14.47

You may have seen car stickers that read 26.2, a reference to the distance of a marathon, in miles. Tonight Tom and I ran 14.47 miles - something over half the distance. It took us about 2:10 min, which is a pace of 9:00 min/mi. That's about 11 seconds faster than we need to run in the marathon in order to run the whole thing in under 4 hours.


It's hard to tell from the map, but we ran a portion of the course several times (the one mile stretch from our house to the corner of Keswick and Strathmore Ave). We did that to avoid running the lower loop twice, since the last time we ran that section at night, as Tom observed, "You could get a full meal by opening your mouth," the gnats were so thick.

Yes, it was warmish out when we started, a bit under 90*, but it cooled down to about 80* as we finished. Yes, our legs hurt, we both shared with each other - calves and quads, especially. I will confide in you dear reader, that my... how do I put it delicately?... my glutes (let us say) hurt as well. Both of them.

Before the run, we offered our efforts, persistence, and pain for a number of intentions, including all those supporting our efforts to raise awareness, money, and prayers for seminarians and for vocations to the priesthood. Your continued prayers and support have been a great encouragement. I KNOW how much some of the intentions you've given me need prayers and sacrifices. All that kept me going when I felt a new pain in my right thigh at mile 11.5 or so. It's gone now, which is nice. In any event, I have every confidence and reason to believe that my sufferings this evening have sprung holy souls from Purgatory - at least two of them.

Another thing that kept me going was a memory. I remembered, as we polished off the first 7 miles or so, how good I felt physically, how easy, uncramped, and unexhausted, I felt last year at the marathon's halfway point. I thought, in just 10 weeks, I'll be there again if it please God and I keep putting in the miles.

Thanks for your continued support and prayers. God bless.