Listening To Myself

I left work at noon today so Liz and I could drive to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving. It's about a six hour drive so we loaded up the iPods with podcasts for the trip. Of course, Gomers were on the list and we listened to my interview with Anthony.

First of all, I'm not a fan of listening to my own voice. It's just weird. That's not how I sound in my head. Second, it was weird to hear the interview again because there were things I had forgotten I said. I was also surprised that the entire interview was used and Anthony didn't edit anything out. I hope it isn't so long it bores people.

I also don't feel like I sounded very excited which is weird because I was super excited to be on the show. I think I was so worried about talking over Anthony or making too much noise, that I was doing a lot of silent laughter which doesn't translate well to an audio podcast. Anyway, it was fun being on the podcast but I can understand what the Gomers mean when they say it's weird listening to themselves.

After we arrived in Cincinnati, we settled in with the family and met our new niece for the first time (in person... Skype doesn't count). Adela is beautiful and it's fun to see my brother and sister-in-law as new parents!

We finalized our plans for tomorrow and it sounds like most of the hard work has already been done so Liz and I are free to run a race in the morning. We looked up some races in the area and settled on the "Deerfield Township and Lifetime Fitness 10K on Turkey Day and 5K Run/Walk".

It sounds like the race is only about 30 minutes from Ben and Maja's house, the entry fee is relatively cheap, and it sounds like a good-sized race without being overwhelming. The race starts at 8am so we don't have to be up too early either which is nice since it's been a long day.

Our goal is to set new personal bests as part of the Two Gomers' challenge. I'm not sure how realistic that is for either of us, but we'll try.

My PR in the 5K is 17:42. That's an average pace of about 5:42 per mile. I ran that in my senior year of college and I've always wondered how accurate that PR is. I was actually in the lead early in that race and was directed down the wrong street. I figured it out pretty quickly and a volunteer waved me down to get me back on course but the majority of the runners had passed me by then. I was frustrated and took off in a sprint to get back to the front and then just kept going. I finished in first place and couldn't believe my time. So, either the wrong turn was enough to make me panic and I ran incredibly fast to set a personal best that day because of it... or the course wasn't measured well and a 17:42 after a wrong turn is unrealistic. I'll never know. I haven't run a 5K in less than 18 minutes since then. I know I can run 3 miles under 5:42 each because I've done it in workouts lately... but I took a break after each mile! We'll see if I can run them back-to-back tomorrow morning.

Liz's PR might be asking a lot too. She set a new PR in both of her last two 5K's. She ran a PR in the Harvest Moon 5K in Eureka on October 22nd, and then she turned around and beat that time in the Race To The Finish Line in New York on November 5th. Before setting those personal bests, she was hoping to run a sub-30 minute 5K and set a new PR tomorrow morning. Her current PR is 31:18. That's an average of 10:06 per mile. Setting a PR three races in a row would be ridiculous enough, but to knock another 1:18 off of her time is probably unrealistic. I think she's satisfied with her two recent PR's and will be able to walk away happy with any time tomorrow as long as it's a solid effort.

So, off to bed. In the morning, we'll race a 5K and then we can gorge ourselves on Turkey and trimmings for the rest of the day!

Wednesday
Goal For The Day: Pick a race.
Distance: 0.00 Miles.

Daily Miles: 0.00 Miles.
Blog Totals:
  Run - 599.50 Miles.
  Bike - 144.45 Miles.
  Swim - 14,350+ meters.