Ran a half-marathon

So, I successfully completed the Canadian Derby Half-Marathon, with a gun time of 1:53:07 (chip time was 1:52:45). I'm really thrilled to have done so well - I completed a Runkeeper FitnessClass with a target finish time of 2:30, so I'm pretty stoked to have finished in well under 2 hours!

Now I'm not sure what the next goal should be. I picked up a FitBit, so I might set a goal using that tool as a metric.

Finished the 5k!

My wife and I ran the 5k, and I made it a point of running side-by-side with her the whole way, even though I probably could have raced ahead quite a bit. She seemed to enjoy herself, and the kids loved the pancake breakfast!

Oddly enough the race was held at the same time and location as Edmonton's Toy & Collectible show, so my little guy got to have his picture taken with Darth Vader!

Next race

Ok, this blog has been dormant for a long time. I guess I'll resurrect it by pointing out that I'm signed up for the St. Patrick's day run on March 20th. It'll probably be slower than anything I've ever ran, mostly because I'm going to run side-by-side with my beautiful wife. It's her first race, and I'm incredibly proud of her for taking up running, so I want to be right with her the whole way to keep her encouraged and motivated.

Having shared activities really is wonderful, and it's rare that we get to run together.

Finished the race in great time!

I finished the Little Big Run in 51:47, far better than my original goal of 60 minutes. It was a huge rush actually completing a race, and it feels even better to do so with a good time.

Registered for a race!

I'm now registered for the 10k "Little Big Run" due to be held on May 30, 2010. I've never run a race before, but I'm confident I'll meet my objectives:

1. Finish the race in under an hour.
   
2. Do so upright, and with a smile.

Simple goals, but those are the best ones to work toward. Wish me luck!

Pedestrian transportation

I went for a run this evening. Including warm-up and cool-down, I covered 7 kilometres. That's a bit longer than my usual running loop (6.2k) but nothing too extreme. What made this run different, though, was that it was done for transport instead of pure exercise.

Instead of just running for running's sake, which is fun enough, I had a few errands to run. I needed to pick up a cheque, then to go to the bank to deposit it, and then I had to return home. In a past life I would have driven to run that errand. It would have taken about 25 minutes, and I wouldn't have got any physical benefit in the process. By running to get everything done, I managed to move my body to where it needed to be (transport) and get some solid exercise at the same time.

A few months back I was working in Regina for a few days. At the end of my trip I needed to get to the airport for a flight home. Realizing that I had a few hours to kill before the flight left, I walked from downtown to the airport. Total walking distance: about 4.25k. Total time: about an hour at a leisurely pace. When I got home I mentioned this to my coworkers, who promptly decided I was insane. What kind of a world do we live in where going for a walk for an hour is insanity?

Much of North America is wrapped up in a very rigid mindset regarding transportation. Rather than blindly following the herd, why not walk, run, or bike to your destinations instead of taking a car? You'll feel better about it, and as long as the distance isn't huge, it probably won't take a lot longer. It'll save you the time in the gym, and having a few people think you're insane probably isn't a bad thing.

A goal for 2010

I'm not sure if it was a wise or foolish move or not, but I just committed to a couple of colleagues that I'd log 1000km running in 2010. That's about a 5-6k run every two days. My runs will get logged to Runkeeper and will be accessible at my public user page and in my Twitter stream.

Wish me luck!