Marathons, Mountains, and Microbrews

Yes, you know those are my three "hobbies" by this time. So now, all I need is a marathon to make the month complete.

It would happen on November 23 in a park in the southwest corner of Nashville. The Flying Monkey Marathon! It was just a little affair--only a couple hundred runners allowed, and a race director who (believe it or not) may just be crazier than I am. I had to contact RD Trent Rosenbloom to get in, since registration had closed a long time before, but he welcomed me.

Also, I ran into old friends GW and Linda from Colorado--my former shipmates aboard the Ioffe in last year's first trip to Antarctica.

Race morning was COLD -- around 27 degrees. But a nice day and not too windy, so after the race started it was comfortable. The course--ALL HILLS for 26.2 miles. There's an 11.2 mile loop that we ran both forward and backward, with a little more thrown in along the way. Since I wasn't familiar with the area, I never really knew which direction we were going. It was only up and down.

Somewhere around 12 miles I caught up with a guy named Max, and we spent the rest of the race getting to know each other and solving the world's problems. Finally, with only two people still behind us, we finished around 6 hours 37 minutes.

Slow day. Yes. However, only 4 weeks earlier, I had my second knee surgery of the year. And, in spite of that, I kept my marathon-a-month streak alive at 69 months in a row. Now I'm working on getting back up to speed, strengthening my legs, and getting my marathon times back to around 4:30 before another six months goes by.

So there you go. Month of November held seven state high points, about 9 or 10 breweries, and a marathon. Not bad.

And next November? I'm thinking of going back and giving the Monkey another try.

and the adventure continues....