Running Well and Dreaming Big

Anyone with their head in the running world probably knows that the Marathon trials for the US Olympic team were held on Saturday morning in Houston. Nikki and I avoided twitter and blogs all morning and watched the nbc replay of the event that afternoon. Shalane Flanagan, this badass chick who went to UNC won the women's race. This was her second marathon ever. All I can say is, WOW!

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We sipped beers and discussed life and, of course, running. We talked about our morning runs, which had both gone well and we talked about dreams of running even better.

How well did my run go, you ask?

I won't get into all the details but the bottom line is that I ran the nine miles I had scheduled and I ran them pretty fast (by my standards).

The good news, though, is not only that I averaged an 8:34 minute mile but that maintaining that pace wasn't nearly as hard as it used to be. I felt like I was pushing myself but I also felt really good and I know that I could have, and will be able to, run faster. As I said on Friday, I am aiming to be a more consistent runner and I think I did well with these miles.

Hey, whatup Obama?

The last mile was entirely uphill and, by the end, I was entirely spent.

I got home and drank hot chocolate but, within ten minutes, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering. I huddled up on the floor and then took a really long, hot shower.

What are our dreams of running even better, you ask?

Obviously, it was hard to watch our nation's best runners speedily pound the pavement for 2 hours and not wonder what great things lie in store for ourselves in the world of marathoning. So we talked a lot about Boston. We talked about watching it together this spring. We talked about Nikki's hopes to qualify for it in 2013. We talked about how it is the most spectated athletic event in New England, with 500,000 people coming out to cheer each year. (Boo-ya, Tom Brady.) We talked about how no woman was officially allowed to run Boston until 1972. Can you tell that we looked it up on Wikipedia?

I realize that I shouldn't think about Boston until I try a marathon out and see if it's even for me. Which is fine, I'll do that. But it's still nice to be inspired and uplifted. This weekend I was truly inspired by the greatness of the Olympic runners. But I also found a reason to be proud of myself, and to believe that accomplishing a speedy 9-mile training run in the cold means that I can do even better things with this body.

Did anyone else watch the trials on Saturday? Were you inspired by that or anything else this weekend?