July 31 - 4.1 Miles Ran, 50 (Yes 50!) Miles Sponsored

It's been a pretty amazing week thanks to the sponsors.  On Monday, my old friend John Shepherd sponsored 5 miles from his home in Brighton, England (see July 29 post).  It's been great trading emails with Shep and if all goes well we'll get to catch up in England in mid Sept.

Next, a couple of weeks ago I got word that my high school buddy Keith Webster was about to step up and make a big donation.  He entered a blog comment on Wed confirming his sponsorship...50 miles!  I know his primary motivation is to enjoy reading about my daily pain in completing these miles in the Aug heat, but what a generous gesture nonetheless.  Thanks Web, you're the man!  And although there are some rough times out on the roads, it's always much better to go into a run knowing the miles are sponsored and that a connection can be shared between Chase, me and the sponsor.

I have assigned the following miles to Keith:

878-892 (15);
904-908 (5);
920-929 (10);
967-986 (20).

While owing someone the equivalent of nearly two marathons is a little scary, I am really looking forward to running these 50.

I ran 4.1 miles in Glastonbury at lunch on Wed.  I had an after hours work meeting and didn't think I'd  get out for a run but found a window mid-afternoon.  I love the Glastonbury course--so much flatter that Colchester.  I don't mind running hills and think they are a good training tool, but every now and then it's nice to keep an even pace over the entire run.  After running fairly hard on Tue I decided to try to slow down a little and run at Boston Marathon qualifying pace--7:49 min/mi.  After a warm up mile a little over 8 I settled in around 7:40 and finished with a 7:48 pace for the entire run.  I felt very comfortable at that pace but am pretty far from being able to sustain it over 26 miles.  I'll really have to dig in if a Boston Qualifier is going to be part of the NYC Marathon effort.

I completed miles 875-878.  Shep sponsored 875 (it was the warm-up mile, so no pain there) and Web sponsored mile 878 (last mile, not too painful, but they were resealing the driveway at the gym where I finished, and it was pretty nasty breathing that in--so Web can be happy about that!)  I think it's pretty cool how Shep and Web bookended this run--one is in England and the other in California, but back in the day I had some of the best times when the three of us were hanging out during one of Web's visit to UB.

Today's (Wed) Line:

Date

DoW

ToD

Distance

Time

Min/Mile

Notes

Effort

Total Miles

7/31

W

2:35p

4.1

32:01:00

7:48:32

80f

6

878.7