Great Race for Davila and Hall in Boston

Great finish for the women's race at the Boston Marathon. Desiree Davila has been constantly improving over the last year or so, and it was exciting to see her challenge Kilel. Too bad she came up a little bit short. Oh well. At least Desiree's time of 2:22:38 made it to the top three all time for American women in the marathon. She currently is the fastest American woman marathoner. Kara Goucher also had a good race coming off her pregnancy -a time of 2:24:52, good enough for 5th place. Great job women!



Also, Ryan Hall ran a good race, finishing fourth. His time of 2:04:58 was the fastest marathon ever for an American. By the way, the first two finishers ran faster than the world record.

Happy New Year!

Well, I didn't make it to the Race Into the New Year, as I had hoped, and again I missed our group run on Sunday. And I really haven't run much lately, but I did get a couple of good runs in on Turkey Mountain on Friday and Saturday.

Friday I did a ten miler in just under two hours, and the SportTracks screenshot is below. I felt pretty good, except that my left knee started hurting again at about 4 miles.

Saturday my knee was still sore, but I decided to go out again. I taped up my leg both and above and below the knee, and that helped quite a bit. The knee hurt a little the whole way, but it never got excruciating, so I kept going. Other than the knee, I felt really good. I only fell once. I finished 9 miles in just under an hour and a half. The SportTracks screenshot is below.

Next Saturday our group run will be at Veterans Park at 7:45 a.m. Advanced half marathoners are scheduled for 8 miles and advanced full marathoners are scheduled for 12. We will run the following route (full marathoners will add 4 miles along the river after this route):

www.mapmyrun.com/run/united‐states/ok/tulsa/596125955897477106

Here are the written directions:

Take 18th St. to Cincinnati to 19th St. to Swan Lake. At east end of Swan Lake go south on Utica to 21st. Go left on Utica and right on Yorktown. Turn left on 26th St. and stay on it until you get to Florence. Turn right on Florence, right on Evanston, and left on 26th Pl. Turn left on Yorktown. Turn right on 29th St. Follow Victor, which becomes Forest Blvd, which becomes Terwilleger. Go left on 27th and left on Rockford. Turn right on 29th St and follow it to Woodward Blvd (it zigzags to the right at Peoria). Turn right on Woodward and right on Madison. Left on 21st and back to Veterans Park.

Now that the holidays are over, I intend to make it to most of the group runs. I hope to see you out there!

Dave

Christmas Training Run

As you all know, the normal Saturday run was canceled because we all wanted to celebrate Christmas instead. For the Sunday run I heard that about 80 runners total showed up, and only one of them was an "Ethiopian." I missed because I had plans to go to church. Church was also lightly attended. In fact, the rest of my family stayed home.

I did get my run in the morning of Christmas Eve - nine hilly miles in Jenks. I wore my heart rate monitor for the first time in ages. Averaged 145 bpm. Seemed a little high for the pace I was going, but it was a pretty hilly route. My left knee started hurting about 4 miles into the run. I think it may be IT band related. My knee has been hurting ever since the Route 66 Marathon. Hopefully it will be better before the training resumes in full force in January.

Next Saturday we are not having a group run. Again it is scheduled for Sunday at 7:45 from RunnersWorld. And again I won't be there. It's my turn to teach Sunday school, and I'm starting a series on 1 Corinthians.

I hope to see you all out running on January 8th (or sooner if you make the midweek runs).