See sRod Run

Migration

2012-01-01T07:34:00.001-05:00

Let's just get this over quickly like pulling off a bandaid: I'm changing my blog.

It's a brand new year and resolution number one is to get back into blogging. I want to get back into it because writing out my thoughts puts complex ideas into a manageable format. The problem is that it's become pretty obvious that I've lost heart for this blog. And I've realized that it's because I've focused too narrowly. Running is hugely important to me, but it's not the only thing and the way I've built this blog running is really the only thing I can talk about here.

So starting today I am migrating over to tumblr, the URL is http://whatrunnery.tumblr.com. I've liked the tumblr format for years and it allows for smaller posts more easily, which opens the door for a wide variety of posts and topics. I'll still include lots of running stuff, but probably not as intense as what I've done on this blog (I'm still kinda figuring what exactly I'll be posting about). I can guarantee, though, that I will still do race reports.

For posterity's sake I will leave up this blog, but will no longer post to it after today.

Runner Bingo, round three

2011-12-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

I haven't been keeping an eye out for items on the game card lately, but there are four more squares that I have for sure accumulated since last time:

Getting "geriatricked" (spotted during MDI Marathon): there was a group of three guys in orange tops that were significantly older than me--probably just past middle age. Around the halfway point I passed the whole group. But then, just in mile 23-24 section of the race, one of them broke out and not only caught up with me, but passed me. Not just passed me, but smoked me and faded into the distance far faster than he should have.
Camel Pack (spotted during MDI Marathon): an extrememly nice and friendly runner started chatting me up over the middle miles of the race. She had a Camel Pack on and I was envious because my little water bottle can only hold 22 ounces, and even during chilly races, I need more water than that between water stops.
Overly coordinated running outfit (spotted during Labor Day weekend long run): a couple of women training for the Long Island Marathon (so said their shirts) were running in identical outfits. For me that fills the requirement for "overly coordinated".
Runner with multiple dogs (spotted during Labor Day weekend long run): a woman with two large dogs randomnly rounded a corner a head of me and ran past me. I thought I was never going to find this one!

B	I	N	G	O
Double running stroller	Barefoot runner	Getting “chicked”	Headband	Slow running group, 3+ abreast
Running in the bike lane	Article of 80’s running gear	Shirt from a race I’ve run	Batman belt	Power walker
Wristband	Overdressed for the weather	FREE	Getting “geriatricked”	Running against traffic on track
Running after a race	Cyclist on running path	Long socks with shorts	Inappropriate foot wear	D-Tag on shoe (not during a race)
Non-iPod music device	Overly coordinated running outfit	Camel Pack	Bandana on head	Runner with multiple dogs

Running at the end of the world, part V

2011-12-11T10:00:00.000-05:00

Lessons Learned

I loved this race, in spite of all my bitching about the hills. It is a hard race, but it's not played up like Boston or Big Sur. There is a homespun or craftiness about the whole operation. And heart: there is so much heart poured into this race by this tiny island community. You feel as if the whole island has come out in support of this race--not just on the course but from the hotels to the restaurants to the stores, every person and entity feels involved in the race. Heck, the restaurant where we had dinner after the Marathon was giving race participants $2 pints.

All this, combined with the fact that I felt undertrained MDI has become the first race I have ever put on my "must run again" list. Oh, and this video helped too.

Speaking of training: I will probably not be doing the FIRST program again soon. It was the easiest program to stick to because there is lots of flexibility, minimal running, and lots of cross training. But on race day I knew I was only just ready enough so that I wouldn't fall apart--and not enough to do anything beyond that. I know for the future when I'm training for a race that I'm looking to take a little easier that I can revisit this training plan.

Something that I didn't play up that much in the race report was the psychological component. For the whole day prior every time I would worry about preparing for the race I would remember that I had my little schedule typed up already and that I had made sure to capture everythign I needed to do in that list. It was a little thing, but it destressed me so much--mostly because I didn't think all day "oh, I have to remember such and such on race morning, I'm goign to have to make a note to remember it." Those little notes pile up pretty quickly.

Also, whenever I would worry about the course or the hills or the weather I would repeat to myself my little "powerful beyond measure" mantra. And it worked. It simultaneously calmed me down and reaffirmed my faith in my running.

During the race I did the same thing: everytime there was a tough hill or particularly labored breathing or endless thoughts about wanting to give up, I repeated "powerful beyond measure" to myself and that got me through it in a very positive way. And that led to a very happy experience overall--so much so that even missing a PR by 8 minutes didn't phase me.

Running at the end of the world, part IV

2011-12-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

My northernmost race, continued

Somewhere just after the halfway point of the race my iPod died. I quickly realized that despite plugging Rene Argent (the latest to join my iPod collection) into the laptop I forgot to leave the laptop open so that it would actually charge. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen on the course, but it certainly didn’t help.

About this same time I met Amy. Amy is the woman I’m covering in this picture (which is from a little later in the race), I'm the one in the gray top (ahem, IN THE FRONT of the pack):

Amy was being extremely friendly with everyone on the course. Just after Mile 13 we started tracking each other and chatted a little bit. She was full of energy, and I, well, I never know what to talk about during a race (see The Flying Pig Marathon). So the conversation trailed off, but not before we passed by Amy’s cheering squad, which consisted of her husband and one year old son holding a big signing cheering her on. (This figures into the story later.)

By Mile 15 I was out in front of Amy and the pack of three guys in orange shirts. At this point the course turns out of the woods and the road is suddenly on the edge of a cliff looking straight north into Somes Sound. Surrounded by hills, this fjord (the only one in the US) was my second favorite view on the course, and it’s the view where the race gets its lone tree logo from:

The next five miles were pretty uneventful accept for two things. First, Amy’s cheer squad kept on appearing along the course and cheering loudly when they saw her (and apparently she was always right on my heels). Second, in the awkward turn off the high way during mile 18, I was running behind a woman who was in awesome shape—we’ll call her “hot woman.” Apparently I wasn’t the only one who noticed. While I was about to pass hot woman another woman, a spectator who was cheering people on from the sides, calls out hot woman and says “Damn! Look at that! Those abs are tight! That’s what hard works gets you! You rock that hot body girl!” That blew away any “looking good” or “nice work” I was going to throw her way so I just said as I passed her “that’s definitely not what you were excepting to get today, especially from what appears to be a straight woman.” Perhaps it was funnier at the time.

Mile 20 marked the last turn and last leg of the race: it was a 6.2 mile shot south to Southwest Harbor. And here is where things started to get sticky—I guess that’s not a surprise.

I looked at my watch on left wrist. I could roughly calculate my finishing time and knew I’d be in the 3:50 range if I didn’t fall apart. However, in my right hand was my water bottle and it was almost empty. Somehow, despite drinking at every single water stop I went through my entire water bottle. And I was still thirsty. I’d never run out of water before, but I did run Portland without a water bottle—and I ended up walking twice during the last mile of that race. So I started to formulate a plan.

The problem with this last segment of the race was that it was so long. So I kept telling myself “only six little miles to go.” “Only five teeny, tiny miles left.” “Only 4.5 itty-bitty microscopic miles to go.” The closer I got to the finish the smaller the miles go. By the last mile I had convinced myself it was length of an electron.

Of course, nothing was farther from the truth. Not only where they regular size miles, they were also the longest and highest incline of the whole race. Whatever I had left was being spent left and right. I swear I was running, but it felt like I was crawling. During this sluggish run I saw team Amy for the fifth or sixth time and by this point I was calling out “team Amy” every time I passed them, but this time Amy’s husband shouted back “now we’re also team Steven” (he had read my name from my bib). That felt awesome—as did the two or three following times I saw him on the course.

As forecasted, by mile 24 I was completely out of water. So I walked through the water station and asked the volunteers to fill me up. Thirty seconds later I was off “running” again—and according to data from Garmin I actually did pick up the pace a bit.

The first sign of the end of the race was the “Top of the Hill” restaurant; pretty obviously named for being at the top of a hill and doubling as the marker for Mile 25 and the start mile long descent to the finish line.

I tried to pick up speed but my legs we extremely fried from all the hills. Moreover, there was a lot of traffic on the street (not closed) going in and out of Southwest Harbor, so we were running on the shoulder or the sidewalk (when there was one) for the entire final mile. That meant passing was super difficult and you were constantly afraid of bumping into someone or falling into traffic. This was my only complaint about the race, because if any part of the course needs space, it’s the last mile.

Of course, this is all in retrospect. During the race my chief thought was “where the hell is the finish line?” Then, very suddenly, the traffic was diverted away and we moved onto the street just in time for the finish to come into my crosshairs. Without even thinking I raised my arms and pretended to fly, zigzagging across the street for a few weightless seconds. All the weight and hurt and worry of the previous miles feel off my shoulders and I started to sprint. My pace dropped like a rock from 9:43 to 9:28 to 7:18 to 6:54 to 6:39 to lift off:

Note: all of these wonderful pictures were taken by (and are linked back to) Kevin Morris who does some really excellent running photography.

Running at the end of the world, part III

2011-12-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

My northernmost race

For reference, here is a course map:

Heading out from Bar Harbor was wonderful. Although this was a small race (just under 1000 runners) there was a great crowd of loud and enthusiastic spectators right at the start. But within the first half mile we were already out of town passing fields and starting the first climb of the race.

I knew the first major challenge of the race came right up front at the three mile marker, which was the second highest point on the course. Since it was so early I felt extremely fresh and I had to fight with myself to keep the speed in check. I knew the hills at the beginning wouldn’t seem hard, heck they were down right enjoyable, but that would fade pretty quickly with the oncoming miles.

The first three miles clocked in pretty much at a 9:00 pace on the dot. No where near the 8:24 I was training for, but it looked like everyone else was taking it easy too since there was very little passing going on.

Knowing that first major obstacle was behind me and given the easier hills I started to pick up the pace and got decent splits (for me) for miles four, five, and six. I played a little back and forth with a guy in a red t-shirt. I had to assume he was a rookie Marathoner. He was wearing a cotton shirt and I think he was wearing basketball shorts of some kind. He would also gun it to pass me and then slow down. Eventually I passed him completely and never saw him again.

Hands down miles six and seven were the most scenic on the course—and probably the flattest. Right after the mile six marker we turned off the highway to a small road that plunged into a thick forest. The road snaked through the trees, with only fleeting signs of civilization (a dirt road, a fence in the distance). Suddenly, between the golden leaves floating on the crisp, cool breeze the forest thinned away. Off the edge of the cliff you saw the jagged and geometric rocks descend down, down into the cobalt blue water laced with foam. Rock formations jutted out of the water just off the coast, in defiance of the waves beating down on them rolling in from the endless Atlantic.

Ok. I may have heavy handed that. I’ll just take the points on my poetic license and move on.

The next several miles I was in a comfortable groove. The hills kept on coming as the course hugged the coast and then plunged into the woods and back. I was starting to feel the strain and was very happy that I had decided to take it easier than I had trained. For the most part, whenever I turned the corner and saw yet another hill I repeated to myself “powerful beyond belief,” which is my abbreviated version of Marianne Williamson’s words. The hearty crowds (and flatish mile) at Northeast Harbor were great motivation at the close of the first half of the race.

Running at the end of the world, part II

2011-12-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

Preparing for lift off

I woke up right on schedule at 5 something, my watchalarm going off first and then I turned off the phone alarm before it went offtwo minutes later (yeah, total runner’s OCD here). It was a perfect chilly and cloudy New Englandmorning, a day ideal for racing. My prepschedule came in handy as I mindlessly moved down the list in my halfawakeness, half anxiousness:

Wow, could I fake it more for the camera?

We were so on time that we parked and were at the stagingarea with just over an hour to spare. Getting to a race start early is actually something that has taken me along time to learn. It gives you time toproperly warm up without stress, you can “settle” your stomach (and my stomachalways needs “settling” right before a race start), you get the good parking spaces, and you justworry less. We were able to grab coffeefor Wifey and I was able to get a few warm up jogs around the town square withBenny--it was his first time running and it looked like this:

Er, it was less blurry in real life. Here’s a better shot after the warm up:

A few stretches and kisses later, the race took off:

Running at the end of the world, part I

2011-12-07T23:16:00.001-05:00

Getting there is half the fun

One thing I quickly picked up on after signing up forthis race is that no one knows where Mount Desert Island (MDI) is. So to set the stage here is a map of theroute from Astoria to Bar Harbor:

According to Google Maps it is a trip of eight hours and54 minutes. This trip involves fivedifferent states. Effectively, we wouldcross all of New England…and then take a rural highway for two hours to reachthis island off the coast of Maine. Byall measures, MDI is at the end of the world.

The long trip was made longer by the non-stop New Englandrain/drizzle/mist that plagued us all the way to MDI. And to make it particularly New Englandy wegot hit with fog on the coastal highway from I-95 to MDI. This was no ordinary fog—this was stuffstraight out of a Stephen King novel. Icould only see about ten feet in front of me and could have easily hit a car ortree. Yikes. Like I need to do that again.

We eventually rolled into the hotel at about 11p (we hadleft New York at 10a). And I wasextremely happy to be finally off the road.

The next morning we had breakfast and visited the expo. For those of you who plan to run this raceyou should know that this is a race that is decidedly small and notflashy. Compared to the uber-galacticexpos for races like the NYCM or the Flying Pig, this was intentionally meantto feel like a mom-and-pop affair. Kindaas if it were a race organized by a bunch of old school,I-don’t-care-what-the-weather-is, let’s-prepare-14-pages-of-final-race-instructions,hardy New England runners—which in fact it was. And I was just about to find out hardy these runners were.

The other thing I quickly learned about MDI is that it israther inhospitable place for a Marathon. Coastal Maine in October can be rainy, windy, sunny, overcast, evensnowy—or a combination there of. Andsince it’s open to the Atlantic the weather is hard to predict. In addition the terrain is mountainous—nothilly: there are a handful of actual mountains on the island.

Post expo we drove the course, because despite themultiple warnings I refused to believe how hilly the course was until I saw itmyself. To be the honest the firstcouple of miles weren’t as bad as the elevation map would lead you tobelieve. I was thinking to myself “thisisn’t THAT bad:” some rather extreme rollers, but nothing I couldn’t easilytackle. But around the fifteen mile markI realized it wasn’t that there were particularly hard climbs or steepdeclines, but that the terrain never flattened. Ever. The course was basically going up or down the whole time.

After driving the course I gave up on making anythinglike a PR. For this training cycle I didthe FIRST program. Overall it was a goodexperience because I did feel ready to run a Marathon and all the forced crosstraining let me change things up to stay interested. However, there was basically no hill trainingin the program and consequently I wasn’t prepared at all for the onslaughtabout to happen.

We had an Italian feast that evening and I was tuckedaway in bed by 10p. In a fit of runner’sOCD I had scheduled out the 12 hours before race time: I went as far as todetail minute by minute what I had to do the night before and morning of therace. This helped tremendously becausefor the first time ever I knew exactly what I had to do and didn’t go to sleepworried that I had forgotten something.

Mainely music

2011-10-29T14:25:00.000-05:00

Back from the Mount Desert Island Marathon and vacation and needed to get through a weedy week at work before even thinking about blogging. Gosh it's rough to get back into this.

Per usual as part of race write ups around here I'm including my playlist from the race. (And a heavily notated playlist at that.) I actually heard very little of this playlist during the race because my iPod ran out of charge after listening to it off-and-on for half the race. So I really don't know how cohesive this playlist is.

Hey There Delilah; Plain White T’s
Hometown Glory; ADELE
Burial; Miike Snow (I’m a late comer to Miike Snow, but Ifind this whole album perfect for running)
Pumped Up Kicks; Foster the People (musical crush of themoment)
The Mystery Zone; Spoon
But, Honestly; Foo Fighters (Foo Fighters make a large showingon this playlist, I’ve started to listen to them a lot during runs)
One Last Time; The Kooks
Katherine Kiss Me; Franz Ferdinand
Ready to Start; Arcade Fire
Rumour Has It; ADELE
Cult Logic; Miike Snow
Helena Beat; Foster the People
Thunder On the Mountain; Wanda Jackson (I want to loveWanda Jackson, but for some reason I just end up liking her)
Soulchaser (US Mix); Caesars (I love running to this songfor one reason: there is a phrase that goes “you’ve gone way too far by now toturn around, running fast and you’re running blind, but the past is alwaysclose behind, a million leaves are falling to the ground” and it always makesme think of running to the finish line of the NYCM in Central Park)
You Make My Dreams; Daryl Hall & John Oates
Silvia; Miike Snow (this song is to intoxicating! Once I hear it I can’t get it out of my headfor the rest of the day)
Life On the Nickel; Foster the People
Volare; Gipsy King (I was apprehensive about includingthis song, but it’s such a change of musical pace that it’s actually refreshingduring a race)
Show Me What I’m Looking for; Carolina Liar (I lovegetting lost in the bells and lyrics of this song while running)
Daylight; Matt & Kim (this song makes me so happythat I can barely stand it)
Light of the Morning; Band of Skulls (thank you Mustangcommercial for turning me onto this song, Band of Skulls has such an old schoolsound that I have a hard time believing they weren’t plucked straight out ofthe 70s)
Better Off; Foo Fighters
Howlin’ for You (feat. Prins Thomas Diskomiks); The BlackKeys
Not New In N.Y.; The Fashion
That’s Not My Name; The Ting Tings
I Should Have Known; Foo Fighters
Roxanne; The Police
Sweet Disposition; The Temper Trap (I got turned ontothis song from a friend’s wedding video/a Diet Pepsi commercial, I can’tunderstand a single word, but it fills me with hope anyway)
Long Heels Red Bottoms; Trina (this song is ridiculous,but it’s like junk food for my ears)
Rope (Deadmau5 Mix); Foo Fighters (a really, really goodremix of a really, really good song)
Boys and Girls; The Fashion
Tighten Up; The Black Keys (I have one problem with theBlack Keys and that is that their songs all sound the same, awesome consistency,but I can never convince myself to have more than two of their songs in oneplaylist because it feels like I’m just adding the same song)
Come On Eileen (Single Edit); Dexy’s Midnight Runners(who doesn’t love this song?)
Miss the Misery; Foo Fighters
Teenage Beats; The Fashion
I Know What I Am; Band of Skulls
Home; Edward Sharpe& The Magnetic Zeros
I’m Not Over; Carolina Liar (a great song for late in therace)
Wake Up; Arcade Fire (this is a great hook to sing alongto, and sing-a-longability is a key measure for running music)
Love Today; Mika (a musical burst of energy)
Cosmic Love; Florence + The Machine (this song is a bit overthe top, but there is something so primal about the drums and Florence’ssinging, I get this great image of a high priestess invoking the elements,gods, stars, and planets to do her bidding)
Long Road to Ruin; Foo Fighters
Soul; Paper Tongues
Sins of My Youth; Neon Trees
Beat It (feat. John Mayer); Fall Out Boy (an awesome coverof an already great song)
Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running); Foo Fighters
Any Way You Want It; Journey
I Gotta Feeling; Black Eyed Peas (cliché, I know, but itworks)
Animal; Neon Trees
Bridge Burning; Foo Fighters
Month of May; Arcade Fire
Reptilla; The Strokes
Don’t Stop Believin’; Journey (funny thing about me andthis song: I always think it’s bigger than it actually is. The notes aren’t actually as high as I thinkthey are, the music isn’t as frilly/complicated as I remember them. I think the subsequent covers of this songhave built this impression.)
Dog Days Are Over; Florence + The Machine (there is somethingvery, very addictive about this song, and during training I found out that itworked really well at the end of a run)
The Pretender; Foo Fighters (ok, there is a lot of FooFighters on here, but this song is so great, it is one of my all timefavorites)
Let’s Dance to Joy Division; The Wombats (this wasincluded more out of tradition than anything else)

Oh hey

2011-09-20T20:29:00.002-05:00

So you might be wondering where I've gone. It's been way over a month since my last post, but I haven't fallen off the face of the earth: I just finally ran out of time for this blog. And what happened that sucked up all my free time? This guy happened:

After YEARS of wanting to have a dog we finally adopted one. We both had a random Summer Friday in mid-July and decided that day we were going to the shelter to check out what dogs they have. We couldn't bring ourselves to buy a dog because we couldn't justify spending so much just to buy a dog when there are millions in shelters that need homes.

We went to Animal Haven, which is a private no-kill shelter in Soho that one of Wifey's co-workers volunteers at often. After seeing one or two other puppies we saw this little eight pound heap of furry love. He had been dropped off that morning and hadn't been in the shelter for more than a few hours. We brought him home that day and quickly named him Benny. It's been a lovefest ever since.

Now we are "dog people" doing the morning and evening walks, always with a plastic bag or treat at the ready, paying way too much for things like puppy kindergarten and dog sitters (yes, we've done both so far). I have no idea what this means for the future of See sRod Run. While I won't have time to sit at a computer at home, I might find another way to post periodically. Just rest assured that I am still running--and running strong at that--although now it is with a little marshmallow nipping at my heels.

Runner Bingo, round two

2011-07-20T21:43:00.002-05:00

So this game is going fast than I thought. Over the past two runs I filled five more boxes on the grid:

Barefoot runner (spotted 7/19, Astoria track): there were actually two of them at the track yesterday, which I think marks the tipping point for barefoot running in Astoria
Getting "chicked" (spotted 7/19, Astoria track): so I've found that there are several running groups/clubs that are based on the track. The most annoying of them is a group that runs 400m repeats and decides to in the inner 3-4 lanes at the last turn of the track--i.e., the worst thing possible for anyone trying to do repeats. I hate them for this...and for one of their runners chicking me yesterday.
Shirt from a race I've run (spotted 7/16, Central Park): I spotted a t-shirt from the Healthy Kidney 10K right after entering the Central Park, and it looked like it was even the same year I ran the race
Running after a race (spotted 7/16, Queensboro Bridge): there were actually a few overzealous runners who were running over the Queensboro Bridge with their race bibs still on from an event in Central Park
D-Tag on shoe (not during race) (spotted 7/16, Central Park): I really don't understand people who do this, just cut it off, it's pretty hard to forget about the bright orange things popped up from your shoe

B	I	N	G	O
Double running stroller	Barefoot runner	Getting “chicked”	Headband	Slow running group, 3+ abreast
Running in the bike lane	Article of 80’s running gear	Shirt from a race I’ve run	Batman belt	Power walker
Wristband	Overdressed for the weather	FREE	Getting “geriatricked”	Running against traffic on track
Running after a race	Cyclist on running path	Long socks with shorts	Inappropriate foot wear	D-Tag on shoe (not during a race)
Non-iPod music device	Overly coordinated running outfit	Camel Pack	Bandana on head	Runner with multiple dogs

Runner Bingo, round one

2011-07-12T22:16:00.001-05:00

Two and a half weeks into training to the MDI Marathon and I've already marked off five squares from my Runner Bingo card!

Headband (spotted 7/12, at Astoria track): this black-haired dude was rocking out to whatever he was listening to on his headphones...headphones that were over a black headband that I didn't notice until the second time I passed the guy.
Slow running group, 3+ abreast (various sightings while at track): while I love having runners of all capabilities at the track they all seem to neglect some basic rules, such as slow runners and walk go in the outside lanes and that you should never be more than two abreast. Now that I've been running the afternoons, I only see more an more infractions of these basic rules.
Running in the bike lane (spotted 7/10 at Key Biscayne): I'll count this one, although technically I didn't spot it...I did it. I was visiting family in Miami and I went with my aunt to Key Biscayne: she for her 20+ mile bike ride, me for my 12 mile long run. Although she's done this ride a million times, she didn't give me the heads up that the running path eventually ends and I would have to run in the bike lane on the shoulder of the road.
Overdressed for the weather (spotted 7/12 at Astoria track): the high today was 95ish. This gentleman thought that by 8p it had cooled down enough that he could wear his windbreaker zipped all the way up. No, sir. No.
Long shorts with shorts (spotted 7/5 at Astoria track): The first day of playing Runner Bingo I had this sighting. I was stretching after my track workout and noticed one guy passing by in the long sock/shorts combo. He looked about as funny as you would think he did.

B	I	N	G	O
Double running stroller	Barefoot runner	Getting “chicked”	Headband	Slow running group, 3+ abreast
Running in the bike lane	Article of 80’s running gear	Shirt from a race I’ve run	Batman belt	Power walker
Wristband	Overdressed for the weather	FREE	Getting “geriatricked”	Running against traffic on track
Running after a race	Cyclist on running path	Long socks with shorts	Inappropriate foot wear	D-Tag on shoe (not during a race)
Non-iPod music device	Overly coordinated running outfit	Camel Pack	Bandana on head	Runner with multiple dogs

Awesome idea

2011-06-30T22:24:00.000-05:00

Every now and then I get a flash of genius while running. Tuesday was one of those days. Out of the blue I got the idea to create: Runner Bingo!

I've created the game card below for my game. In the card I've put in things that I'm somewhat likely to see on a run at some point, but nothing so common that I'd fill up the card during a Tuesday morning track session. The game starts on Saturday and I'll be playing until I fill up the card at which point I'll reward myself with some running related goody (new shorts? new shoes? new hat? who knows?!?).

My goal is to post an update every time I see one of these things while running--and therefore stamp it with my Bingo marker.

B	I	N	G	O
Double running stroller	Barefoot runner	Getting “chicked”	Headband	Slow running group, 3+ abreast
Running in the bike lane	Article of 80’s running gear	Shirt from a race I’ve run	Batman belt	Power walker
Wristband	Overdressed for the weather	FREE	Getting “geriatricked”	Running against traffic on track
Running after a race	Cyclist on running path	Long socks with shorts	Inappropriate foot wear	D-Tag on shoe (not during a race)
Non-iPod music device	Overly coordinated running outfit	Camel Pack	Bandana on head	Runner with multiple dogs

And we're off

2011-06-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked the start of Training for my next Marathon: the Mount Desert Island Marathon. The race is in Acadia National Park in Maine and is known as the Big Sur of the east for the amazing scenic run along the coast. It will be my seventh Marathon, 17th state, and 23rd running event. It also looks like it will be the hilliest race I've ever run. It has the potential to be the coldest race I've ever run. And will be the easternmost race I will ever run.

Along with all of these firsts I am also hoping to PR at this race. Although it will be a though one, it is entirely possible given my performances at my recent races: a PR in Austin (so I have speed) followed by a fail in Fredericksburg (got me pissed off so that now I feel I have something to prove).

The first running workout (today, 3x1600m) fell short of goal: I was supposed to run at a 6:30 pace and I could only get 7:00. But I've run 6:30s in the past and know that if I keep at it I will make it down to 6:30. I'm really trying to focus this time around--and above all not get bored.

Here's to the next 26.2.

2011-06-20T21:04:00.000-05:00

To say I've been uninspired to post is on understatement. I have flat out forgotten that I even have a blog. And the fact that it's taken me almost a month to do a playlist post--the easiest of the pre-formatted posts that I do --is just, well, embarrassing.

Although coming back to Blogger after a month or so hiatus, I have to say: the interface is crappy. I see why people start in Blogger and then migrate away.

Anywho, on with the music.

This playlist sucked. When I finished putting it together the result felt uninspired. I thought it would grow on me, they I just needed to warm up to this collection of music. Nope, never happened. Even listening to it afterward I don't really click with the selection of songs, and the majority of the playlist is made up of songs from other playlists. Oh well--I guess they can't all be winners.

Jacqueline; Franz Ferdinand
Howlin' for You; The Black Keys
Rumour Has It; ADELE
La Mexicana; Bacilos
Young Blood; The Naked and Famous
Let's Go Dancing; The Fashion
Bamboleo; Gipsy Kings
Ready to Start; Arcade Fire
Hanging On; Valley Lodge
Feel Like Taking You Home; Brendan Benson
I Really Want You; Plain White T's
Sins of My Youth; Neon Trees
All of My Loving; Valley Lodge
Great DJ; The Ting Tings
I'm Not Over; Carolina Liar
Home; Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Empty Room; Arcade Fire
Any Way You Want It; Journey
Poised and Ready; Brendan Benson
Not New In N.Y.; The Fashion
Animal; Neon Trees
Come On Eileen; Dexy's Midnight Runners
A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Edit Remix); Elvis Presley
Month of May; Arcade Fire
Shout; The Isley Brothers
Assassin; Muse
I Gotta Feeling; Black Eyed Peas
Percussion Gun; White Rabbits
The Pretender; Foo Fighters
Let's Dance to Joy Division; The Wombats
Move Along; The All-American Rejects

Race report: Marine Corp Historic Half

2011-05-27T08:19:00.001-05:00

I’ll be honest: I’ve delayed this post a couple weeks because I am not proud of my performance at this race. Folks, I did bad. Especially for having just run a PR by seven minutes at my previous Half-Marathon, I did real bad.

Splits:

Mile 1: 8:16

Mile 2: 7:36

Mile 3: 8:00

Mile 4: 7:44

Mile 5: 8:21

Mile 6: 8:31

Mile 7: 8:24

Mile 8: 8:26

Mile 9: 8:33

Mile 10: 8:29

Mile 11: 11:07

Mile 12: 9:02

Mile 13.1: 9:16 (8:13 pace)

Final Stats:

Distance: 13.1

Net Time: 1:53:35

Watch Time: 1:51:45 (no potty break)

Pace: 8:40

Overall Place: 963/5697 (top 17%)

Gender Place: 774/2942 (top 26%)

Age Place: 110/335 (top 33%)

The Story:

The days leading up to this race I noticed that I just wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t excited for the race. I couldn’t meet the paces on the training plan. I wasn’t in any kind of groove. I couldn’t really explain it. I would wake up in the morning and just wanted to go back to sleep and I could barely fight back and pull myself out of bed.

My suspicions are threefold:

1. I planned on running at a pace that was faster than my abilities. So I was always tired and just couldn’t keep up with the training paces. I’ve considered that I might have been overtraining, but I feel like I didn’t train enough to be overtrained. I’ve run more in preparation for other races and have done just fine.

2. This wasn’t the race I wanted to run in Virginia. At some point I had told myself that I was going to run the Richmond Marathon as my Virginia race and got excited about that prospect, but then Fredericksburg came up and I did that. I guess there is something significant to be said about the anxiousness that leads up to a race and your performance on race day.

3. There were some major hurdles during training. I had lots of travel (including a trip to Hong Kong) and lots of work—making it difficult to pay attention to my running.

So Wifey and I showed up in Fredericksburg and I was feeling iffy about the race. I had already resigned that I was not going to make the 7:15 pace I had wanted—I could barely hold that for three miles on the treadmill, much less for 13 miles outside.

The other bomb thrown my way was the day before the race we signed up for a walking tour of Fredericksburg. Turns out it was over three hours and six miles. Exactly what you should not do the day before a race, right? However, I thought I was good to go come race eve after a hardy pasta dinner.

Race morning went off without a hitch: ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches washed down by Gatorade. The drive to the starting area was less than 10 minutes. And, for the first time ever, there were enough port-o-potties for the amount of people. I’m still in a bit of shock about this one, but I realized that this event was staged like an event several times larger than it actually was—probably since these are the same people that put on the Marine Corps DC Marathon and they pour in the same amount of resources (although this only highlighted the disparity between my low level of excitement and the high level being pumped into the atmosphere).

I went for a warm up jog and ate half an apple before going into the starting corrals. Well, what I thought was the starting corral—the staging area was really large for an event this size. Eventually I wiggled my way into the correct area, but it was jammed with people, so I was stuck where I was (a good 25 meters behind the marker for the 1:40-1:35 finish group).

The starting musket was fired (I’m pretty sure it was a musket, they got all historical during the pre-race announcements) and the crowd surged forward.

Before the first mile marker I had already looked at my watch with the thought “ok, how long until this is over?” That was a bad sign. And despite getting down to goal pace in mile two, that was all the result of a long downhill stretch—when the course turned flat I was struggling to get under 8:00 minute miles. And somewhere around Mile 5 I just gave up on pushing myself to any specific time goal—it just wasn’t in me that day.

This was all a horrible shame because this was such a well put together race and the town came out in full force to support the runners. But worst of all, instead of hiring police officers to marshal the race, they used Marines, meaning that on every corner, at each intersection there was an active Marine in fatigues watching over us. Let me just say I’ve never felt worse walking during a race as when I had to walk in front of Marines.

I finally gave into the demons in my head during Mile 8. I saw a port-o-potty and just ducked in. I had the need to go, but it wasn’t that bad of a need, nothing I haven’t convinced myself to run through in the past. After about 90 seconds I bolted out, faintly hoping that the pit stop was what I need to fix the funk I was in.

Then there was the set of hills in the back of the race. If I wasn’t doing bad before, the 200ft climb that was all of Mile 10 wreaked me. Apparently in town it’s known as hospital hill (because of the hospital on this hill) and it is a beast. As the splits above show, that stretch leading up to marker 11 involved a lot of walking.

The good news was that after that crest I ran the rest of the course without stopping, charging up a second uphill second and picking up speed as the finish line approached. I had enough fuel and emotional drive to charge the last 800m—although I may have been pushing a little too hard because I was going to faint before I finally crossed the finish line.

In looking at my stats, this was not a good race for me. I did better when I ran the National Half-Marathon and I was a wreak for that race, having gotten into a car accident the day before and only getting four hours of sleep before the race. But then I looked at my finishing percentages (i.e., I finished in the top X% of finishers) and this is actually my second best Half-Marathon—I’ve only done better at my PR race in Austin back in January. And—mind-boggling as it is—it was the best I’ve ever placed in my age group for a long distance race (Half or Full Marathon). WTF? I’ll have to guess that everyone else found the course as bad as I did.

Updates of a sorted variety

2011-04-30T07:52:00.000-05:00

I am currently suffering from too many thoughts for posts and not enough time to post them. So I will resort to the bulleted list:

I've been thinking about switching over to tumblr.com. I've known about them for years but didn't really see any advantage until Wifey started using it. Of course that would require time and dedicated effort (neither of which I really have right now).
I have a Twitter handle: what _runnery. But don't get excited, I've had it for about a month and just posted my first tweet today, a tweet that has nothing to do with running.
Might adopt a dog today--there are a couple adoption events in the city today and we're visiting two of them.
I donated blood on Wednesday. Unexpected side effect to giving blood: running becomes really hard! It's bad enough that I'm pushing myself hard for this training cycle, but now I'm fatiguing like no one's business.
Summer is so freaking close...meaning that it's almost BBQ season! I can't wait! Not only will the sRod household BBQ be firing up weekly(ish) but we've already purchased VIP passes to the Big Apple BBQ Block Party.
I'm eyeing up the Mount Desert Island Marathon in Maine for October. Registration is filling up fast so I might be registering in the week or so.
The Historic Half is 2.5 weeks away and I'm...not prepared. I've been trying to run faster, but I think I found my ceiling. It doesn't help that I've been traveling like crazy during training (Miami, Philadelphia, and Hong Kong, just in the past six weeks). It's also allergy season now, so my sinuses are about as useful as a cement-filled drain pipe. The blood donation above doesn't help the situation. This race will be interesting indeed.

Fast boat to China

2011-04-12T20:49:00.001-05:00

I got back from my Hong Kong work trip on Saturday night. What a wild week that was. It's 16-hours straight from JFK to Hong Kong plus a 12 hour time difference. Coming from New York, it's a pretty awesome city: a lot like San Francisco, except there is an Hermes or Cartier store on every corner (seriously, Hong Kong has Hermes stores like New York has J. Crews, it's insane). We ate a lot of Chinese food--Beijing, Shanghai, Canton cusines--but I was very impressed by the diversity of international cuisine, there was even a Cuban place: my people have made it to Hong Kong! The meetings were very intense, but productive.

Despite being way off my time and sleep cycle, I did all my runs last week. Since the machine only displayed kilometers, I had to take a little cheat sheet with conversions for distance and pace. Now if I completed the runs or did them as fast as I was supposed to is a different story--but I got on the treadmill four of the five mornings I was there.

When I arrived back on Saturday night I passed out. I slept for 10.5 hours straight. For those who know me that is close to impossible. I think the last time I slept that much was one time I was sick in middle school. And this is the first time ever that Wifey has woken up before me--first time, ever. It was great--except that it completely blew my plans to run 12 miles that morning.

Finally, an apology to Laura: I'm sorry, but I didn't get pictures of the gym. Every time I remembered to take a picture of the gym for you there were people in the gym. And I didn't want to be the creepy guy taking pictures of sweaty people at the gym. If it's any consolation, the view from the treadmills was kinda like this (notice the cargo ships in the background, they are always coming in or out):

And the clusterF rolls on

2011-04-02T06:58:00.000-05:00

Damn. I had a good streak going with pretty consistent posts. And for once I didn't have a lack of things to write about. I have genuinely not had time for any blog writing since March 15. Life has been a complete clusterF the last half of March. Wifey was out of town for a week and a half for business, then we visited my family in South Florida--where we met our new little niece, Giada (no pictures because we left our camera at home, boo!)! On top of that both of my clients at work have been extremely busy while my team has been snatched away to work on trying to get a new piece of business.

And the best part? It's not over yet. Wifey is in the middle of flying back and forth to meetings across the country. And I--not to be out traveled--am getting ready to go to Hong Kong tomorrow. That's right: Hong mother-effing Kong. I'll be sitting on a air plane for 16 hours (deep vein thrombosis anyone?) and going to the other side of the world for a series of client meetings. And while I'm excited, I really could have done without the super late nights I've put in to get our presentation together (10p here, 1a there). And our poor apartment: it is so unloved and such a mess. We haven't cooked in days, the laundry pile is sky high, and thanks to Wifey's doubled efforts to get a decent tomato crop this year, we have lined every free square inch of the apartment with tomato seedlings--it's a greenhouse in here!

And while I am usually able to stick to my training schedule during the toughest of times, the past few weeks have just wiped their ass with my training plans. The past eight days are just a series of missed and incomplete runs. It looks pathetic on the training plan, but there is no way I can wake up at 530a after having stayed up until 1a working on a presentation.

But the good news is that the worst appears to be behind me--and the hotel in Hong Kong has an excellent gym from what I can tell online. Maybe I'll even be able to do my first ever post from abroad next week!

Kick off for Fredericksburg Historic Half

2011-03-15T20:34:00.000-05:00

It's official: I've signed up for my next race! I'll be running the Marine Corps Historic Half on May 15 and I am already two days into training.

Now, this isn't exactly my first choice for Virginia. I was looking forward to maybe the original rock n roll half at Virginia Beach. Or maybe that darling of the Runner's World editorial staff: the Richmond Marathon. So why this race? My friend who went to grad school in Little Rock (home to the biggest medal in road racing) now lives there. I had promised her while she lived in Little Rock that we would go down there and visit--and run the Little Rock Marathon while I was there. But two Marches came and went and no trip to Little Rock. Now she's back on this side of the Mississippi and I'm not going to go back on my word twice.

Since I set out hard goals for Austin and was able to pretty much meet them, I've set even higher goals for the Historic Half in hopes of pretty much meeting them too. But even knowing that I can run a 1:41 race, I'm still freaked out a little when I look at my training plan and see 1:35 as the goal finish time and a goal race pace of 7:15. Eek. Not too long ago 7:15 was a good mile repeat for me, now I'm going to try holding that pace for 13.1 miles. And any finish time in the 1:30s sounds completely foreign to me. So let's see how this goes.

. that also means I've had to increase all my again, and again put together an equally stepped up plan

If everyone else did it...

2011-03-09T23:23:00.000-05:00

...then yes I would jump off a bridge.

Thia ABCs of Me meme is making it's round around the blogosphere. So I'm throwing in my 26 cents:

Age: 27--although I that really seems a lot older than I feel.

Bed size: Queen

Chore you hate: loading the dishwasher. I'm awesome at everything else (laundry, cooking, cleaning) but I can't seem to bring myself to load the dishwasher or empty it.

Dogs: I love dogs and really, really want one. However, we're trying to do the good thing and adopt one which is really hard when you're constantly traveling and live in a small apartment (and therefore need a small dog). And the paperwork for some of these rescues! It's like applying for a mortgage.

Essential start your day item: a bowl of frosted mini-wheats with a banana

Favorite color: blue, any and all shades

Gold or silver: er, white gold?

Height: as an adult I thought I was 5'11", but my co-workers didn't believe me and measured me at 5'9"--which I don't believe

Instruments: I dabbled in piano for probably six months as a kid...man was that piano teacher crazy. Always wanted to play a string instrument like the violin, but I quickly realized that I don't really have any musical talent

Job title: Strategy Supervisor

Kids: not yet

Live: New York City, specifically in Astoria

Mom's name: Aurea

Nicknames: eh, I've never been a big person for nicknames, but sRod is the only one that has really had traction after childhood

Overnight hospital stay: never, but as a kid I did want to stay a hospital so that I could eat the food. I know that's weird. there was just something about the neat organized tray that I wanted to experience.

Pet peeve: lately it has been bad subway etiquette, but there are plenty of others

Quote from a movie: lately I've been quoting "you don't eat no meat?" a lot

Right or left handed: correct handed

Siblings: one older sister

Time you wake up: if I'm running it's 530, if I'm not then 650, Sat/Sun usually 715

Underwear: often

Vegetable you dislike: cucumbers (yes, I know they are a fruit, but really hate them and they are often served with veggies)

What makes you late: my wife-- :) love you!!!

X-rays you've had done: once when I thought I busted my knee by running too much (turned out my IT band was too tight from never having been stretched)

Yummy food you make: banana cake and basically any form of omelette

Zoo animal favorite: tiger

Say whaaaaaa?

2011-03-05T08:05:00.000-05:00

The BAA just upped the qualifying times for the Marathon and instituted a rolling admissions process giving the advantage to faster runners? Well, I'm f'd. There goes me qualifying for Boston on my own.

Recorded music for the live music capitol of the world

2011-02-27T09:31:00.000-05:00

One of Austin's claims to fame is that it is "The Live Music Capital of the World." I have no idea how they validate that or who even came up with it. I can say that it felt like every bar and restaurant we went to while in Austin was promoting some band/musician/performer that was going to be playing their place in the upcoming week.

However, during the Half-Marathon I would not be able to enjoy this live music, so, per usual, I prepared a playlist of recorded music.

While the process was pretty much the same (spent more time making the playlist than running the race), I did break one long-standing tradition: for the first time in my 6+ years of running I did not start a long-distance race (Marathon or Half) by listening to Tina Turner's "Proud Mary." It was part of the overriding theme to my training for Austin: I had gotten into a running funk so I needed to change up everything. For my first Half-Marathon I like this song because it started off slow and then half-way through turns into a super-funk high energy. It was a nice mix between pacing myself and racing. It was good for then, and it was nice to have the tradition, but it was time to change. (Of course, I changed it to a song that has a very similar structure.)

One last thing before going onto the actual music: while I have never run out of music during a race I have the fear that I will. Despite knowing that I will pause the music several times in order to check my breathing I still pad the playlist by about six minutes. The end result is that I usually only listen to two-thirds of any given playlist during a race.

Jacqueline; Franz Ferdinand (it even looks weird starting the playlist with a song that isn't "Proud Mary," it feels like I skipped the first song)
Garbage Day; Brendan Benson
It’s Not the Fall That Hurts (US Mix); Caesars
Let’s Go Dancing; The Fashion
Supermassive Black Hole; Muse
I’m Not Over; Carolina Liar (odd song to put at the beginning, but it worked to kick up the pace)
Don’t Stop Believin’; Journey (don't judge, I'm a sucker for catchiness)
All of My Loving; Valley Lodge (piece of sRod trivia: this is the only band or artist in my music collection that I actually know in person--the drummer is one of my vendors)
Soulchaser (US Mix); Caesars
Long Road to Ruin; Foo Fighters
Renegade; Styx
That Girl; Plain White T’s
Kids; MGMT
Sins of My Youth; Neon Trees
Sea Lion Woman; Feist
A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Edit Remix); Elvis Presley
Love Today; Mika
That’s Not My Name; The Ting Tings
Not New In N.Y.; The Fashion
1983; Neon Trees
Feel Like Taking You Home; Brendan Benson
Wake Up; Arcade Fire (Or as everyone called them after the Grammys: “Arcade Who?”)
Home; Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Shout; The Isley Brothers (yeah, it’s cliché and I try to avoid clichés [please ignore "Don't Stop Believin'" above], but I put it on here anyway—oddly enough, I never ended up hearing it during the race)
Poised and Ready; Brendan Benson
Percussion Gun; White Rabbits (awesome song for late in the race)
The Pretender; Foo Fighters
Let’s Dance to Joy Division; The Wombats
Move Along; The All-American Rejects (although I changed my starting song, the finishing set of songs didn’t really change that much)

The two people that live inside me

2011-02-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I like to get all philosophical and deep about running. How I use it as a metaphor for life, how I deal with it psychologically. I've probably tried to write this post 50 times over the past couple years, but something clicked this morning after reading this post over The Laminator's blog and it all just came together.
________________________________________

As a runner, there are two people that live inside of me: the fat kid and the fast runner.

The fat kid is a hydra: a multi-headed beast that is some ancient relic of my childhood. Every time I think I've defeated him he reemerges, stronger for the defeat. I hate the fat kid for two exact reasons: 1) his omnipresence and 2) his power to belittle. Even acknowledging him here feels awkward, almost shameful. Like I don't have the right to recognize having been fat as a kid and teenager. The memory hurts. And the repercussions that I have seen unfold from an obese childhood reinforce the hurt.

The fat kid is the one who says at the start of a run: "this is all a bad idea, let's wait until tomorrow to do it."

The fast runner wakes me up at 525a, five minutes before the alarm for the gym is supposed to go off even on days that I'm not going running. The fast runner wants to qualify for Boston, run a sub-1:30 Half-Marathon, run seven days a week, crank the treadmill up to 12.0 just to make people at the gym stare. The fast runner is the one who gets off on passing slower runners. The fast runner loves to be active and sweating and prove himself.

The fast runner is the one who says after a run: "I just did that and I think next time I can do it even better."

The fat kid, I know, I will never outrun. He weighs me down. He points out flaws in the mirror. He is self-aware and insecure. He wants nothing good for me. He is content being a sloth and watching life from a non-participatory vantage. My relationship with him is marked by shortcomings.

The fast runner, I know, I will never outrun. He is always pacing a bit faster than I am. He never slouches. His confidence is unshakable. He likes to buy things that make me look good. He loves the spotlight and at the same time he is my biggest cheerleader and will never, ever, lose faith in my ability to conquer anything.

Every run these two people check each other. One wants to take it easy. The other wants to go balls out. It is a careful negotiation between the two, who gives, who takes.

During races they become caricatures. The fat kid gets desperate, screams for an end, wants to find the finish line, be coddled, just to make it all stop and be safe. Conversely, the fast runner is in his element, sticks out his chest, soars in with an infallible confidence; all things are under his control.

I would ultimately, one day, like to swash the fat kid. Eradicate him from existence. But I know he is a part of me forever. I can't just forget where I have progressed from. You cannot realize all the great mountains you have climbed if you forget the valley you started in. It is necessary to have the fat kid villain to victory over, just like it is necessary to have the fast runner to be the hero. You need a hero to push you, to build goals toward. Accomplishing those goals feeds ambitions and the creation of higher goals. Knowing that, it would be impossible to fulfill everyone of my running, and life, desires. But that said, I would still ultimately, one day, like to be the fast runner.

Gym Carnie-vale

2011-02-10T21:39:00.000-05:00

I heart my new gym. I really do.

It's a ten minute walk from home, it has lots of space (a big deal in NY!), there always a treadmill open that isn't adjacent to someone already on a treadmill, it has a great range of machines, there is a huge stretching area, and it's about $30 less then I was paying at my old gym (and that's including the couple discount we had). But the one thing I love most is that it is full with gym carnies.

I've been going to this gym now for less than three month, but geez, I had no idea--if I had, I would have signed up sooner. A morning doesn't go by that I don't laugh to myself at the cast of characters that parade through the place. I can't wait to share them all.

Speeding in Austin

2011-02-06T08:22:00.001-05:00

In an uncharacteristic move I’m going to do the big reveal up front: I finished in 1:41:47!! That’s a 7:44 pace and happens to be a new Half-Marathon PR by almost seven minutes! Other milestones for this race:

· First long distance race (i.e., Half for full Marathon) that I’ve run at sub-8:00 pace

· First time I’ve ever sustained this pace for more than six miles

· First net downhill race (there were still hills mind you)

· First race that I showed up early for

· First race I ran with heart burn

While I missed my goal time by 48 seconds, I will gladly take it. Having run this race so well, having shaven off seven minutes from my PR, and proving that I have a faster runner inside of me—that makes all the effort worth it. To keep things moving, let start with the splits:

Splits

Mile 1: 7:34

Mile 2: 6:43*

Mile 3: 9:20 (registered as 1.21 miles, pace: 7:43)

Mile 4: 7:42

Mile 5: 7:14

Mile 6: 8:10

Mile 7: 8:00

Mile 8: 7:52

Mile 9: 7:48

Mile 10: 7:56

Mile 11: 7:54

Mile 12: 7:28

Mile 13.1: 8:00 (7:14 pace)

Final Stats:

Distance: 13.1

Net Time: 1:41:47

Pace: 7:44

Overall Place: 544/4515 (top 12%)

Gender Place: 408/1915 (top 21%)

Age Place: 60/170 (top 35%)

*It was dark and I’ve kinda gotten out of the habit of wearing Fenny (my Garmin), so I accidentally stopped Fenny at Mile 2 instead of lapping. This number is the difference between Fenny’s time and my chip time and reflects .82 miles that I had my watch turned off.

Story

It’s getting harder and harder to remember what happens out there on the course. I’ll scratch part of it up to not being as excited for Half-Marathons as I used to be, so I’m less attentive on the course. Then this course wasn't scenic or particularly memorable—the real hallmark is the 300 meter net drop. On top of that I was running with a much, much faster group this time around. The 1:40 group is very different from the 1:50 crowd I’m used to. There is little frivolity here: it’s a more hard-core-I’ve-got-pavement-to-kick-I-will-run-you-over atmosphere. As the first time experiencing this it’s a bit frightening.

I ended up getting to the starting line way earlier than usual. This wasn’t the best race in terms of pushing information out to runners—we ended up arriving for a 6:15a start, when the race really started at 6:45a. But it all worked to my advantage. First off, all the stress of getting there were off because there was no traffic and plenty of parking. Second, there were no lines at the port-o-potties: I had my pick of clean, unused plastic out houses.

Over the next 45 minutes, runners arrived by the truckload. Soon enough I was eating an apple (final food/sugar intake) and heading over to the starting corral with Wifey and our friend C. I kissed Wifey goodbye and gave a hug/thanks-for-driving-this-early to C and then wiggled my way halfway between the 1:40 and 1:45 pace groups. While standing there I felt the first few drops of rain—I was in complete denial because rain was not in the forecast and we were in central Texas (it just doesn’t rain here during the winter). I had a flashback to the Portland Marathon that was all rain and then quickly shut that down—no negative thoughts before a race.

The gun fired and the corral swept me away—there was no false start or casual walk to the start line, these Texans go immediately from zero to run.

The first couple of miles were a negotiation. I didn’t want to go out too fast, but I couldn’t go out too slow. Heart burn appeared pretty early in the race and subsided for a brief time if I managed to burp—odd, no? It wasn’t until the 1:45 pacer appeared over my left shoulder somewhere between Mile markers 3 and 4 that I told myself to stop dicking around and kick up the pace—if the 1:45 group was getting ready to pass me I was definitely slacking.

After a mile or so I got the 1:45 group behind me and out of ear shot, thanks to some long downhill stretches.

By the halfway point I saw that I was tracking pretty well on my time. Probably because of that I eased up a bit and that’s why there are those random 8:00 splits at Mile 6 and 7. But after Mile 7 I locked onto one guy wearing a San Antonio RnR Marathon shirt who seemed to be running at my goal pace. I tacked onto him and let him do the driving. (Look at me borrowing strategies from the elites!)

By Mile 9 I was in a full groove—I wasn’t necessarily hitting my goal pace, but I was cranking out as hard as I could. I hit a series of songs on Liam (my iPod) that I could sing along to and I was that annoying guy singing loudly to music only he could hear. My apologies to the more disciplined runners.

The last three miles went by incredibly fast. There were no turns and it was all downhill. I knew the PR was waiting for me, but because I had turned off Fenny for Mile 2 I had no idea what I was actually going to finish at, so I started throwing it all out there. At the Mile 12 marker I went into free for all mode and must have passed at least a dozen runners. After spurring off onto Trinity St there was a clear downhill view of the finish line five blocks away. I didn’t get the tremendous kick that I normally get at the end of races (probably because I spent everything on the course) but I got a nice kick regardless and I was over the finish line faster than I thought possible.

I scoured for milk immediately after crossing the finish line—the heartburn was still killing me. But no luck. Wifey and C’s mom found me within a couple minutes of crossing the finish line. After eating a banana and getting a few stretches in, I fought my way to the results board and scanned for a while to find my name. I passed the 1:43s and the 1:42s. I found my name finally—holy crap, those numbers are mine? That blew me away. I trained for a harder pace and I actually (more or less) did it, and in the process brought my PR down by seven minutes. Insane. A goofy smile spread across my face that I couldn’t wipe off.

We celebrated with a huge breakfast at Kerbey Lane Café where I was finally able to down about a quart of milk, followed by fried eggs over sweet potato hash, home fries, sausage, and Texas toast. We napped until 3p as a delicious post-race food coma set in.

Why hello there

2011-02-03T21:53:00.000-05:00

I didn’t intend to take two months off from blogging. It kinda just happened. One day I was wrapping up the last of my race report for Portland Marathon and saying that I had kicked off training for the 3M Austin Marathon (for a second time). The next thing I know I’m crossing the finish line in Austin.

As always, life got in the way. A busy October and November lead to an even busier December with Christmas shopping, personal travel, business travel, and houseguests being driven to the emergency room.

But now, a month into 2011, I can say that everything is going well and starting to look normal. And I am very happy to say that my running has only seemed to improve lately.

First off, I bit the bullet and joined a gym. After running outside straight through winter 2009-2010 I can say I have the wherewithal—and flat out balls—to train and run outside through a New York winter. However, now that I’ve proven that I don’t feel compelled to prove it again and have signed up for the other gym in my neighborhood (i.e., not my old gym, which thinks I moved back in with my parents in Florida two years ago).

I have to say, I really like the new gym. From the initial tour I really liked how spacious it was, how it didn’t feel pretentious, and the assortment of machines. It falls weak in classes (apparently only housewives take classes at this gym) and is a good 10-15 minute walk from my apartment, but those are really the only drawbacks.

Perhaps it was nostalgia for the treadmill after taking a two year break, but while training for Austin I really enjoyed being back on the treadmill—far more than I expected to and perhaps more than any runner probably should. I missed the creature comforts of having a towel handy and bathrooms within reach at any time. I also liked catching the news and sports reports in closed caption. I found myself enjoying my runs so much more than when I was running outside.

Also for Austin I took an aggressive stance on my training for several reasons. First, I believed that a faster runner lived inside of me, but that I had become too comfortable with my paces and training plans and that he was never going to come out unless I pushed him forward. Second, I was tired of seeing tiny improvements in my race times although I swore that I was increasing the work in my training. Third, I really, really wanted to get to another running milestone—in this case, a 1:40 Half-Marathon.

Instead of tweaking around with past plans and Frankenstein-ing my own training plan, I went back to the Ultimate Half-Marathon training plan and followed the advanced plan to a T. I didn’t switch around days like I normally do, I didn’t add workouts I liked or take out ones that I didn’t—I just stuck to the plan. And from the get go I based everything off a 7:40 race pace, which would translate into a 1:40 finish. This part was the most freighting when I was putting the plan together (and harkens back to how comfortable I had become): my current HM race pace range was in the 8:12-8:20 range and I was planning on pushing that down by over 30 seconds. However, I forced myself to go through with it—despite those mornings when I had a hard time maintaining that pace for even three miles.

Actually, what forced me to keep up the pace during training what an short, unexpected conversation while Wifey and I were in Florida for thanksgiving. The weekend before Thanksgiving my aunt had a “for the hell of it” party with friends and family. One of my aunt’s friends whom I hadn’t seen in years but she has known me most of my life was there. She’s one of my friends on Facebook so she knew I was a runner and asked what race I had coming up next. I told her about Austin and my 1:40 goal and how I was scared of trying to get that time. She simply responded “you just have to push yourself.” There was something about the simple truth of those words—and the realization that I had forgotten to push myself during training. And most days when I was looking at a particularly hard run at 6am after trudging through the snow I remembered these words and the sudden wave of energy that possessed me carried me through that run.

The race report will come shortly, but I will say that all the training paid off.

Rocking out in Portland

2010-12-03T17:27:00.000-05:00

Geez. Over three weeks since the last time I posted, huh? It hasn't been for lack of topics--more for lack of time. Work has been busy leading up to the end of the year. And then traveling for the holidays and a wedding. Three weeks just kinda appeared eventually.

Anywho, so I'm clearing out my backlog of post topics with my very delayed music post for the Portland Marathon. Below is my playlist from the race. You can go here for a basic outline of the process.

It took me about four hours to compile this playlist--longer than it took me to run the race! But I have to say, I really like this mix. I listed to the majority of it, all the way down to Don't Stop Believein' with a minimal amount of skips. Usually I end up listening to only half of the songs because I pause the music so much to establish my own cadence. I've enjoyed this mix so much that I haven't switched it out for another in the months since the Marathon--granted I've done very light running until this week (official first week fo training for Austin!).

Proud Mary; Tina Turner
Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down; Alicia Keys
Crown of Love; Arcade Fire
Wouldn't It Be Nice; The Beach Boys
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'; Michael Jackson
Every Little Thing; Valley Lodge
A Whole Lot Better; Brendan Benson
You Make My Dreams; Daryl Hall & John Oates
Time to Pretend; MGMT
American Slang; The Gaslight Anthem
Roxanne; The Police
Pick Up the Phone; Dragonette
This Bed; Alicia Keys
Garbage Day; Brendan Benson
1901; Phoenix
Haiti; Arcade Fire
In The Hospital; Friendly Fires
Human; The Killers
Home; Edward Sharpe & The Magnificent Zeros
Renegade; Styx
Natural Disaster; Plain White T's
All of My Loving; Valley Lodge
Rebellion (Lies); Arcade Fire
For Reasons Unknown; The Killers
Feel Like Taking You Home; Brendan Benson
Always Where I Need to Be; The Kooks
Sins of My Youth; Neon Trees
Two Doors Down; Mystery Jets
That Girl; Plain White T's
Hanging On; Valley Lodge
That's Not My Name; The Ting Tings
Lasso; Phoenix
Take Me Out; Franz Ferdinand
Uprising; Muse
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out); Arcade Fire
Mr. Brightside; The Killers
I'm Actual; The Format
I Really Want You; Plain White T's
I Can't Win; The Strokes
Lisztomania; Phoenix
Long Road to Ruin; Foo Fighters
Percussion Gun; White Rabbits
Wake Up; Arcade Fire
Animal; Neon Trees
I Don't Wanna Dance; Hey Monday
Show Me What I'm Looking for; Carolina Liar
Come on Eileen; Dexy's Midnight Runners
Heartbreak Stroll; The Raveonettes
Love Today; Mika
Zero; Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Don't Stop Believin'; Journey
1983; Neon Trees
Spotlight; Mute Math
I'm Not Over; Carolina Liar
Juicebox; The Strokes
I Gotta Feeling; Black Eyed Peas
Beat It; Fall Out Boy
The Pretender; Foo Fighters
Let's Dance to Joy Division; The Wombats
Move Along; The All-American Rejects

The happiest faces you'll ever see

2010-11-11T20:27:00.015-05:00

Other potential, yet wordier title: The only time I've had a legit running related reason to include a link to a beauty pageant website

If you are a runner in New York you are doing one of three things on the first Sunday of November: running the NYCM, spectating at the NYCM, or volunteering at the NYCM. Since I ran Portland less than a month ago and I feel more useful as a volunteer than a spectator, we did the third of these things this past weekend.

Since we live in a part of the city untouched by the Marathon course we didn't really experience the race until we showed up on Central Park West and 72 Street. It was a brisk and beautiful autumn day--pretty nice for a race actually (although I'm sure the runners would have appreciated some kind of cloud coverage)--and Central Park West was shutdown. In place of parked cars there were barricades and swarms of volunteers.

We checked in and I stuffed an apple and a sandwich in one of my jacket pockets. At the sign for Medal Distribution we stripped off our layers to put on the volunteer t-shirt--it was below 40 out there and we didn't have a bag to put the t-shirts in, so we did this lightening fast. Then we packed on the layers again, finishing off the uniform with the iconic orange and white volunteer ponchos. A second later one of the group leaders picked up the little group that had formed and we descended into Central Park.

The only other time I've been through this finish chute I wanted to get out as fast as possible. But now I could take in how well organized the area is--and exactly how massive it was. We had entered the park just before the area where the UPS trucks park and headed toward the finish line passing the food station (this year smartly putting the food into individual backpacks), water station, heat sheet station, and photo station.

When we got to the medal racks we were less than 100 meters from the finish line bleachers, so at first I thought the noise were people in the bleachers who had brought sleigh bells. I quickly realized it was actually the clanking of medals and that we were some of the last people to show up because the racks were all loaded up already.

One of the other volunteers snapped a picture with my phone before the onslaught of runners:

We were briefed on our job, which boiled down to two things. First, distribute medals to everyone with a bib number and be prepared for cheers, tears, hugs, kisses, vomit, sweat, Vaseline, etc.. Second, kindly turn down people who ask for a second medal and defend the medals from people trying to snatch an extra one. The second aspect of the job blew my mind. Who would want more than one medal? It's not like you ran the race twice; or that the extra medal would make the accomplishment any more special. In all my races it's something that has never ever crossed my mind.

The first runners to come in were the wheelchair runners. Actually, they came in a little faster than expected because they were still briefing us when they started to roll in. Negotiating the medal around their helmets was difficult, so I left the bulk of it to--I kid you not--the beauty queen. Miss Galaxy International and Miss New York had both come out to volunteer at medal distribution and Miss Galaxy happened to be in our line.

After the elite men finished the masses started rolling in. There were a few at first, but within a few minutes we had a steady stream of runners coming down the chute. At one point I looked up to take in the guys coming in and it was a scene out of a zombie horror movie. About two or three dozen guys staggering, mouths hanging open, staring blankly, and headed right for us in the medal racks.

Within about half an hour the volunteer organizers instructed us to stop placing medals over the runners and to start handing them out. While this might seem impersonal and a small slight to the runners, it was becoming apparent that if we placed a medal over each runner a backlog would form pretty soon. And I think a back up at the finish line is far worse than having to put on your own medal.

And so the hours rolled on by. We clapped and cheered and called out names and countries from shirts and singlets. We rotated who was at the front of the line (taking the brunt of the runners) and who was in the back loading up on medals and catching people who skipped the front of the line. If I was toward the back, I would place the medal on the runners and give them a shake. There were people bubbling with energy, there were people hobbling on their last legs, there were people with tears, there were people who screamed, there were people who kneeled, there were people who hugged, there were people who were in a fog, there were people who could not find words, there were people who took pictures, there were people who kissed their medal, and there were people (way more than I thought) who kissed us. Wifey was a particular favorite for the kissers, especially the European ones that kiss twice.

In all this there were three moments that stood out most. First was spotting our friend S. I heard Wifey shout out his name and I turned around. He was in a bit of a fog and had trouble walking. He didn't recognize Wifey because she had on her big sunglasses, but he recognized me and lurched in my direction. We hugged each other and I helped him through the medal area, with the bulk of his weight resting on me. I found out later that he finished with a pace of 7:10, blistering fast and 5 seconds faster than his previous best.

Second was spotting our friend J. Wifey somehow spotted him in the middle of the masses and shouted out his name. I got out of line and went to meet him. J was all tears and sweat and could barely stand, but he was so happy to see us. I noticed as he walked on that he finished way under 3:30. Turns out he ran a 3:15 race and qualified for Boston (after trying to do so for many years).

Third had nothing to do with a friend, actually, it involved complete strangers from The Netherlands. Sometime around 3pm Wifey had separated from me for a bit--as was often happening while we rotated places in line and restocked the racks. When she reappeared at my side she total me that a couple from The Netherlands came up to her and the other medal volunteer standing next to her. In some form of English they said: since you are giving us a present (the medals), we are giving you a present; then the Dutch couple each took out a key chain that had a pair of white Delft porcelain clogs dangling from it and gave them to Wifey and the other volunteer. These runners had bought these key chains in The Netherlands, brought them to New York, and then stashed them on their bodies for 26.2 miles--all to give them away to perfect strangers.

This third story is easily one of my favorite running stories of all time. It just speaks volumes about running and how it connects people. And it's now something that I'd like to carry on with my future races (let's see if I remember!).

At about 5pm we started to get the itch to leave, partly because it had already turned dark and partly because there were still about a dozen medal volunteers but just a tiny trickle of runners. At 5:30pm we headed out as they closed down the full medal operation and moved medal distribution to a table closer to the finish line. By 6:15pm we had found a restaurant to have dinner and recounted the great day we'd had--although in the excitement we had completely skipped lunch, so this was only our second meal of the day.

Twenty-Six Miles through a Lake, Part III

2010-11-01T07:45:00.097-05:00

Race statistics are like porn to runners, and Portland had no shortage of runner’s porn.

Starting off with the basics here's how I did:

Looking at these stats, Portland is actually now the best race I've run (on paper). While I didn't get a PR I did finish in the top 18% of overall finishers, the only time I've done better than that was the Warrior Dash a few weeks back--and that wasn't really a running contest. For Gender place, it's a tie with the Delaware Marathon at top 30%, and for age group it's my best Marathon performance by 1%. I'm interpreting these numbers to mean that even that I may have been having a crappy day, everyone else was having a crappier day--which makes me feel better about the whole race. It lets me know I didn't completely squander this easy course.

I should note there are discrepancies between some of the reporting (finish time, number of runners, etc.) depending on where you get them from. I went with the numbers on the results website since those appear to be the most robust.

The race also recorded quite a few split times. I find this funny because the race didn't have clocks at the mile markers, but they did have timing mats to record splits. I would think that you would want to provide clocks before providing splits. Anywho, here's how I was pacing during various parts of the race, looks like I was doing pretty well (but notice there is no split for the final 5 miles):

It's pretty cool that the race provided all these stats. Especially since it didn't register when I marked the finish on Fenny--the Garmin download says I ran for 36.7 miles in 7:21:15. Even though I got every split on the course, I didn't get the most important one--despite race pictures showing me hitting my watch while I crossed the finish line!

In addition to the splits above, there were some cool graphics that the results website provided. This first screen shows my placing in the various groups in a graph form. But the coolest thing on this page is the box on the bottom right where it reports how many I passed (223!!) in the last 10K and how many people passed me (just 26?). That's a huge ego boost.

This second screen has interesting ways of presenting my averages during the race (average mile, average kilometer, average speed). There is also a diagram of the finish area when I crossed the finish line. I have no idea how they did this, but it shows everyone that was immediately before and after me in the race. And when you hover over those dots on the site, the name and time difference pops up underneath the dot. Pretty freakin' cool.

This last screen is also interesting. The map shows you 1) where you were when the overall winner finished, 2) where you were when the female winner finished, and 3) where the average runner was when you finished the race. There's also that bar chart off to the right with average speed for each quarter of the race. On the site if you hover over those numbers it provides the exact timing and distance for those splits. Pretty cool.

Now that I've looked at the numbers I realize that things weren't that bad. This was actually a good race. The bitching and griping has to be done in order to come to the conclusion that the bitching and griping aren't all that necessary: I still conquered the Marathon (again!!) and I still ran my best.

Twenty-Six Miles through a Lake, Part II

2010-10-31T08:45:00.000-05:00

The Splits:

Mile 1: 8:51 (recorded as 1.17 miles)

Mile 2: 9:28

Mile 3: 9:09

Mile 4: 8:32

Mile 5: 8:38

Mile 6: 8:25

Mile 7: 8:51

Mile 8: 8:33

Mile 9: 8:20

Mile 10: 8:25

Mile 11: 8:20

Mile 12: 8:55

Mile 13: 8:24

Mile 14: 9:03

Mile 15: 8:00

Mile 16: 8:32

Mile 17: 8:55

Mile 18: 8:18

Mile 19: 7:46 (recorded as .9 miles)

Mile 20: 9:41 (recorded as 1.12 miles)

Mile 21: 8:29

Mile 22: 8:24

Mile 23: 8:42

Mile 24: 8:38

Mile 25: 9:21

Mile 26: ???

Mile 26.2: ???

The Story:

To say I was happy with this race would be a lie. Fortunately, with time all races develop a particular patina where I appreciate the things I gained while training and while on the course and overall the memory becomes a series of positive takeaways instead of a chain of challenges that systematically bore me down. Unfortunately, this race hasn’t completely developed that patina yet. It still feels like a non-accomplishment that I need to trick myself into believing was a great achievement.

What is holding me back from enjoying this race as yet another triumph over the Marathon is that I am tired of complaining. Every time I run a race I have a series of excuses and bitchings as to why it wasn’t my perfect race.

As a seasoned Marathoner I feel I don’t have the right to complain anymore. I lost that right somewhere along the way because at this point I know what to expect, I know what I’ve signed up for, I know how to prepare for it, and I know what will happen afterward. If this all caught me by surprise I’d be correct to complain about it. But I know what’s coming and I do prepare for it. So it still catches me off guard when after a race all I can list is the things that went wrong and the things I can improve for next time.

In order to set this right I need to embrace complaint as part of the process; have a bit of catharsis before the euphoria. It’s only through a thorough hashing of 100 things that I perceive to have gone wrong that I can truly inventory and appreciate the 1,000 things that went right. With this in mind I will proceed with the complaints.

While running this race I knew about four miles in that it would be a long race. The miles weren’t passing by as quickly as they normally do during a race. This isn’t a comment on my speed, it a comment on my mental state. Usually I can get about halfway through a race just on excitement and the real racing doesn’t come until after the halfway mark. But with this race I remember specifically looking at my watch before Mile Five and thinking “OK, when is this going to be over?” That was bad.

Of course I blame the rain for this, but I also blame my reliance on my Garmin too. At the start I knew the GPS signal wasn’t registering, so my splits would be a bit off. But then my first split came back at 8:51: about appropriate for the first cluttered mile of a race if I’m shooting for an 8:24 pace. However, I didn’t see until after I loaded the race into my computer that the GPS signal registered within the first block of the race and that the first split registered as 1.17 miles instead of one so that I had a pace of 7:35 for that first mile. Now that probably explains why it felt so difficult to get into a proper pace during those first few miles, which probably explains the erratic pacing later in the race too.

A brutal truth about this race is that large chunks of it are just not pretty. I can count at least nine miles (five through 11 and 13 through 16) that went through warehouse districts, large rail yards, or remote strips of highway lined by industrial businesses with large parking lots. And it’s not the race directors’ fault. The geography of Portland is essentially a valley: stray too far away from downtown/the river and you run into hills. It is actually quite an accomplishment that there is only one significant hill on the entire course. But those lonely miles do take a toll on you, especially the strip from Mile 13 to 16.

Speaking of the hill, it was a mighty climb and I loved every single second of it. With everything else on the course virtually flat, it was a relief to climb up the 205 foot rise of the St. Johns Bridge. My quads came alive with power, their stores of energy finally being tapped. I passed people left and right, as if it were the easiest thing to do. This was the part of the race I loved the most—and I felt a little sad once I reached the peak knowing that there were essentially no more hills for the rest of the race.

On the other side of the bridge the crowds were great and essentially did not stop until the next bridge some seven miles later. Actually, I was really impressed with the crowd turnout at this race. Portlanders were great at coming out in the non-stop rain and cheering on runners. The kids were also never afraid to take a hi-five from a soaked runner. The volunteer turnout was also incredible: each water station easily had 25 people handing out liquids and for a race of 12,000 that is a luxurious ratio (I never had to worry about getting water).

The only bad thing about this the race after the St. Johns Bridge was that to the right you basically had an uninterrupted view of downtown (the finish line) behind a whitewash fog. Something about that made the finish line seem so far away. It was also in these miles that I started to feel the absence of my water bottle. I noticed halfway between water stations that I wanted water and that I couldn’t turn to my hand and get it. While I had appreciated having both hands free during the race, I saw that I really needed a steady flow of liquids during these last six or so miles.

Besides the rain, missing water bottle, and choppy pacing I really thought I was doing well. And up until Mile 24 I was still looking at a PR—not 3:40, but something like 3:45 or 3:46. Then it just all got really hairy after that. Since the halfway point I could feel my stomach aching for more food (despite a steady schedule of GU every 45 minutes). I could also feel cramps going through my abdomen (a sure sign that I should have stayed in that port-o-potty a little longer before the race). Knowing that the finish line was close only made those sensations worse.

Despite only having two miles to go I couldn’t muster up enough good thoughts to keep me plowing through. Or maybe I had forgotten to focus on the good thoughts once I got to this point.

On the other side of the Broadway Bridge I started to feel the weight of the previous miles upon me. My knees were starting to worry me because for the preceding weeks they had been aching more than usual and feeling weird and for some reason I couldn’t find my heating pad to make them feel better. Trying to envision the finish line was useless because of all the tall buildings and street names were unfamiliar—I had no idea where it was and could only tell you it was not close enough.

All of these things compounded into a weird heart burn/stomach cramp/gas bubble/stitch flare up concentrated in the area at the bottom of my chest sternum. I felt myself start to hobble and then uncontrollably started walking.

“Fuck,” is all I could say. Less than a mile to the finish line and I had to stop to walk. I felt like I let myself down, but it was something I could recover from. About 30 seconds later I picked it up again set on making it to the finish from there. But a minute or two later I stopped again from the same pain. The second walking break felt like failure. That was where I realized that the PR would not happen and that I felt I let the race get the best of me. That hurt in a way that was trivial (I was still going to finish a Marathon!) and soul shattering (I couldn’t perform despite my hardest effort). And that is the same thing that prevents me from coming to good terms with Portland today.

When I felt better and finally recognized where I was (only four blocks from the finish line) I started running determined to not stop until the finish line. And I did. I unzipped my wind breaker (never ended up taking it off due to the rain) to show my bib number, which had my name printed in all caps on it. Sure enough people started yelling my name. Though it was vain it was great. Despite the shortcomings of the previous mile, I crossed the finish line as I always do: running hard and strong, blasting any doubt that I once again defeated the juggernaut.

Final Numbers:

Net Time: 3:49:00

Overall place: 1388/7835 (top 18% of finishers)

Men: 1025/3407 (top 30%)

M25-29: 160/437 (top 37%)

Twenty-Six Miles through a Lake, Part I

2010-10-30T07:45:00.000-05:00

Marathons are run come hell or high water. Well, I got the latter.

The forecast I posted ten days prior of partly cloudly and 62 never happened. The very next day the forecast changed to 50% chance of showers and only went up from there. Even the night before the race, when the local weather man forecasted the rain to start an hour after the race start—even that delay didn’t happen.

This was my first race in the northwest and fate had decided it was going to be a quintessential experience, climate and all. When we got to the lobby and looked out the front doors my heart sank. Sheets of rain were dancing across the street. A curtain of water was pouring over the awning. We huddled under our one umbrella and went out into the downpour.

As we walked the ten blocks to staging area, more and more runners joined the trek. Some were carrying umbrellas, others wearing ponchos—several pragmatic ones were wearing garbage bags. I thought the garbage bag was a good idea: the jacket I was wearing was no match for the elements, one minute out from under the umbrella and I’d be soaked.

A block away from the starting area we ducked out of the crowd and into a covered area in front of a building. It was still very dark, the rain and clouds prevented any light. I went through my stretches while I was still mostly dry and had the space. I started eating an apple, but knew that I probably didn’t have quite enough food inside of me. For the previous 72 hours I had been a nervous wreck between staying up late to pack, squeezing a ten hour work day into seven, taking a transcontinental flight, all mixed with the anxiety that comes with a Marathon. And when I get stressed, I don’t eat—my stomach just locks up, to the point that the day before I had to force myself to eat lunch and dinner because I just didn’t have an appetite.

Even while eating the apple, I could feel my body saying “I don’t want this.” Getting down two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches earlier that morning was already a major effort. But I forced myself to eat as much as possible of the apple as you can see here in the moments before I entered the starting corrals:

Note: when I said “human baggage” I actually meant the people accompanying the runners (like Wifey was accompanying me) not their actual personal effects.

It doesn’t come out so well in the video but I was mentally stuck between “I don’t want to run in the rain,” “I don’t want to be on camera,” “where is the nearest port-o-potty,” and “how much more of this apple can I take?” The surroundings were equally discordant: runners trying to stay dry under ledges, a giant crowd of runners trying to get through one gate in the fence, marshals calling out directions, humming generators from the flood lights, the faint smell of port-o-potties.

I kissed my videographer goodbye and wiggled into the mob.

Once past the security fence I went immediately to the port-o-potty lines. Geez, there are never enough of these. Right before my turn to go in I decided to go for quick 30 second jog around an empty area of the start. When I hopped back in line I was ready to, um, go.

After the pitch black port-o-potty there was about 10 minutes left before the start of the race. I went over to my starting corral. Not sure how, but somehow I was placed in the second corral just behind the elites/really fast people. I found a dry spot off to the side under a tree and waited.

At this point the rain had gone from downpour to drizzle to almost gone back to drizzle. I just accepted the fact that I was going to have to run in the rain for this race and that I would be very wet. I thought of the previous times that I had run in the rain and nothing bad happened then—I was just running wet. And then I realized: I left my water bottle with Wifey. I had meant to grab it when I grabbed the apple, but didn’t. I scanned the crowd near the fence to spot her umbrella, but no luck. And with only minutes before the start I couldn’t step out and find her.

I hadn’t run a race without a water bottle in years. And I had run all my other Marathons with a water bottle. Funny, it was going to be my wettest race ever, but my first without a water bottle.

As they sounded the wheelchair start I went over my basic game plan: get down to an 8:24 pace as quickly as possible and then hold it for as long as possible. That pace would get me a 3:40 finish. I also remembered to turn on my Garmin.

After the horn sounded for the runner start I figured that all the corrals would be released at once. But when my corral (B) shifted to where corral A was they held us back. Not only had they corralled runners according to pace, but they were spacing apart the corral releases by about a minute. Something I think was very smart.

In the seconds before they released my corral I looked at my Garmin, it still hadn’t registered a GPS signal. Uh oh. It was taking longer than it should to get the signal, probably because of the weather and tall buildings surrounding the start. So I assumed I would have some choppy splits for the first couple miles: one more atypical thing to juggle during this race.

And then they counted down for our start:

A rough transition back

2010-10-20T19:52:00.000-05:00

So I can't hide that I've had a hard time blogging over the past few months. It's been hard with work to find the time like I used to, and when I do find time I'm not inspired to write. It sucks. It really and truly does.

Then, when I was inspired to write in the days before the Portland Marathon we were rushing to pack and tie up loose ends before we left.

After the race, well, I was on vacation. And despite the best intentions of writing up my race report cozied up in a hotel bed, we never had a day where we got to be lazy around the room for a morning.

And now, we've stepped back into the shit-storm that is our normal life. Sigh.

Race report is coming. And I promise: it will be a wet one.

Ten days to go

2010-10-01T16:43:00.000-05:00

Marathon Fever. It has snuck up on me this time. When I turned on the TV this morning and realized it was Oct 1 and that the Portland Marathon was only 10 days way I realized that I had been showing symptoms all week. I’ve visited the Marathon’s website at least twice a day this whole week. I carefully analyzed the starting and finishing area maps, scoping out ideal entry and exit points. Despite the fact that the Portland Marathon is just a piece of a much longer Portland vacation, I only have eyes for this race for next ten days.

It’s such a great feeling to have, especially since I didn’t get these kinds of butterflies with the Delaware Marathon.

The only problem? It has essentially rained every morning this week. And we’re not talking wimpy rain here—the cover from our grill has blown off and dowels from our tomato plants have been pulled out of the ground. But I must take it for what it is: Mother Nature is forcing me to taper. And since I suck at tapering as much as the next guy, this coaching by weather might just do the trick.

PS--Did I mention that the race day is now in the 10-day forecast? It looks like it's going to be a perfect day:

Warriorhood

2010-09-28T20:45:00.012-05:00

The Warrior dash was two weekends ago and it did not underpromise. Half-way through this 5K I was already fantasizing about it being over. But I'm already psyched about doing it next year, and next time in costume.

Here is my group about 15 minutes before the start of the race. Yes, there was face paint and furry viking hats with tusks involved. Oddly enough, we were downright conservative when you compared us to the clan of red Avatar characters, clans of Scotsmen, and squad of girls in 80's prom dresses.

The race started with an uphill dash--up a ski slope. Most people made it only a few hundred meters before having to walk. I held out for about a quarter mile before realizing that I shouldn't kill myself at the onset of the race. There would be plenty of obstacles later to blow my energy on.

The first obstacle was a tire run on a plateau halfway up the ski slope. Then a little further ahead was a series of chest high barricades I had to jump over. After another third of ski slope uphill (I was mostly walking at this point) there was a crawl through (clean) sewer tubes about 25m long.

The first downhill was a relief--no more walking. But the problem with going down a ski slope is that it is so steep you couldn't pick up your speed, because then you'd topple over. At the end of this first taste of downhill was a nasty surprise: a shoulder high pond that was freezing cold. It's probably 60 degrees, but it was frigid compared to the heat radiating from my body from the uphill runs. I walked/swam through the length of the pond, about 50m, and emerged victorious on the other side:

The next segment of the race was series of sharp downhills combined with long muddy cuts across and wooded trails between the slopes. In the middle of this craziness I took a tumble and rolled onto my knee. I rolled right out of it into a run, but I could feel the scrape on my right knee stinging from the dirt and sweat.

After more downhill/mud/woods there was a short plank bridge to scramble across and then a cargo net. Before the race I was most afraid of the cargo net obstacle, thinking that I'd lose ridiculous amounts of time on it because I have zero upper body strength. But when I saw the net, it was all of 20 feet high, and I easily scaled over it to the home sprint.

The last bit of the race (all within a quarter mile) was a series of three obstacles. After the only downhill where I could actually sprint came the first obstacle: the longest slip n slide you could ever imagine. I slid belly down through sprays of water on a tarp tunnel for about 25m. Not only was this tough on my abs and man parts (it felt like the tarp was over gravel!) but after knocking into a girl at the end of the slide I realized that my contacts were all sprayed out of place--and maybe had even fallen out.

I did a bit of a Frankenstein walk, afraid that I wouldn't be able to see for the last two obstacles. But after playing around with my eyes a bit my contacts fell back into place. With my eyes set I got a running start to leap over the next obstacle: two rows of flaming coals.

I flew over both rows of without hesitation (or burnt hair) and dove right into the last and signature obstacle: a crawl through the mud under barbed wire. It wasn't pretty. It was totally designed to guarantee that you leave this mud run filthy dirty. Oh, and how dirty I was:

After emerging from the mud I bolted for the finish line, which was a few short yards away.

Final Numbers (as if this was a serious race):

Net Time: 34:02 (10:32 pace)

Overall place: 409/5020 (top 8% of finishers)

M25-29: 110/751 (top 15%)

Afterward, I took my best victory pose. Um, not my best work:

Perhaps it would have been better if I was also ripping into a giant roasted turkey leg at the same.

The rest of my group straggled in afterward--I came in second from our group of 10ish.

Victory tasted like...well it tasted like dirt. Sweet, sweet dirt.

Self-sabotage

2010-09-12T08:56:00.000-05:00

Over the past two weeks (yikes has it really been that long since I've posted?) I've done a couple things out of the ordinary, both of which have had their own detrimental effects on running and that I will now grossly exaggerate.

The Dark Art of Bicycling
I took the Monday before Labor Day off to use up the last of my summer bonus days from work and decided it would be fun to rent a bike for the day and ride around the city. Knowing my hatred for riders and that I haven't ridden a bike in years, this could only be described a momentary bout of hysteria.

I picked up the bike from one of the bike shops around Central Park and got my bearings by doing a small loop around the park. Then I rode down along the Hudson to meet Wifey for lunch near her office in Soho. After a lunch of empanadas and rice and beans I headed back up the Hudson all the way to the George Washington Bridge. Then crossed the Bridge over to the Jersey Palisades park--where I realized how hard steep uphills are on a bike. After taking a nap in the park I crossed back over to New York and rode down to Central Park and returned the bike about an hour early (mostly because my ass area was hurting from the seat).

After riding about 25 miles around the New York City area I picked up a couple things. First off, I was surprised at how easy it was to get around the city with a bike. Even the parts where there weren't bike lanes and I was riding in traffic, car drivers seemed to be just fine with me riding in their lanes. Second, I seemed to be the only one on a bike obeying traffic lights--riders were just whizzing about not really paying attention to traffic signals, staying in bike lanes, or going with traffic. No wonder there is so much angst against them: they act like pedestrians when they're really more like cars.

The last thing I noticed is that I was actually enjoying myself riding around on a bike. I don't know if I'd be ready to take it on in the exercise/fitness sense, but it is a fun way to get around.

Barefoot Beach Running Part Duex
Fast forward to about a week later, when we're with my family for Labor Day staying at a hotel on Ft. Lauderdale beach. Looking to spice up my eight mile run I decide I'll do it barefoot in the sand, since I had a good experience back on South Padre Island.

My first footstep in the sand tells me instantly that this was a bad idea. The sand on the gulf coast was fine and compact, this Ft. Lauderdale sand was the complete opposite: coarse and soft. Every foot step suck deep into the sand. Later on I would liken it to a car being stuck in first car: lots of stopping power but no speed. I tried running on the waterline, but that only felt harder. I tried running in the tracks of the tractors that come out early to smooth the sand, but it was only minimal improvement.

About a mile in I gave up on the sand and moved on to the sidewalk. A huge improvement, but it was much more rough on my feet. After the turnaround (around the 4.5 mile mark) I checked out my feet. Sure enough there were huge blisters on my toes exactly where they had developed last time I went barefoot running. But then there were also big round blisters (about the size of a quarter) directly below each of my ring toes. With the blisters I had an awful time on the sidewalk, so I would weave back and forth from sand to sidewalk.

Eventually, I just gave up and walked the last mile to the hotel in the sand. Not my proudest moment. The good thing is that the blisters on my toes I was able to drain that night (oh how much goo was in them!). The round ones under my ring toes seemed to be much deeper under the skin, so much so that I thought that they were calluses. But last night I finally got in there with a needle and sure enough an pinkish/grayish goo came out. Sorry, no pictures. Definitely will be more picky about my barefoot running in the future.

The smells of running

2010-08-29T08:26:00.000-05:00

I did a good chunk of yesterday's 18-miler in Central Park--about nine miles. While I was running I noticed a smell all throughout the park. It was vaguely of incense, and that could make sense if there was a street vendor selling incense nearby, but I was smelling this all over the park.

The NYRR was having a Marathon training run, so maybe it had something to do with that? Then I noticed some red powdery stuff on the cobblestones near Tavern on the Green where the smell was particularly strong--perhaps that was it? It most definitely was not the horse poop smell that dominates the loop from the sixth avenue entrance to the grand army plaza exit. I never figured it out, but I was relieved when I left the park and no longer had to smell it.

But this makes me think that smelling is a bigger part of running than you would initially imagine. I mean the whole process of running really is an exercise in breathing right? In through your nose, out through your mouth. So it makes sense that you end up smelling a lot while running. And from all that, you start to identify certain smells with running.

There are two major smells that dominate my weekday runs in Astoria. First, there is the stench from the power plant. Or it might be a broken sewer pipe as someone posted on a photocopied flyer taped up throughout Astoria Park. Either way, on a bad day the smell can invade the whole neighborhood and can be really upsetting to a run.

The second smell, and forgive me for sounding creepy, is the smell of over-perfumed Astorians walking by in the morning. I don't exactly know why, but my neighbors, both male and female, love perfume--or heavy scented soap. Every time I pass someone I swear I can smell one of my dad's colognes or the smell of my first grade teacher. It's eerie and comforting at the same time.

The are some random other smells I associate with running. For about two weeks in June/July every year the Jasmine trees in Astoria park bloom and the smell pervades the track--this marks the beginning of fall Marathon training season. There is the car exhaust smell from doing hill repeats on the Queensboro Bridge--absolutely choking if the wind is not in your favor. There's also my own scent, the one that I swear sometimes smells like chardonnay and the reason I try to find a seat in the corner when I take the subway home after a long run.

Update on training for Portland

2010-08-22T07:59:00.000-05:00

I seem to be at a lack of interesting things to say. So under the guise of "this blog is record of my running history" I figured I should check in on how training is going for Portland.

Things are going well--not incredible, but well. I'm hitting all my runs without having to do crazy rescheduling of runs or life. Tempo runs continue to be an issue for me: it is the one type of run that disagrees with my stomach (and I wonder if it has become psychological trigger at this point). I thought that I hadn't been able to get my repeats down to my fastest speeds, but after comparing against my training this time last year, I actually am on par with my better times and have actually cranked out a few new records for training splits. I've also noticed that my long runs have gone exceptionally well: the most difficulty I've had was yesterday's 17 miler, and that was mostly because I had to do a series of loops at the end to make my mileage and meet up with Wifey.

Ever since I threw out a perfectly good pair of shoes, I've been running in the same Brooks Adrenalines for every run. This is the first time in years that I've only used one pair of shoes and I feel like I'm blasting through this pair. And my feet have noticed it too: all of a sudden I'm getting all these new aches and pains in parts of my feet that never hurt. All this means that I have to order a second pair ASAP.

This definitely has not been a repeat of training for NYCM. I made leaps and bounds during that training cycle because it was the first time I had trained entirely outdoors (no scheduled treadmill runs). But, even more importantly, it has been a huge improvement over my last training cycle in preparation for Delaware. This has been a much more positive experience and I definitely feel better about my running this time around. However, Delaware did lead to a PR come race day--which makes me wonder if I might need some of the bad training to have something to work against on race day.

More runner's speak

2010-08-12T19:48:00.000-05:00

I'm adding a new term to my runner lexicon: suicide repeats.

Yesterday, I was at an off-site meeting for the afternoon which ended at 4:30, meaning that I got to go home early and that I was comfy on the couch by 5:15. Having all this free time on my hands and knowing that Wifey wouldn't be home for a while, I headed over to the park to do something that kinda resembled cross-training. Really, I did push ups and a bunch of crunches--I would have done pull ups too, but there were some punky kids hanging around the pull up bars and I just wasn't down for that.

I had full intentions to make it a 100% non-running workout. But when I saw the track full of people--some of which were much faster than my morning crowd--I couldn't resist turning onto the track after getting off the sit-up bench.

That morning I had done a so-so effort at a Tempo run and I knew the following morning (today) I would have 1600m repeats, so I didn't want to do anything too crazy or anything that I would normally do. I did a warm up lap and followed that with 100m strides to help me get my form in shape. After each 100m of strides I would recover with 300m and then repeat. It was amazing to see my form get increasingly efficient as I went through four 100m strides--by the end I was going faster than I started but spent much less energy.

After the fourth recovery lap I decided to finish with something fun: run all out, holding form as best possible, for 100m, take a 100m recovery around the curve and then go straight into the same all out effort. In the middle of that craziness I thought that this was suicidal because these repeats were killing everything I had left on the table. I quickly put that together into a compact, marketable, jargony phrase: suicide repeats.

Later that night I received confirmation that I had coined the phrase appropriately. When I told Wifey what I did at the track, she responded with "oh, that's dangerous!" Double point score! One point for sounding badass, another for impressing the ladies......um...impressing the lady...um...the only lady...in my eyes (triple score for kissing up!).

Summer Streets gets badass

2010-08-03T20:20:00.000-05:00

While hanging out with The Laminator for his birthday festivities, he brought up that we should get together for a Summer Streets run this year. I had completely forgotten about Summer Streets until he mentioned it--much less did I realize that Summer Streets would start in only a few days. I guessed since I hadn't heard anything about it this year that they had gone the way of most frivolous looking city programs during this economic situation.

Oh, but how I couldn't be more wrong. A quick visit to the site lets me know that Summer Streets is very much alive. I just pulled up the site and sure enough, the first three weekends in August NYC will continue to shut down Park Ave from 72nd Street to Brooklyn Bridge. The schedule has the usual bunch of exercise classes, bike rentals, and karate demonstrations. It's all truly wonderful stuff that makes me love being in this great city--and provides a rare reprieve from the usual long run routes.

But why is it now badass? What did they do to this genius idea to make it badass? They added a pool. That's right: in the middle of Park Ave they are setting up a bunch of dumpster pools (thanks to the crazy kids at Macro|Sea) and the public can swim in them. What are dumpster pools? Macro|Sea has reclaimed some old dumpsters, given them a fine cleaning, and outfitted them as the hottest, hippest pools you can imagine. It's music to this urbanophile's ears.

I can't wait for Saturday!

What did I sign up for?

2010-08-01T20:11:00.000-05:00

There is one key feature missing from my training plan for the Portland Marathon: a Half-Marathon. For my past four Marathons I've run a Half halfway through training as a gut check for the Marathon and as a convient way to get another state off the list. As it turns out, it's never really a gut check. I run the race knowing that it's not the "serious" race I'm training for. Also, I'm running out of neighboring states to run in, so the half-way Half-Marathon doesn't help with the 50 state goal.

However, always being game when someone suggests a run/race, I did just sign up for a race a few weeks before Portland. But this race is not a Half-Marathon or 10K or 5K or anything that resembles a standard running event. It is a nuts crazy uphill, obstacle laden 3.23 mile race called the Warrior Dash.

This race takes place on Windham Mountain, which is a ski slope during the winter. During the race not only do you zig zag up and down a ski slope, but you also:

High step through a series of tires
Jump over a wall
Crawl through a pipe
Navigate a forest
Wade through a swamp
Run across a gully on thin wooden planks
Run over a rickety wooden bridge
Run through a wide stream
Climb cargo nets
Scale a wall of slate bricks
Go down a mud slide
Leap over a line of flames
Scramble through a mud pit under barbed wire

And there is no further description than what is on the website. There is no walk through or detailed orientation of what the obstacles entangle. That's all part of the challenge. Even though I've never done anything like this before and it's completely out of my typical races, I'm really friggin excited!

Medals of races past

2010-07-30T16:12:00.000-05:00

Borrowing an idea from Jess and posting pictures of where I keep my medals and which are my favorites.

I won't hide that one of my silent reasons for running is that I get big medal as a reward. Sure there is an army of other more honorable and immaterial reasons to run, but let's face it, sometimes you just want the pony. There is something special in getting a medal placed around your neck: it links your small accomplishment to the long line of human athletic achievements throughout the ages and well into the future. It's arguably my favorite moment of racing (regardless that it coincides with the end of the race).

The first time I ran a race and didn't get a medal I was upset. Really upset. Since then I've vainly made sure the races I sign up for have a medal waiting for me at the end--especially since I now tend to travel long distances to races, I need to come back with a souvenir.

With all this talk of medals you would think that I had a dark room set aside for them outfitted like the Museum of Natural History with custom spotlights on each medal and an adjacent engraved plague with a description of the race . But I live in New York, there's no such thing as a spare room. I actually--and slightly ironically--store them in a green cardboard box on top of a bookshelf:

Opening up the box you see a salad of ribbons. Underneath the medals is every bib number I've ever worn. Since not every race yields a medal I've made it a habit to hold onto every bib number I've worn over the past six years. But I digress. This post is about medals.

My favorite medals based on looks are (below, going clockwise from the pink ribbon): Flying Pig Marathon, National Half-Marathon, Maple Leaf Half-Marathon, NYCM, and Disney World Half-Marathon. The Pig and National medals are high quality medals and cool custom ribbons. The Pig has the added benefit of having a flying pig on it, which gives it +10 style points. The Maple Leaf medal is my only non-metallic medal. It's blown glass, hand made and stamped by an artisan in Manchester, VT, where the race was held. I can't pinpoint what makes the NYCM so badass it, I think it's because it the only race I've run with built in prestige and wow factor (therefore prestige + wow = badass? I agree with that algebra). It might also be the simple refined look of the medal: it doesn't have a four-color logo or a custom ribbon. It's just a good size, well-crafted, brassy medal that has a subdued ruggedness about it. Finally, the Disney medal is my "big boy" medal. It probably weighs a pound, is a real quality medal, and just reeks of "yeah, I just did that."

In going through the medals I realized that I have another kind of favorite. These are the sentimental favorites (too lazy to rotate the picture below, so you'll have to rotate your screen). Going clockwise from the top right: Breakers Marathon, NYCM, Baltimore Marathon, Delaware Marathon, Great Bay Half-Marathon, and Boston Half-Marathon.

The Breakers medal is cheesy, I will readily admit to that, but I still fantasize about that race: how perfect the day was, how well I ran that race, how stunning the scenery was, how over-the-top incredible it was to see 20 minutes disappear from my Marathon PR. I know I will probably never get to run "that race" again.

The NYCM was the hardest race I've run physically and mentally. It was a rough couple of months leading up to the race and I clung onto my running in order to keep some sanity. I had built that race as the end all be all and it did not fail. On the physical side it wasn't the worst course imaginable, but crowd management played a much bigger role than I expected (or prepared for).

Baltimore wasn't my best showing: I stopped and walked good long portions of that race. The race wasn't itself wasn't particularly memorable: if you've been to Baltimore you'll know what I mean. But it was my first, and there are way too many attachments to/lessons from MY FIRST MARATHON EVER for me to deny it a special place.

Delaware represents my current Marathon PR. Great Bay represents my current Half-Marathon PR. My two fastest efforts to date. While both were good races, they will one day be replaced by medals from new PRs.

The last one here is Boston. This is my number one dime (it's a Duck Tales reference, look it up). It's a humble medal, nothing particularly cool about it. The race itself was your archetype New England race with rolling hills and autumn foliage. But it was my first athletic event, ever. Before this medal you did not see sRod run, after it, you did. This medal is more than metal and fabric, it is a symbol of a change in my life.

Those are the highlights of my collection. They are now safely tucked back inside their box, with the bib numbers, eagerly awaiting new members to the fold.

A pox upon my house

2010-07-14T19:33:00.000-05:00

Wifey got a bike. And I just get the heebie jeebies knowing that my household is in possession of--as a runner--my mortal enemy. Here is a camera phone shot of Wifey walking home that abomination from the bike shop, conveniently located four blocks down the street.

The stupidest (running related) thing I've ever done

2010-07-12T18:08:00.000-05:00

I threw away a perfected good pair of shoes. I don't even have a good story for it:

I grabbed a bunch of clothes to donate to charity and my sneakers that had 500+ miles on them. I dropped them off at the clothes bin in a shopping plaza nearby. The following morning I woke up and while getting dressed to go running I realize that I donated the wrong shoes. I had grabbed the pair that only had 280 miles on them--only half way through their life! And I still had the 500+ mile pair. I ran over to the bin to see if any any chance the shoes where still there (I dropped them off at 11p and it was only 8a), but everything I had dropped off was gone.

To make matters worse, I think I left Liam's charger in those shoes. Double runner fail.

The Death of Speed

2010-07-10T08:45:00.000-05:00

While in southern Texas over Fourth of July weekend, just missing a hurricane and eating more BBQ than I thought possible, I had an epiphany: speed is not my thing.

We were visiting a close friend in McAllen, TX July 1-6. I had full intentions of keeping up my Summer of Speed training while on vacation, but one night in central AC and I couldn't wake myself up before 9am. It was great and horrible at the same time. For all the luxuries that New York City has for some reason central AC still hasn't caught on--even in my current apartment building which is only three years old. If you have been to southern Texas, you know that you need to get out there at dawn if you're going to do any kind of physical activity, so 9am was not an option.

For a couple nights we stayed on South Padre Island and being across the street from the beach was too much to ignore. Our first morning there I fought off the siren song of central AC and forced myself out the door by 7:30...barefoot. That's right. Not only was I going to run on the beach--which I've never done--I was also going to do it barefoot. I figured when else would I have a chance to do this?

I stashed my flip-flops under the boardwalk in hopes that no one would find them. The sun was bright and pretty high already, but the strong breeze and reduced temps left over from the hurricane made it downright tolerable. I set off going south for three miles and then returning, for a total of six miles. I didn't set any speed requirement since I've never run barefoot or on sand before.

The sand was fine, compact, and mostly free of shells/debris; ideal for running. I noticed immediately that my heels had to go further down during each stride and that my calves were stretching out. But after the first half-mile I was totally down with the form and stride adjustments.

By the turnaround I could feel something on the bottom of my feet, but I figured that I hadn't stepped on anything. At mile four I stopped and finally checked my feet. Sure enough I hadn't stepped on anything, but I had managed to form three blisters on my feet. I took a bit of a walking break and then managed to run for the last 1.25 miles.

After that run I felt great, better than any of my runs in the past month. It was a long, sweaty, sustained effort. While I didn't do any sexy speediness, I felt like I got a real workout.

That night I mentioned to Wifey that I wasn't really feeling the whole Summer of Speed thing. I wasn't digging the workouts. I couldn't find races. I missed the long runs. And I had a nagging fear that I wouldn't be ready for an October Marathon if I was running 5Ks all summer. Now, don't get me wrong. During Marathon training I love speed workouts. Track repeats, tempo runs, hill repeats--I love doing them all when they offer a break from the long slow runs that are also baked into Marathon training. Doing them exclusively turns out to not be so much fun.

In talking to Wifey I realized that I should just drop the Summer of Speed and focus instead on a Fall Marathon. It would getting me doing the runs I want to do and get me back on the 50 State track. It sounded like a plan (once again, I don't see the most obvious answer).

Now, you might remember/recall that I was planning on running the Virginia Beach RnR Half on Labor Day and then the Mount Desert Island Marathon in October. Well, over the past couple of months both of those have fallen through. We were going to go to Virginia Beach with the family for a weeklong vacation, but scheduling and costs prevented that from happening. So I was going to save this race for another year. But then I realized that Virginia and Maine were basically the only remaining states within driving distance. All other states are pretty much fly only. So I planted the bug in my mind (and Wifey's) to do a "destination" Marathon.

A couple cities came to mind--someone even suggested Denver--but once Wifey said Portland, Oregon, my ears perked up. I looked up the race and started getting excited. We've wanted to go to Portland for a while now and a Marathon near our Anniversary would be a perfect excuse to go. On reading further it looked like a great race that wasn't too big plus there is a big wine region next door, the ocean an hour away, Mt. St. Helen across the state line, and a slew of quirky hotels--I was sold.

So my next race will be the Portland Marathon on Oct, 10 (that's 10/10/10) after which we're going to enjoy a week's worth of vacation involving lots of drinking and an active volcano. Hurray!

An awkward relationship

2010-06-29T21:33:00.000-05:00

I have to be honest: I'm in a running funk. I thought it was a short term thing during the cold winter months. But here we are in the throes of summer and I just don't feel like the runner I used to be. I'm not excited about this Summer Of Speed because I can't find races. I haven't read a blog post or running related article in about a month (never mind the last time I actually left a comment on someone's blog). Even writing this entry is like pulling teeth.

I suspect the crappy winter/spring training has a lot to do with it. It just messed me up psychologically--especially since I ran my best Marathon time at the end of probably my worst training cycle. I'm still having nightmarish thoughts from the winter when I'd go out there in 15 degree weather before dawn and crank out six miles afraid that my eyes would freeze closed.

And then with the new job I find that I hardly ever have time to write an entry or keep up with other bloggers, which gets me out of touch with the running community. I really have no idea what anyone on my blogroll is doing (sorry guys!!). Heck, I barely have time to look up races to run.

I'm thinking I just have to get through this summer and start training for a Marathon to get me focused again on what I love to do. And I'm hoping that as my main project at work winds down in September, I'll be able to get into a better groove with my life.

Legs of steel

2010-06-24T20:28:00.000-05:00

Over the past month since the Delaware Marathon and in getting off on the SOS I've noticed two things going on with my legs.

First are the Marathon Cuts. I noticed my first Marathon Cut just after the NYCM. I was standing up from a squatting position (read: I was in the bathroom) and noticed that I had developed enough muscle definition in my quads to see a "cut" about two-three inches long. As a recovering fat kid, having a cut of any kind is super cool--I must have spent a five minutes checking it out...in the bathroom stall. Then after the Delaware Marathon I found that the Marathon Cut I got from the NYCM had elongated into a full-length cut from the outside of my hip to about five inches above my knee where the muscle ends. This is totally awesome! It's like discovering a new part of my legs!

Another side effect of training is the size of my calves. It's not exactly a problem, until I put on pants--which is everyday. In particular, navigating jeans over my calves has become pretty hard to do without tearing out some leg hairs along the way. I guess I now have a high calf-to-waist ratio (bigger calves, smaller waist) meaning that I might have to start buying those carpenter jeans that were popular when I was 12.

SOS kicks off with a fizzle

2010-06-22T21:44:00.000-05:00

Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? I realize now that I probably shouldn't have picked the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge as the kick off to my Summer Of Speed. For starters the race is an irregular distance: 3.5 miles. A few less tenths of a mile and it would have been a 5K (one would wonder why it they didn't do that). Then, there were the 14,000 runners. For such a short race that is a friggin nightmare. But none the less, I counted it as the official kick-off to my SOS (borrowed generously from Nitmos).

The event is a corporate charity run (and walk as I found out) benefiting the Central Park Conservancy. My office organized a team and paid for the entry fees, so when I saw the email I was one of the first to sign up. The race was also exactly one month after the Delaware Marathon, so I figured I had plenty of time to switch out my Marathon legs for 5K legs.

Lesson #1 from the JPMCCC: I have never had 5K legs. By training and by racing I am a long distance runner. For six years I have only run Half-Marathons and Marathons (except for one 5K and one 10K). So training for this race was exceptionally awkward. The biggest problem was that I would wake up to go running and then I would think "it's only a three mile run, it won't hurt if I miss it" and then went back to sleep. And then when I did run my legs were super sore. I'm not used to being sore after every single run--at least that hasn't happened in a very long time. Hopefully this means this SOS will break out some long dormant muscles.

On race day (Wednesday) me and a couple of coworkers gathered up to head uptown together. We were all dressed up in running shorts and the team t-shirt when the head of our East Coast operations (my boss's boss's boss) passes by and starts chatting us up. Since I'm the "professional" runner he singles me out and says that if I don't finish in the top five I can consider myself fired. Actually, he grabs a sharpie from a desk and writes that ultimatum on my t-shirt. Great. No pressure.

Since we're running late when we get off the train at Columbus Circle me and my coworkers decided to "warm up" with a run from Columbus Circle to Tavern on the Green.

Lesson #2 from the JPMCC: running with a backpack is difficult. Worse than running at a sprint is running at a sprint with a back pack full of work clothes. It actually wore me out pretty bad--and that was before I got to the bag drop off for my company.

We put our bags down and stretched before walking over to the massive mess that was the starting line. I didn't realize how far back we were because the starting chute wrapped around a curve. But once the crowd started moving I saw that we were waaaay far back in the non-competitive section (excuse me: non-competitive? That's a joke, right?). After we passed the non-competitive banner then came the markers for 12 minute pace, 11 minute pace, 10 minute pace, and so on. We were essentially with the walkers and knew that we would be weaving through the crowd the entire way.

Lesson #3 from the JPMCC: weaving through a entire race is like cross training in the middle of a tempo run. Weaving through the crowd the entire race felt like I was alternating between a tempo run and calisthenics. There was no way to get to my goal race pace of 7:15 and I was constantly shuffling, hopping, skipping, passing, and dodging. It was an entirely different workout than I'm used when I run.

I immediately lost my coworkers in the crowd. I was so focused on making my way through the crowd that I didn't see the first mile marker. For someone used to running long distances where there are usually sections of the race when you're all alone, this literally was a nightmare.

Lesson #4 from the JPMCC: team t-shirts should be recognizable from a distance. I work in an ad agency, and while it's not the type of ad agency that produces advertisements we nonetheless have professional designers on staff to make presentations and such look good. Apparently, no one in my office thought of tapping one of those designers for a t-shirt. Our team t-shirts were plain white t-shirts with the company logo on the front and some uninspired words on the back. Finding one of my coworkers was impossible in that crowd.

Even though our t-shirts were hard to find, I did eventually find a coworker in the distance near mile 1.5. I tried to lock-in on him but I couldn't close in because of the crowd and the weaving that had tired me out prematurely. But at least I had that goal to pass him (remember, I had to finish in the top five if I wanted to keep my job) and that kept me going through the race.

On the final downhill (cat hill) I made up a significant amount of space between me and my other coworker and finally passed him just after the boathouse. Then was the unforgiving 90 degree turn just before the finish line and the even less forgiving uphill to the finish line.

Lesson #5 from the JPMCC: that was the worst finishing chute experience ever. One of my co-workers pointed out that between my finish and his finish about 800 people crossed the finish line. Want to guess the amount of time that passed between our finishes? Thirty seconds. With that many people crushing at the finish line it was like running into a wall at the end. Actually, I did run into two people who slowed do faster than me.

I finished the race in 28:11, a pace of 8:03. However, according to Fenny I managed to run an extra .1 miles, bringing my adjusted pace to 7:53. While this was about 45 seconds slower than I intended on finishing, it sets an incredibly low bar for the SOS. I can only go up from here. Hooray for optimism!

Running in circles, Part III

2010-06-14T07:55:00.001-05:00

Splits:
Mile 14: 7:36

Mile 15: 8:31

Mile 16: 8:13

Mile 17: 8:22

Mile 18: 8:16

Mile 19: 8:32

Mile 20: 8:34

Mile 21: 8:50

Mile 22: 8:40

Mile 23: 8:47

Mile 24: 8:39

Mile 25: 8:39

Mile 26: 8:38

Mile 26.2: 1:26

Story:

The first loop of the second lap was an out and back along the waterfront—a bit different from the first pass at this loop when the course snaked around office parks and shopping centers. This route was narrower, but more scenic. Taking a look at my time I knew I was doing well but didn’t want to let that go to my head and sudden burn out. I always feel weakest at those high-teen miles (17-19), and if I’m burnt out by then I know it will be a bad race (see The Pig).

However, at the turn around on this loop I could see that the blonde girl, who I thought I had finally shaken, was just a couple meters behind me. I knew I couldn’t take it easy on this loop if I was going to stay ahead.

As I got back to the nexus of the course I saw Wifey again with camera in hand. I learned later that she had been standing in the same exact place during the first lap, but I totally missed her. I maneuvered my way through the narrow course and sharp turn through the relay exchange, hoping to not bump into a barricade (this area was extremely tight!).

Entering the second (and final!) loop of the second lap I started to pay some serious attention to my stomach. Essentially since Mile Three it was telling me it had to go to the bathroom. At first I thought it was just a one off wave, but it kept coming back every 15-20 minutes. For about 12 miles I was trying to decide between taking a preemptive bathroom visit now, take the time hit, and then proceed knowing it was over, or press chance and plow thorough the last 11 miles and run the risk of a major issue down the line. My head was saying to press on, but knowing that there was another pass at that big hill coming up I knew I had to listen to my body more.

At the same time I could feel the eyes of the blonde girl burning into the back of my head. I would hear her get close and then I would pull away. And then she’d get close again, and I’d pull away again. And while that was fine for the flat part of the race, the hills were going to start and I was already pressing my pace into the 8:13 area. I didn’t need someone forcing me to go too fast when I was holding down stomach issues.

Finally, around Mile 16 I gave up and decided that I wasn’t going to pull away from the blonde girl this time. If she takes me over on these hills, well, then she would just be the better runner. My 20-something-year-old-who’s-out-to-prove-himself ego would just have to be shelved for now. But then something weird happened. She parked herself on my right and did not pass me. Through downtown we ran step in step. We never got further in front of each other than a foot or two.

After about 20 minutes of this, I turned to her and said “hi.” She turned to me and in a too loud voice said hi back and said that I’m really good at pacing myself and that she had been behind me the whole race (Ha! As if I didn’t know). She asked if we were going to make it under four hours and I told her at the pace we’re going we’ll make it under 3:50. I didn’t even get to tell her that I was trying to make 3:40 because she quickly said that she was listening to really loud music and “let’s just run.” While I appreciate the purist approach to running, I wasn’t exactly looking for someone to share my life story with. I was just opening up the dialogue between us new-found running partners. So I left it at that.

By this point we were crossing the Swinging Bridge again, where I had noticed her the first time. I knew that there was now less than a mile before the big climb and that I should really find a port-o-potty, especially since my stomach was flaring up again. I knew there was a port-o-potty halfway up the hill, but I would have to cross oncoming runners to get to it and would have a blind approach (and therefore I wouldn't be able to tell if there was a line).

But magically an empty port-o-potty appeared half-way along the course to the climb. There was no line and the color on the handle was green—it was empty! Knowing that the blonde girl was listening to loud music and that my decision to stop was made in about .68 seconds I gave her no warning. I saw her head flick back around when I peeled off and headed into the bathroom.

Ninety seconds later I was back the course—perhaps the quickest time that the Browns have ever made it to the Super Bowl. On the approach to the switchback where the climb started I saw the blonde pass me and marked the time. I saw that I was about 1.5 minutes behind her. In my head the intention was to catch up to her, and 1.5 minutes shouldn’t be too hard to make up, but I knew that would be a big task with the mile of climbing in front of me.

I slowed down ridiculously on that hill, but this late in the race if I didn't slow down I was never going to make it. Even though it was the same exact hill I had passed just two hours earlier it felt like it had tripled in difficulty. The last 200m I could feel the energy pouring out with every step, and the scary thing was that the energy was not being replaced by more energy, it was getting replaced by tiredness--it was the closest I came to stopping during the whole race. I was never so happy to see a Mile Marker as when I saw 20 at the crest of that hill.

Then started the twisty-turny section of the loop with sixteen turns in three miles. While I should have been happy that this part was flat I felt like I didn't have anything left. I guess I'm used to running on bridges and rollers here in NYC, so every uphill is followed immediately by a downhill. Climbing for 10 minutes and then just going flat is not something I'm used to doing. This section was going to be hard and it didn't help that the sun had just come out at full strength, bringing the temperature up at least 10 degrees from the starting time. I did everything I could to distract myself until the downhill stretch where I would have some relief.

After all sixteen turns I came on the long downhill through a shady park. I hoped to regain my speediness on the downhill, but I simply couldn't. I was zapped, the special sauce--the gravvy--was gone, the hill had sucked it all out. I kept on trying to push myself faster but according to Fenny my body was not responding. I saw the miles creep higher and higher--23, 24, 25--but nothing, I could get nothing additional out of my legs, confirmed by the approaching hill I had to now pass to get through downtown.

On that last hill I looked at Fenny. My top goal of 3:40 was out of reach, but a PR was completely doable. Barring any disaster in the last mile I could "easily" make a sub-3:50. So I didn't give up looking for gravvy, even though I knew I had none left.

That last mile there was a guy close to my age who was running the last mile in fits and spats (run for a minute or two and then walk, and so on). I was keeping a steady pace so we passed each several times in the course of the mile. At Mile Marker 26 I passed him while he was walking and I shouted "Come on buddy, you're not walking now!" He picked up the speed and came up next to me and said that's what he needed to finish. He told me his name, where he was from, that his PR was 4:00 (or around there?), and that he was trying to break it. I little shocked that he was bounding with this much energy at the end of the Marathon and that he had no clue what his finish time was going to be. I told him he was going to break that PR for sure and probably shave off more than ten minutes. He sounded really happy about that and sped off around the corner to the finish line.

I tried to use my grappling hook on him, but that was busted too. And thanks to the two left turns to get to the finish line he was out of my site in seconds. So I poured it on as much as I could--and it was definitely all I had left because my calves cramped up during those strides to the end. In a tip of my hat to my great run at the Breakers Marathon I hopped on the timing mat to make sure it read my chip.

Final Numbers:

Net Time: 3:47:01

Watch Time: 3:45:33 (no potty break)

Overall place: 133/555 (top 24% of finishers)

Men: 105/345 (top 30%)

M25-29: 13/28 (top 46%)

While I didn't feel like this was my best race while running it, numberwise it was one of my best runs, second only to the 5K I ran in 2008. And now that I'm squarely in the top 25 percent of finishers I somewhat feel like I can say that I've moved on from the middle of the pack. Hooray!

Running in circles, Part II

2010-06-13T09:27:00.001-05:00

Sorry, life has gotten in the way of blogging yet again. But here is Part II of the Delaware Marathon, with Part III to come shortly: scout's honor!

______________________________________________________

Splits:
Mile 1: 9:04

Miles 2 and 3: 17:52 (8:56 pace)

Mile 4: 8:56

Mile 5: 8:31

Mile 6: 8:38

Mile 7: 9:05

Mile 8: 8:38

Mile 9: 8:25

Mile 10: 8:26

Miles 11 and 12: 16:50 (8:25 pace)

Mile 13: 9:13

Story:

I was trying to stick to a plan: run 8:30-8:40 for the first 10 miles, 8:20-8:30 for the next 10, and then whatever I've got for the last six--but still run the race I had trained for (i.e., not push myself too hard too early). When I saw the first split I wasn't ecstatic, but I was happy it wasn't in the 9:30 range that it normally is: the small race size negated the bob-and-weave that usually happens during the first couple miles. The pack was so thin that by the time I hit the turnaround, just after Mile Marker 1, I could already see groups separating. I knew I would have no complaints about over crowding here.

What I was having complaints about was Liam. The playlist started off with the right song, but the next song sounded a bit out of order, and then the third song was most definitely wrong. I checked the shuffle switch and it was in "off" position. I restarted the playlist and no luck. The songs were out of order. As I found out at home that night, all the right songs were there, so I had dragged in the correct playlist, but somehow when I placed the playlist on Liam the order of songs got all jumbled up. Weird. So much for the curated playlist I was looking forward to.

Getting back to the staging area (just after Mile Marker 2) I heard the announcer on the PA system. I assumed he was just rallying the crowd for the runners passing through. But as I cleared the boardwalk I found all 1,000 Half-Marathoners lined up, hands on watches, ready to go--given the course design I was in a passing corral going onto the rest of the course, but facing the starting line head on less than 100 yards in front of me. In a fraction of a second I pieced together what was happening and understood why the announcer was counting down "Five. Four. Three. Two. One." BOOM. The cannon fired again. Totally taken by surprise I threw my arms up to cover my head and then slipped into the chute to keep going on the course.

The next mile or so of the course was an industrial warehouse area, but a nice flat section that I knew I would appreciate on the second loop. The next mile passed through downtown Wilmington on a soft incline and nice decline after that.

I didn't notice how easy I was taking it until I saw the Mile 4 split and realized that I needed to pick it up. Just after Mile Marker 5 the course went over the Swinging Bridge. The bridge didn't exactly swing as much as it bounced, providing a trampoline effect. It was on this bridge that I passed by a svelte blonde girl about my age. I noticed that we had passed each other a couple of times up to this point and, frankly, that was getting annoying. So I took the trampoline power to pass her. I kept the lead on the other side of the river and through the next mile until I hit the hill.

The race director warned that there was one big, mile-long hill on the course, and that Marathoners would be running it twice. I took the warning with all seriousness and slowed down to not waste too much on the first pass at this hill. As promised it was a grueling climb, akin to the Queensboro Bridge. The only forgiveness was that half way up the hill there was a bit of a flat stretch that let you catch your breathe before the rest of the climb. During this hill the blonde girl passed me again, but this time I kept her in sight, thinking that when the course flattened out I would catch up.

At the top of the hill I saw the most horrible thing: Mile Marker 20. First, it reminded me that there was a hell of a lot of running left to go. Second, it indicated that the race director has a cruel sense of humor putting a mile-long climb leading up to Mile 20. Third, it reminded me of Heartbreak Hill (also placed at Mile 20) and all the fateful stories associated with that hill. I tried to stay optimistic, thinking that I've done late hills in my long runs, but something in the back of my head knew that the second pass at the hill would be rough.

The next three miles were very flat, but twisted an turned through a ritzy part of town and the Little Italy neighborhood. There were a total of 16 turns in this three mile stretch--and while on the course map it doesn't look that bad, in person it made me disoriented and frustrated (as in: you couldn't find a longer straight course to avoid all of these turns?).

During the first of these turns the blonde girl who I had been keeping my eyes--purely for pacing reasons!...mostly--took off her fleece top and tossed into the grass. She started shouting to a race volunteer to pick it up, I think in order for him to put it in the donation pile. But with that distraction I was able to pass her and get a comfortable distance ahead, or so I thought. A few minutes later I noticed her trying to pass me and knew I wasn't going to allow that this far into the race. So I pressed forward a little bit harder and took advantage of a steep downhill to get a good distance ahead of her and lost her for good. You can see in my splits for these miles I was going a bit faster than planned, but I was feeling great and increasingly confident in my running.

On the return part of this loop I got back the long uphill climb in the form of long downhill stretch that ended on the northern side of downtown, meaning there was only a mile left in the first lap of the race and the end of the race for the faster Half-Marathoners that had started to creep up around me.

I was taking it a bit easy because this pass through downtown was on a harder grade than the first pass. But on the downhill part, with Half-Marathoners zooming by to their finish, I noticed the blonde girl had caught up to me again. WTF? I used the downhill to open up some distance between me and her and hopefully get her off my tail for good.

At Mile Marker 13 I must have been too distracted to mark the mile on my watch: I was trying to outrun this blonde girl that I couldn't shake and then I saw Wifey at the base of the hill, camera at the ready. It was the first time I saw her on the course (but not the first time she saw me), I lit up but avoided skipping and jumping as I did during the NYCM--Delaware was a classier operation.

The course separated from the Half-Marathoners as they turned for the final 50m of their race. Checking out the finishing chute I wasn't too thrilled: in the last 200m of the the race you make two 90 degree turns, killing any kick you might have at the end. I plowed forward--and almost plowed over some guy who wasn't paying attention--to the halfway mark and the start of the first loop of the second lap.

Running in circles, Part I

2010-05-25T20:16:00.011-05:00

For the first time in a while I had managed to successfully and appropriately taper in preparation for a race. DC was a giant clusterf, NYCM I got carried away with family in town, Grete's Great Gallop I didn't even prepare for, and the Pig I overate at the pasta party and had gurgling toilet issues (remember that?). But at 5:45am on Sunday, May 16, I was driving down I-95 from Philadelphia to Wilmington thinking that everything had gone smoothly the weeks leading up to this race, that I hydrated and ate appropriately for the proceeding 48 hours, and that I had gotten a rather solid six hours of sleep. The only thing that worried me was that I hadn't exactly gone to the bathroom as much as I normally would before a race, but I scratched that up to having a body that is used to getting prepped for races and some efficient movement the day prior (I spare no details).

Although race organizers had warned that parking would fill up fast and to use the parking lots that were up to a half-mile away, I tried my luck at the parking garage closest to the starting line. Sure enough: plenty of parking. A good sign already.

There were about 30 minutes to go before the start and judging by the line at the port-o-potties that's about how much time I would spend in line. As I was waiting in line I saw a bird poop on the fleece that the guy in front of me was wearing--an omen? Perhaps. A sign of good luck? We'll get to that later.

I got to the starting line with a couple minutes to spare. There were only about 550 people running the Marathon, the smallest Marathon I've ever run. There were about 2,000 Half-Marathoners and Relay runners, but they would each have separate starts after the Marathon--the first start was just for the Marathoners.

The staggered start was absolutely necessary given the lay out of the course: two laps of a figure eight course with the start, finish, and all relay exchanges happening at the nexus of the eight. If the pack wasn't thinned out at the beginning, the first pass at the staging area would be an absolute mess. This was also an element I wasn't looking forward to. The only other lapped race I've run was the Queens Half-Marathon. The halfway point of that race was such a psychological trick that I have avoided lapped races ever since. The Delaware Marathon, however, had three passes by the finish line before the actual finish. I was going to have to rely heavily on my maturity as a runner to not let those passes trick me.

I kissed Wifey goodbye as they were singing the national anthem, which I could barely make out. I made my way into the crowd, getting ahead of the 10:00 pace group. I was posing for a picture for Wifey and barely paying attention when a cannon--a very nearby and loud cannon--fired to start the race.

Note: I'm heading out of town for the long weekend. So parts(s) II (potentially III) may take a while, based on computer access in the mountains of North Carolina.

Finally: a Marathon PR

2010-05-17T20:22:00.000-05:00

It was the race I was underprepared for and the race that I wasn't psyched about--but I'll now remember it as the race that got me into the 3:40s. Race report (in less than five installments, I promise) to follow.

Music for Wilmington

2010-05-12T19:30:00.000-05:00

Even though I put less and less importance on music these days, I still went through the hours long process of creating a custom playlist for the Marathon this weekend (exciting!). Although I tend to turn off my iPod for large chucks of the race I've learn that I really appreciate a well crafted playlist. I can just tell when the songs have been ordered to play well together vs. dumping a bunch of random songs on Lenny and switching to shuffle.

Below is the playlist in all its glory. I went through my now usual process, as described here.

Proud Mary; Tina Turner (I can't throw this tradition--every race starts with this song)
You're The First, The Last, My Everything; Barry White (before you say "WTF?" give the song a listen, it's a great slow start)
Katherine Kiss Me; Franz Ferdinand
Dance, Dance, Dance; Lykke Li (an odd choice I'll admit, but I'm testing it out anyway)
I'll Be There; Jackson 5 (another "WTF?" moment, but this choice is more about what the song means to me than the song tempo)
If Work Permits; The Format
Stuttering; Ben's Brother
Be the One; The Ting Tings
Ulysses; Franz Ferdinand
Everybody's changing; Keane (Keane is one of my favorite bands, but I have trouble running to their music. I'm giving them another shot this Sunday.)
Bulletproof; La Roux
Two Doors Down; Mystery Jets (one of the best hooks ever--so friggin catchy)
Party All the Time; Black Eyed Peas (I have to admit, having BEP on my playlist makes me feel a little bit like a tool, but you can resist the ear candy)
Breaking It Up; Lykke Li
Young Love; Mystery Jets
California Bound; Carolina Liar
Fruit Machine; The Ting Tings
My Heart Is Breaking Down; Caesars
Spaceman; The Killers
The Dynamo of Volition; Jason Mraz
Uprising; Muse
Photobooth; Friendly Fires
That's Not My Name; The Ting Tings (I hated this song the first time I heard it, but ever since it has grown on me uncontrollably)
Lisztomania; Phoenix (I will have you know that I owned this album before this band was big, I feel that gives me some kind of musical creds)
Meet Me Halfway; Black Eyed Peas (once again, not proud, but can't help it)
Blinded By the Light; Menfred Mann's Earth Band
Homewrecker; Hellogoodbye
Home; Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (my current musical obsession; love this song)
Wait Til You See My Smile; Alicia Keys (this song makes me really happy)
I'm Not Over; Carolina Liar (amazing power song)
Resistance; Muse
Make It Mine; Jason Mraz
Grace Kelly; Mika
Evacuate; The Boxer Rebellion
Kids; MGMT (I'm super late on buying this song--it's been on my wish list for months--but for some reason couldn't give into social pressure to buy it until last week)
The Middle; Jimmy Wat World
Spotlight (Twilight Remix); Mute Math (yes, it's from the Twilight soundtrack, don't judge--it was Wifey's purchase)
Amame; Juanes
Barracuda; Heart
Santo Santo; Gloria Estefan
Viva la Vida; Coldplay
A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Edit Remix); Elvis Presley (the king's first appearance in my music collection and a running playlist...might not be the last)
Read Between the Lines; KSM
Show Me What I'm Looking for; Carolina Liar
All Time Lows; Hellogoodbye
Always Where I Need to Be; The Kooks
Beat It; Fall Out Boy (I have the MJ version, but this one is so much better)
Are You Gonna Be My Girl; Jet
Any Way You Want It; Journey (yes it's Journey and it's not the last Journey song on here)
Animal; Neon Trees
Stronger; Kayne West
Reptilla; The Strokes
I Gotta Feeling; Black Eyed Peas (Jesus, the grammar in the title isn't even right, but I can't resist)
25 Miles; Edwin Starr
Don't Stop Believin'; Journey (guilty pleasure at the end)
Time Like These; Foo Fighters
Move Along; The All-American Rejects

Two weeks to go to Wilmington

2010-05-02T06:44:00.000-05:00

In two weeks I'll be about 1.5 miles into the Delaware Marathon. Logging onto the Marathon's web site this morning I see that they have successfully sold out the event--which is great because the cap on participants is 2,200, so the race will be nice and small. For comparison, there were roughly 5,000 in my color's starting wave of the NYCM, and there were three colors and three waves. Since I tend to do better in smaller races I'm really happy about this.

While checking my name on the confirmed runners list I noticed that this race is crazy popular with Fifty State runners. I assume that's because Delaware was famously without a Marathon until 2004. But there are some real running nuts here. Scrolling down the list you see people running their 116th, 227th, and 449th Marathons. There is even one die hard running his 619th Marathon. I can't think of anything I plan on doing 619 times in the course of my life--much less anything as challenging as a Marathon. Also, I would assume my legs would just fall off after Marathon number 500. Kudos to them for being so dedicated to this sport...and for making my 50 state goal look so puny.

While all this is great, I spent my entire long run yesterday thinking that I couldn't believe I had a Marathon two weeks away. This training cycle got off to such a bad start with our move, all the snow this winter, and that freaking eye injury, that I didn't begin training in earnest until March. I'll be glad when this race is over and I can reset my training/running in more favorable conditions.

Speaking of post-Marathon, I've been playing around with borrowing the Summer of Speed idea from Nitmos. I've only done one 5K and one 10K in my entire running career and it's starting to sound increasingly fun to have a series of smaller races from Memorial Day to Labor Day and then increase the mileage come September for an Oct/Nov race. It's completely different from what I normally do and that sounds fantastic right about now.

Playing catch up

2010-04-25T07:22:00.000-05:00

I'm taking this morning to be a good blogger: I'm going to get through at least 50 posts on my reader (prepare for an onslaught of comments) and am current writing a post (this one).

Once again life has intervened and blogging has taken a back seat. I launched a massive project at work this past Monday and was supposed to be in Memphis for a week's worth of meetings--but that was canceled since some of my clients are European based and couldn't get on an airplane due to volcanic ash (when am I ever going to get to say that again?). On top of that it's been the three hardest weeks on the training plan all with mileage in the 40s range.

Training in general has been on a huge upswing. The warmer weather and the sun coming up earlier have really helped with my morale. And I have successfully completed two (!) 20 miles runs this training cycle, which have been gigantic confidence boosters. However, I still don't feel like I'm back in top form. Looking back at my times from this point in training for the NYCM I'm not as fast as I was then and I don't remember being as tired: whereas I remember constantly waking up before my alarm, now I hit snooze before I can convince myself out of bed. I guess this is what happens when you start training in the dead of winter and move apartments one-month into the training cycle. This makes me really looks forward to summer training and thoroughly convinces me that I need to join a gym next winter.

Speaking of completing two 20 miles runs this training cycle, I noticed something last night while discussing them with Wifey. The 20 miler I did on April 10 was very hilly: rollers up the west side to the GWB, the big descent and then climb in Palisades Park, and then rollers all the way back to 59th Street (via Central Park). Yesterday's 20-miler was very flat--actually the only hilly portion was the first couple of miles in Central Park, otherwise it was basically flat running along the Hudson down to Battery Park (and doubling back at some points to get to 20 miles).

You would think the former would have been slower and the latter would have been faster. But no, it turned out to be the opposite: the hilly run I finished at an 8:54 pace and the flat one I finished at 9:01. Granted, there isn't that much difference between the two (it translates into about a two minute difference for total time), but you also have to consider that I felt more beat up after the flat run than the hilly run. My theory is that the hilly run I alternated using different parts of my legs while with the flat run I was using the same parts over and over. Just a thought. It's such a small difference over 20 miles that it also could be nothing.

Now that peak week is over I can start focusing on the race in Delaware--I can already feel Marathon Fever begin to set in.

More pictures in my heads

2010-04-11T08:51:00.001-05:00

Before getting into the "grappling hook" I'd like to thank everyone for their kind comments from the DC race report. That was one hard race to run--it's great to know there's a whole group of strangers (all three of you since I've been half-assing the blog scene lately) cheering me on. Thanks guys and gals.
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Yes indeed, that is a grappling gun. (You know I'll make this relevant to running, just hold on for the ride.) This device is usually reserved for the ranks of James Bond, Jason Bourne, and ninja assassins. They typically use it when they need to scale an enemy building, climb over the wall of a fortress, or boost the cool gadget factor of a movie (I refer you to the scene in the original Batman movie where Batman asks Vicki how much she weighs).

While I don't own a grappling hook--although that would have it's conveniences--I have found myself using one while running.

Mostly, I find myself using the grappling hook on the track. Now that the weather has warmed up and the sun is rising earlier I all of a sudden have company on the track at Astoria Park. It's awesome to finally be running in sunlight again and even better to have other people at the track. The latter not necessarily for the company, but more for use in grappling hook target practice.

It didn't start off as something intentional, but I've realized that when I lock on someone while running I'll start pacing myself to overtake them. Even in a largeish pack I can pick out someone that's going my pace or slightly slower, peg them, and eventually overtake them. Once again, it's not something I did on purpose, it kinda just happened. After while I started to realize when I did this and noticed that the sensation felt like I had hooked onto the person in front of me and was pulling them closer (via an invisible rope). Eventually I started to throw the term "grappling hook" around my head, as in I would lock in on a target, launch a grappling hook that would grab on to them, and then slowly--although sometimes quickly--overtake them.

For many reasons I use the grappling hook most often on the track. First, I do speed work on the track, so I'm usually going my very fastest. Second, there are a lot of people clustered together at the track, therefore, many targets. Third, most other people on the track are not doing speed work; they're either walking or simply running slower than me at the time. Fourth, it's a big circle; there are no places for the people in front of you to turn off the course or change routes (ala Central Park), so it's easy to chase people down.

During my Yasso repeats on Thursday I actually got to the point where I made a gun shape with my hand and would "launch" the grappling hook onto the people I was going to overtake. I tried to keep it subtle. However, during yesterday's long run (20 miles) I was much less subtle. Now, understand I was in the last two miles of the run and I was kicking ass (8:54 pace--unheard of for me at the 20 mile training range). Since I only had two miles left I wasn't worried about running out of steam, so I starting whipping out the grappling hook--which would otherwise backfire on a long run. By the end of the run I was audibly saying "boom" every time I "launched" the grappling hook--which was pretty often because I was in Central Park and it was the middle of a beautiful day. Anyone with a keen eye would noticed me running, full-tilt, shooting an imagery gun and whispering "boom" through a park crowded with runners. In retrospect I'm surprised I wasn't arrested.

The race that almost wasn't, Part III

2010-03-30T20:11:00.163-05:00

On race morning Wifey and I call a cab to take us to the starting line. Given the troubles we've been having we figure a cab is best way to ensure we get to the starting line in one piece and on time. Of course, there was one thing we didn't count on. When we get in the cab we tell the driver we're going to RFK Stadium. His response? "Where is that? Is that in DC?"

I thought it was a joke at first. But no, we apparently got the only cab driver in northern Virginia who doesn't know where RFK Stadium is. At least the guy had a Garmin. Wifey quickly looked up the address and we were on our way.

At the staging area we headed straight for the Armory where it was nice and toasty inside. The temps outside had fallen sharply overnight into the 40s, which I wasn't expecting. After a trip to the bathroom and stretching we headed out to the starting line in front of the stadium.

Given everything that had happened the past few days I was a bit surprised to actually be at this starting line. I was finally starting to get excited about running this race. I gave Wifey a big hug and kiss and told her I love her roughly 200 times--as rough as the past two days were for me they were just as hard for her, but she didn't let it get to her at all. She was my rock when I really needed it. (Love you Wifey!!!)

I wormed my way into the corrals, did some last minute IT band stretches--can never stretch those enough--and waited for the gun to start. I just happened to be standing next to a guy that I swear it was his first time running a race. He was bouncing and hooting. He let out a mighty howl when they announced there was just one minute to go (I kid you not). I just smiled to myself. This is old hat to me by now. The mix of tranquility and roaring excitement is no longer a new emotion. It has evolved into a unique feeling of comfort that assures me that for those fleeting minutes everything in my world is right and good.

I stood there and waited for the gun to go off, not knowing what the next 13.1 miles held or if how I would get them done.

The Splits, reported as time per mile/pace per mile:

Mile 1: 9:19 / 9:16
Mile 2: 8:48 / 8:41
Mile 3: 8:20 / 8:17
Mile 4, 5, & 6: 25:05 / 8:19
Mile 7: 9:01 / 8:57
Mile 8: 8:18 / 8:16
Mile 9: 8:14 / 8:08
Mile 10: 7:56 / 7:55
Mile 11 & 12: 16:39 / 7:57
Mile 13.1: 8:46 / 7:46

Distance: 13.11 (Fenny: 13.29)
Time: 1:50:30
Pace: 8:19
Overall Place: 1587/6250
Age Place: 284/600

There were lots of goods things about this race. The course was the most scenic of all the urban races I've run. The starting area was spacious, well organized, and had lots of bathrooms. The finishing area was well stocked (free McDonald's frappecinos!) and spacious. I would give this race a five-star rating, except that the first couple of water stations were very understaffed--so I'll give it a four and a half star rating.

But that's all the good I have to say about this race.

From the outside I probably looked fine, but inside I was a hot mess. I couldn't settle into a groove because I had no idea what my pace was supposed to be: I knew I wasn't going to PR, but I didn't want to crawl through the race, but I didn't want to bonk late in course either. And then my stomach was just horrible: it was a tangled mess that felt it could sour at any moment. This is the first race where I honestly day that I wanted to throw up at one point.

Up through Mile 4.5 I forced myself to run the race and it worked. Also, I found that I wasn't the only one having a bad day: there was a guy who fell in front of me not once, but twice--within the same half-mile. Knowing that I was falling all over the place made me feel better about being out there.

At Mile 4.5 the hills and tunnels started. The crest near the Mile 6 marker was killer. That was the first time I seriously considered walking--and I wasn't even half way through the race. I started to get a stitch around this point (ah, my old friend, how could I race without you?). But this was different. I felt it coming on early--so early that I felt I could really cut it off before it got full blown. So I tried a different tactic: I forgot about it. Instead of thinking about breathing and my pace and putting one foot in front of the other, I thought of how to drive to my parents' house (in Miami) from Orlando. And then I started recounting the house numbers of the addresses I've lived at and if they were multiples of each other. And guess what? It worked! The stitch faded away and was never heard from again. Another weapon for the battle against stitches.

The zig-zag back to RFK stadium was absolutely killer. Those last few miles always are unless you're on a kick. With less than a mile to go I was really hoping for the adrenaline to kick in, but it wasn't happening. Seeing the Marathoners pass by as they were going back into the city made me both excited and exhausted.

Finally, I turned the corner and RFK stadium appeared. The Marathoners broke off from the course and I was left with Half-Marathoners giving their final push to the finish. The adrenaline I had been looking for finally kicked in and for basically the first time all day I felt like I wanted to run. I punched the air and I rounded the final bend and coasted across the finish line.

1:50:30 wasn't too bad. I actually felt a sense of accomplishment for running the whole way and pulling a time in line with my average HM. But the best part came as I was getting my medal. There was a woman I passed for the first time (that I noticed) around Mile 10 and we stayed neck and neck for the rest of the race. As I was getting the medal placed over my head that woman tapped me on the shoulder and let me know that she was behind me at the end of the race and that I ran really well. At that moment I couldn't get the words out to explain to her how much those words meant to me, but they made the whole debacle of getting to DC and running this race worth it. Knowing that I ran well made it all worth it.

The race that almost wasn't, Part II

2010-03-28T15:06:00.001-05:00

Fate wasn't entirely against me on this trip. Right after the crash I realized that getting to DC in time would likely become impossible seeing the traffic and assuming it would be quite a while before a tow truck could get to us. I looked for a phone number or email to reach the race directors, but there was nothing on the materials I printed or the website. Another person could pick up my race number for me, but they would need a copy of my ID--not exactly something I had handy to give someone in DC. However, it just so happened that one of my friends had let me know they were going to be a volunteer at the expo--a gigantic coincidence given that this was an out of town race and that I have so few running friends.

I texted my friend and let them know that I had been in an accident and that I was in jeopardy of missing the expo cut off of 8pm. Then I let my friend know that Wifey and I were fine and unharmed--I had my priorities in order. In an strange bit of good luck my friend let me know that not only were they manning the registration tables, but they were handling the box with my number in it. My friend pulled out the number and would hold onto it until I got to DC that night.

While I was a ball of stress and nerves by this time, knowing I'd be able to get my race number helped calm me tremendously. I knew that I would be able to run the race I was striving to get to and run it legitimately.

The tow truck with the replacement rental showed up on schedule at 6:57pm. We hightailed it out of there since we still had a long drive ahead. I had switched to glasses, because there was no way I going to drive with contacts again--at least not until I got better adjusted to them. But the problems kept coming.

First, since we didn't get to charge Wifey's phone the night before it was dead. It would have been fine to be just with my phone, but because we spent about an hour on the phone with Budget my battery was dying fast. And we needed the charge to last all the way to DC to meet up with my friend and then get to update our friends who we were staying with in Virginia. Second, both outlets in the replacement car were dead, so our Garmin had to operate on battery only--a battery life which I knew would not last the three hours to DC. Normally this wouldn't be a problem because we have our phones as back up, but then I refer you back to the phone situation. Third, the replacement car only had half a tank of gas, which might last all the way to DC--I didn't want to do a time-sucking gas stop unless it was absolutely necessary.

Well, we were on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway when the "low fuel" light came on. If you know about about this Parkway (and Parkways in general) you know that there are gigantic gaps between exits. I was afraid that we'd hit a traffic jam and I'd be stranded on the shoulder of this highway. Seeing the bad luck I was having behind the wheel it could only be expected. Fortunately, we missed the traffic jam by 500 feet (it was a mess of red lights) and pulled off on the next exit to gas up.

At 10:15pm we made it to my friend's hotel and picked up the race bib. I gave them a run down of the previous 12 hours and the mess of a day I was having. Then we quickly parted ways because Wifey and I still had to go crosstown to Arlington where we were staying with other friends.

We finally made it to our friends' apartment at 10:45pm with the last bit of charge left in the Garmin. (We had turned off the Garmin on the long stretches of expressway between Philly and Baltimore.) I hadn't had dinner but didn't really feel like I could hold down any food: my stomach was a cement brick, even water went down bad. As we turned in for the night I tried to get my head around the idea that I was running a race in the morning. I took out my clothes and gear, I slapped some music together and called it a playlist (it's not even worth posting the music here), and made a game plan for the morning with Wifey. By 11:30 we were out--only five and a half hours before we'd have to be awake again.

This was a very strange place for me mentally speaking. The last thing I wanted to do was run a race--I've been nervous, I've had sleepless nights, but I've never not wanted to run a race. And actually, if this race was closer to home I might have thrown in the towel. However, for this race I used one of my precious few vacation days, I drove four hours out of town, I had two near accidents and one full accident, I had asked a friend to pull a major favor that might have gotten them in trouble, among so many other hurdles. In other words, I had made it through so many setbacks to get to the starting line that I couldn't not do the race. My only option was to run.

The race that almost wasn't, Part I

2010-03-24T13:45:00.001-05:00

If I knew how bad things were going to get I probably never would have left the house on Friday morning.

I wrote up the whole incident about the two taxis on my way to pick up the rental car on Friday. I completely thought that would be the end of the bad streak. I left Wifey at home packing and I proceeded to the airport to get the car. I was operating on five hours of sleep and was additionally tired from the short run I had that morning (this is important and will factor in later). We packed up the car and heading into midtown, all on schedule.

Disaster #1 wasn’t much of a disaster but had the potential to royally mess things up. As I pulled over on a midtown side street to get Wifey’s cell phone I accidentally bumped into the car in front of me. I was going super slow (less than 5 mph), but with me still getting sued to contacts and the car I wasn’t used to driving it just kinda just happened. Of course, the driver was in the car: she was a fancy-looking lady who sounded European. She was understandably shocked (as were Wifey and I) and came out of her car saying “Why did you hit me?” “ How did you hit me?”

I explained to her that it was a rental car I had just picked up and wasn’t used to the hood. Looking at her bumper she started saying “do you see the damage?” I looked at the bumper, indeed there were some scratches, but most of them could not have been caused by the car I was driving—they looked to be mostly wear and tear from driving in the city. After trying to explain to her there was no way my compact car could have made those scratches in her SUV she gave up and sat back in her car.

This shook me up a bit, but after getting the phone I was feeling fine. By the time we got the phone it was 11a, and by the time we got to Jersey it already noon. Not a huge set back, but timing was starting to get tight and I was starting to get a little stressed—I could feel the knot starting to form in my stomach.

Disaster #2 wasn’t a disaster at all, but it was a very close call. We made a pit stop in Jersey to pick up a piece for our espresso maker and drop off some bags of clothes at Goodwill. While I was pulling into the back of the Goodwill to drop off bags a box truck was driving out of the parking lot, taking up the entire width of the lane. I had to stop and get back into the lane I was turning from, but unfortunately there were several cars behind me that decided to try to get around me quickly while I was making the turn. Horns ensued, but metal did not meet metal.

After a pit stop for lunch we hit the road for the long segment of the drive. It was around 2:15 when we got on the NJ Turnpike at New Brunswick. I figured we would make it to DC between 5p and 6p. Which was comfortably before the 8p closing time for packet pick-up. However, I still couldn’t shake the ball of nerves in my stomach.

Disaster #3 was a full-fledged nightmare. A couple miles on the Turnpike (aka, the roadway to hell) we hit a traffic jam, a massive one, enough to get me worried about making it to DC on time. We were stop and go for 45 minutes. At this point the food coma had fully set in so I was in a bit of a haze—the constant stop and go didn’t help. On top of that it was bright and sunny and since I’m new to contacts I didn’t have sunglasses, so my eyes were bothering me left and right. I got distracted for just long enough that I didn’t hit the brakes in time and crashed right into the guy in front of me.

