So I came home and set our dinning room up to look as romantic as possible, which for me can be a challenge. I Purchased a dozen beautiful red roses to put on the table and then worked on dinner. We started out with some bruschetta that I made with some of the leftover fontina cheese and roma tomatoes. Very tasty. The main course is Baked Rigatoni with Bechamel Sauce. Very simple to make but is a very rich and flavorful dish. Its one of those meals that the moment you taste it, it just comforts you. Kelly made a perfect salad to go along with the pasta. I paired this meal with a bottle of Fetzer Gewürztraminer. The slight acidic and sweet nature of the wine cut right through the creaminess of the baked rigatoni just perfectly. For dessert I made a decadent Chocolate Mousse. It was super rich and got my blood sugar level going. We had a great evening without ever dealing with the long lines and a over priced restaurants idea of a romantic night out.
So in my half marathon training, I was suppose to do a 10k race. Not really feeling the need to spend anymore money on racing right now, I set out to create my own 10k race. I must say the pre and post race activities were very lack luster. I picked Long Hunter State Park for my mock race. The two mile loop around the lake is scenic and flat, which was my only real reason for picking this route. I also was very curious to see if the Garmin would work out there as this will be a mid summer haven due to all the trees. I set out to do negative splits and try to stay as close to 1/2 marathon pace as I could. Well the first mile came in at 9:15 not bad, although at one time the Garmin says I hit close to 12mph running. I would like to think I was that fast, but I think it was just a GPS glitch. I was feeling good, I thought to myself 9:15 was faster then I wanted. Mile 2 would prove I was not pacing myself very well as I did it in 8:48. Ok negative split yes, but by no means do I think I can hit 4 more miles at under 8:48. The rest of the run proved this point with splits of 9:00,9:00,9:04,9:03 and the last .2 in 1:36. Total 10k time of 55:46. I was spent and a little mad at myself for not following what I knew I should have done. I think I could do the course next time faster if I did not go out so fast.
January ended up a good month. I hit my 100 mile mark. I am now half way training for the 1/2 and everything feels good. I also registered for the Chicago Marathon on October 12th!!! This will be my first Marathon. A few friends will be running this with me so it should be a great weekend. Its a bit daunting to think of running a Marathon at this point. The 1/2 on March 15th will be a good gauge of what I think I can do the full in. We shall see, it will be a lot of training this summer.
