I really can’t belive it is the beginning of July already! Where has time gone?

Highlights from last year include:

Race Reviews from races I ran in Indiana, including Jennifer’s Run 5K and the Buzzards Roost 10K.

I talked about the USATF decision to ban headphones at races and gave some safety tips for running with them in your ears.

I shared about a recent running experience at Westwood Park which is near New Castle, Indiana which has a really nice moutain bike trail perfect for running!  Charitable running is a fairly important part of the sport so I highlighted some of the local opportunities for Indiana runners to support charities and actually this year I have dedicated my first marathon to supporting World Vision’s work around the world.

I finished out the month last year talking about Mounds State Park which was definitely my favorite place to run while living in Anderson. A huge percentage of my runs were done on the variety of hilly trails offered at Indiana’s smallest State Park!

Jumping back to this year:

I started training for the Twin Cities Marathon this fall and have finished weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4!  I ran a couple of races this month including the USATF 5000m Championship on the track and the Karate Kickin’ Cancer 5K. I wrote about the state track meet from Washington, you’ll have to read it to remember why!

The Brooks Running company has decided that they want your shoes to disintegrate; but not while you run.  They are introducing BioMoGo.  Meanwhile, an article in the New York Times wrote about research into post-run/phyiscal activity nutrition; none of the researcher advocated sports drinks!

Finally, I was tagged, but I survived to share my running story with you;  hope you enjoyed it!

Monthly (Yearly) Totals:

Running – 112 miles 588 miles

Biking – 221 miles 442 miles

Swimming – 0.9 miles 1.3 miles

Happy July!!

As I mentioned previously, the end of May marks the anniversary of run blogging! It is great. But from now on, these monthly highlights will include a look back to a year ago as well as the past month.

Since the blog didn’t start until the end of the month I only made one post worth highlighting – Chart & Map Your Favorite Course. When I was blogging as Run Central Indiana each week had a very similar schedule, Monday was a race review, something random, or nothing, Tuesday was a look at the last weekend’s race results, Wednesday was a major post about running, Thursday was a look at the upcoming weekend’s races, and Friday was something random which eventually became Foto Friday.

During May I started wearing my new Mizunos. They are still treating me pretty well! The Twin Cities Marathon closed, while the inaugural Indianapolis Monumental Marathon opened registration. Author Martin Dugard shared his review of the Tough Guy race in Great Britain. If you get hungry out on the trails and want to know what the professional athletes enjoy cooking then you need to check out the Elite Running Cookbook. In an Olympic Year I posed a simple question about medal counts and character. And on a related note the poll on the right sidebar is still open. I wrote about the USATF’s review of running stores across America which featured two Indianapolis area stores.

Continuing to report the news, Oscar Pistorius will be allowed to compete with able bodied athletes and the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon ended in a tie. ESPN made a great tribute for Ryan Shay. I didn’t get to make it to Boston this year (maybe because I haven’t ran a marathon yet!) but a teacher from my Mom’s high school did and the local newspaper wrote a nice piece on it.

I raced my first mile in a very long time at the TC 1 Mile and no one won the $10,000 bonus.

It was a busy month! My total mileage for the month is 56.4 miles for 6 hours of running and 108 miles of biking.

I can’t believe it is May already. 5 months in the Twin Cities and we are enjoying it all (except for the endless bouts of snow!)

April was a busy month with two races, the Earth Day Half-Marathon and the Get in Gear 10K. I also decided to step up and register for a marathon – Medtronic’s Twin Cities Marathon in October.

I started a new feature highlighting all the different style race numbers that we get.

Some random running news included a marathoner who captured a thief, a study about detraining, another study about running preventing dementia, the Chicago Marathon hits capacity, the autopsy report for Adam Nickel, the Wisconsin runner who died at Little Rock, and the Massai took on the London Marathon. Other running news included a bomb exploding in Sri Lanka during a marathon and a swarm of bees attacked runners in Japan.

I was able to find some humor and found two must read lists for runners.

At the beginning of the month I decided to upgrade my blog and almost had a major disaster. I think everything is fixed now but it was almost painful. UGH!!!

Shew it was a busy month – also don’t forget to check out Foto Fridays!

Wow, Happy April!! Another month down! It is a little weird to celebrate April’s coming while shoveling off the sidewalk. But that is the joy of the Upper Midwest I guess!

March began with the tragic news that a Wisconsin Marathoner died after finishing the Little Rock Marathon. A few weeks later we finally learned what caused Ryan Shay to collapse and die during the Olympic Trials. Our hearts continue to go out to each family and their friends.

My training for the half-marathon continued in full swing. As part of that I joined the USATF-MN Chapter and ran my first race, breaking my goal time for the event (review). I also joined a USATF stretching study, which is hoping to make a concrete answer about pre-run stretching. I looked into more depth about the different ideas surrounding stretching and even launched a poll. I also talked about the importance of having a race strategy.

With the Olympics coming up I looked at the impact of smog and what athletes think about it. As a big advocate for the developing world I was very excited to learn about Meseret Defar’s support of the ONE Campaign and wearing their bracelet in the 3000m.

As the doldrums of winter continue here in Minnesota, I lamented about having to run on the roads all the time. My love of trail running was piqued this weekend again. I closed the month out with a look at the push-up, a powerful exercise, I never do!

Monthly Mileage – I ran 145.7 miles in March up 17% from February. My YTD total is 348.7. This puts me on track to run about 1400 miles for the year (assuming everything stays healthy!)

[tags] Highlights [/tags]

February has really flown by, even with the extra day this year the month seems like it only started yesterday! It has been a pretty busy month for Team Cross as we continue to settle into our new digs!

With the dawn of the new month I started my training for the Earth Day Half Marathon. You can read about my weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4 of my 12 week training program. It was great to be able to start running with a local running group on Saturday mornings. I also dissected some of my training runs, which helped me understand them a little bit better while also hopefully giving you some new ideas! Here are some of the things I talked about: Supersetting, Hill Repeats, and Biking as a form of cross-training.

I finished my series about my new Garmin toy, but couldn’t help post this funny Garmin map which showed me running on the Mississippi River.

February was also a fun month playing on Facebook, Hucking a Marathon, going nuts, and watching the Lunar Eclipse. I just wish I could earn $2 million by racing!

My training totals for February are:

Running: 121.1 Miles or 15:57:20 hours

Bike: 54.4 Miles or 3:11:52 hours

Here is a graph of my runs (from RunningAhead):

[tags] Highlights [/tags]