Up Your Miles!

Distance: 4.08 miles! (that's almost a mile increase from Monday!)
Duration: 48:08
Avg Pace: 11:48 min/mile (slower pace than Monday, but to be expected)
Route: MapMyRun

The other day, my pal Joey IM'ed me with "Up your miles!" At the moment I read that, I had no idea what he was talking about, so I replied "Up yours!" Then laughed to myself.

Took me a few minutes to realize he meant for running.

Joey is the only close friend I have (that I know about) who has run a marathon. And not just one marathon, he's done several. Until I started running (November 2008), I had no idea how much of an accomplishment that it was. It never occurred to me that Joey was running 26.2 miles -- which meant running for more than 4 hours (for me, it'd be like 6+ hours). I am completely impressed that he has done this several times. And while I have absolutely no desire to ever run that far or that long, I still consider Joey one of my inspirations to keep running.

Part of the reason I've been so hard pressed to run (besides the stress relieving aspect), is because in May, I'm flying out to San Francisco to run Bay to Breakers with some friends: Joey, Rob, and Neil. It's a 12K. It will be the farthest I've run a race before. And I'm running with all guys who find my current 11-12 min/mil pace pretty pathetic. I am hoping to get them all drunk and outrun them as they stumble all over each other.

I'm actually just trying to get myself up to be able to run all 7.42 without stopping...

Today's run? Excellent. I had planned out a 4.5 mile route, but was thwarted by construction and some odd urge to run across a major road rather than go the more interesting and slightly longer route. The last mile was less difficult than I thought it was going to be. The weather was perfect - sunny, cool, but not cold. I'm pleased. It's the farthest I've run since I started up again and it wasn't too hard!

Tomorrow, if I get a chance, I'll have to talk about my favorite run ever. Incidentally, it was in San Francisco. With Joey.