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i was in a sports bar, alone, and struck up a conversation with a young guy at the table next to mine. he started talking about how it was okay to do chemical experiments on kenyans, and to my horror it dawned on me that this was a fascist sports bar. i kept my cool and tried to talk with the guy about why he had such awful beliefs, while planning my exit. next thing i knew i was walking down the street when a convoy of fascist bikers came past. one of the motorcycles was a huge tandem thing, one guy in front and the other in back. there was more after that but i don't remember it.

- half marathon race in 1:34:20 (watch), 1:35:28 (chip)
watch buzzed about 200m before the finish line, i figure just because of weaving and stuff during the race. i'm okay with the time: it was my first time racing anywhere close to this distance so i didn't really know what to expect, and also my training hasn't been all that consistent. it was more fun than i expected it to be. 5k suuuuucks to run, the back half and especially the final mile just hurt. apart from one wicked hill, this was never uncomfortable. i guess running for this long necessarily means running in the aerobic zone and so i got tired but that was all. it was fun to pick people out to try to keep pace with or pass as the race went on.

official results aren't posted yet but unofficially i placed 476th out of 10,655. top-500 was a secondary goal so that's good.

official finish is 528th, damn it. 72nd out of 936 in my age bracket (male 35-39).

fiancee finished just ahead of me relative to her age bracket (female 35-39). so that's another new goal, beat her against our cohorts!

we both signed up for another half in september. let's see if i can train more consistently over the summer. i think if i can really get up to 30 miles a week and be solid with my tempo runs i could push down close to 1:30. it's on a flatter course, although likely will be pretty hot. certainly warmer than last weekend.

tuesday

- run 45:15, 7.15 km
very slow, fiancee was sore and tired.

- run 1:50:14, 19.42 km
longest i'll run before the half marathon in two weeks. felt pretty good. also, brought some dates and kosher salt and started eating them 1-2 at a time every couple of km, starting halfway through. tired now but okay.

- tempo
-- warm up
-- 6 km @ 4:20 [4:20, 4:20, 4:17, 4:19, 4:25, 4:23]
-- cool down
legs a little tired still from sunday, i guess. calves pretty tight when i got home but stretched a bit and they feel fine now.

- 5k race in 19:46 (chip), 19:48 (watch)
same course as last time, which i think confirms that it's a little short. but hey, chip time is chip time and maybe my watch is off. the field was faster than usual, i finished tenth overall but way behind the leaders. three people finished in 16:xx, three in 17:xx (including a woman!), and two in 18:xx, and one woman finished about thirty seconds ahead of me. fiancee PR'd in 22:36, 24th overall. and my mom also PR'd, in 35:33. good stuff.

the 10k winner finished in 33:20!!! his 5k split was faster than the winning 5k time. damn.

EDIT: this is actually a chip-timed PR, which gets the gif: 

last night

- run 33:25, 6.23 km
nice and light, got a race sunday morning.

- run 1:39, 16.10 km
lovely, lovely day