Runner's Anonymous

Red rover, red rover, let Newton come over!

2012-02-02T20:56:00.001-05:00

Howdy Folks!

I've been running now for over seven years and in that time, to quote Forrest Gump, "I've worn lots of shoes". I still have the pair that I bought back in 2005 and ran my first three marathons in! To date though I have never ran in anything so different as the Newton Sir Isaacs I recently purchased! For starters I've never purchased shoes online before. I have a very nice running store locally called Flying Feet that has a great selection and knowledgable staff! Their prices are very competitive as well! As a Gen-Xer I'm part of the "Me Generation" so I must admit I don't like waiting for things. On a more practical side though I don't have a standard foot so fit can be a tricky thing for me. I have a freakishly wide foot, 4E to be exact, so the average shoes that are made with the normal D width never work for me! Thus, I tend to like to try shoes on before I spend money on them as my fit needs are so particular. Unfortunately since Newton is such a new company their shoes aren't available in most running stores. In fact, the new 2E width version I just got (I know I said I have a 4E foot. More on that later) aren't available within 100 miles of me. So if I want a pair of Newtons it's either drive over 100 miles or order online!

Now to the shoe width question. I mentioned I have a 4E foot but that I just bought Newtons in a 2E width. What gives, right? Well as anyone knows who has been at this a while, running shoe sizes are not standardized. Just because you fit into a size 10 in Asics doesn't mean the same size in Brooks, Nike or Mizuno will fit the same. They probably won't! Shoe sizes and widths are only relative to the shoe company not an industry standard! It sounds asinine that a Brooks size 10 fits differently than an Asics size 10 and to be honest, it is asinine! If I step into a Brannock device and my foot measures a size 10.5 then every company's 10.5 shoe should be long enough to fit me. Sadly though, that is not the case. So when I say I have a 4E foot that is based on "most" shoe companies. I have been able to fit into a 2E in Mizunos so I did have some reason for hope that the 2E in Newtons would be wide enough to accommodate my foot.

So why'd I buy them in the first place? Good question! I've been hearing a lot about barefoot or natural running recently. One of the most compelling reasons given for this type of running is the degree of efficiency over traditional running. In barefoot or natural running an emphasis is put on landing on your mid-foot rather than on your heel or toes. Why is this so important? The Reader's Digest answer is that landing on your mid-foot allows your body to better absorb the shock of each step while also propelling you forward. When someone lands on their heels it employs braking forces which in addition to being counterintuitive to better/faster running also adds more stress to the muscles, ligaments and joints of the feet, ankles, knees and hips. Landing on your toes, while not adding any braking forces, does not provide much in the way of natural shock absorption and also adds stress to the same muscles, ligaments and joints. Natural (mid-foot) running is basically the best of both worlds. Oddly though, natural running does not come naturally after we lace up our shoes. It is something you have to learn. This is where the Newtons come in. The model I bought is called a Guidance Trainer. This means this is the type of shoe for someone who is just starting natural running and will help "guide" them in their "training".

Do they work? Well I have yet to meet someone who didn't like their Newtons. In fact, it was the almost mad ravings of Newton fans that got me to even consider purchasing a pair. All this doesn't answer the question though. So do they work, you say? Well...............I don't know. I do plan on finding out though! I'll be blogging and doing my Video Extra editions on Youtube in order to answer the question. I must tell you that as I begin this journey I have mixed emotions about the outcome. One of the knocks against Newtons is that they are insanely expensive! My pair is one of the less expensive models and it cost $145 + $15 for UPS shipping! That's $160 for one pair of shoes! Part of me hopes they are worth the money as that is a lot of money to throw down on one pair of running shoes! On the other hand part of me hopes they'll fall short if only to keep my average shoe cost from literally doubling! Time will tell.

Well that's it for this post! When I have more info on the Newtons to share I will pass it along. Thanks for reading! Gotta run!

.....what you gonna do in those shoes?.......(The Eagles)

Along the Road

2012-01-23T15:09:00.001-05:00

Howdy folks!

. ...Joy at the start. Fear in the journey. Joy in the coming home......

Well the inevitable has happened! I've had a lousy week of running and core training! As expected the advent of my school semester was the catalyst for the epic failure! Ok, ok it's only a week! Hardly enough time for an "epic" failure, right? Maybe so but I want to make sure it stays that way! After all, not running and doing core training consistently is a lot easier than the alternative!

....Along the road your path may wander. A pilgrim's faith may fail......

As I mentioned, I had some concerns that adding another thing to my schedule would make my training schedule buckle...if not break! I have a hard time waking up in the morning so I lose an hour just shaking the cobwebs out of my head via large and repeated cups of coffee! I must say I envy those folks who can roll out of bed, throw on their running clothes and hit the pavement all within a matter of minutes! I have never been one of those people! I'm more likely to roll out of bed and onto the floor than into my running clothes! I know this may sound odd coming from a late-in-life marathoner but it's the truth! That said, I find that I have to get my running/core training "out of the way" early in order to have any success!

....Cursing the quest. Courting disaster. Measureless nights forebode.....

My downfall this week was that I put my training off "until later" and then "later" never came! Oh I had every intention of doing my core training after work or running later in the day but as the saying goes "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"! I don't mean to turn this post into a giant self-flagellation session but I should have been more prepared for this than I was!

....Along the road your steps may stumble. Your thoughts may start to stray. But through it
all a heart held humble levels and lights your way........

With last week behind me now the only thing to do is move forward. Failings aren't a real tragedy unless we fail to learn from them! That's really the essence of running. It's not about who we are. It's about who we can become. The great and terrifying thing about that is it always remains a mystery until we get to the next stop on the journey. Then again, do you really have anything better to do? Well thanks for listening! I've made my peace with last week so now it's back to the journey. Hope to see you out there! Until then....gotta run!

.....Somewhere along the road.....(Dan Fogelberg)

The core of winter training

2012-01-15T20:59:00.002-05:00

Howdy Folks!

Well I probably shouldn't be blogging so soon after my beloved Packers sucked on a giant egg during the divisional playoff to the Giants but then again maybe the writing will be therapeutic? Anyway, it is officially winter (at least by name) so time to talk about what I'm doing to try to stay in shape. Many of you have already started your New Years resolutions and hopefully you haven't fallen off them just yet! As I mentioned in a previous post I'm working hard to keep up a core routine. Core training is very important but it's not flashy and has lots of gut busting workouts which I hate doing. My motivation for keeping with this routine is two-fold. It comes down to weight control and strength/flexibility.

In September of 2010 I ran a PR for the marathon. I did it partly due to the amount of weight I lost prior to the race. I tend to hang around the 170 lbs range but before the Air Force marathon in 2010 I dropped my weight down to 163. I found at a lighter weight I could run faster for a further distance than I could only 7 lbs heavier! In fact, I ran almost the entire marathon non-stop! This is a huge accomplishment for someone who has run all his other marathons using a run/walk method! Since my goal is to get under 4:30:00 for the marathon and my PR is 4:35:59, weight control is going to be an important part of 2012's training!

Strength/flexibility are also incredibly important to the marathon runner. If you have a flabby abdomen then you back is doing all the work holding you up. Ideally your back and abdomen should be sharing this job evenly. When you back has to do all the work it gets tired easier. When your back gets tired in a marathon your posture becomes unbalanced and you stress parts of your body that shouldn't be to that extent. Those body parts tire sooner and your posture gets more unbalanced. In short it is a giant domino effect toward a really crappy marathon and a lot of pain during the recovery! That's the strength part. Flexibility is important because if your muscles/ligaments tighten up you are also likely to adjust by using a poor running form. You are also much more likely to get injured due this poor running form!

For my core workouts I've divided them into three days. Day one I do my abdominal workout. This includes crunches, leg lifts and planks. Day two I do my chest/back/bicep/tricep workout. This includes pushups, tricep presses and inverted pushups(pushups with my legs elevated above my head on a bed or chair). Day three is my Myrtl workout. If you are not familiar with myrtl is is a series of stretching exercises for your hip girdle. I started using this workout last year when I began having hip issues and it worked famously......as long as I kept up with them! I do my core routine Mon-Tues-Wed and then repeat it on Thurs-Fri-Sat and take Sunday off from core workouts. It is only two weeks but I've found that breaking them up into three day blocks makes them more manageable, less time consuming and more likely that I'll stick with them. Time will tell though!

Well that is all for now! If you have any thoughts or comments on core workouts I'd love to hear them! Thanks for reading. Be back soon but for now.......gotta run!

.....so jump in the river and learn to swim.....(The Hooters)

My Father's Medal

2012-01-03T00:11:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, September 18th, 2010 I crossed the finish line at the Air Force Marathon in Dayton, Ohio. While I had just run a PR, the greatest part of the marathon wasn't the finish time. This was also the first marathon I had run without using a run/walk system but that wasn't the best part either. In fact, the best part of that marathon wasn't even on marathon day! The best part of that marathon was at a local Friendly's Restaurant for breakfast the following morning. I was sitting across from my Dad and I mentioned I had a surprise for him. I asked him to close his eyes and put out his hands. As he sat with his eyes closed wondering what I could possibly have in store I pulled the marathon medal from my pocket and put it in his hands and said "This is for you." When he opened his eyes he initially commented "Wow, where'd you get a spare medal?" My Mom, seated next to him, stated "It's not a spare medal." It was then that my Dad realized that the efforts of the day before, which are symbolized by the finisher's medal, were for him. From the look on his his face I could tell it was a proud day for him. It was certainly a proud day for me. As we hugged and wished each other a safe trip home I actually looked forward to the nine hour ride home without a marathon medal! With the city of Dayton disappearing behind me, I smiled with the knowledge that the only way I'd see that medal again was when I visited my parents. This would require a five hour drive on my part but that was just fine with me!

On Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 my father passed away after six months of dealing with the effects from a stroke back in June of that year. Hanging on the wall of the bedroom that had been turned into an upstairs living room was the Air Force Marathon Medal. In the 15 months my father had the medal he had always displayed it. Initially it hung in the computer room and then later moved to the upstairs living room. On more than one occasion he had taken it to show his friends. This medal has been to Panera's and other restaurants where he and his friends would hang out. It even made it's way to the rehab hospital he was in just before he returned home in October. As I stood in the empty room my mother walked in and told me I could take the medal back. I told her it was fine if she wanted to keep it but I think she knew that medal now had much more significance for me than just a 26.2 mile run. I pulled the medal down from it's hanger and put it into my pocket.

It's amazing how many decisions one has to make after the loss of a loved one at the very time that you are least emotionally prepared to do so! After making a five hour drive just to get to town it was off to the funeral director's office and then to the church to schedule and plan the funeral. One of the options given to us at the funeral home was to have a table of remembrances for people to see as they walked in. I'd never seen this at other funerals I've attended but it sounded like a good idea. Just then something shifted in my pocket. It was the medal.

It was a short discussion with my mother but the medal quickly became one of the items that was displayed on the table as people arrived for the calling hours. At the closing of the final hour I placed the medal into the jacket pocket of my suit. This medal had already seen a prominent display in my parents home, the inside of several local restaurants, a rehab hospital, the funeral director's office, the office at the church and the calling hours. It only seemed right to have it finish the journey. It stayed in my pocket for the funeral, the drive to/from the grave and the reception.

I have a tie rack in our closet that I use to hang my marathon medals. It is a pretty nice invention for this purpose even though that is not it's original purpose. When I finish a marathon, that marathon's medal is placed in front so as to display my most recent achievement. Ok, with this being in our closet only my wife and I will see it but it means something to me. This medal will never see the tie rack though. I'm not sure where it will be displayed but it will have it's own display.

This is not the usual eulogy that one gives about one's father. If you only look on the surface it may seem like I'm spending a lot of time talking about a medal and not a lot about my father. You'd be missing the deeper meaning if you did though. It's true that I could talk directly about my experiences with and the qualities of my father. In keeping with the purpose of this blog I could talk about how my Dad was the reason I got into running in the first place. I could discuss how many track meets that he attended and how many photos he took of me as I ran. I could talk about the time he took me to meet Eammon Coghlin, then the record holder for the indoor mile. I still have a picture of Eammon signing my program as I stood next to him! Then again I could talk about my Dad as the person who passed on his faith to me. I could talk about his love of his country and how he put that concern into over twenty years of service with the Air Force. After 45 years, I could talk about a lot of things! Many of those things though are for me and me alone. They hold a special significance for me but I have neither the skill to adequately describe them nor the will to put them in the public arena.

I also will not bore you with silly and meaningless cliches. You know the ones. The two most popular likely being "I'll never see anyone like him again" or "If I could only be half the man...". My father was not one to suffer fools or cliches well. In response he would have said that each person was a unique creation and thus it was foolish to judge yourself by the gifts and talents of others. The point, he would have continued, is not to be 50% as good as someone else but to be 100% as good as you can be!

I know there will be tough days ahead. Already since returning home I think I have bumped into numerous TV shows and songs on the radio that had the death of a loved one as the premise. When I will be less sensitive to this external stimuli I have no clue. I doubt it will be anytime soon! There is one thing I do know. I had a father who was proud of me and I have a medal to prove it! That's all for now. Gotta run.

...Gonna wrap my arms around my Daddy's neck and tell him I've missed him....(MercyMe)

2012: A year of hope and inspiration (and just one hundred years short of a Rush album).

2011-12-26T16:54:00.000-05:00

Howdy Folks!

As I sit here in the last week of 2011 I'd like to spend some time with you looking at my last year and then forward to the year to come. I know I have already posted a "year in review" posting recently and I promise not to simply rehash the same material but I have some new thoughts/facts I wanted to share. I also will spend a brief bit on the most recent Christmas at our house. Finally, I'll launch into my plans, resolutions and wishes for 2012!

In my last post I commented on my confusion as to why I received so few posts. Well, in the last week that post has received 77 hits! No comments but 77 hits! I don't think I've ever had a post receive so many hits in a week's time! Thank you for making that post so popular! To give you some perspective, I have posts that after several months only have 9 hits! I have other posts with pictures and video that have still not gathered 77 hits! I still have no idea what the deal is with the lack of comments but that ship has sailed and I'm going to leave it alone. Now for the new stuff about this year!

I'm approaching a milestone for total miles ran in a year. Currently I'm at 1237 miles. The goal is to eclipse 1250 miles by December 31st. Considering I still have three free days this week to run, this should be no trouble. Initially my goal was just to get to 1000 miles in a year! Having reached that a couple of months back the goal then became to see what I could accomplish. I had a bad month of November ( 57 total miles) but still this amount of miles in a year is a huge accomplishment for me! There are a lot of reasons why this was the year I broke this record. I ran more 20 mile runs in training than any year previous. I also spent several months running two times a day! The biggest reason though was that we purchased a treadmill last year! I'd have to look back to see how many miles were done on the treadmill but suffice it to say that there would be a lot fewer miles logged without it!

This year also saw me take my first steps into the world of podcasting. Granted, I was only submitting for someone else's podcast but still I had never done this before this year. As some of you may know, I'm am now a semi-regular guest on The Extra Mile Podcast. It has been a lot of fun coming up with (hopefully) interesting ways to broadcast my latest accomplishments. If you haven't heard this podcast before then I highly recommend that you Google this podcast and give it a listen! It is basically a compilation of runners calling in with comments about their training or running in general. Like any group function part of the benefit is hearing that there are many other runners out there who are going through the same issues as you. I've picked up a few running pointers from other contributors over the last year so in addition to being entertaining it is also educational! Not a bad two-for if I do say so myself!

Now that Christmas is over for another 364 days its time to regale you with all the gifts I received as I did last year. Well this year's posting on Christmas gifts will be a short one. Last year, my lovely wife went hog wild on running presents for me! In fact, she went so crazy that I really didn't need anything running related for Christmas this year! In addition, money that might have been spent on presents was spent on marathon entry fees, hotel rooms and other assorted travel related items. Then again five marathons in five different states will do this! The one running related gift I did receive came from my sister who purchased me my first official Marathon Maniacs running singlet! As I mentioned in a previous post, I became a member of this club after running the Hartford Marathon and the Amica Newport Marathon back to back! While this is the only running gift I received you have to admit it is a cool gift!

Every new year comes with hopes and aspirations! This next year is no different. In 2012 I have another aggressive personal and running schedule planned. On the personal side, I'm planning on finishing my Bachelor's in Nursing this year! I have a class this spring and then a 6 credit clinical for May/June followed by three classes next fall! I've been at this on a part time basis since 2009 and while Villanova is a great school.....frankly.....I'm just sick of going! If I can manage a summer class in July/August that would help ease up my last semester in Fall 2012 but either way I'm finishing this up by next Christmas!

