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About This Blog As the people who actually read this blog probably know, my name is Barb Blakley. To be perfectly honest, I feel a bit out of place with a blog on a web site called eliterunning.com, but I've known Alison for probably seven years and she has been kind enough to let me post one on her site. Alison and I met at Bowdoin, where we were both on the Cross Country and Track teams. In fact, one of my happiest memories from college is running in the NESCAC championship 10,000 meter race with Alison and another of our teammates. I do feel that in certain ways I am making my way towards earning a spot on this site. Although I've been running for about 10 years now (holy crap — saying I've been doing anything for 10 years makes me feel like I'm getting old), on and off, I really got serious about running again about a year and a half ago, when I started tracking my mileage. At the time I was running about four times a week, averaging maybe 20 miles a week, but now I'm fairly consistently running between 50 and 60 miles a week and have been doing so for approximately the last 9 months. Most people that I know think that's a little crazy — but to me it is so much fun. I don't know if I could ever make it to the Olympic Trials for the marathon, although it would be nice. I think that for now, if I could run faster than a 40:55 for 10k and faster than a 19:26 for 5k I'd be really pleased (those are my best times ever). Right now I'm getting fairly close — especially considering that I'm living in Denver, which is at altitude. My current plan is to run the Carlsbad 5000 next spring, and hopefully break the 5k mark. Since I've been getting serious about running again, I've started training with a group run by Darren De Reuck here in Boulder. In the short term, I'm planning on training with Darren and Running Republic through the summer, running the Chicago Marathon in October, and then maybe a half marathon next January, followed by Carlsbad. I don't really know what to expect at Chicago — it'll be my first marathon — but I am very excited to give it a try. So I expect this blog to track my progress towards my goals, both in running and in life. I've found that they are often related. I also hope to get better at this web stuff so that Alison doesn't have to do everything for me! That's all I've got for now — Thanks for reading! Barb |