While I didn’t hit my deadline to run 26.2 miles between April 1 and Patriot’s Day this year, I did finally complete the run, today.
Look, I love running and what it does for me and the community it creates but I’m not a marathoner and not really interested in becoming one. I like running for up to an hour at most and generally just enjoy my half-hour to forty minute jogs and runs. But I appreciate what the marathoners do and admire them.
So in my way I wanted to try to honor the Boston Marathon as only a jogger like myself could, over the course of a few weeks. I did actually cut my average pace down to 12 minutes after some brutally slow paces set at the beginning of this month that bottomed out at 12:32.
So in all, it took me 5 hours and nearly 17 minutes to run a little farther than a marathon over the course of 12 days. I did it all in my own neighborhood.
I’m glad I finished it, even though it’s late. I hate missing deadlines, but I hate not finishing things more.
So I finished it and now on to better things.
On a really positive note for me, I did finish all four of my last runs under 12 minutes and hitting my best sustained pace of 11:34 since February.
I look forward to more miles and getting stronger as I go on. Again, speed isn’t my goal here, but I do use it as a measure of my fitness. My goal now is to get a 5k under 30 minutes this summer.
I also promised the reader who posted the best time for running 26.2 miles over the same period of days a signed copy of one of my two books — reader’s pick. The Last Disruptor makes a great gift for the imaginative sci-fi oriented middle grade reader, by the way.
Anyway, if you want it, just post your results in the comments here.
Keep running, keep writing
Chalk Creek Writing Outfit 