My running schedule is no less aggressive than my personal one! To date I am planning on four marathons and possibly a fifth marathon and a half marathon! The marathons that are already on the calendar are the Olathe Oz Marathon in April, the New Jersey Marathon in May, the Bob Potts Memorial Marathon in May and the Portland Marathon in October. With the exception of Bob Potts, all these marathons will give me another state to add to my list. These states are in order Kansas, New Jersey and Oregon. Bob Potts is a local marathon that was founded to commemorate a local runner who has since passed away. Since the race is VERY local and is held on the rail trail I do all my long training runs on it seems a shame to not do this one! The New Jersey Marathon is only a three hour drive so that won't be a big travel marathon but the other two, OZ and Portland, will require a plane ticket! As for the "possible" races I'm also looking into the idea of the California International Marathon in December and the Empire State Half Marathon in October. The California International takes place in Sacramento in which I have a very good friend that lives there. I also have relatives that live nearby in Vacaville so this could be another two-for! Oh yeah, it also would give me another state to add to my list! The Empire State Half is in Syracuse, NY (my old hometown) and will depend upon two friends of mine from high school entering before I'll sign up. In short, I have two friends that have on their "bucket-list" completing a half marathon. I've offered to run this with them in order to give them some moral support and pacing but none of this happens until they sign up for the race! It is not even January and we all know how resolutions go sometimes! That said, if they are committed to run I'll definitely run with them!

Speaking of resolutions....now it's time for mine! I think it goes without saying that I plan on finishing all the marathons I've just mentioned as being definite for 2012! Last year was about endurance. This year will be about speed! I'm going to go after the 4:30:00 finish time again in 2012! I came close in 2010 with a 4:35:59 at The Air Force Marathon so I know this goal is possible! Ideally, I'd like to get under 4:15:00 but one step at a time! To do this I'm going to have to do something that I did back in 2010....loose weight! Currently I'm 170 lbs. Not bad for a guy 5'10" but when I ran my marathon PR I was 163 lbs. I don't have to loose a ton of weight but dropping and keeping 5-10 lbs off is sometimes harder than loosing 20 - 30 lbs! This will force me to be more vigilant on my diet. This is something I can get rather lazy with so doing this for a full year will really be a challenge!

The other big thing I have to do is start in on my core exercises again. I HATE doing core exercises so this has historically been my resolution that starts in January and ends in February! Looking at my belly though I'm going to have to get a bit more serious with this in 2012! I don't know how I'm going to do this so if you have any ideas I'd appreciate the feedback! I really hate doing any exercise dealing with my abdomen!

Well that about wraps things up for 2011 for this blog! I hope you've enjoyed reading this and I hope you have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!!! Best wishes for 2012! That's all for now. Gotta run.

......just think what we might do......( Rush )

Look but don't touch!

2011-12-19T07:32:00.002-05:00

Howdy Folks!

A little while back I posted a contest of sorts for which marathon I would run in the fall of 2012 and which costume I would wear at the Oz Marathon in April 2012. To date I have received 178 hits to this post making it one of my more popular posts. With all this popularity though I have only received two votes in my comment section. I've posted before about my confusion over why I receive so few comments but this last post really baffles me!

It probably goes without saying that part of the reason anyone creates a blog is to pass on information that they feel is particularly important or interesting. It is certainly with the belief that what is being written will resonate with someone else that a person takes the time to jot down their thoughts and then blast them into cyberspace! This action does not require a response as the catharsis comes from hitting the send or publish button. In this way this blog has been very useful. I know, as evidenced by the hit counter, that people are reading this blog. The fact that people still read this blog is proof enough that at least some of what I say is meaningful to someone else. Pretty cool.

There is another reason for taking the time to babble like the The Simpson's "crazy cat lady" and that is to dialogue with like-minded people. For me, this second reason for blogging is more important than the first. Unfortunately, this is where this blog has been a bit lacking for me. It seems that no matter what the topic is I just don't seem to inspire readers to take the time to send a comment. Oh sure, I get one or two comments fairly frequently but these are usually from the same people and from people who frequently comment on my Facebook or Dailymile page as well. Don't get me wrong, their comments on other social media doesn't diminish the value of their comments here but I will admit that it is a bit disappointing that other people don't take the time to comment.

So what t'do? For starters, I have no plans on stopping this blog. Comments or not, I enjoy writing and as long as the hit counter keeps moving I'm fine with the status quo. That said I'd like to see a few more comments. Now I'm not going to try and lay a huge guilt trip on you because that motivation doesn't have a lot of staying power and always ends in resentment. My simple statement is that I would like comments because I'm interested in what readers think. Part of the fun of social networking is learning from others! I know I have readers with really great insights and experiences and I'd love to hear about them! So if you're the type that needed a written invitation then consider yourself invited!

Now on to the contest/poll in my last post. Concerning the OZ Marathon costume thing, I have no trouble waiting until April 1st as I stated for final results. Currently I have no official votes for any of the costumes although I have received private emails with votes in them. As I mentioned in the post though, only comments to the blog count as official votes. If I get no official votes I'll likely save myself the costume fee and run as the Marathon Maniac that I am. As for the fall 2012 marathon, due to the paucity of comments, the April 1st date may change. Since marathons stagger their pricing based on how early you enter, the sooner I send my entrance money in the cheaper the marathon is. With that said, I'm willing to wait a bit longer for people to start voting but if the current lack of comments continues I'm going to make the smart financial decision and make my choice sooner rather than later! To date I have two official votes for Portland, which was my personal choice anyway, so if you were meaning to vote but just haven't got to it with the holidays and all do so now as your window of opportunity may close suddenly and soon!

In closing, I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my blog(whether you comment or not). There are a lot of running blogs out there and not enough time to read all of them! The fact that you do take the time to read mine means something to me! Thank you! That's all for now. Gotta run.

.....Message in a bottle......(The Police)

DECISIONS 2012!!!!

2011-12-01T12:41:00.001-05:00

Howdy Folks!

Well it's time for another post but unlike most of my posts it is also time for you to chime in and tell me what to do! That's right I am giving you the freedom to vote on my spring and fall marathons for 2012!!! Since I have 40 states still to go and I can't possibly know everything about all the marathon choices available to me I thought I pull my readers into this decision making process. Pretty cool, huh?

Ok, now for the voting rules. You may vote as many times as you want! You have from now until April 1st to vote! No this is not an April Fools gag but April Fools Day seemed like an appropriate day to end the voting! You have to vote in the comments section of this blog! While I do have a Facebook page and a Dailymile page all votes at either site will not count! Only votes in the comments section of this blog will count! While I do promise to honor the winning vote for both marathons, should circumstances change or prevent me from participating I reserve the right to make a different selection.

Originally I had held a vote on my Dailymile and Facebook page for my spring 2012 marathon. The choices were between the Oz Marathon in Kansas (where else right?) and the Calico Red Rock Canyon Marathon in Nevada. Both are very interesting events in states I haven't yet run a marathon in. The Oz Marathon did get two votes but the Red Rock Canyon Marathon totally destroyed it with an overwhelming number of votes! I posted that Red Rock Canyon had won and started to make my plans to go when I came upon a "dangling chad" of sorts. When my wife an I were planning our wedding we had joked about going to Vegas instead and getting married in front of Elvis! Since then we've been planning on going to Vegas and getting "re-married" in front of Elvis. Now the dangling chad. My wife works the weekend of the Red Rock Marathon so if I went I'd be solo. As much as I'd like to honor this vote and go I can't in good conscience go to Vegas without her so by default the Oz Marathon is the victor. Since I wasn't able to honor the vote for the Red Rock Canyon Marathon I decided to create another voting opportunity involving the Oz Marathon as a payback of sorts. So here it goes. Since this marathon pays tribute to the classic book and movie "The Wizard of OZ", I am going to give my readers the opportunity to vote on which OZ character I should run as! Your main choices are...

A) Dorothy:

B)Scarecrow:

C)Tin Man:

D)Cowardly Lion:

E)Toto:

F)Flying Monkey:

You may write in another character but these are my top six picks! All of these characters have costumes available at www.wizardofozcostumes.com so who ever wins, the costume part shouldn't be too hard to come by for race day! Vote early and often!!!

One last word about the spring marathon. In case you are of the opinion that I am settling for the "lesser of two marathons", don't! There is plenty at the Oz Marathon to keep this guy happy! The obvious goofy veneer of a marathon based on "The Wizard of OZ" aside, this marathon has a couple of really cool aspects/attractions to it. First it takes place in Olathe, Kansas! Not meaning much to you? Olathe is the home of Garmin. That's right! The home of the company that so many people reading this blog have or had a watch from!

Next Olathe is just a short drive southwest of Kansas City! So in addition to not having to travel to a minor airport (which one might assume when one hears Kansas) there's the big city attractions of a Midwestern city! In Kansas City that means two things for me, steak and baseball!

Kansas City has long been known for being one of the best, if not the best place to get a steak! I plan on putting this information to a grueling taste test!!! I expect to have eaten enough steak to hold me for the remainder of the year by the time I am done!

April in Kansas City also mean Royals baseball. I checked the 2012 schedule and the Royals are at home against the Blue Jays the entire time I'm there! I'm not a huge Royals fan but in my opinion there is no such thing as a bad baseball game!

A final few words on Kansas City. Since I plan to run a marathon in every state, by going to Kansas City I can aid my future travel plans. I'll either have a better idea of the city for my return for a Missouri marathon or it will free my conscience of having to choose between Kansas City or St Louis. Compared to Las Vegas, Kansas City is also a cheaper flight and about two hours shorter from my home airport, Baltimore.

OK, now for the second voting opportunity! There are four marathons that I'm interested in for the fall of 2012 but due to financial reasons and my school schedule I can only choose one. Here are the contestants.

St. George Marathon: St George, Utah 10/6/12

Portland Marathon: Portland, Oregon 10/7/12

Indianapolis Marathon: Indianapolis, Indiana 10/20/12

Des Moines Marathon: Des Moines, Iowa 10/21/12

I should let you know that barring any votes, Portland and Des Moines have a slight edge already. Portland is not far from a large grouping of my cousins and Des Moines is near the home of one of my Dailymile friends! That said, I plan to follow the way the vote turns out regardless.

One more thing please...

If I could impose on you to not only list your vote but also the reason for your vote. I'd like to know the reason for your choice. If there is something about the city, the marathon or the OZ character that you think should sway the voting please, please, please be sure to state that in your comment. Even if you comment is only to mention that a particular marathon was lousy in your opinion, I'd like to know! As I stated in the beginning, I'm going to visit each state anyway but for most states this will be my only visit. Since I can't see every town or attraction I'd like to maximize my time in each state! Your comments can be a big help in that respect!

Thanks for reading and be sure to vote! I'm looking forward to the results! That's all for know! Gotta run!

....I don't know where I'm going....(Rory Gallagher)

It's been a good year!

2011-11-12T20:45:00.001-05:00

Howdy Folks!

With the Thanksgiving holiday almost upon us it is time, for the year in review retrospective thingy! Every year I have so much to be thankful for but this year they just seem to be a bit more obvious! Since this is a running blog I'll keep my thoughts running related. My personal life has had it's share of bumpy patches this year and I could do a whole blog just devoted to the people I'm thankful for who have helped me with these challenges but rest easy as I won't be doing that here! As far as running goes I'm thankful for all the lessons I learned this year while completing five marathons and two back to back! Here are the top three.

TAKE A RISK

So often in life we get caught up in our own little ruts. We find a routine that works for us and then we become incredible inflexible when it comes to trying something new. There are all sorts of reasons why this happens. Fear of the unknown it probably at the top of the list though. We often find ourselves settling for "the devil we know rather than the devil we don't". This year I took a couple of risks, some worked and some didn't. I took a risk by planning six marathons and then telling everyone about them on this blog. This could have gone horribly wrong but I took the risk anyway. Probably one of the worst things that could have happened would have been if I was unable to complete all or most of these races! Nothing like falling flat on your face and advertising the event beforehand! What did I learn? I learned that there's nothing like my back to the wall to motivate me! I saw this with my first and last marathons of this year. My first marathon I wasn't sure my hip would let me run a mile never mind 26 and my last came after running a marathon the day before! I learned that running marathons back to back is not as hard as it sounds. Proper planning and training is still a must but it is not as big a monster as our imagination might make it to be! I learned that I really can run over 1000 miles in a year! I learned that if finances are short it is best to plan early! My lack of understanding this concept is what lead to my dropping the Vermont City Marathon from my race list. Finally I learned it can be fun to run a marathon slow........on purpose!

BE A SPONGE

Runners are generally very friendly and helpful people! We like talking about our sport and sharing our successes and our failures with complete strangers! For me, I'd often listen but not really hear what others were trying to tell me. After several years of running I thought I had a good bede on the ins and outs of the sport and would only seek guidance from known "big names" in the running community. The sad thing is that the people I ran into or with at races also had plenty of gems to share if I was only willing to listen. This year I was. It takes a bit of humility to approach each day as a novice who can and should learn from everybody. I'll be honest, humility is not something that comes naturally to me! I was always able to parrot the phrase "you learn something new everyday" but I never really understood its meaning until this year. It is much better to be a sponge and soak up the knowledge from each person that you meet! Ok sure, some will have a bit more to share than others but everyone has something to share! You ignore this knowledge at your own peril!

HAVE FAITH

One of the traps of having a lot of experience is a false impression that you know what is going to happen before it does. This was certainly me before this year. The fact of the matter is nobody knows what will happen! The best you can do is prepare for what is likely and be ready to adapt when the unlikely happens instead! From running a marathon with a bad hip, fretting about the weather, and pushing my marathon running endurance limits I've had plenty of opportunity to test out my faith this year. I'm not just talking about faith in yourself either. In fact a number of things that tested my faith this year I was totally powerless to prevent or change! During these times I had the opportunity to practice a little acceptance and it was in doing so that some of the most amazing things actually happened! I was pretty high-strung before this year and I am less so now. I can still over-think a problem to death but at least now I'm open to the idea that sometimes it is better to just leave the decision making to the present moment only! That said, this will still be on my work in progress list for 2012. Old habits, you know?

THIS YEARS MARATHONS IN TEN WORDS OR LESS

Rather than revisit each race in gory detail I thought I'd just summarize each one in ten words or less. This is kind of tricky so it will force me to state only the most memorable things and leave you to read the blog on the race if you want more details. Here we go!

MARTIAN: Pre-race hip pain, ran anyway, hip pain vanished, Miracle?, Overjoyed!

GETTYSBURG: Inaugural race, lots of hills, close to home, beautiful scenery!

VERMONT CITY: High hopes, poor planning, motels too expensive, dropped this race.

FREEDOM'S RUN: Rain, parks, rain, pretty, rain, hills, rain, hills, Antietam battlefield.

HARTFORD: Sun, pace group, city scenes, horse farms, BIG finish line!

NEWPORT: Back to back, beach, ocean, mansions, became official Marathon Maniac!!!

WHAT'S NEXT?

Well I'm already working on my marathon list for 2012! I have a couple of ideas already but I won't have anything confirmed until after Thanksgiving. While I'd like to do five marathons a year I found out this year that five marathons can be an expensive proposition! For 2012 I'll be cutting back to only two marathons. The jury is still out for 2013 but for 2012 I'll stop at two. One of the issues I'm having now is that with my 50 state quest well underway, most of the states I need require at least 8 hours of driving or a plane ride to get to now! I'll still get them all but I won't be able to get them at the clip I did this year! No biggie! I was planning on running past age 65 anyway!

Well that's it for now! Hope you enjoyed this post and I hope your 2011 was as fulfilling as mine! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Gotta run!

.....domo arigato Mr Roboto.....( Styx )

Double Trouble

2011-10-18T23:43:00.000-04:00

Howdy folks!

Even before I started this latest goal I pondered on how best to blog about it! Even though a goal of running two marathons back to back is only one goal it is comprised of two separate events. In this case, these events were the ING Hartford Marathon and the Amica Newport Marathon. Both events were great and deserve their own blog as each easily were big enough productions to command a weekend and a separate blog post. Post length is also another concern. If I combine the two into one post it will be a mammoth post! Would anybody really want to stick with this blog long enough to read all that in one sitting? Then there are the pictures. I probably have 30 pictures from both marathons! Even a few pics can really lengthen a post. Then again, this was one event in my mind. How better to capture the spirit of back to back marathons than with an all-inclusive post? Hmmm...decisions, decisions?

After careful reflection I have decided to go with the combined route. It will be longer than my average post but since each event's performance was linked to the other event it just didn't seem right to separate them. Besides, if you get tired you can always come back later and pick up where you left off! What's that you say? You guessed from the title that I was blogging about both already? Oh yeah, right. I guess the title Double Trouble does kind of "let the cat out of the bag" doesn't it? Good first paragraph thought, isn't it?

I suppose before I get started I should take a brief moment to explain how I came up with this crazy stunt in the first place. To be honest it was mostly just dumb luck, although many of my friends would argue that you can leave the "luck" part out of it! When I was looking for marathons for this year I first found the ING Hartford Marathon. This was the fall marathon I was planning on doing initially. After some more searching I noticed that the Amica Newport Marathon was the following day. Having vacationed with my wife in this area before I knew that the two were not more than two hours away from each other. As many of you know I'm attempting to run a marathon in all 50 states. How often can you run two marathons in a weekend and each in different states? It just seemed like a sign. My friends would say it was a sign I needed mental health treatment but that is still a sign! As it turned out I met other people who were attempting the back to back marathon thing so if I was nuts for attempting this at least I wasn't alone! I went online and signed up for both. With the money spent there was no turning back now. You can't call yourself a skydiver unless you jump out of a perfectly good airplane with a parachute on your back. It requires a huge leap of faith ( no pun intended ) but there is no way around it. You have to believe or you'll never leave the plane. Now I'll grant you that just jumping out doesn't necessarily make you a successful skydiver but tell me what big event doesn't require a good deal of preparation and a little bit of luck? In keeping with the analogy, I had already bought my plane ticket. Only thing to do now was to be ready when the "jump light" comes on.

