Run for your lives zombie 5k

Well here's an interesting race I just signed up for. It's basically a 5k kind of like 'epic mud run' or 'the warrior dash' except with a strange twist. It's called the Run For Your Lives Zombie 5k where you're given a flag football belt with three red flags on it which are your "lives" and you have to climb over and dive around obstacles in the mud and dirt all while avoiding 'zombies' which try and rip off your flags... I really want to know what happened at that planning meeting when somebody said "guys, we're going to put zombies in our 5k race, it'll be awesome."

It's something I never thought I'd do, but hey why do a normal road 5k when you can do an adrenaline filled one? It'll be fun because I'll already have the cardio from my half marathon training and all I'll need to work on it agility and explosive movements. It looks like I'll be doing a whole lot of box jumps and wind sprints. But it looks like a whole lot of fun, and lets be honest how often does a 5k race like this come along to an area close to you.

It's actually pretty cool because this race is only taking place in 8 states and Missouri is one of the lucky ones. Even luckier is that it's going to be only about 30 minutes away from my home town so that makes the commute fairly easy. And the main reason why I'm doing it is because 1. my roommate got really excited and wanted to do it really bad and 2. it's one of those things that you get to tell your kids down the road "yeah I did a 5k race where you had to avoid zombies"

Trizou coming up!

My favorite race, the TriZou is coming up here in the next 12 days, it's definitely that time where you start getting really excited because it's coming up so quickly. I say favorite because it's the only not-purely-running race I've ever done. I really encourage you to sign up even if you live in a 2 hour radius of Columbia, Missouri. Here's the website if you're interested. And if I remember, I'm going to bring a camera (or at least take pictures and video with my cell phone) because I know how much I personally like it when people post pictures and videos.

Now that I know in general how to pace myself I'm gonna push myself a bit this year. Last year was a kind of trial run to figure out how I would do with going from biking 4 gigantic hills to running 3 miles. The only two foreseeable problems will be 1. the weather has been super unreliable (raining for a few days, than really cold, then 85 degrees) 2. there's construction where the running course use to go through, so they've had to change it slightly and it now incorporates a hill. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the hill is in the last mile-ish of the race so everybody's gonna be tired. But, aside from that I'm really excited.

My time last year was 1:42 so I'm aiming for anything lower than that, even if it's only a minute or two. I realize that's not a significant goal, but considering that I only do this stuff for the fun of it and the experience I don't have the time to train non-stop and improve time significantly.

So probably for narcissistic reasons I added the video my dad took on his phone of me finishing last year. I'm the one in the dark blue shirt.  A little background behind the video is that the lady next to me passed me a little while before and me being unhealthily competitive really wanted to catch up to her.

Sign up day

The start to my Disney Half Marathon adventure has officially begun! Today was the first day of sign ups for the Disney World Marathon Weekend and I signed up my mother and myself. (She was the only one willing to go with me). For now I'm just going to focus on the TriZou triathlon and I'll think about the half when the time comes. Everybody does races for their own reasons, mine is: To prove to myself that I can. Up until now I've never run farther than 4 miles because I'm not all legs and build like a gazelle like other people. I'm going to follow Hal Higdon's training program and even though it's a 12 week training program I'm probably going to stretch mine out to 18 or 24 because I have the time, and like I said before I'm not really built for long distance running (or running in general). If you wanna take part in the family fun run 5k/half marathon/ full marathon the sign ups are here.

I since I won't officially start training till about July or August you probably won't hear a substantial amount of updates until then. But in the mean time I'll let you in on my general work outs from here unti then.

hiking the Great Smokies

This past week I went hiking in the Smoky Mountains. Specifically the section around the Gatlinburg, Tennessee/ North Carolina area. Here's just a few pictures of how beautiful the place was.

that's Mt. LeConte in the back, which we hiked up on our last day. The elevation is 6593 feet and one of the most beautiful hikes I can imagine.

This drop off on Mt. LeConte was one of the prettiest/most nerve racking parts of the whole climb. The actual part you hiked on is out of the frame on the right side with a cable to hold onto so you don't slip on the rocks.  

A tiny waterfall thing on the Mt. LeConte trail