Sunday, March 30, 2008

The Maniac Is Back!!!!

Good morning everyone, sorry that I have been AWOL for so long and have not kept in touch. There are many reasons, most notably is that I've determined I'm a wimp when it comes to cold weather running it seems. Add that to a work schedule that has kept me out of town more than in town of late and I'm just able to not find the time or energy to drag myself out of bed when I should be to get the morning run going. Excuses Excuses Excuses...a dime a dozen and with enough of them and a pocket full of money we can all stop in at Starbucks for a needed caffiene kick can't we. Well I"M BACK.

Not only did I take off most of February, but I managed to not do much for March either. I did show up for the Little Rock Marathon on March 2, and yes I did finish the full marathon under my own power, but not overly happy with the results (6:33:36). I wasn't the last off the course but dang near it. I got one of their big honking medals, and I do mean BIG. They advertise that they give the biggest medal in the marathon world, what they don't tell you is that it weighs the most too. I told the lady when she put it around my neck that I wasn't sure I could carry it, but she assured me that I had just completed the truly difficult part. Their course....I can say it all in one word...HILLY. The first 16 miles are hills of some sort, up or down, but always one or the other, and as a runner it seems we climbed alot more than we bounded downhill. As an engineer I know that for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction, so that for every time we ran up a hill we would need to run down a hill at some point. However, miles 14, 15 and a part of 16 I think were all up Mount Everest, or what seemed it's equivalent in Arkansas. But I do have to admit that the back side of 16 was almost like a slide, where were those shoes with the wheels underneath them at that point!!! I can add more detail if anyone might be interested in running this race in the future, I don't think I'll be adding it to my conquests to repeat, at least for a while. But it is certainly a fun race and scenic.

So as a quickie recap I've done 5 marathons in 7 months, and preparing to do #6 in 8 months. I missed in October and February. The upcoming marathon is the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. If you've not run this it is a great event originating as a memorial run on behalf of those that lost their lives in the 1995 OKC Bombing, but has evolved in a memorial race for many others.

In fact this year the Edmond Running Club, where I am a board member, will be sponsoring special bibs for ERC members to wear on behalf of Rachel Davis. Rachel's mom Karen is a member of the ERC. Recently Rachel was tragically taken from us as the result of a car accident where she and a fellow Oral Roberts University classmate died while enroute from Tulsa back to Rachel's home in Edmond, OK. Those of us from the ERC will be running in rememberance of Rachel and all the good that she stood for as a young adult whose life was cut short, but has gone to live in eternity with our God and Savior.

So yes I'm back. I've not felt much like blogging this year because I'm just not running felt that it was not justified to blog about something that wasn't happening. But I'm back....with a vengence....well I'm not sure about that, we shall see...will be looking forward to catching up with everyone though....hope you all are well and still around.

11 comments:

Arland said...

Hey Randy, glad to see your back and thanks for the post on my blog. I was at Little Rock also but I only ran the 1/2. I was not that happy with my 1/2 time but the weather sort of threw us a loop with the warm conditions after we trained in the cold. Next year I will be getting one of those BIG Medals. Man, those thing are huge! Good luck on OKC. That one was on my to do list but we opted for Nashville. Probably doing my last 20 miler today for it. And next weekend I am doing back to back races, a 10k and then a 1/2 marathon. Probably makes me a maniac of some kind! Hang in there and good luck with your running.

Backofpack said...

Good to see you back Randy! And good job knocking out Little Rock. Did you go back a couple of posts and see what I've been up to?

Wes said...

Welcome back, Randy! You've been running hard. I think you deserved a little time off :-) I think I might learn something from that real soon!!

Molly said...

Yea Randy!
You crack me up...that you do not feel like you have been running this year and you have done HOW many marathons?
Give yourself ssome credit...YOU ROCK!
Take Care!

J~Mom said...

Welcome back!! We missed you! :>D

Marcy said...

YAY RANDY!!! I'm so happy to see you back ;D Winter is tough on the running front. There have been many of weeks were I only manage maybe 5 miles?! LOL If anyone deserved a break it would be you, you maniac! LOL

Michelle said...

Yay, glad you're back, Maniac Randy!!!!

I've definitely missed you in blogland.

teacherwoman said...

You are definitely a maniac! I thought maybe you fell off the face of the earth! Don't scare us like that!

Gladd to see you back and at it! :)

Mendy said...

Wow! Sooooo very glad to see you are back. We've missed you. You did great on all of those marathons and should be so proud of your accomplishments.

I'm the same way about blogging about running, while I'm not running.. it's guilt. So, I totally understand.

Mary Gee said...

Glad to see you are back! I wondered where you were.

Darrell said...

Welcome back and congratulations on another marathon. You just keep giving me previews of states to come.

And hey, its your blog you can blog about whatever is going on, it doesn't have to be just running. We're all friends here, right?

Hopefully you'll have fun with the latest tag going around. Stop by my blog for the rules.