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Hey guys I know it's been a while. I've had a handful of races since the wedding including a failed marathon attempt. I'll try to go through em pretty succinctly just to bring you all up to date. I guess it doesn't really matter, there isn't too much interesting about any of it but here we go.

Let's see the week after the wedding we went down and ran a race hosted by the Merrimack XC and Track teams. Abbey and I got our first win as "Newlywoods". We got that one from my 6 year old neice. I ran a solo 16:51 and felt pretty good about my fitness for the marathon.

We rested up until the marathon and I felt pretty confident. The morning of the race came and it was windy, but not too cold. I felt pretty comfortable getting in a nice pack of guys looking to go around 2:50. Felt great through 10, in 65:40 and through half in 1:25:20 and then not long after that I started slowing down like crazy by mile 15 I was running 8:30's. I gave it a mile or two more to see if I could recover and get going again, I scarfed down a GU and hoped I'd get going, but no. I just struggled and by about 17 I'd given up and started walking. I walked until I could catch a ride with Abbey's dad around mile 19. I felt pretty horrible dropping out, but I knew I was saving myself recovery time so it wasn't too tough a decision. Abbey ended up running a great race for the amount of training she'd done and finished up in 3rd for the second year in 3:07.

The week after the Marathon Abbey and I decided to go run a little road race in Franklin. I had a nice race with Scott Clark right up to the line. Another Double win for the Woods.

Wanted to run Club NE's for cross, wound up running pretty shitty, 29:10 or something. I got out a little too fast probably and struggled, I also had to stop to tie my shoe which didn't help at all either.

Thanksgiving I had a good 5k. We have been going down to the Portsmouth Turkey Trot for the past couple years and really enjoy it. It's got a great course, with some ok hills in the first half but you are rewarded with a mostly downhill second half which makes for a pretty good time if you race hard. I wound up running a 16:41 which was a seasonal PR, so I was pretty happy.

I ran Mill Cities Relay with GCS on the Co-Ed team which was a lot of fun. Got to catch up with a bunch of friends, and meet some new people. Unfortunately I wasn't very happy with how I ran. I was the first leg and I think I was about 14th or so, and I went through 5 miles around 29:04. I probably could have run faster, but I had no idea how competitive the Co-Ed division was gonna be and thought I'd be able to coast it. By the time I realized how competitive it was gonna be It was too late for me to get the juices flowing I guess.

This past Saturday I got back at it and ran a 16:27 for my first time cracking 16:30 since 2009. I was pretty happy with this and felt like it was a corner for me fitness wise. The course had no splits so I have no idea how it broke down, and I guess that's just as well. I know I got out pretty hard, and then got caught by Connor Jennings at around the mile. I tried to hang with him, and was able to keep him with in 10 meters until about a mile to go when I started falling off. I was able to convince myself that I had a good time going and to keep pushing for the finish. Despite almost being hit by a car with 400 to go, I was able to finish up strong for 2nd place 12 seconds behind Jennings.
I love this course and haven't gotten a chance to race it since 7th grade, but they had some serious traffic problems. they had a crossing guard at the intersection that actually had stop signs, but just beyond that there is an intersection with two lanes of traffic and no stop signals at all, that runners were forced to navigate with no one stopping traffic, I had to take the gamble that this car would see me and sprint out in front of him with my arm out. As I got into downtown, the traffic was backed up and I again had to work my way through that traffic to get to the finish.
Everything else about the race was great, and I had a lot of fun, but I'm hoping they can find a way to close downtown for the race next year.

Looking forward I'm just gonna run some of the BU mini meets for the next few weeks and then run some miles through January while Abbey and I take our honeymoon to Hawaii.