Wow, a month since the last post... opps.  I blame part of it on laziness and part on a barrage of life events as it's been a very busy month.  I've been working on buying a house, moving out of the apartment, traveling for work, as well as a host of running events.  So here's a quick recap of what's happened in my running world and what's hopefully coming soon for the blog;

-  Attended Naked Tour 2011 and got to meet Christopher McDougall and Scott Jurek.  It was extremely cool meeting 2 celebrities in the running world and they couldn't have been nicer.  I chatted with Scott about his running, his choice of shoes and his diet.   We also went for a short group run before Chris and Scott did a book signing (I now have a copy of Born to Run signed by both of them.)  Chris and Scott then did a short talk & question and answer on the Tarahumara, ultra running in general, and Scott teased about his upcoming book.  As an added bonus for the day, Nicholas Romanov, the Doctor behind the POSE method of running, also attended the event (turns out he lives in Coral Gables...) and did a short talk on correct form and the POSE running method before the group run.

-  Down and Dirty 10k.  AWESOME race!  (Race review to come)  Both Veronica and I had a ton of fun and we both managed to take first in our age group (I ended up 2nd overall) claiming some nice gift certificates to Merrell.  The highlight was literally swimming through mud to the finish line.  Luckily it was a pretty warm day because I was still pretty chilled trying to hose off after the run!

-  ALS 10k.  (Race review to come)  Not a great race for me, I'm a little worried that my race times seem to be getting worse - time to refocus and figure out what's going wrong...

-  Marathon Training Planning.  I've been scourging the net and books for a good plan to train for the Chicago Marathon.  I've decided to develop my own plan incorporating  elements of several.  See my training blog for the early elements that are going into my plan... http://trainrunwin.blogspot.com/2011/05/marathon-training-begins-to-take-shape.html

- Also look for a New Balance Minimus review in the next couple of weeks. Not as great of a shoe as I'd hoped, but maybe not as bad as I thought after my first run in them...

Race Review: FICPA 1040 10k

Much like my taxes were this year, the tax day 10k was disappointing, the only real highlight being the free beer after the race.  This seems to be becoming a South Florida race trend for me – disappointing times accompanying race wins…  I need to start figuring out how to push myself without competition.  That and some race specific training might help…

The race in general was extremely slow this year.  In 2008, the only year I could find race results for this race, 6 runners broke 36 minutes – my target time.  This year I was the only runner to break 38 minutes – pretty sad really.  The only excuse I can think of was the heat – an uncomfortable 80 degrees with 90% humidity.  That and the course might have been a bit long – my GPS showing 10.2k, but my 10k time was still sad.