Wifey jumped up and screamed, the hood bent up in the middle, and a weird noise started sounding from the engine. We pulled over to the left and I just wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t have bad luck like this. I don’t screw up like this.

We were fine so I got out of the car to check on the other driver. He was fine and his car didn’t even get a ding, but he could see the worry on my face. He called the cops and they showed up after about 20 minutes. I got a citation, but fortunately no one was hurt. But then things started to get bad.

The NJ Turnpike is a restricted zone, so only towing companies contracted by the police are allowed to pick you up. This means that the rental company (Budget) couldn’t tow the car from where it was. This also meant I got stuck paying for the tow from the Turnpike to the tow yard because we were forced to use someone other than Budget’s person. When the tow truck showed up (around 4:15) he took his time winching the car and getting it on the flat bed. Once at the tow yard we could finally tell Budget when to get us and the car from. They dispatched a tow truck to pick up a car from the Philly airport and bring it up to us outside of Trenton—the ETA was 7p. Remember that packet pickup? Yeah, that was ending at 8p.

Two terrible taxis

2010-03-19T07:59:00.001-05:00

Normally, the week and particularly the night before leaving for a race is very intense in the sRod household. There's packing, last minute "oh crap I forgot thats," playlist making, and various other things that create a controlled chaos. Not so last night.

Last night I left work at 10:30. Mostly I was there for work, but at 10:05 I get a frantic email from Wifey that she left her cell phone in a cab. I called her phone--no luck. I called 311, but Wifey didn't have the taxi I'd number, so that was fruitless.

When I left the office I hopped in a cab myself. But once we crossed over to Brooklyn the cab got a flat. WTF. Double cab troubles. And since this was a fairly remote part of Brooklyn there was no chance I could pick up another one, so I had to wait for the guy to change tires.

Fortunately, the guy was super quick with changing the tire. Then, right before getting home I trtied calling Wifey's phone one last time--and some one picked up! The person was super nice and agreed to meet us this morning before we head down to DC.

But by the time I got home, our thai food arrived, and I set up time to get the phone it was past midnight. We just passed out knowing this morning we'd be making a mad dash to pack, pick up the rental car, and get to midtown by 10:30.

Death to the tempo run

2010-03-16T13:17:00.000-05:00

I've had my own private little running hell for the past nine-ish months. Every Tuesday morning I wake up to do a tempo run. And every time I have a tempo run longer than five miles on the plan I can basically guarantee you that halfway through I will have to stop to go to the bathroom.

This morning was no different. I had eight miles on the plan and immediately knocked it down to seven because eight miles is kinda crazy before work. I was feeling good leaving the house and hoped that it was a good sign for the rest of the run. After a warm-up run to Astoria Park I hit the road by the river for the meat and potatoes of the run. Sure enough, 3.6 miles in I had to stop and go back home.

(Note: there is a bathroom at Astoria Park, but it has three problems. First, it doesn't open during the winter. Second, duirng the time of year it does open, it doesn't open until 7am--at which time I'm done with any running. Third, even though I have developed low standards for bathrooms, these bathrooms are pretty damn awful.)

So while I was standing there on Shore Boulevard trying to make sure I didn't ruin my pants I decided to swear off tempo runs--or at least how I have been doing tempo runs.

In the little pockets of free time at my desk I've been researching tempo runs and come away with a few key pointers. First and foremost it seems that I do tempo runs for far too long. Apparently tempo runs are supposed to last from 20 to 35 minutes (for the meat and potatoes of the workout). The back half of my training plan has me running no less than 40 minutes of tempo on Tuesdays. I've always been suspicious of the length of my tempo runs, but I've always shrugged it off as me being scared of a difficult workout. Turns out there was some merit to my weariness.

I do seem to have the pace down right. I run in the range of 8:00-7:40 per mile and I would describe that as "comfortably hard." That pace is significantly faster and harder than other runs, but I'm comfortable enough to run for 60 minutes if I needed to. However, it does seem that I have the paces matched up backwards: I do longer runs at the fast pace while I do shorter runs at the slower pace.

Also, I learned that it's acceptable to break a tempo run into two by taking a short recovery interval of 60 seconds (some articles went all the way up to seven minutes). I always avoided breaking up my tempo runs. If I stopped, I stopped for good. If I kept running while I was losing steam I would just run myself into the ground.

There was a lot of talk about heart rates in the articles--and of course I can't find any of them now. However, I remember reading that more seasoned runners (moi?) usually do tempos runs at 85-90% of max heart rate. It would help if I knew my max heart rate. I really have to put my heart rate monitor to better use than providing an additional line on my Garmin output chart.

So tonight I'm going to look at my juggarnaut training plan for DC/Wilmington and play around with the tempo runs. I'll be trimming back the distance and rearranging the speed. During workouts I'll take a longer warm-up and include sprints. For the longer runs (5+ miles) I'll take a recovery interval in the middle. I'll also try to figure out my max rate during repeats this Thursday morning (really should have done this back when I first got my heart rate monitor).

Got a new face

2010-03-13T07:03:00.018-05:00

As you can see, I tinkered around with some of the new template capabilities in Blogger in Draft. It's been almost three years since I've done anything to the aesthetics of this site, so I figured I should give the thing a facelift especially with my blogoversary coming up next month. I'm also hoping that this helps get me back in the writing mood since I've been sucking at that for past three months.

It's kinda like I'm saying: "here you go honey: daddy bought you a new face to buy your love."

Well. Maybe not exactly like that, but close.

It's that goddam Loch Ness monster

2010-03-12T18:44:00.001-05:00

One of the best South Park skits/jokes I can remember is the one about the Loch Ness monster and him always asking for $3.50--pronounced tree fitty. For reference:

TREE FITTY!

JsE | MySpace Video

Genius.

Last night--and I swear this would only happen in New York--I got a visit from the Loch Ness monster himself. Let me explain.

Last night around 9pm I was on the couch watching TV in my PJs waiting for Wifey to come home from a long night at the office. Suddenly, someone buzzed the intercom. Wifey has her own keys, but sometimes when one of us is home we get lazy and buzz the bell instead of whipping out the keys. Since I hadn't heard from Wifey in a while I assumed it might be her--although it would have been weird for her to leave the office and not tell me.

I answered the intercom and it is most definitely not Wifey. It's some guy saying that he's Pete (or John or somebody) and that he lives next door. There does happen to be one guy that lives on my floor that I don't remember his name and I figured it was him and he had locked himself out. So I buzzed him in and thought that was the end of it.

Well, this dude comes into the building, comes up to my apartment and knocks on the door. Figuring it's the dude from down the hall. Turns out it most definitely is not the dude from down the hall. And from this guy's appearance he doesn't even look like he lives in the building.

He introduces himself and says that he lives in the building next door. He proceeds to tell me that his daughter has suffered an accident and has a collapsed lung and that he needs to buy her a nebulizer and some sort of prescription drug. Even though he tried running his credit card to buy it the card was declined or didn't go through. So he has to buy these things in cash and needs $38 to buy them. He said he would repay me as soon as possible, but that he needed cash right now.

At this point, there already seem to be gaping holes in his story. A collapsed lung sounds extremely serious--why wouldn't this girl be in a hospital? And for $38 wouldn't you turn to a familiar neighbor or a friend or a relative or a co-worker? I was obviously not convinced. It didn't help that I had never seen the guy before. I was expecting to see this guy to shake off his man costume and reveal himself as that goddam Loch Ness monster. And this Nessie was marked up to match the market!

My next door neighbor pops his head after hearing the conversation through the walls. Apparently this guy had buzzed every bell in the building in order to get in. He puts on his suspicious face when he hears this guy's spiel--which only convinced me more to get out of this situation fast.

To prove who he is this guy shows me his driver's license. It's for an address in the Bronx. How are you proving that you're my neighbor--in Queens--if the license you show me is registered in the Bronx? He says he drives for the city and that it's a commercial license (that is true, it's written across the top) and that for commercial licenses they are registered under where you work and that he works out of the Bronx.

I told him politely that I had no way of knowing that he was really my neighbor, really in need of the money, or really going to pay me back. He "ok, that's fine, God Bless" with a tinge of guilt laced through his words. Let me tell you, I'm Catholic enough to know when you mean "God Bless" and when you mean "fuck you." This guy meant the latter.

As he turned around to the elevator I swear I saw his prehistoric tail poking out from the leg of his pants.

A taste of spring

2010-03-07T08:18:00.003-05:00

For the first time in four months mother nature cooperated and produced a perfect set of running conditions. I had 17 miles on the plans and a new route to try out: I took my standard home-to-city hall route, streamlined the turns, and then turned it backwards (i.e., I ended running from city hall back to home).

The Brooklyn Bridge was a great starting point. I like starting runs on the massive east side bridges because it keeps me from starting out too hard. Then I crisscrossed across Park Slope--and for the first time found a way around the nasty warehouse district that broke down many a midsummer's run. At Prospect Park I made a loop around the park and honestly did not want to leave. I really like Prospect Park--it's like Central Park lite--but alas, I had 10 more miles to go and there was no way I was doing them on Prospect Park's hills.

Then I got to the iffy section of the run. I took a new route from Prospect Park to Williamsburg and ran through some sketchy parts of town. I would definitely not run through these streets at night. But I did get to McCarren Park pretty easily, with only one major turn. At McCarren Park I was feeling good but started to get waves of "I need to find a bathroom." The funny thing about those waves is that they never occur when you're near a bathroom. McCarren Park has a decent bathroom, but did I "have to go" when I passed by it? Nope.

Onward to Queens, essentially tracing the NYCM for a couple of miles. Right before crossing the Pulaski Bridge I couldn't hold it anymore and wound up making a pit stop at KFC to take care of some bio business.

I thought I was fine after that pit stop, but once I started going through the warehouses in Long Island City and the sun reached its full height and I was getting every red light imaginable I just had to stop and start walking. Only three miles to go and Wifey's made from scratch blueberry-white chocolate pancakes waiting for me at the finish line and I was fizzling out every quarter mile.

The final nail in the coffin was that somewhere right after 16.5 miles Fenny ran out of charge and died. That's it, I was done.

Turned out Fenny died at 16.79 miles. I'll call that 17 miles, especially because there where some walking sections where I back tracked to make sure I'd get enough mileage before home. I learned from this run that running back home might not be the best tactic for a long run: there are no major streets (i.e., no synced up traffic lights) meaning that the last stretch of the run will be in one- or two-block bursts, and great way to kill your momentum. However, I also saw myself get really excited about running for the first time in a long while. The weather definitely helped turn around my spirits once I got out there.

As fantasized about during the run, Wifey made a small mountain of blueberry-white chocolate pancakes for breakfast. (I know it's wrong to reward your workouts with food, but when I've burned through over 2200 calories it's hard for me to think otherwise.) After breakfast we stopped by the eye doctor to pick up my new glasses and a trial set of contact lenses.

Yes sir, I'm finally giving contacts another chance. I tried using contacts when I was 10, than again throughout my teen years, but failed every time. It has actually been running that has prompted me to try yet again because it is impossible for me to find running friendly sunglasses that can have prescription lenses put in them and still look good.

The biggest hurdle, when I was a teen, was that I couldn't get the damn things in my eyes. Yesterday, by the end of the tutorial, I was getting them in on the first or second try. However, I now have a new problem: the astigmatism in my left eye that has worsened over the years means that I'm at the ceiling of what's available to the mass market, any higher and you start talking about custom made lenses (which are much more expensive). So while I see perfectly out of my right eye with the lenses, my left eye is the slightest bit blurry and hard to focus. And if my astigmatism gets worse then I might have to drop contacts altogether. Boo on my bad eyes.

But in the meanwhile, I'm going to give these lenses a chance. And hopefully in the following weeks you'll see around town sporting these flashy bad boys (they're so bad ass that they float!):

Visions of races past

2010-02-28T09:44:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was the hardest long run I've done in a while. I had 16 miles on the training plan, but this is my first full week getting back on regular training, so it felt like I was on week one and starting out with a 16 mile training run. Thanks to the 72 hour snow storm we had this week there was snow and slush and ice everywhere and basically the only clear stretch of running space was Central Park. I'm cool with running 16 miles on 6 mile loop...when I'm listening to music. And what did I forget to do yesterday before leaving the apartment? Yup, I forgot to upload a playlist onto Fenny.

So I had a silent 16-turned-into-15 miles, running circles around Central Park, in cold and snow that just wouldn't go way. On top of that it was warming up yesterday and the thick snow was melting off the trees. So throughout the run clumps of snow were falling down on me. Most were tiny clumps. But every now and then I'd get a hefty baseball sized one on the shoulder or arm. One clump landed square on eyebrow getting snow all up in my face. I guess the feeling is mutual: cold weather doesn't like me either.

Instead of continuing to be a Debbie Downer on the weather, I had to distract myself during the 2.5 hours spent battling the elements. As normally happens during a silent run my mind started wandering off to past races, which are always a source of pride and "if I did it then I can do it now" mentality. It helped that yesterday I was actually rerunning parts of the NYCM course.

I found it interesting yesterday that there are particular scenes from certain races that I constantly turn back to. They were mostly:

Miles 17-25 of The Flying Pig, when my race strategy had collapsed and it felt like the finish line would never come within sight or within reach
The last 1.5 miles of The Breakers Marathon where I chopped 20 minutes off my PR
The sprint to the finish at the Great Bay Half-Marathon
The hills section of the Boston Half-Marathon, where I learned what distance running meant
Every mile of the NYCM after Queens

It's funny that I completely blank on Baltimore (or as some will remember: MY FIRST MARATHON EVER) and the slew of Half-Marathons I have under my belt. It's also funny that the parts I pick to play over and over are usually the most challenging parts of the races. It's like I know I'm doing something hard now so I think of another time I did something similar and prevailed. I guess that's a healthy strategy to have, even if I did end up cutting the run short by one mile.

Here's hoping that next time I 1) can muster it up for the last mile and 2) remember to bring music with me. (I guess there is an unmentioned #3: stop running in the cold, but alas, that is not an option for now.)

Getting back in the groove

2010-02-23T20:26:00.004-05:00

I'm starting get back in the swing of things with running: I've pretty much stuck to my schedule for the past week, and now that we are getting rain for the next four days all the snow and ice are melting away. On top of that, the sun is starting to rise earlier, so much that Monday morning the sun has almost mad it over the horizon by the time I finished my run.

If this training cycle has taught me anything it is that I really do not like running in the cold. It's cumbersome to deal with all the clothing. It's uncomfortable to breathe and move when it is sub-freezing. It's dangerous to run when there is snow and ice on the ground.

I feel like I can't run as fast because I don't want to get any colder. And I really hate being sweaty in the cold. Even thinking about all this makes me unhappy--it's like the hardest form of mental cross training you can imagine.

It was nice last year when my only outdoor run was on the weekend, because then I only had to deal with this once a week and I got to at least run during daylight hours. I think I have learned my lesson and will definitely be joining a gym for next winter. The trade off there will be having to do my weekday runs on a dreadmill. Yikes.

All your internet are belong to us

2010-02-21T09:41:00.002-05:00

We finally have internet service at home! For some reason Time Warner (the occasional bane of my existence) cancelled our appointment last Saturday with no notice whatsoever. We ended up going a week without cable or internet service. Fortunately, Wifey was smart enough to check if there was some kind of signal on the existing wire, and sure enough we were able to pick up the broadcast networks through the cable line--so we have been able to keep up with the Olympics.

On the running front, I'm finally started to get back into training. A week of no running was horrible--as yesterday's 12 mile run proved. It is not going to be pleasant getting back up to speed. However, I did register for the National Half-marathon this morning, so that is set for March 20. Now to figure out accommodations.

Life in chaos

2010-02-15T07:32:00.001-05:00

These past two weeks since the eye injury have been rough. If it wasn't being short staffed at work, then it was painting or "snowpocalyse." To top it all off we are on the last day of our move weekend. We got everything moved over in one day (thanks to two very dear and now tired friends) but after spending all day yesterday unpacking we stil have piles of stuff to go through.

And running? Well, between a big ass now storm on Wednesday and having no idea where my running clothes are, I have been not running for almost a week now. The good news is that DC is still over a month away so I should still be in good shape for that...I hope.

Off to keep unpacking.

Something new on the training plan

2010-02-06T08:26:00.002-05:00

Now that I'm a couple weeks into training for DC/Wilmington I thought I'd share my fancy-shmansy training plan (click for the full size):

For those of you keeping detailed tabs, this is a lot like my NYCM training plan, except for a few small tweaks:

1. For each week I added a second "mileage" row. This helps standardize my actual runs and makes it easy to find that week's actual tally.

2. I kept my altered schedule from NYCM where I swapped Monday's rest day with Wednesday's easy run. (Originally had it the other way around.)

3. I increased the long run distances (per Higdon's Intermediate II), but kept all other mileages the same as NYCM.

One other thing, and it probably stands out the most: the bright red boxes that say "EYE INJURY." Yeah, that is a first not only for my training but also a first eye injury for me--does that mean I automatically get an eye injury recovery PR?

What happened? Well, we got our new apartment with the killer terrace. The landlord was nice enough to give us the keys now, even though we're not moving in until February 13 and we're not paying rent until February 15. With all this time between when we signed our lease and our move in date, we decided to paint the bedroom and living room before moving in because 1) it's easier without furtniture etc. in the way and 2) it's a fun weekend activity.

Last Saturday we rented a Zipcar in the morning and headed over to The Home Depot in our neighborhood to get paint and supplies. When we walk into THD we spot a stack of cardboard boxes ideal for moving. We grab a couple and try to fit them in the cart. No luck. So we decided to leave the boxes and grab them on the way out, but when Wifey took out the boxes from the cart she jammed one of the corners of the box under my glasses and right into my left eye.

OH MY GOD: the pain! The absolute pain!!

I hurried over to the bathroom to wash out the eye, because it was stinging like hell. In the bathroom I finally got a look at my eye. No bleeding, but man did it hurt. It hurt to open it and it hurt to close it, and it to move it in any direction. I hurried out and told Wifey that we had to leave and get to the hospital.

But when we get to the car and we sit down we realize a HUGE problem: Wifey doesn't know how to drive. We could call a cab or ask very nicely if someone could drive us, but then we had the problem of the Zipcar which had to be returned by 1:30PM. We couldn't just leave it in THD's parking lot because someone was scheduled for the car right after us.

I attempted to drive and got about a quarter mile away from THD before having Wifey call one of our friends to meet us. I just couldn't drive with the pain in my eye. However, none of our friends were dressed or any where near us. In the time it took to get people on the phone, explain the situation, describe the random street corner we were on, I had started to feel better. I felt good enough to open both eyes and look at Wifey and look at the street. I convinced myself I was good enough to drive to the hospital and our friends could meet us there.

Ten seconds into driving I regreted my decision. I had to drive with my right hand on the wheel while my left one covered my bad eye. I also could only look straight, moving my eyes left or right was tremendously painful. I closed my eyes at red lights and Wifey had to tell me when they turned green. I stuck to side streets and by some miracle made it to the hospital without getting into an accident.

The ER process was quick and rather painless. The PA told me I had a "fairly large" corneal abrasion--but he was trying to put it nicely, when he showed Wifey my stained eye she reacted with an "ooooooooh myyyyyy Goooood!" Essentially, I had gotten a paper cut in my eye. Fortunately it didn't seem that deep because the PA didn't see a need to patch my eye. He gave me antibotic drops and had me set up an appointment with an eye doctor.

I spent the rest of the weekend bed ridden, unable to do anything: I didn't realize how much I used my eyes. After the hospital we went to lunch with our friends who returned the car for us. I could barely eat because I couldn't open my eyes to see the food. Needless to say, we did nothing in the new apartment. Also needless to say, I did no running until I got the OK from the eye doctor on Monday afternoon.

Pop bits 3

2010-01-30T07:36:00.002-05:00

A somewhat regular non sequitur where I take a break from running and share bits and pieces of pop culture.

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North Shore Animal League. Ok, this is kinda out of the realm of pop bits. However, with the new apartment (we move on February 13!) we are finally going to get a puppy after five years of wanting one. In our hunt to rescue a dog we discovered the NSAL. It's only a few miles away from us on Long Island and it is one of the premier animal rescues in the world--and the largest no kill shelter in the world. For any one looking for a pet in the NJ/NYC/CT area, this is the place to go.

This is an interesting thing I found on the internets. As a person, I find this funny. As a blogger, I find it freaking hilarious. After the first paragraph or two scroll to the comments and it gets even better.

This is something eerily similar to the previous item. Oddly enough, after seeing that post I found this video doing essentially the same thing, but for TV news:

The bane of the semi-colon. Having read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" I have become a (bigger) fan of grammar. I've also have a growing confidence in my semicolon usage. For those of you who are scared to hit that button on your keyword next to "L" without also hitting the shift key here is a cheat sheet. A cheat sheet that involves bears.

The best thing to ever be made by the cast of MAD TV. This is not safe for children, but piss your pants funny for adults. I almost died this morning from laughing. Please, watch: