bem’s blog

I ran the Rocky Ridge Trail 10k instead of the half marathon, since I hadn't been running as much as I would have liked on account of twisting my left ankle a month ago, and my right ankle about 2 weeks ago. The trail was great, and the views were beautiful from the top of the ridge. However, on the way down, I stepped wrong and twisted my left ankle pretty badly. Amazingly enough, after walking the last 2 miles, I managed to finish in 25th. And I did get to meet Caballo Blanco, which was neat.

After twisting my ankle this many times, I've come to the conclusion that I need to try switching to some lower profile shoes, maybe something like the New Balance MT100s. Sadly, given that I can't really walk right now, that's going to have to wait a bit. (My personal OT tells me that I've got to take something like 3 months for this one... =/)

It was a hard and HOT run. 13.2 miles with an average temperature in the high 80s, a couple large hills, and only occasional shade was... painful. It's the first run where I actually got to many points where I couldn't run and had to walk. What amazes me is that even with that, I managed to come in 21st out of the 81 half marathon runners.

 There was one spot in the middle, after the first two large hills where we ran across an open field, no shade, nothing. I could only think of the desert levels in Super Mario Brothers: the ones with the evil sun that tries to kill you.

 So yeah, I survived, and amazingly enough everyone that started the run finished it. Yesterday, I wasn't sure if I was going to do their third run in the series, but now I'm tempted to do so. It should be cooler, and obviously I must like pain. ;-)

The pictures from the Shamrock 'n Half Marathon have been posted. These are the best pictures of all the races I've been in, so I'm actually debating if it's worth the $50 to buy them. There are 9 pictures of me, so that's about $5.50 a picture. Well, I have at least until 6/21 before they charge an extra $5 for the privilege of ordering the pictures, so I do have time to think about it.

I ran the Shamrock 'n Half Marathon this morning, and it was awesome. I had lots of fun (and passing the 2:00 pace runner was the best feeling in the world, really. ;). The official results have been posted, and I finished in 1:46:47.4, which is a 8:09 minute mile. Even crazier than that, out of the 3603 people running the race, I came in 514th! Anyways, I'm generally psyched about the results. I still don't think I'll be running a full Marathon any time soon, but I definitely want to see how fast I can do a 10k and a 5k at this point.

This morning, my sister and I ran the 10k in the Lafayette Reservoir Run. This has to be the fastest I've ever seen official
results posted, but my time has been posted. Not as fast as two weeks ago, but I think I had a better overall run. I definitely had a much better finish, as I had plenty of energy left to sprint to the finish line. And when these guys say that it's a hilly course, they don't joke. The path around the reservoir was pretty, but had some gnarly hills.

I'll post pictures if/when they get posted to the interwebs. I'm pretty
sure they got me in the official pics this time.

Oh, yeah one random note: the shirt design for the race looks pretty
crappy on the website, but it actually looks pretty good on the shirt.
I'm happily surprised.

While I ran this two weeks ago (October 10th), I forgot to go back and look up the official results until today. I'm on there as "Ben Jones-Bey", because they apparently decided that I must have made a typo in my name. Anyways, I did it in 47:58, which is about 7 minutes faster than my previous 10k time. Of course, it's a different course and all, but I'm still quite happy about that. I'm doing the Lafayette Reservoir Run this weekend, and we'll see how that compares.

I ran the Banana Chase 5k yesterday, and I did much much better than I would have expected. I finished in 24:01 - that's a 7:45 minute mile average. And I must say that it was better organized than any of the other races I've been to: RhodyCo really puts on a good event, and all of their events are for a good cause. I'd be doing the Bridge to Bridge 12k, but I'm going to be out of town that weekend.

The official pictures haven't been posted yet, but Mara took a picture of me coming into the finish. (And completely losing all my form in my sprint to the end.) Yeah, it's a bit blurry. That's 'cuz I'm so speedy. ;)

It looks like I did it in 54:53, and came in 36th in my age group (19-29). I'm pleasintly surprised.