Training

I know it sounds strange but this was the most nerve racking part of the whole thing! I guess the closest thing I can compare it too was my training for my first marathon. It was the whole "lots of people who seem to know what they are talking about say this is the right way to train but frankly I'm not sure I can even do this" kind of feeling. You never get a good look at what you're facing. Instead you see only directly in front of you and then some vague shadows of what might be on the edges. It's a bit like walking through a forest at night with a penlight. Since I knew this would be more than just running two marathons I trained more for endurance than speed. I did several 20 mile runs and even did two within a three day period to attempt to judge my recovery time. All of this was just an educated guess but it seemed to make sense. Would it be enough? As I was picking up my race packet and bib number at the Hartford Marathon expo, I commented to the volunteer that I was running back to back marathons. He looked pleasantly surprised and asked, "How do you train for something like that?" I smiled back and said, "I'll let you know on Sunday."

ING Hartford Marathon

As I drove into Hartford Thursday night to pick up my race packet I was immediately aware of one thing....Connecticut roads and drivers suck! The interchanges are not laid out very well and the signage for them are strategically placed so as to notify ( or mock ) you that you've just passed your exit. Combine this with drivers who only signal after they've cut you off at a billion miles an hour and you have the total driving experience! I had experienced this in my many trips to visit my uncle when he lived in Boston but apparently this tradition continues into Connecticut as well. I was beginning to wonder if this was a nasty omen for what lay ahead but once you take these folks out of their cars they are extremely nice!

I arrived in Hartford just before 6 PM on Thursday and due to the dark and interesting signage I previously mentioned I missed any signs for the XL Center which was the site of the expo. I drove into downtown Hartford and started looking for people with bags. After finding a group with bright orange bags I made my way for the first parking garage I could find and hoped I was somewhere near the expo. To my surprise after parking my car and asking a person for directions to the XL Center I learned that I was parked in it's basement! Ok, now this is a good omen!!!

The expo itself was very nice and very organized. I'm not going to spend too much time describing the expo. Honestly, if you've been to one you've been to most of them. Some spend a bit more effort in making a huge event out of it but for me as long as it is organized and the layout makes sense I consider it a success. This expo was a success.

It always amazes me that no matter how much I try to get some sleep the night before a marathon, I never really do! I managed to get three 1 1/2 hour sleep segments but that was it! I was wide awake by 3:30 AM Saturday morning so I decided to just get out of bed and start my morning pre-marathon ritual. This was all much to the chagrin of my wife who wasn't planning on getting up for another hour. An hour and a half later though we were both up and on our way to Hartford. Susie ran the 5K that was happening at the same time as the marathon.

As the sun started to rise over the horizon I made my way through the darkened streets to the Port-o-johns. After that necessity was taken care of it was back to the car to fetch my wife who had opted for another half hour of sleep instead. We had arrived early enough to get parking within one block of the start/finish line so we were at the hub of activity after only a very short walk. The start/finish took place right near the state capital so there were some interesting views. I snapped a few of them with my smartphone and they are here below. After taking a shot with Susie, it was off to our respective starting lines.

I had initially planned on running with the 5:30 pacer. Since my goal was to finish two back to back marathons it didn't make sense to expend too much energy running the first one too fast. As it turned out I ended up in the crowd right near the 5 hour pacer. I could have fought my way back to the 5:30 pacer but the girl pacing for 5 hours seemed nice and I just had a hunch that staying put was the thing to do. After the usual opening remarks and the singing of the national anthem the horn sounded....and we were off!

Before I started I decided that I was going to do both these marathons as a run/walk. As it turned out the 5 hour pacer had planned on using a 5:1 ratio which I decided would be good enough for me. If you've never run with a pacer I highly recommend it at least once. Besides the extra motivation it is nice to not have to frequently check your watch and let someone else be responsible for that! The company also makes the miles go by faster as well!

ING Hartford is a city marathon and like all other city marathons you get a good look at the city. More important to me in city marathons than the view are the crowd support and the traffic control. I've run a city marathon that didn't do well with either and that was a bit of a depressing and somewhat dangerous run! Hartford did a nice job with both! I can't honestly think of a street that didn't have fan support! It was clear from the folks that turned out that this marathon was something the city residents enjoyed and wanted to make sure the runners enjoyed too! In addition to the entertainment the marathon had on the course, the locals also added their own touch in welcoming and cheering the runners on! Traffic control was also very well managed! There were some pretty big streets that were completely closed down for the 6 official hours of the marathon and even the ones that were not completely closed had half the street closed to allow enough room for the runners.

Traffic control and fan support aside, there were some very picturesque spots on the course. Part of the marathon takes you by a river walk.

Another takes you through the city with the large buildings as a back drop.

Finally, this course did something that a lot of city marathons don't do. In the later part of the course you run through a suburban area that had been built around a previously rural area. This was evidenced by the small horse farms that dotted this part of the course. You certainly don't expect to see a few small farms with horses in a city marathon! Another thing you don't expect to see during a marathon is a fire! Yet that is exactly what we saw about Mile 23. A automotive shop had caught on fire along the race course so we were re-routed a short way around the intersection the building was on along with the fire trucks.

The course itself is relatively flat. There were a few small hills but nothing really drastic. Although after the hills in Antietam during Freedom's Run I think I'm going to have to go to the west to see climbs that put more uneasiness in my heart and pain in my calves and quads! As for this course, if you are in shape to run a marathon then you can run Hartford! In addition to the mostly flat course, there were plenty of water/gatorade stops (at least one every two miles) and enough Port-o-johns to ensure that if you got into trouble during the race you wouldn't have to run long to find the next location or wait long once you found it!!!

Through all this our friendly pacer Alicia talked, encouraged and even attempted to sing to us! Definitely going above and beyond the call!! As we ran I learned that she was on a quest of her own. She was in the process of running 51 marathons in 52 weeks! She had already run a few doubles of her own and was actually running one the same weekend as me! Unlike me though, she was running these marathons for charity. She has a really great site that explains the whole concept that you should check out. The link is http://www.racethestates.com/home. At the time of this race she had already finished 38 out of the 51 marathons! Needless to say, she gave me several pointers on how to successfully finish my double and also told me what not to do! Talk about being in the right place at the right time?!!!

As with most runs with a pacer, people from our starting group started to fall off as the miles ticked off. We started losing people at the half. More fell off the pace by mile 15 and still more my mile 20. By Mile 22 I was the only original member left. This left me with a lot of time to ask questions of my more seasoned running partner to which I took full advantage of! I also shared a few stories of my own which I guess were at least moderately interesting as she seemed to like them!

With Mile 25 within view I bid farewell to Alicia and let her know my intention to coast to the finish. Since my goal was to finish within 5 hr - 5:30 hrs and I was within spitting distance of Mile 25 at a 5 hr pace I felt safe to downshift a bit and save a little more for Newport the next day! We high-fived each other and she ran ahead while I took in the final mile scenery at a slightly slower pace.

The finish for the ING Hartford Marathon is a real gem! As you turn the final corner you run underneath a very ornate arch, which also happens to be recreated for the finisher's medal, and then to a very impressive finish line. I've not run NYC or Chicago yet but the Hartford finish area looks as impressive as either NYC or Chicago. Hartford is not a really big city but this is a big city finish line!

After crossing the finish in 5:02:00, a nice volunteer placed the first of two medals for that weekend around my neck. This isn't the biggest medal I've received (Disney, Air Force and the medal for completing the Maryland Double are all bigger) but it is classy!

I made my way to the park that the after marathon festivities were held and found the food tent. Here's where I'm going to complain just a bit. After running 26.2 miles I really appreciate it when the marathon organizers are kind enough to corral the finisher's to the finisher's medal, then to water or gatorade and finally to the food before setting them loose. Hartford did the first two but you were on your own to find the food tent! After 26.2 miles I really don't want to play hide and seek with the food tent! I'm never particularly hungry after a marathon but I do want a little something and I don't want to have to hunt for it! I also want Gatorade or a similar substitute, which I didn't find post race, as my body needs electrolytes due to being a heavy sweater and water just makes me feel worse.

I met up with Susie again, found the food tent and then saw my pacer pal, Alicia. I introduced her to Susie and vice versa and then we posed together for a victory picture.

Icy Aftermath

My legs were a little bit stiff after the finish....reminder...I had just finished a marathon two weeks previously....but otherwise I was in good shape! Susie and I made our way the one block back to our car and we drove back to our motel. Before you ask, Susie did the driving. I was comfortable on the drive home but the real soreness and stiffness happened as I attempted to exit the car! My thighs, right calf and the inside of my right knee were all sore now. Before leaving Hartford, Alicia told me to be sure to take an ice bath as soon as I got back to the motel followed by a hot shower. I've never attempted an ice bath before. I have tried sitting in very cold water after a long run before but never with ice. Alicia told me to get in the tub first then add the ice. A reasonable idea since it is more difficult to get into a tub of ice water then to get into a tub then add the ice water. One problem, we bought super-frozen ice. No kidding this stuff was like granite! We tried dropping it, smashing it and whacking it with a shoe but this stuff would not break! In the end I sat in the tub with an entire bag resting on each thigh!

Amica Newport Marathon

I'm sure you have heard the saying "good news, bad news". This was the way Sunday started. The good news was that I actually slept from 8:30 PM until 5 AM the night prior to the Amica Newport Marathon. The bad news? I could have slept a lot longer! After my usual ritual and waking my wife up, who also could have slept longer, it was back in the car for round two of my marathon double header! There was one noticeable difference though this morning. My legs lacked almost any soreness! They did feel better after letting the ice blocks sit on them for about ten minutes but I never thought they would have felt this good one day after a marathon! Before getting into the car I did a few sprinter bounces on the balls of my feet and my legs still felt good! Another good omen!

This marathon had a bit more of a laid back feel to it. For one it was smaller. Hartford had a record crowd of 14,000 runners while Newport was only going to have about 4000. Newport is also a vacation destination so it lends itself to a laid back atmosphere. That said, there was no parking near the start so Susie dropped me off about a half mile away and I hoofed it to the start. The walk did give me another chance to warm up my legs but it also gave me my first view of the starting area!

The beach stood in front of me with the waves crashing against the shore. I'm a real sucker for beaches and coastlines so this was a real treat! To think that I was going to get to look at sights like this while I ran was really exciting. I was ready to start the moment I arrived. But first a trip to the Port-o-john!

Now I'm not sure if the organizers underestimated the number of Port-o-johns needed or if the runners decided to wait till the last 20 minutes to get in line but the lines for the facilities were massive! I honestly thought I'd have to postpone my trip till somewhere later on the course but miraculously I made it in and out with about two minutes to spare before the start!

With my bladder empty I made my way to the back of the pack. Since this was going to be my second marathon I decided to play it smart and go with an even more frequent walk break schedule than I did the day before at Hartford. After a bit of self debate I settled on a 2:1 ratio. I figured if I was feeling good I could always run faster later or if I was too slow I could decrease the walk breaks. With this in mind I didn't want to be at the front of the pack and be one of those people who go to the head of the pack only to get in the way of others because the pack around you is much faster. I found my spot and took a picture of the starting line just before the start of the race.

The race starts with both marathoners and half marathoners running together. Many marathons that also include a half marathon do this so I was used to the initial crowd of people for the first few miles. I knew that by about Mile 4 the crowd would stretch out and the space between runners would be much less claustrophobic! The race begins in the town of Newport with it's quaint tree-lined streets. Here a shot from one of them.

This was another marathon that was really supported by the locals! In addition to the people with signs, there were several water stops that the volunteers dressed up in costume. I got water/Gatorade from Darth Vader, Sherlock Holmes, a cowboy and in the case of the pic below... a dude in a toga! Fun stuff!

A trip to Newport is not complete without a trip by the mansions. Surprisingly, most of these things are still privately owned! There were a few that had signs that said the state park system owned the property but most were still privately owned and lived in! Below is a picture of one of the smaller mansions.

As we ran I noticed a guy wearing a Hartford Marathon shirt. I commented to him that I had run Hartford the day before and I was surprised to see that someone else was trying the same double as me! He told me that from what he had heard there were about 40 people who were doing the same marathon double that I was! So much for being unique! He was right though! During the run I spotted at least five other people in Hartford Marathon shirts from the day before! In addition to a few fellow Hartford - Newport Marathon double runners, I also met a very nice lady from the running club the Marathon Maniacs. If you are not familiar with this club it is a club of people who like running marathons......a lot! Running two marathons in 16 days is the minimum needed to be allowed into this club. The membership level is ranked by the amount of stars awarded. Entry level is one star and the levels go all the way up to ten stars. The crazier the amount of marathons in a given period of time the more stars that are awarded. Running two marathons back to back is enough to qualify as a 4-star maniac! I'm sure I have friends though who'd swear that I was a 4-star maniac long before this club was founded! Anyway I saw this women in her Marathon Maniacs singlet and I yell out "Good morning maniac!" She wished me a good morning and we got to talking. I let her know that I was running my first back to back marathons and that after this race I was planning on becoming a member of the Marathon Maniacs. She then took out her camera, took my picture and welcomed me to the club! I was never so happy to be called a maniac in my life!

After another mile or two we made our way to Ocean Drive. This is where all the really big mansions are! More importantly, at least to me, this was where the ocean was! I snapped a few pictures of it during my walk breaks. While I'm glad I stayed healthy, if I did have to break down this would have been my choice of area to do it in! See for yourself!

After leaving Ocean Drive we made our way back into town and to the halfway point for the marathoners and the finish line for the half marathoners. While it was cool to run down the long shoot with the crowds cheering you on, if I had not been is such good shape the guy who yelled in my ear "just a few more steps and you're done" would have gotten a "if looks could kill" glance from me! He obviously had no clue that I had another half marathon ahead of me! I made my way past the halfway point and back to the road for the start of the final half! As I rounded a corner I saw a sign that I had to stop for. It read "Clambake Club of Newport". I'd never heard of a clambake club! I'm betting most of you have never heard of one either! So as proof I didn't make this one up, here is the sign.

Now one of the beauties of running near the beach is the fantastic views you get! One of the hazards, especially on windy days like this day, is sand! While I enjoyed every minute by the beach their were a few moments when the wind would pick up and propel the sand off the dunes and right into your face! If I had thought to turn my face towards the dunes I could have called it a facial scrub and told people I went to a spa to get it!

Another neat thing by the beach were the surfers. I spotted a whole pack of them in their black wet-suits waiting in the waves for the right wave to ride back in!

After coming to the turn-around point on the second beach road I was treated to a sight of the beach with the town of Newport in the distance.

About halfway back this beach road the course directs runners away from the beach for another out and back run down a mostly suburban road. Even though the houses here looked like a common one family home, I shudder to think what the asking price for these houses are! This road also had something that most of the other roads did not have......hills! These weren't gut-busters but they were strategically in the last ten miles of the marathon. It was while I was on one of these hills that I met my new friend from the Marathon Maniacs again. I was headed towards her and back to the finish as she was making her way to the turn-around point when she spotted me and yelled "you're a maniac!" She then reminded me that I was only three miles, at that point, from finishing my first back to back marathons. I think I smiled for about a mile after that!

As the final miles went by I decided that I was going to run the last 1.2 miles straight through. I felt good and the walk breaks really preserved my legs. I was maintaining about a 12 min/mile pace even with the minute walk break every two minutes! The last mile was a bit of a dream. I felt fine. I knew I was going to finish and yet it felt hard to accept as well. I was only a few minutes away from running 52.4 miles in a weekend! This is more miles than I've ever run in a week! Heck, when I lived back in Syracuse and commuted 7 miles to work I just barely drove 52.4 miles in a week! I turned the corner and headed down the road leading to the beach and the finish line.

Just before the final turn off the main road and on to the parking lot for the boardwalk is the sign for Mile 26. I picked up the paced as I passed this sign. Then it was into the parking lot and to the finish for the last 0.2 miles. I've written before that I was a sprinter in high school. Probably as a homage to my previous life as a sprinter I tend to like to sprint the last part of a marathon. At 45 years old though my sprinting days are but a faint echo. On most days I can still manage a bit of giddy-up but its not 15 year old giddy-up, its 45 year old giddy-up! Don't get me wrong, I'm not proud. I'll take age appropriate giddy-up! Yet as I turned the corner I felt something I hadn't in a long while. I couldn't feel my feet hitting the ground. Thirty years ago, when I was really moving I'd have a sensation of moving forward at a great speed and not being aware of my feet touching the ground. I didn't have this feeling often, which is probably why I gave up sprinting, but when I did I was unbeatable. Don't ask me how I know, I just do, but that last 0.2 miles was the fastest I've run in thirty years!

