June 21 - Rest Day; June 22 - Fairfield 5K w/ Race 4 Chase Team!

I took Friday off from running (and work) purportedly to rest up for the weekend's races, the Fairfield 5K on Sat and half marathon on Sun.  Of course, these days a free day at home doesn't lend itself to much rest!  I spent half of Fri cleaning the inside of the house followed by several hours of yard work.  As a result, by the time I left for Monroe (around 5:30pm) I was pretty worn out.  However, Fri night was a great night, as I joined my buddy Greg Ruel at the Kowalski's for a pre race dinner.  It was nice relaxing with Greg, Becky and Steve (although Becky did less relaxing as she did all the cooking!)

The 5K this morning was a huge success.  I got to MC the pre-race activities and introduce some special Race4Chase teammates, namely Charlie Clayton and Mickey Simmons who came all the way from Florida for the 5K, and Michael Compare, a police officer and triathlete who completed a triathlon in Chase's honor and gave a moving speech about his connection with Chase and commitment to the Race4Chase cause.

The weather was nice with a steady breeze coming off the Sound, and the course was flat and featured lots of supporters, bagpipers, bands and a very welcome sprinkler spraying cold water onto the course at mile 2.  Including warm up and post race jogs, I completed 4.7 miles.  After I finished the race I ran back on to the course and accompanied my sister Beth and then Becky K over the last quarter mile of the race.  Neither are regular runners and I am pretty amazed that they can just crank out a 5K on demand.

I am tempted to list the Race4Chasers that I saw finish or chatted with before and after the race, but I don't want to leave anyone out, so I just again express my gratitude to the entire team.

I completed miles 690-694 (unsponsored).  Matt Colegrove, who sponsored miles 181-190 back in early February, sponsored another 20 miles at the race.  Matt, thanks for your incredible generosity--I will assign you miles 695-700 and 702-705 (Kevin Farkas has mile 701).  I will be great to run today's half marathon covering these miles.  Matt's donation increased the sponsored mile total to 465.

Lastly, to renew and strengthen my commitment to the Race4Chase cause, I announced the following goals at the yesterday's race:

1) If the sponsored mile total reaches 500 (35 to go), I will commit to running 26 miles with Jason Lester on his way from New York to Sandy Hook.  This means I will join him 26 miles out from Sandy Hook and run to the finish with him;

2) If the total reaches 750, I will run the Boston Marathon, either by qualifying (as long as it takes) or by gaining entry as a fundraiser;

3) If the total reaches 1,000, I will continue my running beyond 1,000 miles and go on to match Jason Lester's total (3,100).  I will target 12/31/14 as my completion date, meaning I will cover the distance in two years.  Please note that this is NOT a commitment to run across the country a la Jason or Forrest Gump.  I am not a professional ultra-marathon runner or shrimp boat entrepreneur so I need to hang on to my job!  So if I'm running in Nebraska or Iowa, it will be because I'm on business there, not on a cross country trek!

It's now up to you as sponsors to determine how much running I need to do--have fun with it and let's keep working on making Chase's Place a reality.

Today's Line:

Date

DoW

ToD

Distance

Time

Min/Mile

Notes

Effort

Total Miles

6/22	Sa	8:20a	0.7	6:30:00	9:17:09	72f	5	690.4
6/22	Sa	8:30a	3.1	20:14:00	6:31:37	72f	10	693.5
6/22	Sa	9:00a	0.9	11:30:00	12:46:40	72f	2	694.4

The Runnin' Bresnahan's after the 5K