/ I watched 2 fellow Live Uncommoners Aaron Maurer and Josiah Campbell hit their goal times of breaking 4 hours in the marathon. They were both in the 3 hr. 54 minute range. For Aaron, it was his first marathon and I knew how hard he had worked because I followed his blog through the journey. Josiah's story is pretty incredible. He has lost over 100 lbs. since he began taking up fitness a couple years ago. I followed those guys on my bike the last 6 miles and it was awesome watching them and cheering for them. Their stories are very inspiring and they are awesome representatives of Live Uncommon. I saw fellow teacher and Live Uncommoner Nick Sacco break his PR by 11 minutes on his way to a time of 3 hrs. 34 minutes. It was just great being out there supporting people as they made their way through the course. So many of them were smiling as they ran. It reminded me of how much physical fitness is a celebration of life. It was the perfect thing for me to witness as I get set to resume my own training tomorrow following a 2 week break. Within a few days of finishing Ironman Wisconsin I had recovered pretty well. I was feeling great walking around. I have run a couple times and know my body has recovered well. I was super excited to finish IM Wisconsin but I was not excited about how I raced. I did not think the race was a good indicator of the fitness level I had. The more I thought about things the more I realized I did not want to be done for the year just yet. As the weather cools down now and we enter the fall season it is my favorite time of the year to run. I looked at the bigger pro races remaining on the calendar and there is one that I really want to get to. I decided the best thing to do is begin training tomorrow and put myself through a regular week of training without going too crazy. If my body handles it well I will continue training and will sign up for one more race. My hamstrings were not good in my 4 weeks leading up to IM Wisconsin. They forced me to back off way earlier and way more than I would have liked. My highest running mileage in the 5 weeks before Madison was only 28 miles. This was after running 5 weeks in a row at 60 miles through June and early July. I feel I have some unfinished business left in 2011. I also realize that I don't want to go into another race undertrained so I will be honest with myself in my assessment of this week of training. If the week goes well I'll announce next week on the blog where I will be going for one more race. I know just the possibility has me thinking about the race every day. I am overweight right now so I will focus on getting my weight back down to race weight while I begin to prepare for this one if it is to happen. I was inspired today by what I saw...from everyone out on the course. Congratulations to all who raced today in the Quad Cities. It was a great sight! DREAM BIG!!