With the Memorial Weekend upon us I am finally catching up on my blog. Between my new job and training for my half ironman in July I haven’t had too much time to sit down and recap so here goes. March and April 2017. Better late than never.

Rather than use my Nike+ Summary to recap I’ll be sticking to my Garmin Connect data as it catches more of the workouts than just running. I still use Nike to track my workouts but my Garmin device syncs the data to the Nike site so it is the same.

March 2017

March was marathon month. My total mileage for the month was 143 miles which was made up of 128 miles of running and 15 miles on my bike. You will see that there was another day of snow shoveling but thankfully that was the last of the winter snow.

The month started with me actually gaining acceptance to the New York City Marathon on my third attempt at going into the lottery. As you will know, I didn’t make it in previous years but my wife was accepted in 2016. I ‘race chased’ her during the event and this made me more motivated than ever to get into the event. The good news is that I got accepted. The bad news…I have a family engagement in Virginia and I cannot do the race this year. I have deferred to 2018 so while I don’t have to enter the lottery next year, I have to wait almost 22 months to run the race. Fingers crossed that all is well and I can fulfill my goal next year.

My wife and I ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll DC Marathon on March 11. My recap is here. It was a great but very cold weekend. That was marathon number 9 for my wife and number 18 for me. Fun times together.

Once I got back from DC I was away on a training course for my new job for the next four days. I had planned on resting but the food was both good and plentiful. I spent every morning getting up at 4:30am and hitting the hotel gym for a good number of miles in what should have been my recovery week. Oh well. On the plus side I was in the hotel when the last major storm of the winter hit. My family was not so lucky. Hence the snow shoveling on my return home.

April 2017

My total mileage for April was 160 miles made up of 147 miles of running and 13 miles on the bike. A big milestone for me this month was reaching 10,000 miles of running since I started logging my workouts in September 2011 (just over a month since I began my couch to 5K program). This happened on April 2nd.

At the start of the month, my wife and I took part in the Phillies Charities 5K down at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Home of the Philadelphia Phillies. It was a great spring morning and the weather was perfect for running. We did a pretty good time together and we earned ourselves another medal, tickets to an upcoming game and some time on the field for photos.

We took our boys to their first game of this season on April 8th and we saw a history making win over the Washington Nationals. They scored 12 runs in the first inning to win the game 17-3. It was a great night for baseball and we all had a fun time.

On April 9th I took part in the Bookin’ For Lookin’ 8 miler in Newtown, PA. Over the last few years I have not been able to run this event and only participated by making a charitable donation. This year, without any races on the calendar (the last two years have been the Rutgers UNITE Half Marathon) I took part in this event. It started out at Council Rock High School and was an 8 mile out and back loop into Tyler State Park and back. It’s a hilly course but I hit my stride early on and was very pleased with my time. It was a glorious sunny day and the event was well managed. I’d recommend it if you live near and have the opportunity. It is a fund raiser for two local charities, Foundation Fighting Blindness and Bucks County Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

Here is the elevation chart. I’m not exaggerating about the hills.

May starts the beginning of my half ironman training. I hope that I will not be waiting too long to post my recap but please bear with me in the meantime. I should have lots to report over the next few months.

Thank you for reading.