A Lot of Running!

Today I ran the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Marathon.  I really love this marathon and have run it ten times now.  Why do I love it?  Well, Harrisburg feels like my home town since I worked there for 27 years.  In the early years I ran along the river at lunch time.  19th and 20th century officials preserved the land along the river to ensure it would never be an ugly industrial area.  Instead it's a beautiful park.  During later years, when my job began to interfere with a lunchtime run,  I ran at 6 am.  Most of the year it is dark at the hour and as I ran I would watch the day emerge.


Since I have now run 97 marathons, including one in each of our 50 states, people often ask me what my favorite marathon is.  I've never answered, "Harrisburg," preferring to mention Big Sur or other marathons with equally beautiful scenery.  But today I realized that my favorite is indeed Harrisburg.


BTW, I ran pretty well, although it was a struggle.  I ran 4:42, which is an hour and 15 minutes off my PR, but after all, I'm older now and I don't expect to see a PR again.  Today's time was good enough for a 2nd place age group award.


When we got home I planned to work on Liam's sweater vest, but took a nice nap instead.  On tap for tonight and tomorrow - finish the sweater vest and head to IKEA to buy furniture for Clay's new (following the flood) office.  I was dumb enough :-) to re-carpet the rooms and now I will buy furniture.

Here I am during the last mile.