After getting my medal I walked to a quite spot in the finisher's area and took a knee to thank God for seeing me through this adventure! I got back up and surprisingly my legs felt good! I called Susie and arranged to meet her and after doing so made my way to the post race food. They had lots of food choices but there was Gatorade and pizza. Personally if every marathon had this as post race food I'd be just fine with that! I chowed down quickly then Susie and I started back for our car. Before we got there though we stopped for one last picture on the beach.

So there is my back to back marathon adventure! For all of you thinking about such a goal let me tell you that what others told me is true. It is not as tough as it would seem! I'd suggest bumping up your weekly mileage so that 52.4 miles in a weekend won't seem like such a struggle but with proper planning it is very doable!!! I'd also suggest running them slower than you would for a single marathon. Both strategies worked well for me!

In closing I want to list the personal records (PRs) that I achieved during this adventure.

First back to back marathons
Most marathons in a 16 day period - three (don't forget I ran Freedom's Run two weeks before this)
Most mileage in a weekend - 52.4 miles
Most mileage in a week - 54.4 miles (I ran 2 miles on Monday of marathon week)
Most miles run with a marathon pacer in a single marathon - 25 miles
Most marathons in a year - 5 (ran 2 in the spring)
Most marathons in separate states in a year - 5
Most miles run in a year - to date 1051

Well that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed this extended version of my blog! Until next time...Gotta run!

.....I just ran....( Flock of Seagulls )

Freedom's Run 2011

2011-10-04T21:25:00.001-04:00

Howdy Folks!

As you can see from the picture below I have added another state to my collection of states I have run a marathon in! That state is wild and wonderful West Virginia and I've highlighted her in red so she'd stand out!

As you can see from the map I now have eight states and almost every state that borders my home state of Pennsylvania! I had originally planned on getting New Jersey, the one border state I'm lacking, this May but scheduling and an inaugural marathon in Gettysburg, which an hour from my house, convinced me to change my plans and get New Jersey another year! But enough of this blather about my 50 state quest! This post is about my most recent marathon called Freedom's Run so let's get to the race report all ready!

Freedom's Run is a fairly new race. As best I can tell this year was only it's third running. Like any event of this size, it really takes about five years to really shake out the kinks and this race did have some kinks. Some of these kinks it can fix and some, like this year's weather, it has absolutely no control over. We'll get to these kinks as they appeared during the race. For now let's start with an overview of the race.

Freedom's Run starts in Harper's Ferry, WV and ends in Shepherdstown, WV. If you are a history or a nature buff this is definitely a race you want to check out! For the history enthusiasts, you have the the town and environs of Harper's Ferry and the Antietam battlefield. Harper's Ferry is where John Brown and his sons raided the local armory just prior to the start of the Civil War. The armory no longer stands but you do run by the location during the run. The finisher's medal is a recreation by a local jeweler of the armory that made John Brown famous. Below is a picture from scenic Harper's Ferry I took during the run.

The other area of historical significance is the Antietam Battlefield. The Battle of Antietam occurred in September of 1862 and was the "victory" Lincoln was waiting for in order to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. This could have been a much bigger victory for the Union but by and large the Union generals at this time were a bunch of weenies as the better generals had all gone to the Confederacy. Considering the forces on the field that day, if Lee, Longstreet or Jackson had been the commanding Union general it very well may have meant total defeat for the Confederacy in the east. But that's a topic for another time. The battlefield itself is very scenic and worth a trip if you are in to Civil War history. I wish I could have taken more pics here but it was a mix of rain and drizzle most of the day and by the time I got to the battlefield my hands had been stinging from the wind, rain and cold for the past four to five miles! Here are a few pictures from the battlefield I took during the run.

Now for you nature buffs, Freedom's Run boasts about 10 miles of the C & O trail that runs along the Potomac River! This is a beautiful trail and between the trail itself, the river, the banks of West Virginia on the opposite side, and the rock outcroppings this is a fantastic location to spend a day exploring! Now for all you runners, this IS a trail so it does come with some hazards. These hazards include rocks, tree branches, tree roots and, after all the rain we've had (and were getting on race day), MUD!!! Now as a bonifide trail runner I can tell you that these trails were in very good shape for a trail but for those not used to running on trails a little extra caution is warranted here! That said, for these 10 or so miles I was wishing I was wearing my Brooks Cascadia trail shoes and not my street shoes!

As I mentioned, this race starts in Harper's Ferry. The starting line is at the parking area to the park and while some people did arrive by car, I and the majority of the runners arrived by shuttle bus. Here is a shot of the starting line.

At the start, The Battle Hymn of The Republic was sung. Kind of neat addition. I think for historical significance it would have been nice to also play Dixie but I'm sure that would meet with complaints that it was not "politically correct" which will take me off on a whole other tangent if I get started so I'll just leave it at that. Now what I didn't realize was that not only was The Battle Hymn of The Republic sung, it was in lieu of The National Anthem. Sorry dudes, not cool! Call me old fashioned, a nationalist or any other name you want but last time I checked sporting events in America begin with The National Anthem...PERIOD!!! This would be one of those kinks I mentioned that can and should be fixed.

After the start you make your way to an out-and-back section known as the Murphy Farm. There is historical significance to this but I don't want to get bogged down into making this a history lesson so if you're interested, Google it. After the out-and-back it was back to the main road leading back to Harper's Ferry. On the way, I passed a couple that were running this race on their honeymoon. You can't read the sign on their backs but it read "Just Married" and then "groom" or "bride" underneath. Here is a picture of them.

Once I had passed the newlyweds, there was a long downhill run to the town of Harper's Ferry. The race director warns you about not opening it up here as there are a lot of hills yet to come. No deception there! This was the longest downhill section of the entire race. Here is a shot from the road.

After passing through Harper's Ferry you make your way to the C & O Trail by way of a bridge. The view from here is just spectacular and I can only image what it might have looked like on a "nice" morning. Here is a picture from the bridge.

At the end of the bridge was the first location that the race photographers were camped out. You got a heads up that they were there so you could put on a big smile for them as you passed. At the other end of the bridge was something I've never encountered in a marathon.....stairs! You have to negotiate about 12-15 steps which were wet so it made sense to grab the handrail here. From here you start the section of the C & O Trail and your are on it until Mile 15. The C & O Trail is actually in Maryland as well as the Antietam battlefield so the majority of this race is in Maryland. The first 4 miles are in West Virginia as well as the last half mile but that's it. Since this starts and ends in West Virginia the 50 States Club rules count this as a West Virginia marathon. I have no decent pictures from the C & O Trail. The one I have is blurry and I spent my time on the trail shooting video. I'm working on an edition of my Video Extra that will include the video I shot from the trail so be looking for that in the near future.

The trail end at Mile 15 and you are then directed to a road that leads you to the battlefield. At this time I want to mention the incredible amount of power gel and snacks along the route. I've run 12 or 13 marathons now and this one definitely had the most snacks! Mile 15 was no different. As you made your way down an embankment to the road there was a nice lady cheering the runners and offering mini Reese's peanut butter cups! Yum!

Once you are back on real roads you are greeted by the start of "the hills". The word I used to describe them in one of my videos was undulating. These hills rise and fall like and angry sea! My legs were getting pretty angry too during this section as well! The trade off though is the incredible views you got at the top of these calf-killers! For all the complaining I and other runners did during this section it is hard to imagine what it must have been like for the Civil War soldiers who were traversing these hills in full gear, pushing cannons and hauling supplies and wounded on these giant mounds of earth. Makes my little marathon aches seem rather insignificant by comparison.

I could spend an entire post describing the sights and feel of the battlefield but fear not, I won't. I must say though I found it really incredible that as I was passing the visitor's center there was a demonstration of a rifle detachment firing their black breach loading rifles. At first I though it might have been a lone cannon but as I got near the visitor's center I saw the group dressed in Union uniforms and firing in formation. It's one thing to see the land on which a battle happened but to see it with re-enactors really made the history come alive. Cool thing to see on a run!

After turning out of the battlefield, it is on to the town of Sharpsburg, MD before the run to Shepherdstown, WV. The majority of this part of the race takes place on town roads which are still in use.....thus a lot of traffic during this section. There were orange cones for literally miles to allow the runners a safe area to run but they didn't protect you from the spray from the cars as they passed or the wind that had picked up by this point. I was already wet having run in rain from about Mile 5 to Mile 17. Dealing with the road spray was just salt in the wound at this point. Every marathon has it's tough point that you just have to fight through and for me this was it. The traffic noise also made it next to impossible hear my watch alarm for my run/walk segments. I found myself looking at my watch a lot more often than I normally would during a run which was also a distraction.

On the positive side, I was starting to pick off people who had run well ahead of me at the start. It amazes me that no matter how slow you are running or how tired you are there is always the same lift when you pick off someone and pass them. One such guy had a mile on me at about 17.5 miles but I picked him of at Mile 23 and only saw him again as he crossed the finish line.....a minute after me!

About two minutes after passing Mile 25 I could see the bridge leading into West Virginia. Aside from feeling cold and wet, I felt fine for the most part. I felt this run in my hips which is a first for me. I assume it was from the hills but that is only a guess. Since I am running two marathons in a weekend two weeks later I decided at the start to only run this race as if it were a training run. I had planned on a finish time of 5:15:00 but the hills had added an extra 15 minutes to my time. As I got closer to the bridge I could then make out the sign welcoming you to West Virginia. It was at that point I saw the top of the stadium. The finish for this race was on the field in the stadium so I know I had only about a half mile left in this marathon. After making the turn off the main road to the access road leading to the stadium I saw all the fans waiting along the route to cheer the runners as they finished. I thanked the fans for their support as I passed and made the last left turn and on to the field. This is only the second marathon I've run that finished on a field but I wished every marathon finished this way. There is just something about finishing on a field in a stadium that adds a level of majesty to the whole experience for me. Kind of a mini Olympic experience in a way. I high-fived the volunteer at the finish and then another volunteer handed me my medal.

After finishing I made my way out of the stadium to find the food. Most marathons at least attempt to heard runners to the post race food and fluids but not this one. This is another one of those kinks I mentioned but its always a good idea to direct runners to the food and fluids post-race rather leave an exhausted runner to try to find it for himself. That complaint aside, they had pizza!!! Not every marathon has pizza post race but every marathon should!!! I did not see fluids anywhere in the post race area outside the stadium. I saw lots of pizza and fruit but no fluids. To be fair if there was water I would have unconsciously ignored it as don't want water after a run. I prefer any brand of electrolyte replacement drink or regular fruit juice post run.

One of the things offered as swag in this race was a pint glass. In order to get this swag though the runner had to walk a 1/2 mile uphill to a place called The Bavarian Inn. This place was cool looking and resembled a small Bavarian town....

.......as it was several buildings but after running 26 miles in wind, rain, cold and up and down hills the last thing I wanted to do was trudge another 1/2 mile uphill in the rain to get marathon booty that my entrance fee paid for! I don't think this race has had to deal with crappy weather before and in the future this would have been a good place to stick a shuttle bus from the finish to The Bavarian Inn and then from there to the shuttle buses that take the runners back to their cars or motel. It also would have been nice to have a place at the finish for the runners to get warm after running through the wind and rain. As I said at the beginning, it takes about five years to shake out all the kinks and I'm sure that now having dealt with crappy weather they will have a contingency for this in years to come!

Speaking of booty, let's get to the good stuff! As I mentioned earlier, the marathon medal is a recreation of the armory in Harper's Ferry that no longer stands. This is the medal.

This race gave a long sleeved technical shirt to all marathon entrants. Every fall marathon I've run has given a long sleeved shirt but the majority of my marathons have been in the spring to I don't have many long sleeved tech shirts so this was a big deal for me! Here's the shirt.

Finally, this race offered commemorative socks for an extra fee. Since I always need socks and I've never had a race offer them to me I bought a pair! They are made by a company called Swiftwick which is very similar to the great Irish beer Smithwick!!! Not sure if that was intentional but I considered it a good omen anyway! Here's a pic of the socks.

All in all, this was a good event. Probably would have been a great event if the weather was more cooperative but any race that can be considered good in lousy weather has to have something going for it? That does it for my race recap. Hope you enjoyed it? I you have questions or comments please feel free to post them. I promise to approve all of them as long as they are not derogatory or a spam for Viagra! You laugh but I've been spammed by them before! Thanks again for taking the time to read this. That's all for now. Gotta run!

.....gonna run in the rain till my feet are raw.....(The Who)

Nun-sense and the tunnel

2011-09-27T07:06:00.000-04:00

Howdy Folks!

Well I'm back to give a recap of two 5Ks that I ran in recently. These are The Nun Run and The Ft. McHenry Tunnel Run. These races have a few things in common. First they were both efforts to raise money for charity. Second, they were both very enjoyable events. Lastly, I had the same bib number (# 124) for both of them!!! I know, freaky?! I'm anxious to get this update posted so enough of the set up and on to the race reports!!!

THE NUN RUN

The Nun Run is a race that benefits a local order of nuns who run a nursing home in the Reading, PA. this is second year for this race but for a small 5K is managed 133 runners. The course starts and finishes on the grounds of the convent/nursing home in the hills to the north east of Reading, PA. This is a family friendly and there is a picnic style assortment of food at the conclusion of the race. This race did have a DJ....not what I expected from a race for nuns....but I must admit that hearing elderly sisters singing a hymn in latin one minute and then the DJ breaking in with YMCA by The Village People was an interesting juxtaposition of musical genres!

As I mentioned previously, the course starts on the grounds of the convent/nursing home. It winds behind one of the main buildings to a cemetery before taking a sharp left toward the road leading up to the parking area. After a right on this road it's down a hill and through a parking area for a local business and then to what appeared to be a school. Then it was off to make two laps through another cemetery. This cemetery was fairly hilly and I noticed more than a few people groan as they ascended the heights. This isn't the first time I've run through a graveyard and to be quite honest I really enjoy it. During the Frederick Marathon 2007 the course went through a graveyard filled with southern civil war soldiers that were killed several miles to the north in Gettysburg along with Francis Scott Key. There is just something peaceful about a cemetery. I suppose if it were dark and part of a Steven King movie I might feel differently but that has not been my experience with graveyards yet. After the second loop the course retraces itself all the way back to the starting line which is now magically the finish line!

I got a good jump at the start and while a few people did pass me, for most of the race I was the one doing the passing. I felt good through the entire race and had enough for my usual kick at the finish. This was a rather hilly course so when I crossed the line in 26:56 I was pleased with my time. This is far from my PR but that was done on an almost completely flat course. I did notice that there were not a lot of people milling around the finish but I didn't think much of it at that point. I got some food and went to wait for my wife to finish. After finishing all my food I eventually went out on the course to find her and jog back in with her. She finished in 41 minutes which is very good for her! After getting her some food it was time for the race awards. Now I haven't won a race award since 9th grade track which was several decades ago so I had no thoughts that my name would be mentioned. Yet when it came time for the award for third place in the 40-49 age group.....I heard my name being called! I received a new water bottle that has a detachable gel ice stick to keep the fluid inside cold as my award! It really is a cool water bottle and as it was.....I needed a new one anyway! Below is a picture of my new award for my third place finish!

In the end this was a very nice event and a surprisingly challenging course for a 5K!! I will definitely return to this next year if only to defend my third place finish!!!

THE FT. McHENRY TUNNEL RUN

This was without a doubt the most unique race I've run to date! The race benefits Special Olympics so even if it wasn't so unique it would have been worth doing! This race starts you at one end of the Ft. McHenry Tunnel on I-95 in Baltimore and takes through the tunnel twice (out and back) to make the majority of the 5K course. Since the point of the tunnel to to allow ships access to the Inner Harbor this tunnel is just over 100 ft underwater! It would have been nice if they handed out a naval submariner medal at the finish but this was still a blast of a race.

After racing the day before, on hills no less, I wasn't sure I had a lot in the tank for this race. With this race being so unique I also wasn't sure I wanted to race this at all and take lots of pics and video instead. I ended up doing a little bit of both. My finish time was just over 26 seconds but I did take lots of pics and dead stopped on the return to shoot video of the Maryland Transportation Police cadets running to cadence running the opposite way in the tunnel.

Here is the photo montage of my run.....

Walking through the Toll Booths (without paying) on the way to the start!

Walking down I-95, the start just ahead!

My wife and I, in our matching Nun Run shirts, before the race!

A few bits of information to runners before the start.

Looking behind us at some of the 800 people who attended this race!

The tunnel in the foreground...Ready.....Set......GO!!!!!

Once in the tunnel, I switched to video. Unfortunately, the quality is a bit bouncy but it was the best I could do with my phone. I was actually running a sub 8 minute mile for the first video and the quality bears that out. Try not to get motion sick watching it! I slowed up on the return in order to improve the video quality and dead stopped for the police cadets in the last video. Here are the three videos.....

The tunnel on the way in at a sub 8 min/mile pace.

The tunnel on the way back. I slowed down to reduce the bouncing!

Walked and eventually stopped to film the police cadets jogging the opposite direction! You could hear these guys a while in the tunnel before you actually saw them!

