Weekly Wrap-Up: Half Marathons Have Now Become "No Big Deal"

It's official. I have now reached the land of the "not normal" when it comes to running. I ran a half marathon yesterday in New Jersey at what could be considered the "last minute" (I signed up roughly two weeks ago), and it was no big deal. Really. At what point did running a half marathon become the equivalent to what was previously acceptable for a 5k to be called (namely: no big deal)?

There was a time - roughly two years ago - when running a half marathon was a "big deal". I trained for it. I ran consecutive weeks at building mileage and then tapered for a few weeks and then I ran a half marathon (or did a Half Ironman, but that's another beast entirely). Now, I go out on Sundays and run significantly more miles than a half marathon and consider myself "lucky" to "only have to run 13 today". I mean, really, when you get to the point where 13 miles is chump change, you know your mindset is seriously out of whack.

And I'm not writing this to brag - not even to humble brag, a la Lance Armstrong and this Twitter pic. Truth be told, this whole blog here is about training for a marathon, so all you people should expect to hear about just that - training. And when you train for a marathon, guess what becomes not so significant - yep, you got it, a half marathon. This is in no way to take away from the feat for those that are considering taking on the task of running a half marathon - it ain't no picnic, I can tell you that much. But when your long training days consist of 15, 18, 20 and 22 miles, 13 sounds like a pretty nice number.

On a totally different note, I went back down to good old Monmouth U. for Homecoming this past weekend. If there is one thing that the new coaching staff has totally dropped the ball on, it would be "Alumni Outreach". Mostly because there is none. But we had a good time anyway. It was nowhere near the epic-ness of some previous Homecoming experiences - especially circa 2002, when I was a mere Freshman who really had no reason to "come home" as I had only been there for roughly 2 months, but made my mark by puking in an upperclassman's car nonetheless (sorry, mom and dad) - but we made it work. Here are some highlights:

We like to start them young.

Our old haunt, Jack's, has now decided to class itself up. It's kinda like trying to give a makeover to a sixty-year-old hooker - in the end she's still just a sixty-year-old hooker, only with perkier boobs and better make-up.

Unlike previous Homecomings, we actually made it to not one, but two sporting events during the course of the day - the football game and the women's soccer game that night. In all my years at Monmouth, I can vaguely remember attending maybe five football games. But I could be misremembering (thanks, Roger Clemens, for that awesome word). And I never went to one on Homecoming. I don't even think I realized there was a football game going on during Homecoming, let alone that people actually went in to watch it. So I guess you could say that my streak is over - I have finally watched a portion of an MU football game. It only took me ten years.

Sunday morning we ran the Seaside Heights Half Marathon and 5k. Well, I ran the half and SJ and Jen ran the 5k. In case you have been living under a rock and don't remember, this and this both had a huge effect on Seaside Heights (although this also didn't help in the matter). And this picture was probably one of the craziest to come out of the Hurricane Sandy footage:

So anyway, between Sandy and the most recent fire (and the infiltration of the Jersey Shore cast, which is something I won't get into here), Seaside has had a tough few years so I figured I would do my part to Restore the Shore (and also, I'm hoping that if they restore the shore quicker I won't have to keep hearing this song on the radio). It was a good little race and I'm glad we did it - but I'll write a race report on it so I won't get into it here.

Let's move on to the wrap up.

Total Running Miles: 34. Whew, totally drove more than that last week.

Total Beers I Drank at Homecoming: Probably five. That is crazy low. That's like what I used to do to pregame. I am getting old.

Number of Minutes I Spent Watching MU Football Games in College: Roughly 45.

Number of Minutes I Spent Watching the MU Football Game at Homecoming 2013: Roughly 45. Should have stayed that extra minute just to outdo my former college self.

Taper week number two is under my belt with significantly less mileage than the previous week. My long run is only 8 this weekend - wow. That's like a typical mid-week run for me right now. Race day is creeping closer.