So I've been in hiding as well, but I wanted to come back and report that I ran the Richmond half marathon last weekend. Until I ended up with bronchitis 3 weeks ago, my goal time was 2:03ish (I wanted to beat the full marathon world record time) or 2:00 as a stretch goal. By race day, I would've been happy to beat my last road half PR (2:09:33)

Well, I finished in 1:59:31. Woohoo!! Beat the stretch goal and beat my last PR by 10 minutes. Pretty sure I ran the entire race about 30-45 seconds/mile faster than I'd been training. I ran faster than I've run since I moved to Denver and faster than I've done any race longer than a 10K.

I've decided that I don't think I like the Kinvaras anymore though. The point at the toes doesn't match the shape of my foot, and I had some NASTY blisters on my bigger foot (and yes, the shoes are plenty big). They squish my toes in weird directions - I ended up with a quarter-sized blood blister on the inside of my foot and blisters between several of my toes. Might go for the Brooks Pure-whatever next.

For any of you east-coast runners, I love the Richmond full/half. I'm probably biased since I grew up there, but I think its great how much of the community comes out to cheer and volunteer. I had a smile on my face the entire time I was running.