Saturday was another 20 miler, there are 4 of them in my training plan, I ran a bit early yesterday morning so I could shoot up to Moncure and meet up with my friend Bill. Bill is a HUGE NC State fan, season ticket holder for football and basketball. In the past he has invited me to several football and basketball games. I have taken him up on his offer for the football games, I have an affinity for teams that wear red. I have never been able to go see a basketball game, so this was the first. It also was the first time that I have seen my beloved Duke Blue Devils play live, so it was very special. Several years ago when I was stationed at FT Ord, CA, I was watching a UCLA basketball game against Duke, I had never heard of Duke and figured that UCLA would clean their clock. Well, Duke played a very unique brand of hoops, fierce defense, not too flashy offense and they pasted UCLA. I later found out that Coach K graduated from West Point, and I became a fan. His son-in-law, a graduate assistant, just got out of the Army as well. When I moved to NC and found out that almost every Duke basketball game was on television here, I was in heaven.
Fast forward about 19 years . . . . and I was at the RBC Center with Bill, in a sea of frustrated Wolfpack fans, watching the game. Wolfpack fans are pretty intense, so I was not being too Dukish, and I thought State might actually pull an upset. I have to say, State played a whale of a game, and should have walked off the court with a W, but, Duke pulled it out. If the Pack would have been playing anyone but the Devils, I would have been wearing red. If they play with that sort of intensity from here on out they will be very dangerous in the ACC Tournament. Such loyal fans deserve more games like yesterday, I hope Sidney Lowe can deliver. Bill, thanks for the invite and fine afternoon of basketball.
Oh, wait, I am supposed to be blogging about my run - - I ran from the house yesterday morning, heading down Raeford Road, hitting Wayside Road, going onto FT Bragg and taking a right on Chicken/Plank Road. Good hills on that course. I started off kind of sluggish, I was internally whining about my legs being tired, it being too early, blah, blah, blah. Well, after about the first half mile I looked at my faithful Forerunner and I was clicking along up a hill at 7:30 a mile, and I decided to shut up, enjoy the run and pick up a comfortable pace. I finished off the run and averaged 7:21 a mile for the 20 miles. Of course, beings how this was FT Bragg on a Saturday morning, there was an Army Reserve unit training on one of the ranges, I saw them setting up on the way out, on the way back, they were blazing away with M-240B Machine Guns. Like I have said before, nothing like a little range action to cheer up a run. My average time was slightly faster than my first 20 miler, and believe it or not, close to my race pace at the Marine Corps Marathon. I think I am finally injury free and enjoying some pretty good training.
After about 13 miles yesterday, I realized that the course I had selected roughly corresponded with some of the fiercer hills at Boston. Boston starts off with about 14 miles of steady downhill, bottoms out for a couple of miles, then miles 16-21 are a constant up hill, mile 20 or so being the famous Heartbreak Hill. Well, on this course there is a bridge at mile 15.5 that marks a solid mile and a half up hill, there is a slight flat after that, a short downhill and the run ends up with .75 miles of uphill back to the neighborhood. I pushed it a little on those last two uphills to see how strong I was, especially on the last hill which roughly equated to Heartbreak Hill, and finished up it with a 7:15 pace up that hill. Very nice.
This was a pretty good week of running, next week is an easier week. Special thanks to Al B. for kicking in a donation to the SOF Warrior/Wounded Warrior fund.
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