Brentwood Half Marathon...

...outside of London, UK.

I ran the Equity Brentwood Half Marathon about an hour outside of London, this past Sunday March 9. The lonely course takes you through windy and rolling fields that are occasionally interrupted by townships that boast a pub or two. The scene prior to the event was chaos: a staff of 10 people with 10 port-a-johns servicing 2,050 frantic people fighting to get bibs, drop bags and hit the Head all at once. Ridiculously my former PR (1:23:25) qualified me as an "elite" (ha!) which after waiting with some friends for half an hour, I lamely used to get to the front, score my bib and part the sea of runners and get to the corral thirty seconds before the gun went off.

(http://www.brentwoodhalf.org/information.htm)

The organizers put up a nice kitty for this race ($1,000.00) which apparently attracted some of England's finest. The winner (Phil Sly) ran a 1:07:07, with the top woman (Susan Patridge) running a 1:16:21. I ran a new PR at 1:21:37 (6:13 pace) placing me 48th out of 2,051. Although that would qualify as slow for 98% of our compadres, this is a nice accomplishment for me. I had more gas in the furnace though, so expect a new PR soon. More importantly, my finish qualifies me for NYC 2008. To the right is a picture after the race with my old friend Jany (R) who's living in London and my new friend Nicola (L).

This would be my first Blog. I travel internationally pretty much every week and on occasion will post something interesting. I've been running with the likes of Chris, Christiam, Dylan, Klim, Patrick, Patrick M., and of course the irascible Maxfield Lockwood since October of last year. I credit all of you for making me more like a runner.

Four hours after the above picture was taken on Sunday I was on an overnight flight to Cape Town, South Africa. On Monday I hiked up Table Mountain towards Devil's Peak and ran down near the Water Front early this morning. South Africa is gorgeous and is hosting an ultra-marathon Easter weekend (34 miler).

Hope everyone's running strong...