Monday, January 2, 2012

Reflection: What Now?

I know that my Periclean alumni and students at Elon would be disappointed if I did not conclude this experience without a reflection (no matter how brief), so here I will go.

What now?

1. PERICLEAN PROGRAM

For those looking for the next great blog inspired and sponsored by the Periclean program, please visit these two sites:


As always, you are welcome to visit the Periclean home page to learn even more about activities (past, present, and future) and impacts.

2. RUNNING

I met my primary goal of completing my first marathon. When I stuck my 26.2 sticker on my car, it felt like I had just purchased a membership that I need to start renewing immediately.

I will likely take at least one year away from marathoning. The reason I say this is because, unfortunately, I am still not completely healed from the MCM. Two days after the race, I knelt down funny and felt a sharp pain in my left quad - a pain that still comes up whenever I do a long run. (This was the same day that I had a fire drill at work. I had to walk down 8 flights of stairs. What a nightmare!) I was in pain all over that week, so I expected it all to go away, but the quad pain remains. It is mostly because of this that my volume has dropped, and I have replaced some runs with backwards elliptical training. It has gotten better, but it is not 100% back to normal yet.

I have signed up for a couple more races, so my running for 2012 will continue. I will do the Dash for Dad in June, sponsored by the Pacers running store at Pentagon Row. I also plan to do the Sea Girt 5K again and finally run the Wild Half Marathon that got postponed due to Hurricane Irene.

Now that I have baseline times at many distances, I can try and set PRs (personal records). My best times are:
23:36 - 5K
53:41 - 10K
1:51:02 - Half Marathon
4:13:34 - Marathon

Perhaps 2012 will give me a new PR!

3. FUNDRAISING

My marathon raised $716 for the Periclean program. To all who donated, thank you - your contributions toward this program have humbled me.

The fundraising site is still live, so if there is anyone out there who still wishes to make a contribution in honor of my marathon, please know that it will not go unnoticed. I will write an acknowledgement as with past donors, and the funds will further the visions and projects that have impacted hundreds of thousands worldwide.

You may notice that my goal of building one house is yet to be achieved. Because of this, I may take future races as an opportunity to build that house. Stay tuned...