Orono/Old Town paved miles.

:)

from 66 preregistrations to 188 finishers sure was fun to see. Overall winner was Louie Luchini in 16:10. A tight race to the finish for the women's race was won by Elizabeth Brunton in 18:06. I ran the course at 6:15 AM to get it in so I could help with the race management and finished 20:57 after having to tie my shoe! After the race, it was a bit of a snarl to get out of Bucksport because of the parade after an ambulance broke down on the parade route. Congratulations to everyone!

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/10/me/Jul24_13thAn_set1.shtml

Nothing today, but I did 75 minutes on the Arc Trainer yesterday. I'm fasting today (water only) trying to break this plateau I've been on all week.

It's just a one day fast. I'm just doing it to hopefully shake the plateau. I realize that any loss I show tomorrow morning will quickly be made up on Monday morning, but hopefully the scale starts going down again instead of staying at 290 like it has all week even though I've been working pretty hard. If I do start losing again it could be a coincidence or whatever, I just figured I'd give it a shot. This is my first real plateau since I've started.

Plateaus are very frustrating. Plus, you must already know that the rate of loss will lessen as you go forward. (I know when I first started, I LOVED those big losses! But they got smaller and smaller each week as I got closer to my goal weight. Understandable, but that itself can be maddening! lol) I don't know if I ever told you my story, but my weight loss/running/marathoning journey began back in 2002 when I was very overweight...so I know the battle of the scale, the little things we do that we hope will get us kick started again. You know your body, and your mind, the best...and you do what is right for you. Just know that a plateau is completely normal and expected, and that you WILL reach your goals. You inspire me. Enjoy the journey, my friend!

I enjoyed the course and it was a good run. Robin and Tom and I went together, wandered back as we sought to go around the broken ambulance. I did negative splits (the course was amenable for this), and like my time of 27:11 (8:46 pace)

Overall - 18:45
Splits (Mile) - 6:24, 6:01, 5:48, :32
Split (Turnaround) - 9:50, 8:55

I'll be honest - I did not expect to break 19 minutes today, let alone PR. The weather was perfect to run in (60 and light rain/drizzle) but I had run under 40 miles in each of the last few weeks and was worried that I would not be as locked in as I should be. The 2-mile warmup and sprint warm-ups felt great so I was hoping to get close to the time I had here 2 years ago (19:12).

I hit 6:24 in the first mile, just keeping a solid but relaxing race pace, then I kicked it up a notch to the turnaround. I was happy to hit the half way mark at 9:50 and felt that I could definitely break 19:30. What surprised me is the surge of adrenaline going back up the hill leading to the 2-mile mark. I had finished the next mile at about 6 minutes and didn't feel at all winded. I never let up and tore through the downhill part of the street in what was probably the fastest 3rd mile I've ever run.

I'm still floored that I finished with such a massive negative split. It felt amazing and I'm glad that it showed.