Boston Strong

I just want to start out by saying my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston, the injured, and families of those that lost their lives on Monday.  This one definitely strikes a chord with me since, as you've been reading, I'm training to do a half marathon later this year.  I hear that Boston has completely shut down and told everyone to stay inside their houses as the manhunt continues for the second suspect (after the first one was shot last night.)  I have no doubt he will be found as you can't watch TV or look at the internet without seeing his picture, but I wonder if they will find him alive.  I know it's a morbid topic but I always struggle with whether I want them to find these guys dead or alive.  With the Newtown shooting you almost felt cheated that the coward shot himself and the families never got to face him in court but then, on the other hand, you get the guys like the Aurora theater shooter and the Jessica Ridgeway killer that are still alive and will use up tax-payer money to sit in jail for the next 60 years.  Oh, I just read a report that the Jessica Ridgeway killer entered a not guilty plea.  I don't understand this as he gave quite a detailed confession.  Does this just set the stage for a mental illness defense like we're going to get with the Aurora shooter?

On to happier topics, I only looked at this article because the player in the article (Todd Frazier) is on my fantasy baseball team but I'm sure glad I did.  On the bottom of the article there is a link to more background information on Teddy.  What a great story.  This is exactly what I needed after another depressing week for our country.

Well, I just wrapped up week 5 of my training and this is the week that I remember being worried about when I started.  The first two days weren't bad with a long jog interval of 5 minutes on day one and 8 minutes on day two but today was a 20 minute jog with no walk break in between.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I can't jog for 20 minutes straight but it's quite a change going from 8 minutes max to 20 minutes.  Next week starts like this week with walk/jog intervals leading up to a 25 minute jog on day 3.  It's been cold and snowy all week so all my workouts have been on a treadmill so I know things will get tougher when I have to run outside.  The weather looks bad for early next week, snow on a Tuesday? shocker!, so I'll most likely be inside for the first couple days.

Projected 1/2 marathon time (repeating day 3 of week 5 workout): 144 minutes = 2 hours 24 minutes

1/2 marathon time goal: 2 hours 30 minutes (I'm guessing this will be my time goal for awhile)