summer is winding down

It really pained me to write that blog title. Summer is almost over, which has the ability to send me into a borderline depressed state. In a little more than a week I'll be moving back down to Baltimore. At least I will have a week of XC camp before class starts, but it will still be tough to say goodbye for another long school year. It will be fun seeing all my college friends again but it's a real bittersweet time. I feel bad, everyone else looks forward to going back to school but I find that hard to do. School is fun but there's a lot going on and it gets pretty tense and stressful. Saying that summer is my favorite time of the year wouldn't even come close to doing it justice. I'm having hands down the best summer of my life. I might actually cry when it's over...maybe haha.

I've been pretty busy since my last post. I kinda lost track of how long it had been. I was surprised it was about a month ago that I last got my blog on. Lifeguard races have been going real well and my running has been coming along very well. My mileage ended up bein a little lower than I had planned but it's cool because I get a lot of good cross training from the job.

On Saturday was my favorite race of the summer, the Captain Bill Gallagher Sea Isle 10 miler. The race draws a lot of good runners from South Jersey and Philly since so many people from the Philly area vacation down here. I ran it in 52:59 which got me 6th place. That was 4 places better than last year so I was pretty pumped. I had planned to try and run it in 55 so I was amped about my time. I was coming down the final stretch and saw the clock at like 52:40 and I almost didn't believe it. It was sick. The competition was very legit as usual. A bunch of college or post-college runners always do the race. A pro actually won it, some guy who runs for Mizuno. He was a finalist in the Olympic Trials for the steeplechase last summer, so that was pretty cool to race a guy like that. Granted, he beat me by over a minute but I hung with him for a while. The crowd gets real into the race too which is fun and makes the running a bit easier mentally. It's a big party day in Sea Isle (assuming you're not doing the run) and a lot of people drink all day on the beach or maybe their house then watch the race. Needless to say they get pretty enthusiastic, and scream a lot.

The only good thing about summer ending is that running is a lot easier in Baltimore. The shore is probably the worst place in the world for a distance runner to train just for the fact that it's very hard mentally to run a lot because the scenary couldn't get any more monotonous. Plus, when it gets hot, it gets really, really hot. It sucks, but I get through it. Baltimore has some decent places to run with some cool trails and parks, so I'll look forward to getting back to my familiar routes down there. Plus, I love ice baths, which I don't have down here. They feel great.

Here is a cool picture I found online. It's from a lifeguard race. As you can probably tell, these 2 girls are about to get ROCKED. I feel bad for them, they're just about to get so owned. Man, I'm glad it's not me. Enjoy: