Okay, so Tammie wussed out and would only tag those who were reading her blog. So, I’ll take up the baton and continue the meme:

6 random things about me that you probably don’t know and won’t remember 5 minutes from now.

1) My driver’s license lists my first name as “Brain” instead of “Brian”. When I first moved to Florida and transferred my license, they first got my age wrong. I went back and they corrected that, but they screwed up my name. At that point I was like “screw it”. It’s been that way for 10 years now.

2) I have a Ph.D. in Oceanography. So, I guess that makes me “Dr. Brain” – at least according to my driver’s license.

3) I went to the same high school as Meriwether Lewis Clark, the son of famous Louisiana Purchase explorer, William Clark – who quite obviously named his son after his equally famous explorer buddy.

4) I played football and volleyball in high school. I didn’t start running until I was 29.

5) I have one song by the Jonas Brothers and one song by Hannah Montana on my run playlist. This is what happens when you have two daughters.

6) I have a birthmark on my right hip that very few people have ever seen.

So, there you go. I now tag Paul, Sarah, Andy, Jay2Far, Karen and Nicole.

Here are the rules:

1. link to the person who tagged you.

2. post the rules on your blog.

3. write six random things about yourself.

4. tag six people at the end of your post.

5. let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

6. let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Last week was my first week at 28 miles and it went pretty well. There were a couple of days with a very small amount of soreness in my knees, but nothing that didn’t work itself out after a few miles. I’ve now made it through a few days of 2 runs. This is a result of late afternoon runs with my 11 year old daughter who is building a base for her first cross country season.

I’ll be upping my “easy” pace from 9:37/mi to 9:27/mi this week. That marks a change from a VDOT of 43 to a VDOT of 44. VDOT is basically a measure of one’s running ability based on a recent race time. I got the concept from Daniels’ Running Formula, a great book by Jack Daniels (the running coach, not the whiskey distiller). I highly recommend it. Anyway, the change in VDOT level is largely ceremonial since I’ve been (unintentionally) running a lot of my easy runs slightly faster than 9:27/mi anyway. For now, the tempo, interval, marathon and repeat paces don’t really come into play since I’m in a base building phase. My 24 week half marathon program (for the Walt Disney World Half) doesn’t start until the end of this month, so it’s pretty much all easy runs for a few more weeks.

I’ve been slacking a lot lately on my blogging, but I’ve definitely kept up on my running. In fact, I hit nine days in a row today – anew record for me. I’ve been averaging around 23 miles per week over 5 workouts for the last 3 weeks, so I’m going to try to up my mileage by 5 miles this week. It should be pretty easy to hit since I’ve been running 2 miles every other evening with my 11 year old daughter. She’s starting cross country in the fall.

So, that means two runs a day on some days, but 2 miles at roughly 12 minute mile pace is pretty easy for me. It actually helps clear some of the stiffness from the morning run. I am feeling a little discomfort in my right knee when I’m not running, so I’ll have to stay attuned to that. I’ll probably give myself the 4th of July off.

My “official” 24 week half marathon program starts in the end of July. The first few weeks aren’t too much different than what I’m doing now, though. It’s mostly moderate distance easy runs to build up a base. My legs are kind of longing for some speedier runs right now, but I’m sure when I get to the tempo and interval workouts, I’ll be wishing for the easy runs again.