After filming the police cadets I put the phone a way and just enjoyed the rest of the run. As I mentioned earlier I finished in just over 26 minutes. In fact, I was about 100 feet away from the finish when the last second of a 25 minute finish time ticked off. I haven't been able to find my official time posted anywhere but my guesstimate is 26:20. Not bad for walking and stopping on the course to take pics and video!

So there you have it! Another race report from Runners Anonymous! Hope you enjoyed the report as well as the pics and video. I have my first fall marathon on October 1st so there will be another race report coming soon! Thanks for stopping by! That's all for now. Gotta run!

.....into this tunnel of love......(Bruce Springsteen)

Over the hills and through the woods

2011-09-03T15:16:00.002-04:00

Howdy Folks!

Well I just returned from my first trail run of 2011. If you haven't tried trail running I should forewarn you that the only similarity between road running and trail running is that they both have the the word "running" in them! After that the similarities are few and far between. Trail running is much closer to an obstacle course than a straight run. For those of you who ride motorcycles, trail running is to road running as motorcycle riding is to driving a car. You have to be much more aware on the bike as it is a lot less forgiving if you're not paying attention than a car is! This race was the Nolde Forest 10K Trail Chase in Reading, PA. It's called a trail "chase" as the runners do not all start at the same time. This is an age-graded course so your start time depends on your age and sex. By the time I started the first person, representing the women over 70 group, had been running for over 15 minutes!

The race itself is a small one with only 300 runners allowed. Most of these folks turned up on race day rather than pre-register. Trail runners are a bit more talkative than road runners. So if you don't want someone starting a conversation with you as if he/she has known you their whole life then trail running may not be the thing for you. Personally, I love the friendly atmosphere of a group of trail runners. They're a weirder than usual bunch but then again I'm a weirder than usual kind of guy so it all works out!

This was my sixth or seventh trail run and each one has been unique. Around my area, you can plan of running up and down hills that are usually hard dirt with tree roots and rocks sticking out of them. You can also plan on ducking underbrush and a stream crossing. What was different with this course was that it had just rained the morning of the race so the course was very slick! Our area had also recently weather Hurricane Irene so there were a lot of leaves on the trail as well to add to the traction issues. Prior to the start the announcer gave the customary warning about safety on the course including a warning about a rock ledge we'd have to navigate and several wooden bridges that had gotten slick after the recent rainfall. With that said it was time to start running.

Fifteen minutes into the start it was time for my group to toe the starting line. By the time I started all the women runners had already started. In addition, the space between groups had shortened to one minute between groups. Looking at the remaining guys as I walked to the starting line it occurred to me that there were probably only two groups behind me comprised of 30 year old guys and then finally 20 year old guys. Both would likely pass me sometime before the end of the course.

My group (Men 45-49) started with (Men 40-44) and (Boys 15-19). There was only one kid in the 15-19 age group, good news for him 'cause for winning your age group there was an award, who got the brunt of the kidding in the pack of 40-somethings. At which time the starter, a guy named Ron Horn stated that by the time this kid was able to drive, and certainly by the time he was in our age group, we'd all likely be dead! Nothing like a cold splash of mortality before a race! With that happy thought....we were off!

The trail lead down a 3% decline for the first few minutes....not a good thing generally in a trail run. Early downhills are usually just set-ups for a long uphill climb immediately afterward. This race was no different. After running downhill and then through a series of switchbacks we arrived at the base of a mile long climb! I could go into detail describing this ascent but that would require taking this post from its current G rating to an R rating rapidly! Suffice it to say it was a long hill and it sucked!

Shortly after finishing this torture climb we got to the first of two water stations. Park rules forbid alcohol being served otherwise this stop would have likely included beer! Beer at the water stops is one of the many things that differentiates a trail run from a road run. While I wouldn't make beer a staple of my hydration routine, it does seem to hit the spot during a trail run!

As I continued on through the trail, I had noticed how slippery the conditions were. I have a pair of Brooks Cascadia trail shoes and generally I don't slip and slide but today I was doing a fair share of it! I'd feel my shoe slip on a dampened rock as I attempted to run uphill or slide to one side or the other as i rounded a corner or headed back down a hill. Normally I love running downhill on a trail. I'd describe my downhill technique as similar to Franz Klammer in the '76 winter Olympics! (Don't get that reference? Then you are under 35 years old. Google/Youtube it. It will make sense then.) No way I'd try that here though with the current conditions. Just have to reign it in a bit on the downhill!

With less than mile to go I had come to a series of small bridges that cut back and forth over a small stream. See? What did I tell you? A stream crossing. I had remembered the warning about the bridges being slick but as I was just stepping off the first in the series I felt my foot give way. Now if this had been a movie this would have been where everything would have slowed down and the entire fall would have taken 30 seconds all while I shouted the word "Noooooooo" about 3 octaves lower than my actual speaking voice! Alas, this was not a movie. I hit the deck almost instantly! Thankfully I had taken a few lessons in Aikido many years before. One of the first things you learn in Aikido or Judo is how to fall properly. It sounds silly but the worst thing you can do in a fall is try to stop yourself! It is the sudden stop that usually results in the serious injuries. Instead Aikido/Judo teaches you to somewhat go with the momentum and allow yourself to roll as your hit the ground, thus diverting some of the energy in the fall to rolling instead of stopping. It makes for a much more spectacular looking fall but you do end up much less injured in the process! (Not to mention the extra points for style!) So as my leg came out from under me I put my right hand down to guide my fall and start me into my roll. I rolled onto my back and eventually ended up in a face-plant on my left cheek. Ideally I should be able to slap my left hand on the ground to stop the roll but I had way too much momentum, thus the resting position on my hands/knees and left cheek. From the look on the poor guy behind me I must have maxed out my style points for this fall. After assuring him that I was alright I got back up and continued down the trail. All that work to not go ass over teakettle on the downhill and I end up doing so on one of the only flat surfaces on the trail. Go figure?

I made my way through the remaining bridges, and the remaining course, without any further issues. It was while I was climbing the long hill that was a downhill run at the beginning of this race that I noticed the blood on my hand on on my right knee. Cuts and bruises are part of the game in trail running. Kind of a "red badge of courage" amongst trail runners. Since I knew I wasn't winning my age group, these scrapes would have to serve as my medal! I know it is weird but I was plenty proud of them! I even managed to get blood on my racing bib....how cool is that?

With the last hill ascended it was on to the straight-a-way and on to the finish line. I finished in 1 hour and 14 minutes by my watch. Official times won't be posted for another 72 hours. As I slowed to a walk in the finishing lane I tore off the ticket at the bottom of the bib to give to the volunteer. "Don't mind the blood" I said as I smiled and handed her the ticket with a fresh sample of O positive on the side. "Blood?" she gasped as she reached for the ticket. Her reaction made me chuckle. Here's the photos of the damages. I took the pictures after I returned home about an hour later.

While I would have rather skipped the falling part, this was a great run in an absolutely beautiful forest! There was some really nice swag too including the hat and bag at pictured at the beginning of this post along with a lot of coupons, discounts, and food in the goodie bag! If you are in the area next September I would recommend this run if you are up to trying a trail run!

Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Hope you enjoyed the pics as well as the text! Oh yeah, the blood on my hand and on my bib? After showering I noticed I tore open a small spot on my left chin! I'm such an animal! That's all for now. Gotta run!

.....'cause it's only time before we all must bleed....(Collective Soul)

Minus one monkey

2011-08-25T11:09:00.003-04:00

Howdy Folks!

It's a rainy stormy Thursday here in the mid-atlantic so I thought now was a good time to make an update to this blog! Lots to say so I'll spare you a long-winded into and get right to it!

Yesterday I ran my first 20 miler in about four months! Although I have been able to run more miles than last year, I have not been able to get the long runs in that I hoped for. This is due to a bunch of reasons. My Dad getting sick the end of June is probably the biggest reason. I've spent a bunch of time traveling between here and my parents home in order to check in on him and my Mom. This is just short of a 700 mile roundtrip drive to this has eaten up a lot of free time that I otherwise would have used for some long runs. This has also been an extremely hot an humid summer....at least until a few weeks ago and I've not been real disciplined about getting up early enough to take advantage of the cooler early morning temps. Its a bit harder to attempt a 16+ miler after the temperature is already in the 90s and the humidity level is not far behind! I'm doing better now...and so is my Dad...but my lack of long runs this summer certainly put a monkey on my back with only 6 weeks to go before my next marathon!

With this monkey in mind, I decided yesterday to do some demonkification...ok, its not a real word but it should be....and get that sucker off my back by doing a 20 miler. It was a beautiful, low humidity morning and this time I actually did get to the trail by 0630! Yay Me!! I don't know about your area but here some of the schools are back in session so the school buses have returned! As I hopped out of my car in the trail parking area I saw a few kids, with their book-bags at the ready, awaiting the bus that would return them to another year of school. I've been out of high school for over 25 years now but the sight of the kids did send me back in time to when it was me waiting for the bus. Of course back then we were "too cool" for book-bags! Back then only geeks carried book-bags. Cool kids carried their books under one arm. Then again, my school books rarely saw the outside of my locker, never mind the inside of our house, so that is probably a moot point. But I digress. As I start to come out of my momentary nostalgic fog I become aware that one of the kids is looking in my direction. Probably wondering if this middle-aged dude looking in his direction is being truly creepy or just having a "senior-momemt"? Now there are three options here but only one that does not automatically scream "creepy". I could continue to look until he turns away. Staring = creepy. I could do the quick look away. Quick look away = creepy. Personally, I think the quick look away from another guy is about the creepiest of all the options. This leaves me with a quick acknowledgement of the kid and then change my gaze. For this its the old standard quick head tip-up gesture. Back in high school I think I made this gesture about 80 times a day in the hall. We were apparently "too cool" for hello back then too! I think if you were good friends with the other guy that rated a grunt as well but nothing more. The neat thing about this gesture though is that it really has two meanings. First is a friendly, but not too friendly, form of hello. The other meaning is sort of an "Ok, I see you are looking at me so you can stop now." The best part of this gesture is that the recipient is never really sure which meaning they just got! I shot a quick head-tip to the kid and turned to reach for my belt for my water bottle. As I stood back up I noticed the school bus pull in. As the kids climbed aboard I felt a smile on my face as if to say.........Ha ha!!! Better you than me kid! As the youths made their way to the prison of high school I made my way to the freedom of the open trail.

The sun was just peering out over the horizon as I started my run. Since I haven't run this far in a while I decided to make this run a 3:1 run/walk. I haven't run a 20 miler at a 3:1 in years and I probably could have run this one faster and with fewer walk breaks but what's the point, beyond the self-congratualtory chest thump, of running this one like that only to be cramped-up and stiff for the next 2-3 days? No, I was going to take this one easy. Better to complete it slow and ready to do it again soon than to do it fast and then not be able to repeat it for a while. I was a bit slow and stiff at the start but that worked itself out in about a mile. After that I was good the rest of the way. I had a little bit of stiffness or soreness in the last 5 miles but nothing I couldn't work through. More importantly, I can walk normally today! Demonkification complete.

For those of you who follow me on Dailymile or Facebook you're aware that recently my Garmin watch has gone to that great watch heaven in the sky. I'm a very statistics oriented runner. The more data the better. This does leave me vulnerable to becoming too "plugged in" and missing the more esoteric aspects of a run but I do make a point to do some runs just for the sake of running and leave the data-mining alone in order to balance myself out just a bit. With my Garmin kaput, I have recently been trying out some smartphone apps to accomplish the same goal. To date I've tried MapMyRun, RunKeeper, and Runstar. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses. Here is my review on the free version of each of them.

MapMyRun as the name implies does a great job at mapping your workout. The maps it creates, and especially the elevation maps are outstanding. It also does a nice job of recording your average pace and speed, distance, and calories burned. You can also input your effort level and how you felt during the workout. When you finish you can upload your results to either Facebook or Twitter. The posting on Facebook is nothing to write home about but it does do it. The info on Facebook does improve if you click on the posting. This sends you to MapMyRun.com and a much better presentation of the data. This app also allows you to take pics during your run directly through the app that links to the phones' on-board camera. On the downside their is no audio. This app does a nice job of recording data but unless you are looking at your phone you have no idea what that data is. You can use other apps, such as a music player but you have to go their manually as their is no way to get there using this app. Like all the apps I tested there is more functionality on the pay version but for MapMyRun that starts at $5.99/month or $29.98/year and grows to $19.99/month or $99.96/year depending on how much functionality you want. If you are planning on going with a pay version, MapMyRun is the most expensive option I tested.

I first heard of RunKeeper through a friend on Dailymile. He had invited people to give him encouragement while he ran through this particular app. Before you get excited, this functionality is only available on the pay version. The free version I tried is much more bare bones.....much more. On the positive side this app does all the data collection of the other apps but this app does come with audio prompts!!! Just like Nike+, this will call out whatever data you set it up to track at the time-points you specify. I set it up for every half mile and every 10 minutes to tell me my current distance, pace, and overall time and it worked flawlessly!!! The voice is very similar to the female Nike+ voice. You don't have an option for a male voice. The map produced is pretty good although not as good as the MapMyRun map. The elevation map is a very disappointing series of blocks that only gives you a very general idea of what you just ran. The real disappointment though was the uplink. At the end I attempted to send my data to Facebook which RunKeeper has a button devoted to this task and yet....no uplink. I attempted to try to find a way to retry the uplink but apparently you get one try at this task per run and if that doesn't work then you are S.O.L.! RunKeeper also won't allow you access to your data on RunKeeper.com unless you have the pay version. This privilege is less expensive than MapMyRun at only $4.99/month or $19.99/year but I don't see why I should have to pay for the privilege of looking online at data that was just spoken to me over my phone for free?

The last app I tried was Runstar. This was my favorite of the apps I tried. This app does all the data collection that the other apps do but unlike the other apps this one does link to your music player on your phone. If you already have playlists on your phone then you have the same ones on Runstar. Like the Nike+, you also have the option of setting up a power song for those times that you feel some more motivation is warranted. I have a HTC Evo so I'm using an Android app. Runstar was the only app I tried that did not automatically close. This app functioned just like a stopwatch, or for that matter my old Garmin, and was always readable without having to go thru the security crap associated when the smartphone goes into screensaver mode. You have the option to engage the screensaver but its not automatic as on RunKeeper and MapMyRun. I liked that! The free version allows you to uplink your run to Facebook, Twitter, or to anything else your phone gives you the option to send a picture to! Nice addition for a free version! The pay version has more functionality like an audio prompt and the ability to set your run for a specific distance or time but this privilege is bargain priced at $5 one time rather than hooking you for a monthly or yearly fee. Now the downside to all of these is that you have to be willing to take your phone with you while you run, which compared to the GPS watches, are a lot heavier but if you can get past that there is definitely an app to meet your needs and wishes.

Well I think that's plenty of chattering for today. Time to get all the stuff done around the house that I didn't get done yesterday while I was running. Thanks for stopping by!! That's all for now. Gotta run!

.....well I'm a-running down the road trying to loosen my load got world of troubles on my mind...(The Eagles)

Arrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh!!!!

2011-08-12T15:06:00.001-04:00

Howdy folks!

I back again and a bit frustrated at the moment. I planned on getting in a 20 mile run this morning and then Murphy showed up! I've been a bit behind the eight-ball with the time I took off in July d/t my Dad's health but I had hoped that he and I had turned a corner. My Dad's health is improving so at least their is that!

Regular followers of this blog will know that in only 9 short weeks I have my fall marathons (three in two weeks in October to be exact). The issue is that I have not had the time I thought I would to get my long runs in. I expected that I would get a bunch in during July and August but to date my longest run since Gettysburg (early May) has been 16 miles. Not nearly the kind of mileage I'll need to tackle a marathon and then two back to back marathons all within 16 days! I'm not in total freak-out mode yet but if things don't change I'll be there in about three weeks!

So as I was saying, today I had planned on running 20 miles. Then Murphy showed up. First my wife announced that her car was running rough....thus meaning that she would be taking mine to get to work this morning. My wife is not the quickest on noticing car issues and she'll let things slide a while before dealing with them. For my wife to say the car is running "rough" is what most other people would describe as "broke". So much for heading to the Rail Trail to get my long run in. I'm not hosed yet though. While I hate running laps, I can still do three sets of 6 mile laps to make 18 miles. That's when she mentioned that the farrier is coming this morning. For those not acquainted with the term a farrier is a person that trims and shoes horse hooves. So now not only can I not drive to the park to run but I have to "park" my butt all morning and wait for the farrier to come. Nifty.

By the time the farrier left and the animals were put out for the day it was already 11AM. Not a great time to be starting an 18 miles trek in August!!!! Thankfully the 90s were gone but the humidity was very low. Don't get me wrong, after most of the summer with temps in the 90s and humidity in the 80s an upper 70 degree day with humidity in the low 20s feels great! The problem for the runner though is that it is difficult to gauge your fluid loss as sweat evaporates off you at a greater rate than usual. This was my issue today. I put my first 6.21 miles in and felt tired and thirsty even though I wasn't the soaking wet mess I usually am after a summer run. I came in the house, refilled my 22oz water bottle, slammed a Boost, and headed out for my second lap.

I was only about a mile into my second lap when I noticed I was tired and thirsty about every three minutes. By the time I had got to the mile and a half mark I noticed I had already drank 3/4 of my water bottle already. I was also starting to get a slight headache. I've had heat exhaustion once before and it started with a headache. Not a good sign! I bagged the idea of another six miles and took a shorter route and finished with 4.21 miles instead.

After a shower and about 30 oz of fluids (chocolate milk and then gatoraide) my headache is gone and my pee is a lot lighter now! Just goes to show that dehydration and heat exhaustion are not things that only happen when the temperature goes above 85 degrees! If the humidity was at a more normal range for my area, 40-60%, I would have noticed how much I was sweating and hydrated accordingly. Instead with the humidity in the low 20% I got fooled into thinking my lack of sweat was due to a lack of working hard and thus got behind in my hydration.

I'm still frustrated that I didn't get the mileage in that I wanted but at least I caught my hydration issue in time to correct it before something really bad happened. Well that's it for now. I'll be blogging more in the next few weeks as I have a few races coming up prior to my first fall marathon. Until then, gotta run!

.......if it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all....(Eric Clapton)

The Boilermaker 2011

2011-07-13T17:16:00.000-04:00

Howdy Folks!

   As I lie in my bed the recipient of an ear infection and possibly a sinus infection or cold on top of it, I decided it was time to wax eloquent on my latest adventure. The Boilermaker is a 15K (9.3 mile) race that happens every July in the thriving metropolis of Utica, New York. Ok, Utica is not exactly thriving or is it a metropolis. In fact, this race is the biggest thing that happens in Utica all year long! This means that if you are reading this from Utica you're pretty much screwed for the rest of the year! Ain't nothin' gonna happen till 2012! All kidding aside, the folks of Utica do a fantastic job of welcoming the runners and putting on a fantastic race! The fact that this race ends at a brewery and large picnic/concert atmosphere doesn't hurt either!

   The race starts at the Utica Boilers and travels four distinct neighborhoods before finishing at the FX Matt Brewing Company. This is significant as the best neighborhood fan support, as ranked by the runners, gets a free block party! Needless to say, people go all out to try to win this party! This translates into fan support in every mile! When I say fan support I don't just mean just cheering. Fans hand out water, ice, popsicles, beer, spray willing runners with their hoses, and even hand out cookies! Then there are the bands. There are a lot of bands on the course. Name a genre of music and its represented. Metal, rock, country, folk, calypso, polka, Irish, DJs, its all there. My favorite was a band of 20 drummers with full drum kits thumping away while a singer chanted the lyrics to a Motown song. Let me tell you, if you ever need encouragement to run and 20 drummers on full drum kits doesn't do it for you, you need to give up running!

   This was my 7th consecutive time running The Boilermaker. Growing up in central New York, this was the race that everyone talked about. There are other great races but this was and still is the Big Kahuna! I had hoped to break my PR this year but a number of things made that goal impossible. The most significant was that my father had a stroke three weeks prior. When something like this happens all other things take a backseat. I stopped running for two weeks while I helped my mother with my father. He's doing much better now but two weeks off does take a toll on your level of fitness. I've read that you can take up to a week off before losing fitness but that at two weeks your level of fitness decreases rapidly. I was right on that edge.

   I did manage a bit of luck in that the temperature was the coolest its ever been at a comfortable 55 degrees. Since this race takes place in July the starting temperature is usually in the low 70s and humid. I also managed to gain a decent seeding in the race corrals. I've written about my concerns with the way the race corrals are set up in every previous blog on this race so I won't repeat that again here. Suffice it to say that in order to get out of the last corral you need to either be lighting fast or exaggerate your finish time. Last year a 1:20:00 finish time(which is not an exaggeration for me) was not speedy enough to get me out of the last corral so this year I put down a 1:15:00 and voila, hello yellow race bib and second to last corral! There are six corrals total not including the elites in the front. The second to last corral generally has runners who are going to run between an 8 to 9 min/mile pace so I was happy to be there!

   So the race starts and I'm off. There are a couple of sights I look for every race. The first is the house at the 0.3 mile mark. The people that live there usually have a sign saying "only 9 miles left to go!". Its cruel humor but I love it! Next is the one mile mark and a check of my watch. I got there in 8:58. Not bad considering the traffic you have to get through. Now its off to the belly dancers!

   Before you get your hopes up guys these are NOT your typical bellydancers. I don't want to be unkind but Cindy Crawford they are not. On the other hand, bellies they have....in excess. Again I'm not trying to be cruel but I always laugh when I see these ladies....which I hope is what they were going for all along.

   I reached the two mile mark in 18:02. I can't explain why but I knew that my hopes of a PR were toast at this point. Now on my PR run I got to 2 miles in under 18 minutes but there are plenty of places to make up time on this course. Still, I knew that my chance was done for this year. It was about the same time that a gremlin climbed on my shoulder and started telling me to walk. This is very early for such a thought to pop in my head and had I not run this race 6 times before I might have panicked a bit here. Instead I started repeating the the mantra "I'll walk after the next mile". I finally shook that gremlin loose at the 9 mile mark and within sight of the finish line but he had been pretty talkative for the last 7 miles!

   As I crossed the finish line I looked at my watch. It read 1:28:37. Not a horrible time but far from my best. My official time was 3 hundredths of a second faster for a 1:28:34. As I said, not my best but it was my best today.

   Well there it is folks. I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope you put The Boilermaker on your race list some day. You'll not regret the trip! That's all for now. Gotta run.

.....Back where we started, here we go 'round again.....(The Kinks)

What I plan to do on my summer vacation.

2011-05-18T16:04:00.002-04:00

Howdy Folks!

   Well with two marathons behind me this year and the next one not for another three and a half months I'm left with just the prospect of summer training for the fall marathons. I do have a 15K in July and possibly a 5K in August that I'll race in but other than that there will be no races to write about. This is probably a good thing as I'll need the time to get ready for the fall.

   While many people train all summer for that one special marathon that they are going to do in the fall I have a slightly more ambitious goal. I'm running three marathons within a 15 day span! The races are Freedom's Run (Oct 1), ING Hartford Marathon (Oct 15), and Amica Newport Marathon (Oct 16). Yup, you read that correctly. The last two are back-to-back!

   I've been running marathons since 2006 so I've done plenty of training and preparation in the past. I know how to get ready for "a" marathon. I've never tried to get ready for three all at once. For obvious reasons, my usual training will not suffice. With that in mind there are a couple of areas that I'll need to really work on. These are core fitness, endurance, and speed.

   Core fitness is one of those things that a fair amount of runners skimp on. I certainly have in the past. If you are one of these runners you may have wondered "how is doing a bunch of sit-ups going to help me run faster?' In the direct sense...it won't. You can have a gut like iron but if you don't move your arms and legs at the right pace you can kiss that sub-4 hour marathon goodbye! As they say in the commercials, but wait there's more! While your core may not make you run faster, a poorly trained core can make you run slower! This is because as your core muscles tire your posture changes. With the change in posture you change the way you are using your muscles. A poor posture puts extra stress on muscles and causes them to tire at a faster rate. Thus, a strong core helps you maintain a good posture and prolongs the time you can run.....which may allow you to run faster.

To accomplish strengthening up my core I am doing pilates exercises five days a week. In the past I would have placed pilates in the same group with yoga. I don't want to be insulting to those readers who are absolutely geeked on yoga so I'll just leave it with that I had a low opinion of it. As a member of dailymile.com, I have a friend who was frequently logging her core routines and although she is a girl these routines sounded anything but "girly". I decided to give them a try. Since we do not live near each other she sent me youtube links for a woman named Erin Huggins. Now Erin is a late 20/early 30 something who sports tattoos on both arms from just about her elbows all the way up to her shoulders. I don't know if she has any martial arts training but if she does she could certainly open up a can of whoop-ass on someone! That said, her routines are challenging without feeling sadistic. In addition her flexibility is first rate.....which is important to someone who just ran a marathon without full range of motion in his left hip!! As long as I stick to this, I should be in good shape with my core by October!

The next issue is endurance. Obviously someone who plans to run two marathons back-to-back better have a boat-load of this before their first step! Again, while I've trained for marathons before I'm not training for "just a marathon" this time. My training this summer will be more in line with that of an ultra-marathon since, in a sense, that is exactly what I'll be doing. Normally my training runs end with the 22 miler. Not this year. This year I'm taking it out to 30 miles. I'm lucky in that I can do this all on the York Heritage Rail Trail. Since the trail is 21 miles long I'll have no trouble finding 30 miles to run. This trail also connects to the NCR Trail at the Pennsylvania/Maryland line and continues almost all the way to Baltimore.

I'll also be increasing my weekly mileage. My usual routine is three 6-mile runs with a long run sometime during the week. This usually gives me a weekly mileage in the 28-38 mile range. If I'm planning on running 52.4 miles in a weekend having an average weekly mileage of 32 miles isn't going to cut it. As I sit comfortably in my living room, my plan is to bump my weekly mileage up to 40-60 miles per week. That should get me the endurance I'll need for these three fall marathons!

Finally, I'll be working on speed this summer. While I'd love to run these three marathons in a fast time this is not why I'll be working on speed this summer. Speed and endurance are closely related. If you can run fast for a short distance then you should be able to run far at a slower pace. My goal is to increase my pace over the summer until I can do a 10 mile run in under 90 minutes without feeling like I just put everything I had into the run. I'm a big fan of Yasso 800s so I'll be using them on my speed-work days. My goal is to get my 800 meter speed down to a 3:30 - 3:45. Last year I got it down to a 4:10 and then ran a PR in the Air Force Marathon. For those of you not acquainted with the Yasso 800 the time is not how fast you can run 800 meters, its how fast you can run 10 x 800 meters with an 800 meter jog in between! Throw in the warm up and cool down and you still have about 8 miles of running here!

So that's my plans for this summer. I'll be sure to check in to let you know how things are going. Until then, that's all for now. Gotta run!

......in the long run......(The Eagles)

"Back" from the chiropractor

2011-05-09T20:14:00.002-04:00

Howdy folks!

   My trip to the chiropractor was an eventful one so in true blogger fashion I felt the urge to write about it. I don't know how many of you have ever been to a chiropractor but I can assure you they are not too scary. They do seem to get a bad rap and are the butt of lots of humor. Most recently "Two and a half men" has used the plot of one of the characters being a chiropractor as fodder for many a joke. Yeah, alright....I laughed at those jokes too!

   This recent trip was due to an injury to my left hip I sustained over a month ago. I initially thought it was muscular in nature and treated it as such. The fact that it never went away was probably my first clue I was barking up the wrong diagnosis tree! The real kicker though was when my wife told me after the Gettysburg Marathon that my left butt cheek was higher than my right! I looked at pictures taken from the Gettysburg Marathon and sure enough I could see the slant in my hips! It was time to do something before I really injured myself!

   My wife goes to a chiropractor religiously. She was the one to get me to try a chiropractor in the first place. The only problem was when I originally went I didn't have a problem. I walked into the office and the guy looked me over and then told me I was pretty well aligned. He still beat on me like a rented mule but at least I could say I've been to a chiropractor and my wife would leave me alone about going. The other "interesting" thing is the process of cracking your neck. When you are getting your spine adjusted you'll get your whole spine adjusted! Now I know I'm a product of way too many Rambo and Arnold Swartzenegger movies but the idea of someone "cracking my neck" just gives me the willies!

   Even though I had my reservations about the "neck thing" I had decided that I had dealt with this pain for long enough and it was time to put my overactive imagination aside and try to get this hip fixed. I walked into the office with the hope of looking less like the leaning tower of Pisa on the way back out!

   As I mentioned previously, my wife goes to this chiropractor religiously so even though I haven't been back in over three years he already knows plenty about me from listening to my wife. After a few pleasantries I was face down on the table. If you haven't been to a chiropractor let me first tell you that the sensation of having your body aligned is more "surprise" than pain. In fact, I don't think the process hurt at all. First he checked my range of motion in my hips. It was pretty pitiful. To think that I ran 26.2 miles on a hip that could only move that little? Then after a few adjustments he rechecked my hip and "Voila", much more range of motion this time. I still have an issue with the neck thing but I do feel better. Before manipulating my neck he stated that I might feel some "popping" on the side of my neck during the process. Again I do feel better now but I'm still not sure I like the word "popping" in the same sentence with my neck!

   While I was walking out I noticed I could feel my left foot hit the ground much more solidly then on the way in. On the drive home I noticed I wasn't predominately sitting on my right cheek. Another good sign. I haven't run today in order to give this a day to settle before putting it through a run but I feel pretty good about my chances to run pain free tomorrow!

   Well that's all I have for today. I'm starting a core workout routine so I'm sure I'll have something to say about that in the not too distant future! Until then, gotta run!

.....Get back........(The Beatles)

The Battle of Gettysburg

2011-05-07T09:42:00.002-04:00

Howdy Folks!

   As I prepared for my 12th marathon at the Inaugural Gettysburg Marathon, I couldn't help thinking about the famous battle almost 150 years ago and of my familial link to the Civil War. Non-runners never really understand this statement but running is about more than just running. Personally, I think running turns people into philosophers who otherwise might not give life that much thought. After all if you run any significant distance you are going to have a lot of time to think....and think....and think.

   This all starts for me, or better yet for my family, with a man named George Reed. George lived in what is now Great Neck, NY, on the northwest coast of Long Island. He lived there with his wife Harriet and their children and he made his living as a farmer. It is hard to believe that a half hour from Manhattan there was ever anything that could be considered farmland but our world has changed a lot in the last 150 years! In September of 1863 he enlisted in the army and joined the 47th New York Volunteers. He joined as a "replacement". A replacement was a common practice where a person who had been drafted could pay someone to take their place. The rate offered George was $300. He would then also be paid the going wage for an infantry soldier of $12/month. George was my great, great, great, great uncle on my mother's side. My father's side of the family were still back in Ireland and wouldn't arrive in America until the 1920s. The same was true for my maternal grandmother who arrived in America from Scotland in the 1920s. As it was, George and his family were new to America as well, having only arrived from Froyle, England in the late 1840s. I know very little about him but I do know that he was my only relative that fought in the Civil War.

   If you read even a little about the Civil War then you quickly learn that it was not uncommon to know people on "the other side". This is the same for me at the Gettysburg Marathon. The marathon organizers have divided the entrants into two teams. Not surprisingly, the North and the South. The home state of the runner is the decision maker for which team the runner is a part of. Runners form states that would have been part of the Union army are added to "the North team" and runners from a state that was part of the Confederate army or not a state in 1863 are added to "the South team". Living in Pennsylvania, I will be "fighting" for the North but I have a few friends from dailymile.com that will be making the trip from south of Mason-Dixon to "fight" for the South.

   As I prepared for the marathon I did what I always do, or at least try to do. Rest. I made a concerted effort to hydrate, eat right, and get a good night's sleep. Marathoning is tough enough when you are well trained, rested and hydrated. I also had the added benefit of climate control. It is that time of year when the air conditioners are back in the windows so if it gets suddenly very warm the heat an humidity are gone with the flick of a switch. Not so for soldiers on their way to Gettysburg in 1863. There were men from both sides that had already fought for two years prior to arriving in Gettysburg. Not only that, these same men would have already seen some of the bloodiest battles in American history. First and second Manasas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville all preceded Gettysburg. Even relative newcomer regiments like the 20th Maine and 1st Minnesota, which were formed with 1000 men a year earlier, had already been reduced in size to just about 300 men by the time they arrived in Gettysburg. Both sides arrived in Gettysburg, tired, hungry and sweaty before a single shot was fired. Oh, and they didn't drive 40 miles in car listening to motivational music......they walked......between 150 to 300 miles!

   As the predawn light arrived on marathon day I went through my usual routine. I start with a large cup of coffee and something light to eat. The coffee has two purposes. First it helps wake me up, which is always a good plan before running 26.2 miles. The other reason....well I think you know "the other reason". Nothing against port-a-johns but it is better to take care of some things at home. After that I make my final check of my supplies for the race and it is off we go!!

   Race day was going to be mostly overcast (which I like) and cool. (which I also like) The race director had divided "the teams" into separate parking lots. I arrived at "the North" parking lot which was the local high school. As I sat on the bus I was almost immediately engaged in a conversation. Runners already know this but non-runners might not...runners love to talk about their sport! I've worn a Brooks-Hansons Racing singlet to races for about three years. It is very colorful (which makes me easy to spot so family can take pics) and even though they are available to the general public I'm frequently the only person wearing one. I'm built like a distance runner so the combination of my frame and the racing singlet usually elicits a comment about how I may be the race winner. This race was no different. Since I'm going to finish in the last third of runners I enjoy the brief moment when someone confuses me for a fast marathoner.

   Shortly after getting on the bus to the staging area I met one of my friends from dailymile.com. Her name is Deb and we had a very nice conversation as we made our way to the staging area. After arriving at the staging area she went to get her race packet. I already had mine (I'm much too OCD to wait for race day so I had picked up mine the day before) and so I waited outside the tent. While I was waiting I spotted another dailymile.com friend named Eric. After Deb and Eric got their race packets I spotted another familiar fellow.

