35:07 -- Are you for real?

So much for hoping to sneak under 37:00 down into the 36's I guess....

I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I guess I was having a pretty good day to take TWO MINUTES off of my PR in the 10k from last fall. Here's the splits (with last year's in parentheses):

Mile 1 - 5:33 (5:59) It helped being up in the "seeded" area, so I didn't have to fight through as much traffic as last year.

Mile 2 - 5:22 (5:32) I was not much behind this last year as this is the VERY downhill mile.

Mile 3 - 5:57 (6:05) Again, not too much different.

5K - 17:17 (18:27) I blew past my goal of being around 18:00 through the 5k, so I knew I was in good shape to beat last year's time.

Mile 4 - 5:30 (6:04) I thought I was saving a little bit for the mile 4 to 5 uphill, but apparently I didn't back off as much as I thought. I didn't really look at my watch the entire race, just reached with my left hand to hit the split button on the right wrist at each mile.

Mile 5 - 5:57 (6:30) This is the "uphill" mile up to Duquesne University.

Mile 6 - 5:42 (5:50) My stomach area got tight again just like last year at this point. It made it tougher to get in the oxygen and to relax for the last 1.2.

10k - 35:07 (37:16) Now seeing how close I was to having a 34:xx, I'm kind of bummed in hindsight. Had I not gotten that tight feeling in my stomach...I guess that'll now be my new goal for next year.

41st out of 6241 10k runners and 4th out of 498 in my 30-34 age group.

It was a good day. We had nine people from my school come and run and they had a great time. We're now going to try to get some people lined up to do some Pittsburgh Marathons, Half Marathons, or 4-person marathon relays in May of 2009.

PSU Wins

Last night, Penn State won a 38-24 shootout against Illinois. The offense looks so diverse that it's going to be hard for teams to shut them down. Who do you focus on? One of the three receivers? Quarless the TE had a TD. Evan Royster had 100yds while Stephon Green is his speedy complement. Oh yeah, and it all starts with Darryl Clark passing and running! Like I said before, I hope the D-Line doesn't tire out in the 2nd half of the big games down the road.

And, with all the crazy losses by ranked teams this weekend, PSU is now 6th in the rankings. They just need to take it one week at a time from here on out. A trip to West Lafayette, Indiana and the Boilermakers of Purdue (or Pur-don't??) comes up next weekend. It's going to be a tough October--at Purdue, at Wisconsin, home against Michigan, at Ohio State. Wow!

End of MLB Regular Season

The Pirates last game is today, but that doesn't really matter. How about the last weekend drama in baseball? I had a blast this afternoon flipping back and forth between the Cubs-Brewers and Marlins-Mets games. And, on top of that, Minnesota and the Chicago White Sox isn't decided yet as the Sox need to play a game against Detroit tomorrow. If the Sox win, Tuesday the Twins would make a trip to the White Sox.

I hope the playoffs are this fun. The only trouble with the playoffs is that, after the first round, the games don't end until midnight or later. It's just tough for me to follow that and function the next day. I wish they would start at least a game or two at 6:00 or 7:00pm instead of 8:30. But, I guess that's when the ratings determine that they need to be.

Beth's Getting Ready for Dallas

The other thing we need to do today is get all the maps and preparations for Beth's trip to Dallas next weekend. She's will be meeting her mom there. I'm not going on this trip because I only get three "personal" or vacation days as a teacher. I guess that's what happens when you get two and a half months off in the summer. I have a lot of sick days, but that's kind of shady....

I am going to join Beth in Phoenix for the Best of the US Race at the end of October and take a day to make it a long weekend. That should be fun.