Marathon Training

I've decided to add a marathon to my schedule early next year. The Eisenhower Marathon in Abilene, KS is a small Boston qualifier with a hometown feel. I doubt I'll be able to run a 3:20 but I can always dream on this one. It will be fun to see how I do in such a short time. Anyway, I'm adding organized training runs to my usual lifting routine. I'm going to jump into about week 4 of Hal Higdon's Advanced I routine and see how I do.

CASTLEWOOD PICTURES

Jason has the Castlewood pictures up.

Click here for more.

RESULTS

The official Castlewood 08 results are posted.

John, Amanda, Maggie and Justin placed 7th in the four person coed division and 14th overall with 45 of 49 CPs and a finish time of 9:31. Krista and I placed first in the two person coed and 15th overall with 45 CP's only eight minutes behind ORF 1 at 9:39.

Check out the image below for the top 30 overall with split info.

CASTLEWOOD PICTURE

Here are a few pictures from the Castlewood race.

The first is the canoe put in at the start. Krista was actually running with this canoe. Unbelievable. The next two show us just after nearly capsizing in freezing cold water. You can't see it, but I am in a butt pucker factor 10. We got completely sideways lodged against two submerged rocks. We eventually dislodged ourselves and came out backwards. The second picture is just after we spun it back around.

CASTLEWOOD 08

Full results are not in but both teams did well. Krista and I took first place two person coed. John, Amanda, Maggie and Justin finished ahead of us overall by about 30 minutes but they were in the much stronger four person coed division. Great job team!

I'll post more later but here are the maps and clue sheets.

Bike Mounted Map/Compass Holder

I mounted up my homemade map/compass holder to my bike last night. I stole this idea, somewhat, from David Frei's unique pie server design. I figure the spatula gets the map a bit further out of the way. The clamp allows me to rotate my standard map case any direction I want without adding a huge amount of weight. The compass is nice as long as you aren't moving which means it is useless. Too much vibration and the needle is all over the place. I thought about replacing it with one of those windshield mounted compass balls after it's inaugeral run at D2D this year but I epoxied the baseplate compass to the spatula and I would have to start from scratch. I'd hate to throw away a perfectly good $3 spatula with optional stationary compass.

All I need to do now is tape on a couple of cut out milk jugs to keep the wind off my hands and I'll have one sweet ride.

PACKING UP

I'm just putting the final touches on my packing for the Castlewood Adventure Race. I actually did the majority of the deed last night. I set up the bikes, got the pack and required gear checked out. I'm good. I'm sitting here typing at 10:00 PM and I'm ready to go and that was even taking time to watch Grey's Anatomy with the wifey. Surprising since I am normally running around frantically searching for my lost spandex something or other about this time. Feels good to be good. See you all in St. Louis.