Weekend Warrior

Man did I have a crazy workout on Saturday. It started with an 8am Mt. Joy run with Zim and his friend Brian. They both kicked my ass, but when don't they. I just ran at my pace and enjoyed the run. In the late morning was workout number 2. Zim's friends came over to practice for their upcoming Spartan race at Citizens Bank Park and to conquer the 8 foot wall that is standing in my backyard. We had four stations: throw a 20lb sandbag over the wall then climb or crawl under it, run with a weighted sled up and down my backyard twice, hitting a Jeep tire with an 8lb sledgehammer, and as many pull-ups as you could. Each station was timed according to the time the person pulling the sled was done 2 passes. We did this for 3 rounds in about 40 minutes. We ended with 30 burpees. TOUGH!! I only crawled under the wall. My fear of heights only let's me get so far up, before my brain says, "Screw that" and I climb back down. I'll conquer it eventually. I was pretty spent for the majority of the day and evening.

Sunday, I thought my body would be sore, but I felt pretty damn good. I decided very last minute to run a 5K, a 9/11 Heroes Run, which was dedicated to a fallen local soldier, Travis Manion. I was thinking about doing this race for a while but never registered. My Saturday workouts are usually pretty intense, so I use Sunday for a rest day or a light workout day. It was a beautiful morning, and I got the itch to run, so why not do a 5K? The race was in Norristown, PA, which is about a 15-20 minute car ride depending on traffic. Because I left so late the roads were already closed for the race. By the time I parked it was already 8:50, the race was starting at 9, and I was close to a 1/2 half away from the registration booth. So I had to run/jog. At least I got warmed up pretty well. When I got to registration, they told me they couldn't let me in because the race was about to start in about 1 minute or so. Luckily a man who must have been in charge of the booth let me race. He scribbled my name and age as quickly as possible and handled me my race bib as I handed him the $25 race fee. As I just got done pinning my bib to my shirt while jogging to the start line, the gun went off. Again, I ran another 30 seconds to get to the start line and was mixed in with the walkers. I then realized I never took off my driving aviator sunglasses. Oh well, guess I'm gonna run with them. I made it through a good chunk of the crowd by the first half mile and got into a good groove. I really wasn't trucking, just enjoying the race while trying make a decent time. I was happy if I made in under a half hour. Then the hills started. I didn't realized there were that many hills in Norristown. I felt like I'm running Mt. Joy again. A bunch of runners dropped back, but I slowly made my way up the hills, stopping only once coz I rolled my ankle a couple times. What goes up, comes down, so the last mile wasn't that challenging. I crossed the finish line at 28:30, grabbed a water, and stretched out. I grabbed a beer at the Victory Brewing truck, cheered on some runners and was about to make the trek back to my Jeep when I saw the results. I placed in 71st and place SECOND in my age group!!!! WTF?! Wow!! And the woman who took first in my group was an old high school and college friend that I haven't seen in a few years! Small world.  We had a laugh and shot the shit for a bit, and then I made the long walk to my car. I'm still shocked I got second. Crazy! Needless to say I slept good that night! 

Happy running!