Miguel Feliciano

Next week, Brooksville is having a mud run / obstacle course.  I'll be running it at 9AM.

http://www.active.com/5k-race/brooksville-fl/hog-wild-mud-run-2011

Signup through their facebook page and get $10 off registration: http://www.facebook.com/pages/HOG-WILD-MUD-RUN/138012386293121

This weekend I got back on the road and took it easy. Well, as easy as it can get while running with my son in the stroller. I ran the first two miles with him before I dropped him off at the house, then continued on for another few miles before I felt the pain creepin' back into my calf. The last time I experienced this, I was out for 2 weeks.

I need to get back to it so I can run a 5K in a few weeks and then the Disney Half Marathon in January. After that I'll be running Gasparilla the weekend of February 26th. I don't know yet if I'm going to run a 5K or another half.

Hope everyone is taking it easy this season.

To all those out there that ran today, congratulations.  I ran my first half marathon this morning with an injured calf.  I tried massaging, stretching, and warming up before the race and had no luck in finding peace with the calf.  The cold weather and near constant breeze helped me run with the pain.

Based on one of my longest training runs, I was hoping to run the half in 2 hours and 15 minutes and that was being very optimistic.  I managed, through some miracle, to finish in 2 hours and 3 minutes (my personal record).  Had I not been injured I would have broken 2 hours, but I am extremely happy with the results.  I've been running all year with a few weeks off somewhere in the Spring and then challenging myself with a progressive series of races (5K, 10K, 15K, and half marathon).

I'll be recovering this week and trying to get back to training soon since I have a 5K coming up in the first week of December and then the Disney Half Marathon in January.  I plan on beating my PR by 3 minutes for the Disney Half Marathon hoping I don't have any injuries.

Today, I graduate to the 13.1 sticker.  

I ran a 10K race (6.2 miles) this morning and it was brutal.  The course was beautiful, but the weather was extremely hot and humid.  This race got a little personal too and now I'm focused on the 15K (9.3 miles) next month and I want to own the course.  The shoes come off today and here's what the results were of the race beside a 1 hour 4 minute time.

I ran this past weekend in the Aces Wild Series Race, Ace of Diamonds, with an official time of 1 hour.  Funny story; really.

I woke up on Sunday at 5:30AM and drove down to Clearwater and got lost.  The directions I downloaded off of Google was incomplete and didn't really help identify exactly how to get to the park where the race would be held.  I asked for directions and the locals didn't even know what park I was talking about or the major road it was on.  Once I found the park, I thought I was cutting it close and that the race would be starting at 8AM.

I started jogging toward a crosswalk where everyone was crossing over.  It looked to me as the runners on the crosswalk were getting ready for the start of the race and so I followed suit.  As I crossed the crosswalk I soon found that the race had already begun and that I had missed the start of the race by 20 minutes.  I started running the race by myself and had to find the route; I ran more than the course and only logged about 2.5 miles on my Nike Sportband.

Later that night, due to my geographic adventure in Clearwater, I ran my own 5K and logged my time at 22:49.

I now know how to get to that park again for the next couple of races.

As a part of getting more physical fitness training in my life, I have managed so far to keep running and to enter into 2 5K races as part of my New Year's Resolution (Your Year in Review).  I have registered for a series race in Clearwater that starts this weekend (Back on Track...) and am pretty excited to see how I've improved over the past 6 months.  In preparation for my upcoming 4 races, I've been working on distance with my longest distance being 8.5 miles at an 8:35/min pace, and on speed with my average pace for shorter distances being 7:30/min.  I have, surprisingly, hit a 6:30/min pace during one of my runs, but that was short lived and caused me to run out of gas for the remainder of the run.

As far as being more socially involved, I have setup an account on CrowdRise, http://www.crowdrise.com/miguelfeliciano, and will be setting up a project to help raise money for a charity for the half marathon I will be running as the last series race.  I don't know what charity I want to raise awareness & money for, but I need to figure that out very soon.

On the procrastination part, I'm guilty.  I've started several different projects and have not completed many of them.  I still have some time this year to complete them, but again; I need to get off my ass and finish.

Have you kept up your resolutions?  What charity would you like to see me raise awareness and money for?