On November 11 I ran my hash, the Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers‘ hash #1279 (Hash Veterans Veterans’ Day Hash). It was a fun romp through wooded areas of the West End that was more physically demanding than I’d expected. Photos here.
On November 10, I ran in WPTC’s XC Challenge and finished in a sluggish 34:06. Last year I finished in 32:03, and I’d hoped to break 30:00 this year. Oh well, I can’t expect much considering how badly screwed up my training has been due to being so busy with research. In addition to running, I (with help from my wonderful wife), fulfilled my social event responsibilities as WPTC’s membership chair by cooking hotdogs, which were well received by the cold and hungry runners.
On September 30, I ran in the 30th anniversary Great Race. I finished in a somewhat disappointing 53:56. That’s actually 5 seconds faster than last year’s 54:01, which you might think would make me happy. Well, considering I wanted to beat that time by 4:02, 5 seconds is a pretty disappointing margin of improvement. The good news is that I’ve progressed to the point that 53:56 felt like a bad run this year, whereas 54:01 felt like a good run last year.
West Penn Track Club recently held its annual election for its board of directors. Of the 130+ members in the club, ~35 returned their paper ballots (I’ll have a better count after the next board meeting). There were eight nominees for seven positions. I lost. I’ll soon no longer be the chair of the membership committee. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
Yesterday morning I ran the IKEA Half Marathon. It was very humid, which was less than ideal, but between the light drizzle and the temperature being about 20° cooler than last year, the conditions were pretty good. Things got off to a bad start for me, though, because the organizers banned iPods this year. That really pissed me off. Consequently, I may boycott this and any other race that bans iPods.
Anyhow, I’d hoped to finish under 2 hours, but I’m not disappointed with my 2:03:07 (9:24 pace). I wonder how the use of an iPod would have affected my time. Also, I had to pee at about 4.5 miles, which cost me at least a minute. Damn you, enlarged prostate!.