The Summer of Whatever

Steve and I decided to run the eagle 5 mile run on Saturday.  The original plan was for me to pace steve to a p.r. - problem was we worked out with the trainer on Friday - so our legs were pretty sore and steve hadn't been running much in the past few weeks so he didn't think a p.r. was in the cards for this race.  So I decided to just run it and see what happened.  The plan was that if we hit a mile and Steve was right with me - we would run together.  So I ran with out a care - kept it comfortable - hit mile one at 7:15 - thought to myself - well i guess i'll just try to keep the others under 8 minute pace - got to mile two around a 7:30 - mile 3 around 7:30 again - mile 4 7:26 or something like that.   I thought to myself - 5 miles is a lot shorter than a marathon - this is fun - and went into the 5th mile.  The race finished in the minor league baseball stadium in Avon. As I rounded the warning track and crossed the finish line on the first base side - I ended up finishing in 37:01 - which was my 2nd best time ever and I got 3rd in my age group ...AND... I had fun. .. AND i wasn't running all out  - I definately had a lot left in the tank... AND Afterwards my legs felt better than they had all week.  So a week after I ran a marathon and a week before i'm doing a half ironman that i'm not properly trained for I ran and race and I did pretty ok.   This made me think - I'm not a professional athlete - and it's ok if i do things that don't quite make sense.  (no serious or professional athlete would run a marthon, race a 5 mile run and follow it up with a half ironman)  This summer my goal is to run races and have fun and collect some age group hardware in the process.  I think I'll find a fall marathon to do - just to keep me honest - but it might be a trail run and I might not tell anyone i'm doing it - i'll do it just to do it - and enjoy the run and lay off the time goals for awhile.  After all this is suppose to be fun - and I think that I will in fact have fun during my "Summer of Whatever"  ... stay tuned.. oh and keep your fingers crossed on this half ironman-  i think if I can complete the swim I'll able to finish... but we shall see!