Spring in My Step

Today, I did my first really big run of this year. I've been doing a good amount of running throughout the winter months. Tried to get one or two ten mile runs in each week, but due to New England's interesting weather patterns, some weeks that just wasn't safely possible. Today was nice though, around 45 degrees, and a bit windy, but much nicer than the bone shaking frozen ground I've become used to running on, over the last six months. I managed 13.1 miles (coincidentally on April 13, 2013), and pretty much enjoyed every step.



About a half hour in, I crossed paths with a guy who was a little older than me, but had much better form. I saw him again an hour later, we crossed paths on the other side of town. We were crossing a pretty busy road, but he applauded when he saw me, I gave him my old Army salute, and we high fived as we passed each other. That was really cool. At 6 foot 4", when I'm running, sweating, and panting I can sometimes give off a rather uncool vibe. Especially when I pass the myriad young college girls around here who prefer to run, covered by less material than the average bandana. (God bless them, every one.)



So I did my unofficial, first Half Marathon of the year in less than the average time for my age group, however I did stop to take a bunch of pictures, and at one point I noticed a foot path I'd never seen before. So like any curious cat, I went off the running path, and checked it out for a few minutes. I'm also pretty heavy for distance running right now. I'm weighing in each morning at 220 #'s, but I expect to get below 200 in plenty of time for the Hartford Marathon in October. I've been tracking my running on the Sports Tracker app on my android. I think it was a free app, but it may have been a few bucks. If it was, it was totally worth it. Works much better than the others I've tried

http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/AndyNieradko/fjnbs52lbmuumhr2

Running is something I never really enjoyed, but in the last 2 years, I've really fallen in love with it. I turn 40 in less than 3 months, and I've got to say, I really thought I'd have a much more interesting mid-life crisis than this, but whatever, it's not a bad way to stay in shape, meditate, and be a hot, sexual tyrannosauras.