I must say I wasn't expecting to see Santa at this race but what was more surprising was that he was there as part of a team. If you look at his bib in his left hand you'll notice its white with red lettering. This was the bib colors of the relay teams. I looked for three other extremely short runners with curly shoes and pointy ears who would have been part of Santa's team but I must have missed them in the crowd.

After a few moments talking together we all made our way to the starting line. I found a fellow runner to take our picture just before the race started.

The race started in a residential area and quickly made a right turn into the part of the park that we would run through. Our section of the park would have been the Confederate extreme left and the first day of the battle. We were only in the battlefield for a short time but as we passed Confederate Ave I knew that a left at that point would take me all the way to Seminary Ridge and on to the site of Pickett's Charge. I had started the race with Deb as we were planning on running a similar pace. Eric is a much faster runner and was long gone by this point. I had planned on doing a 7:1 run/walk for this race so I stayed with Deb until the seven minute mark at which we wished each other good luck and she continued on while I took my first walk break.

Even though we were no longer in the battlefield the scenery was still very pretty. Just before the two mile mark we passed the first of many farms.

Pictures don't do justice to the expansiveness of the scenery but it was spectacular! From the picture you can see hills in the background. There were plenty right under your feet in this race as well! I've been having an issue with my left hip for the past month so with that and the hills I was glad I had chosen a 7:1 pace rather than trying to run this one straight through. This proved to be a smart plan as my hip started to act up at Mile 8. It was just a dull ache but I knew it was there for the next 18.2 miles. The one nice thing about hills though is that for every uphill there is a downhill! I like downhill! It really destroys your quads after a while but I like downhill! Here is a shot of one of them.

I arrived to the turn around and the 13.1 mile mark in fairly decent condition. You can see in the pic below though that my hip was already an issue as my hips aren't level and my shoulders are a bit askew as well. Prior to the turn around I saw Eric and then later Deb on their return trip back to the finish. We both veered toward the centerline in the road and exchanged "high-fives".

   The next 13.1 miles were tough but more so because of the hip. My lungs felt fine and my legs, not including my left hip, felt great as well. I suppose I could have gotten bitter that I was in good shape to run a much faster marathon if it weren't for my hip acting up but honestly I was just grateful to be still running. I spent the next two hours thinking about the real hardships that people during the Civil War went through which put my minor hip pain into perspective quickly.

   One might not think that a rural course like the Gettysburg North-South marathon would have a lot of fan support but they would be wrong! For a race this size and in such a rural location there were plenty of fans out cheering the runners! I lost count of how many "high-fives" I bent over to get from someone under the age of 7 years old. All mojo is good but I think little kid mojo is the best. Kids slap really hard too so you feel that mojo for a while!

   As I neared Mile 23 a light sprinkle started to fall. As far as I'm concerned this is a good thing late in a marathon. By this point in a marathon you are rather sweaty so a little shower is rather refreshing. In races on hot days I'll dump water down my back at the water stops. It works a bit like a cup of coffee and gives me a 10 minute burst of energy. A light sprinkle is kind of the same thing.

   As I climbed the last hill and saw the sign welcoming me to the Gettysburg National battlefield I knew I would make it to the finish. I had a strong belief I'd make it once I passed the halfway mark but there is a difference between confidence in your ability to finish and seeing the end in front of you. I've blogged about this before but once I get to the point in a marathon when I can see the finish area all the tiredness and body aches fade and I feel almost as good as when I first started running. I had been passing a number people the last 10 miles of the race which is odd for me. Usually by the last 10 miles the group of runners that I am around are just as consistent with their pace as I am with mine so there isn't a lot of passing going on. Not this time. I think I passed 20 -30 people in the last 10 miles...bad hip and all. Now once I see the finish area it is a different story. My rule then is I pass as many people as I can and nobody....and I mean nobody....gets past me! I picked up my pace and made my way down the last hill (I like downhill) toward the last turn before the finish. I was already passing people before the turn but as I rounded the corner I went straight into a sprint and I think I passed 5-6 more runners who probably wondered where the hell I came from as I shot past them!

I crossed the line in 4:58:58. Not a PR by a long shot but good race and the close of my 12th marathon! I got my bottle of water and gatorade and then my finisher's medal and then found Deb who had finished about 8 minutes ahead of me. We walked to the staging area for the post race food and festivities before climbing back on the bus to the parking lot and then to head home. I found out later that Eric had finished in 4:03:00 and waited for us at the finish but then got chilly and decided to head back. I don't blame him. By this time the wind was starting to kick up and it started raining in earnest once I got back to my car!

Once safely in my car I had another hour to reflect on the day. For one I had a really nice looking medal to remind me of this day's events.

More importantly though I a chance to meet some great people like Deb and Eric in person. It occurred to me that if the events of the Battle of Gettysburg had turned out differently that this day might not have been possible. Think about how differently history might have looked if we had remained two separate nations that previously had been one? I don't know this but I think Lincoln believed that going forward we were going to be a better country together than we ever could be on our own as separate states or even as two countries. Sure, just like any family there were going to be heartfelt differences that we will have to work at ironing out. That work still continues. There would also have to be sacrifices made. One of those sacrifices was my great, great, great, great Uncle George. The day he bid his wife and family goodbye was their last together as he would fall at the Battle of Olustee in Florida in 1864.

As I near the close of this blog and we near Memorial Day at the end of this month, I'd like to close by saying "Thank You" to all our servicemen and women, past and present, who have given and still preserve our freedom to live in the greatest country on the planet! That's all for now. Gotta run!

....ain't that America, you and me....(John Cougar Mellencamp)

Spilled Milk

2011-04-14T08:05:00.000-04:00

Howdy Folks!

   Well I'm back but this post will not be the happiest of posts. After much consideration, I have officially put the kibosh on my plans for the Vermont City Marathon this year. Just like our Federal and most state governments.....there just isn't the money. I'd like to be able to trace this back to one thing that was the tipping point but like so many things in life, it is never one thing.

   I'll spare you the gory details but there have just been too many things competing for money at our house recently. In a word, Murphy. You know the old saying known as Murphy's Law, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Well Mr. Murphy just paid us a visit for the past two months. It's nothing catastrophic and I plan on kicking the bastard out by the beginning of May but the damage is done.

   Thankfully I didn't have a financial investment in this marathon yet. No non-refundable airline tickets or entrance fee to lose. Initially I was a bit upset over having to wait to send my entrance fee as the price only gets higher the closer to race day you get but in retrospect, that was blessing. Part of this was my fault as well. Growing up in Syracuse, I had a mental image that Burlington was a lot closer to home than it currently is. From Syracuse I could probably get there in 4-5 hours. From my house now it is more in the neighborhood of 8-9 hours. The other poorly calculated issue was the price of motel rooms. I expected the locals would take advantage of the influx of marathoners and their families to boost their rates for the weekend. What I hadn't paid too much attention to was the fact that "this weekend" is the one directly before Memorial Day. Duh!!! Well that explains why Fred and Flora's discount travelodge 25 miles outside of town is still $110/night!

   As for my 50 state quest, this does set me back a state but only by one. Vermont would have been my 9th state and then West Virginia would be number 10. Now West Virginia will be 9 and Connecticut will be number 10. On the positive side, this does allow me to open it up for Gettysburg in two weeks. I was planning on running a conservative race since Vermont was only 4 weeks after but now....now I'll see how fast I can run!

   So for any of my readers that are doing Vermont City this year I'm looking forward to hearing your race report. This looked like a nice one with all the milk and Ben & Jerry's you could eat post race!! Maybe next year?

   That's all for now. No point crying over spilled milk....even if it is fresh Vermont milk! Gotta run!

.....you won't break my poor heart again....( Phish )

The Martian Chronicles

2011-04-04T12:36:00.009-04:00

Howdy Folks!

Well I'm back from my trip to Dearborn, Michigan and the Martian Marathon. This will be a longer post so if you don't have time for a long read then I'd advise coming back later when time permits. If you are in a good place to read a longer post then grab your popcorn, you'll need a snack!

I've maintained this blog as a "family friendly" site. There are plenty of times I could have used saltier language but didn't so as not to offend and also because I could get my point across without it. This time is going to be different. Since part of the point is to be honest, that goal will not be possible this time with rated-G language. Its not a plethora of cursing but there are times when those words are the only appropriate ones. This, for me, was one of those times. If you are offended by such words....well....you've been warned.

Denial

It was two days before the marathon and I decided to get in a shake-out run to keep myself limber. This run would be purposefully slow so as not to stress my body too much. This would serve another purpose as it would seriously improve my mental condition, which deteriorates with anticipation/anxiety the longer I'm in a pre-race taper! I had no idea what lay ahead. As I started running everything felt fine. I was breathing easily, my legs were loose and I was more focused on the environment around me than on the fact I was running. This serenity lasted until Mile 2. Then it hit. I felt a sharp pain in my left hip. Initially it was like an electric shock that ran from the outer aspect of my thigh to my left cheek. The pain came and went repeatedly as I ran so I shortened the run and just did the two miles back home. "A little ice and some Motrin will fix this issue", I thought to myself. If it were a "real" injury the pain wouldn't be intermittent, right? I convinced myself this was little more than a nuisance.

Anger

Although the pain had been intermittent while I was running, it became constant shortly after I got home. It hurt when I walked. It hurt when I sat too long. It just plain hurt. This was more than a nuisance. DAMMIT!!! Two days before a marathon, and one requiring air travel at that, and I've fucked up my hip! Probably those damn shoes I just bought! SON OF A BITCH!!! I looked at my left hip with disgust and thought, "Stupid hip, you're going to have to find a way to heal 'cause I'm not losing my entrance fee or the money for my non-refundable airline ticket!"

Bargaining

On Friday morning it was clear the ice, Biofreeze, ibuprofen, and the Thermacare patch I slept with had some effect. The pain was still there....but it was less. "If I can rest it today, I thought to myself, maybe it won't be so bad on race day?" I had only planned on running a 7:1 Galloway run/walk anyway. It wouldn't be "that bad" to run even slower? The race director is very generously giving runners 6 1/2 hours to complete the course. That's almost a 15 min/mile pace! I could almost walk that! My slowest marathon was my first at 5:05:00. After that I'd always made it a goal to finish in under 5 hours. No, that's not right. It wasn't just a goal. It was a requirement! Today was different. I was willing to "make a deal". "I could be ok with a 6 1/2 hour finish", I told myself.

Depression

I took it easy on Friday. I also took more Motrin. I hopped out of bed Saturday morning at 3 AM and....no pain. My hip was still a bit stiff but no pain! I prepared for the race. After getting to the parking area at the start, I decided to do some very easy jogging to see how the hip really was. It felt fine sitting and walking so I was hopeful that this trend would continue. I wasn't hopeful for long. After only 50 feet the pain in my hip came back as strong as when I first injured it. "I'm fucked." I sat in my lousy rental car with my heart on the floorboard. I didn't feel like running. From the car I stared at the empty start and finish gates. In the pre-dawn darkness, I sat listening to the echoes of the day I was certain would never come.

Acceptance

This day was not going to go as planned. I was sure of that. So what do I do now? It was early enough that I could bail and still get out of the parking area. The problem with bailing out though is if I wasn't going to run then why the hell am I here? It's Dearborn, not Disney. There is a funny thing about acceptance. Even though it is the same process, there are really two types of manifestations. The type of acceptance you choose depends on your personality. This is why a noncompetitive personality, when faced with a runaway bus, will stand still and accept the eventuality and a competitive personality, while just as certain he is about to get creamed, will drop a shoulder a second before impact. The dawn came. The marathoners assembled. The race countdown ended and the race began. I dropped my shoulder and waited for the bus.

...and then....nothing...

I don't know if you believe in signs but if you are an athlete or religious, you certainly do. Athletes and religious folk always seem to walk that tightrope between true supernatural, cosmic clues and shear superstition. I'm both. I'm the double threat, a religious athlete. I don't have a hard time finding potential divine intervention but then I also never race without my Hanson's Racing singlet. After all, it's lucky and it makes me run faster! As the night faded into dawn I noticed a peculiar thing, blue skies. There had been several different forecasts for this race. All of them different from the day before. Every configuration of crappy weather had been forecasted for this race in the days leading up to it. Rain, wind, snow, and clouds had all been included in these forecasts. Descriptive words like poor, dreary, gusty, and raw were used to categorize the weather that awaited martian marathoners. What was NEVER mentioned were blue skies, calm winds, and near normal temperatures. And yet, that is exactly what we got. Now I'm not prepared to go out on a limb and say that a bunch of meteorologists getting a forecast wrong rises to the level of the parting of the Red Sea, but it did make me wonder? In any event, it was an eerie coincidence to what happened next. Nothing.

.....waitin' on the bus....

I have no idea where "the bus" went but it never made impact. I was at the two mile mark when it occurred to me that I was still running. Holy miracle cure, Batman!!! I played it smart and stuck like glue to my 7:1 ratio and did short sideways walks at the walk breaks to stretch out my hips so they wouldn't tighten up. I got to Mile 5 in 52 minutes. I did some quick math in my head and realized I had just done a 10:12 min/mile pace...........with walk breaks!!!! Holy freaking shit!!!! While it was tempting to consider keeping this pace and nailing a PR, I backed off the gas and settled into a less aggressive pace. I still had 21 miles to go and, up until 5 miles ago, a bum hip to boot! The race continued this way all the way to the finish. I never felt winded and, except for the usual tiredness at the later part of a marathon, my legs felt fine. I could have run even further but I was ok with "calling it quits" after 26.2 miles!

Gratitude

There is a point in every marathon for me when the tiredness fades and I get a burst of energy like three Venti cups of Starbucks espresso. When I see the finish line I always get that rush. Today was no different. I turned the final corner and picked up the pace. I still hadn't wrapped my brain around what just happened. One minute I'm alone in the dark with a hip that feels like I just sat on a nail and the next I'm within sprinting distance of the finish line of my 11th marathon and 8th different state. I took the opportunity at about 100 feet from the finish to look skyward and thank God for this most unexpected day. After that, I put on my determined face for the photographers and strode over the finish line. Was I the recipiant of some divine help today? I don't really know. I have no medical explaination for what happened. I did put myself in a better position to do well by not trying this in my new shoes but instead using my Mizunos that I wore to the Air Force Marathon last September. I set my current PR in those shoes. It could also have been the compression offered by my tights did enough to hold everything in place? Then again it could have been my Hanson's Racing singlet? It is lucky, you know. Gotta run!

......Have mercy! Been waitin' for the bus all day...........( Z Z Top)

Above is my map of completed state marathons

Let the pre-race mania begin!

2011-03-24T16:40:00.000-04:00

Howdy Folks!

   Well its getting down to the wire and my pre-race jitters are.......jittering! This always happens prior to a race. My wife says I vibrate with excitement before races. She also says I'm a royal pain to be around just prior to a race but that's a topic for another time! That said, it is probably a good thing that my schedule is so busy after today! I have three 12 hour shifts in a row at work, a day off Monday, back to work on Tuesday for yearly skills training day, work Wednesday, and finally school on Thursday. Then its up at the crack of dawn and down to BWI and a 9:30AM flight to Detroit! Phew!

   Since I had the time today, I thought I'd ask you what it is you do before a race? I will be very conscious about hydration and eating well. Not that I'm not concerned about them the rest of the year but I make an extra effort to be sure I'm not dehydrated prior to the race. It is easy to forget about hydration when you still need a jacket to go outside but it is just as important in colder temps as it is on that a July run! I'm not a huge fan of drinking water but the week prior to a race I will add two 8 oz glasses of water to may daily hydration.

   The worst part for me is going to be once I've gotten to Detroit. I've never been to Michigan so I don't know anybody there. This is going to leave me with a lot of time to pace around my motel room. I'll head to the expo, of course, to get my race packet and goodie bag but after that I'll have a lot of time on my hands! I plan on bringing school work with me but I'm not entirely convinced that I'll be able to concentrate on it for long! In the past I'd entertain myself with the novelty of cable TV but since we just had it installed at home it will be less of a big deal!


   You would think that with all this extra energy I'd just go out for a run and yet I really try to rest my legs the day before a marathon. This is one of those conundrums that I deal with before every race. Do I go for a run and clear my head or save my legs for the really big run tomorrow?

This trip will also be the first time I've flown in four years. My last flight was to Orlando for the Disney Marathon in 2006. I enjoy flying but getting to the plane and what you are now allowed to bring on the plane has changed a lot since I started flying! I had debated on bringing my laptop but I've just learned that if I do that counts as my one carry-on bag! If I were traveling for four or more days I wouldn't mind checking my luggage but I'm leaving on a Friday and returning on a Sunday. I'm only going to have a gym bag's worth of clothes and I like taking my running clothes with me on the plane. I don't really have the time to wait for my clothes in the event they take a trip to Duluth instead of Detroit! I guess I'll make due with my IPOD.

Since my last post I've learned what Mars and Michigan have in common. The answer.......nothing! Every two years, Earth laps Mars in its orbit around the sun. This happens on or about April Fools day. Thus, this was all a quirky April Fool's idea to hold a race and give it a Martian theme in honor of our two planets passing each other in the solar system. I'm still going to keep my eyes peeled for aliens but its nice to know that I haven't missed something if they are a no-show!

