Winding Down Twenty10

This week has been a little rough on both Aimee and I. She had 6 finals in 5 days, I had basketball games on back-to-back nights, and oh yeah - we were both sick! Great timing cold and flu season, but under the careful eye of Day and Nyquil we have managed to survive.

Being sick really makes running difficult. I have tried to keep 20-25 miles a week during December as I prep for another year of running, but this week I did not even run Monday-Wednesday, and after taking a sick day on Thursday, managed to get 5 miles in. Took Friday off too as my symptoms seemed to be sticking around and strongly considered not signing up for the Christmas mile on Saturday, but our friend Rod is the race director and I wanted to support his race so I just figured I would do my best. Well, 5:18 later, I finished 5th and took first in my age category. This is only the second one mile race I have done and I was not a good judge of speed starting out too slow and finishing with too much left. I really think I could have nabbed third place had I started better but fifth is awesome and look to improve next time.

As if running Saturday under the weather was not enough, I had agreed to run in a trail "fun-run" put on by Aimee's trail running instructor from Cox on Sunday. So Sunday morning Aimee and I headed out to the Little Sac River Trail for our first ever trail race. The course was roughly a 5k and there was a better turnout than I expected. The director stressed that is was a "fun-run" but there were a few other people there to "race", so I figured what the heck I'll give it a go. 23:37 later I had nailed down my first ever race win. Even though it was not an official race, and even though most people there could have cared less about their time, I will count it in my book.

2010 is almost over and I am looking forward to and planning out races for 2011. Looks like the Fargo Marathon in May might be my choice for a spring marathon along with a possible tour of Missouri races, but we'll see what Aimee and I come up with. I'll update as soon as we decide.