Blog Master G

Oh where does the time go? Too much fun, too little time to blog about it all. My current blogging backlog begins with last Sunday’s 5-mile race, the 22nd Annual Shamrock Shuffle in Glens Falls, NY. It was my third distance race, following January’s Wimp Wimp and February’s Polar Cap, so I’ve been running one race per month since I started running. Cool. So long as I find a race to run in May, that trend will continue through the summer, with the half-marathon coming up later this month (gulp), the full marathon in June (gulp, gulp), and the Boilermaker in July (15k? bring it!).

But I digress. Last Sunday was a beautiful March day — and despite having run my still-longest run to date (15 miles) — I went through with my commitment to run the Shamrock Shuffle. Sarah, Patricia, Leslie, and I cruised up the Northway for the 11am race. About 530 people ran in the Shuffle, and I somehow ended up as racer #6, though my finish time didn’t quite place me that high. It was a really fun day — bagpipe band playing in the high school gym before the race, running through Glens Falls past cheering spectators, and that feeling of pride and accomplishment when crossing the finish line.

Although I was ahead of the ladies, who all enjoyed the race together at the same pace, it’s always fun to run a race with friends. I got a great shot of the three of them as they approached the finish line (I had just enough time after I finished to run back to my car, get my camera, and return to the finish line for this shot):

I shaved nearly 10 seconds per mile off my pace since the Polar Cap, according to official race results, but discovered that my iPod and Nike+ had been lying to me: It told me that the race last Sunday was actually 5.55 miles (not 5), so I re-calibrated at the Saratoga Springs High School track on Thursday and finally have a much more accurate calibration, confirmed — at least a bit closer to the more accurate truth told by Alex’s new GPS watch — by our 8-mile run yesterday morning at the Niskayuna bike trail.

Official results for Team SPLoG:

Following the race, we enjoyed post-race beers and snacks at Sarah and Eric’s place, then lunch at the West Side Stadium Cafe. Good times, and I’ll look forward to the next one!

(By the way, last Sunday Sarah was talking up my mad blogging skills to Leslie, so I hope my weeklong delay in posting hasn’t let you down as a new Blog Master G reader, Leslie!)

Upon returning home, Jen, Patricia, and I enjoyed more sunshine with the year’s inaugural porch sitting:

Last night we hosted a pretty awesome wine tasting party, thanks to lots of hard work by Jen in planning and executing yet another great event — a combined birthday / Saratoga Wine Club / Team in Training fundraiser… but I’ll save that for another post. Let me just say that we had a rockin’ time and that our friends rule.