Long Time No Blog

I would like to begin with an apology to the handful of people who regularly check this page. The past month and a half has been pretty packed (other than the past week, which you will hear about later). After the school year ended and we had our week of teachers' meetings, I had a few free days in Boston before I returned to Baltimore for a week. It was good to get back home and see my family (Bailey included) and friends. I only ran 90 miles or so the week I was home, but I had some enjoyable runs. One day, I made it back to my high school to see the current Loyola Dons cross country team and run with my old coach, Mr. Cucuzzella. Another day, I was able to catch up with Matt Schelberg, one of my high school teammates, for a run on the NCR Trail followed by a Slurpee date. Both of those runs were great, but my favorite run by far was with my friend Eugene's little brother Johnny the day before I flew back to Boston. He had been talking crap for weeks about how he could dust me and how he broke two minutes for the half mile and how he ran faster than I did on the Loyola cross country course. We decided to do 80 minutes on the NCR Trail and I entered the run with the sole purpose of making Johnny admit that he was hurting. He was able to hang for just under an hour as I slowly quickened the pace. After he cracked and admitted defeat, I eased off the pace and let my oversized sense of accomplishment from breaking a high schooler carry me through the final 20 minutes. After I returned to Boston, I had a few days to prepare for summer school and then left for Groton, MA. Teaching at Groton was a great experience and I enjoyed my time there, but my running definitely suffered. The school day at Epiphany is long enough, but being around the kids all day every day for three and a half weeks made me appreciate the breaks we do get between regular school days. The combination of mental exhaustion from being around the kids so much, a busy schedule, and laziness kept me from running much and I only averaged around 60 miles a week, despite having some great places to run. I ended up riding my bike many days to mix things up. A few mornings, one of the 8th graders rode my bike along side me as I did my run, which was awesome. Upon returning to Boston from Groton, I got right back into the swing of things, racking up the miles with nothing else on my plate. I ran 800 minutes in my first full week back, which is a personal best for minutes in a scheduled week (Monday through Sunday) and I also ran 870 minutes over a seven day span, which is also a personal best. I am hoping to keep my mileage at around 840 minutes a week until school starts, when I will have to lower it a little. Last, and most importantly, I had a doctor's appointment today and my latest tests showed no signs of any further cancer growth. I am a little over 11 weeks away from the marathon and have already raised $4,860. I will be updating this blog weekly (at the least) from now until November, so stay tuned for the final months of preparation.