Well that's all for now. Thank you for reading and giving me a chance to ramble a bit at your expense!

Gotta run.

.....Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.....(Elton John)

Mission to Mars...or at least Dearborn.

2011-03-05T08:35:00.001-05:00

Howdy Folks!

   Well it is only four short weeks until the Martian Marathon in beautiful Dearborn, Michigan! Ok, you got me. I've never been to Dearborn so it might not be beautiful but I'm in a good mood and just felt like being optimistic! Anyway, I've got my flight and motel arraignments and now all that is left is to stay healthy and the full-body pat down at the airport!

   This is my first marathon for the year and my first marathon this early in the year. Living in the northern mid-atlantic, training for marathons in February, March and April can be challenging at best! Thanks to the help of our new treadmill and a much milder winter than last year (we got about 80 inches last year and our norm is 35 inches) I've been able to maintain about 80 miles per month. I wasn't able to get in a 20-miler for January d/t weather conditions on the rail trail I do my long run on but I did get one in for December and February. The game plan for this month is mostly maintenance runs but I will be getting one more 20-miler in during the first two weeks of March (date to be determined later) and a few 10-16 mile runs, in addition, just to stay limber.

   For this marathon my only goal is to finish. I decided a while ago that due to the conditions I'd have to train in, it didn't make sense to put any "time goal" pressure on myself for this one. I'm competitive enough naturally without adding any extra crap onto this one! Until my last marathon, I had always used a Galloway run/walk ratio. At the Air Force Marathon, things transpired that changed my plans and I ran my first marathon all the way through. If you want to read/hear more about this I have a very nice post about this marathon on this blog along with four Video Extras so I won't repeat it in this post. For the Martian Marathon I'm going back to the run/walk and mostly likely it will be a 7:1 (run 7 min/ walk 1 min). This is solely due to the fact that A) I don't want to take the chance that I'll hit the wall and bonk d/t my limited training and B) I have to get on a plane the next day and be functional for a 12 hr work day the day after that.

   As I've mentioned before I have no idea what Mars, martians, and Dearborn have in common that they would name a marathon after it but I'm willing to find out! I'm bringing my camera (another reason for the walk breaks) so I should have interesting pictures to share in my next post! I haven't decided if I am bringing my laptop or not. My camera, which was part of my "18 Gifts of Christmas" post, takes video so I may just shoot the video for the next Video Extra on that and do my editing after I return home. Then again, I have to be out of my room by 1100 on Sunday and my flight from Detroit is not until 1730 so I could get a lot of editing done in the airport? Hmmm?.....Glad I have a few more weeks to consider this one!

   On a different note, this post is also significant as this is the last one that will be done over a dial-up connection at our home. One of the great things about living "in the sticks" is all the quiet country roads to run on. The flip-side of this is that technology usually has more to do with farm machinery than with telecommunications! Our local cable company is installing their services later today so future posts will have a significantly higher likelihood of having pictures and graphics as it will no longer be such as pain to download/upload them! Hopefully this will improve the "interest factor" and I may even get a few comments or, dare I even say it, a few new followers?! (Fingers crossed)

   Well that's it for this post. Glad you took the time to read it and I hope your running adventures are interesting and fun! Gotta run!

....ground control to Major Tom.....(David Bowie aka Ziggy Stardust)

Making preparations...

2011-02-15T10:32:00.000-05:00

Howdy Folks!

   Well as of today its only 46 days till the Martian Marathon and the start of my 2011 marathon journey. I haven't blogged in a little while. Its been unseasonably cold here since December (known this year as Decem-brrrrrr) and while we haven't seen a ridiculous amount of snow, what we got is just now starting to melt! Yesterday it officially got to 56 degrees at the airport (like anyone lives at the airport) although the thermometer in my car read 63 degrees at one point! Traditionally, January and February are the toughest months for me to train. The roads I run on are very local roads so they don't see too much attention in the winter. Throw in some really cold temps along with normally windy conditions and its just not real nice outside at this time of year. Last year I ran a staggering 15 miles in February and less than 50 miles in January and February combined! With so many marathons planned this year that kind of a start to the year would not be helpful!

   To combat the problem of icky outdoor conditions we purchased a treadmill this year. Those of you who follow me on dailymile.com have already seen pictures of this. Its a NordicTrack C1500 and it has been a godsend! I currently have 109 miles for 2011 which, if I could have done this last year, would have given me enough miles to break the 1000 mile mark in 2010. Running on a treadmill is certainly not like running on roads but it beats not running at all! I recently got back on the roads near my house and my calves reminded me what the difference between real hills and conveyor belt hills are!

   Today is another day of the cold and windy variety (our weatherdudes had stated 40 degrees today but have since backed that off to mid-30s). If they have better luck with the rest of the week though we are supposed to get into the 50s and even the low 60s on Friday! This will be helpful as I need to get in a 20 mile training run. I had planned on doing one 20 miler each month over the winter to prepare for my first marathon on April 2nd but January just did not cooperate and the thought of doing 20 miles on a treadmill is just out of the question! The plan for now is to do my 20 miler for February on Thursday as the forecasted high is in the upper-50s. Fingers crossed!

   Normally when one is preparing for a marathon there is a period of time 2-4 weeks out known as "the taper". This year will be the year of the non-taper for me. If I were training for a marathon in May or the fall, as is usually the case, I'd throw in 3 weeks of "taper time" just before the big day. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, is the timing. With my first marathon on April 2nd, it is still up for grabs how much "training" I'll be able to get in prior to start time. Our weather is supposed to cooperate this week for a long run but that means nothing next week or for the entire month of March for that matter! It is entirely possible that this Thursday will end up being my only run over 10 miles prior to April. March here is a grab bag! I've seen it be 25 degrees and snowing and other years be 70 degrees and sunny!

   The second reason is also due to timing. After Martian I have my next marathon (Gettysburg) a month later. After Gettysburg, Vermont four weeks later. I will have the opportunity to taper before Freedom's Run in early October but two weeks after that....ING Hartford on Saturday and Amica Newport on Sunday! I haven't officially posted it but I'm giving a strong thought to adding Harrisburg in mid-November. One, because its local (no motel, air fare just a 50 min car ride) and two because I really like the sound of "7 in 11"! We'll see. After the Hartford/Newport weekend I may swear off running and simply collect stamps! I tend to doubt it but I've never run two marathons back to back either?

   Well that's all for now. Here's hoping that your weather and training are sunny and plentiful! Gotta run!

.....keep on runnin'.....(Journey)

The Eighteen Gifts of Christmas......?

2010-12-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

Howdy Folks!

Well its been another great Christmas at our house! How good you ask? It was so good that I can tell you in a really goofy song. A one-ah, and a two-ah, and a three-ah....

For the first gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
a bag full of GU for next year

For the second gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
new trail socks
and a bag full of GU for next year

For the third gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the fourth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the fifth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the sixth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the seventh gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the eighth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the ninth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the tenth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
one track suit

personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the eleventh gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
Mizuno running pants

one track suit

personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the twelfth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
Brooks wind jacket

Mizuno running pants

one track suit

personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the thirteenth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
crustacean table set

Brooks wind jacket

Mizuno running pants

one track suit

personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the fourteenth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
one blues harmonica

crustacean table set

Brooks wind jacket

Mizuno running pants

one track suit

personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the fifteenth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
two camera bags

one blues harmonica

crustacean table set

Brooks wind jacket

Mizuno running pants

one track suit

personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the sixteenth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
one memory card

two camera bags

one blues harmonica

crustacean table set

Brooks wind jacket

Mizuno running pants

one track suit

personal organizer

camo fanny pack

multi tool set

an electronic gift card

REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!

UnderArmour tights

two pairs of Yankz

new trail socks

and a bag full of GU for next year

For the seventeenth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
a 12 megapixel camera
one memory card
two camera bags
one blues harmonica
crustacean table set
Brooks wind jacket
Mizuno running pants
one track suit
personal organizer
camo fanny pack
multi tool set
an electronic gift card
REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!
UnderArmour tights
two pairs of Yankz
new trail socks
and a bag full of GU for next year

For the eighteenth gift of Christmas the Fat Man gave to me...
kosher white wine
a 12 megapixel camera
one memory card
two camera bags
one blues harmonica
crustacean table set
Brooks wind jacket
Mizuno running pants
one track suit
personal organizer
camo fanny pack
multi tool set
an electronic gift card
REAL BIKER SHADES!!!!!
UnderArmour tights
two pairs of Yankz
new trail socks
and a bag full of GU for next year!!!!!!

That's it for this post and for 2010! Gotta run!

.....Have a holly jolly Christmas....(Burl Ives)

Don't forget your Christmas stockings!

2010-12-22T10:44:00.000-05:00

Howdy folks!

   A lot of hoopla has been made recently about compression stockings. Runner's World did an article about them a while back and it seems like every run I attend over a 5K somebody has a pair of them on. Now compression stocking are not a new idea! As a nurse, I've been putting these things on people for almost the last 20 years! With that said it is a bit humorous to hear people complain about them as if they've just discovered some new flaw that was previously unknown. If you've been considering getting a pair for your training, and I think you should, let me first tell you what to expect and hopefully give you some pointers.

   First let me give you the quick-and-dirty on compression stockings. The original purpose of compression stockings is to prevent blood clots or the even more dangerous "moving blood clots" known as emboli. When you stand up, gravity takes your blood and tries to force it to the ground. The closest thing to the ground is obviously your feet. Your feet are also the furthest thing away from your heart which is the pump that moves your blood through your body. By providing compression it artificially increases the pressure in your feet and legs so that your blood moves more easily back to your heart where it can be oxygenated by your lungs and sent back out into your body. If you fill up a ballon with water and then hold it from one end you'll notice that all the water falls to the end away from you. If you then take your other hand and gently squeeze the other end you notice that the water reacts to the pressure of your other hand by moving up towards you. It is the same basic principle in your legs and feet with compression stockings. By helping to keep your blood moving this helps to prevent blood cells from sticking together and forming a clot. This is also helpful to runners because after a long and hard run your body has produced lactic acid. This is the stuff that makes your muscles ache after a hard run. By improving your circulation you can move the lactic acid through your system and thus reduce the amount of pain and soreness you feel after a exhausting run...especially the next day!

   Since compression stockings are the rage there are many places you can purchase them. Obviously you can go to your local running store and find the latest brands in all kinds of traditional and designer colors. If you have to have a pair that matches your outfit or one that has pink polka-dots on it then, by all means, head off to your local running store. If you are less fashion conscious you can get the "old standard" that hospitals have been putting on for years. These stocking are called TEDS stockings. Locally they sell for about $30 a pair and you can find them in any pharmacy, whether it be a "stand alone" or attached to a local grocery store. TEDS stockings come in two types, thigh high and knee high. I don't think anyone reading this should need the thigh high but I wanted to make sure you knew about them so you don't buy the wrong pair. You'll want to take a measurement of your calve at it's widest point and also one from your knee to your ankle. This is so you can get the right length and width for your particular leg. Don't worry, TEDS don't come in sizes like running shoes but they do come in size/length ranges so knowing your measurements will be necessary to buy the one that will fit you well. Finally, before putting them on it is important to equalize the pressure in your body by lying flat for about 10 minutes before putting them on. You're not trying to shoot the blood out of your legs and feet like toothpaste out of a tube but more to provide gentile pressure to aid your circulatory system in your lower extremities. These things are supposed to be snug so equalizing the pressure will also make them easier to put on!

   If you've talked to anyone who has used compression stockings you've probably heard two complaints. The first is that they ARE snug! Some folks have a hard time with any sensation of pressure on their legs. Personally I don't find them any more snug than a good pair of running tights but again some folks just can't tolerate that sensation. If this is you then save your money!

   The other complaint is that they are hot. The bonus complaint that comes with the sensation of heat is that they are itchy. Compression stockings are warmer than regular socks. I personally don't find them hot but I also don't wear them when I run. More on that later. My only comment on compression stockings being hot is that every time I've heard that complaint it has been from someone wearing them at a marathon for the first time. Running Rule of Thumb: Never try out something new at a marathon!!!! That said, if you feel the need to train with them on I think you'll have less problems wearing them on race day.

   As I mentioned, I don't wear compression stockings when I run. I wear them after I run. I save the compression stockings for after long runs (12 miles or more) or for after particularly hard work outs (such as Yasso 880s). What I do is before heading to sleep the night after a long run or hard work out I put on my TEDS stockings. I've found that the gentle pressure reduces or even eliminates the achy feeling in my calves and feet and by the morning my legs feel fresh! I've found this particularly helpful with marathoning when "the day after" can be a tough one on your legs. I've used this trick for two marathons now and both times my legs felt as good as they would have felt after three days rest on the morning after the marathon! Obviously each person's experience is going to be slightly different but I highly recommend getting a pair and wearing them after a long or hard run! I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how good your legs feel the next morning!

   Well that's it for this post. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Gotta run!

.....Father Christmas give us some money....(The Kinks)

Let the adventure of 2011 begin!!!

2010-12-05T08:43:00.003-05:00

Howdy Folks!

As the title suggests I have come to a final decision on my marathon schedule for 2011. In my last post I only had strong ideas about what I wanted to do. The graphic above is a map of all my marathons, both completed and planned for 2011. The red states are ones I've completed a marathon in. The blue states are ones with a marathon planned for 2011. The lone purple state is to represent a planned marathon in a state for 2011 that I have already completed a marathon in. In fact, I've already run two marathons in PA. I ran God's Country in 2006 and again in 2007 but that's old history. Since I've been able to cement my plans for 2011 enough of this preliminary chatter and let's get to it!

State #8 / Marathon #11:

Martian Marathon

Dearborn, MI April 2nd

I saw this race on Marathonguide.com a while back and always planned to do this one. I mean how can you not pick a marathon devoted to little green men and that actually has inflatable versions holding up the mile marker signs? The picture is of the 2009 Finisher's Medal. I don't know if the 2011 medal will look similar but if its even remotely so I'm a happy camper. This race is in Dearborn, Michigan which is just outside Detroit. Initially I hadn't planned on any marathons that required air travel but I obviously made an exception. Since I fly out of BWI and Detroit is THE major hub for Northwest Airlines I shoudn't have any trouble getting a direct flight at a reasonable cost. I'm not looking forward to the total body x-ray prior to boarding but since I still have several states that will require a plane ride to get to I can either suck it up for forgo my 50 state goal. Maybe when I'm finished with my 50th state I'll have had enough x-ray exposure that I'll glow a cool green color just like a Martian. Would be helpful in dark areas and could help save on electricity? I've already registered for this one so there is no turning back now. I HAVE to train in January, February and March! Since those months can be rather stinky in the Mid-Atlantic I'm not putting any time-goal pressure on myself. I just want to finish somewhere in the neighborhood of five hours, give or take 15 minutes.

Marathon #12:
Gettysburg North-South Marathon
Gettysburg, PA May 1st

I had originally planned on running the New Jersey Marathon on this date but changed my plans after I saw this one! This will be an inaugural race. This race has a lot of cool aspects about it. First, I live only an hour away. That means I sleep (or at least attempt to) in my own bed before the race! If you've ever been to Gettysburg then you know that the scenery is just absolutely awesome! This is my second reason for choosing this race. I've made many trips here and always wondered why there wasn't a marathon on the battlefield grounds.

While almost everyone has heard of Gettysburg the battle has some weirdness that the organizers are going to put into the race. One of the weird events of the battle is that the South, having already crossed into Pennsylvania, attacked from the north. The North, still camped in Maryland, attacked from the south. The organizers are going to use this in the race and have two courses, a "South" and a "North" course. All runners from a state that would have been part of the Union army are going to run the "South course". Runners from a state that was part of the Confederacy, a border state, or not part of the US in 1863 are going to run the "North course". The plan is to reverse it every other year so if you run two years in a row you'll see both courses. Cool, huh?

The final reason for choosing this marathon is the date. I already know that I'm likely to have a week long clinical rotation for school the week following this marathon so I thought it made more sense to only have an hour drive to and from Gettysburg under my belt prior than a five hour drive each way to and from northern New Jersey. Like the Martian Marathon, I'm already registered for this race too! I'm not putting any time-goal pressure on myself for this one either. This one is about having a great run and spending a lot more time noticing the scenery than my mile splits. When I finish, I finish.

State #9 / Marathon #13

Vermont City Marathon

Burlington, VT May 29th

State number nine is going to be Vermont. I'll be driving to this one but with part of it being on I-87 through New York, the drive should be a pretty one! This race is in Burlington which is close to the Ben and Jerry's Ice cream factory (yes, I am making a pit stop on the way home) and home to the rock group Phish. Being a bit of a "Phish phanatic" I'll be listening to them on the drive up. This race covers pretty much most of Burlington and the final miles are along the shores of Lake Champlain. Since this race is the day prior to Memorial Day I'm going to ask for Memorial Day off and take a side trip through Syracuse on my way home to see my parents and also to cut the trip home into two days. Considering that I've worked every friggin' holiday in 2010 to date (MLK B-day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving) I don't think I'll have too much trouble getting this one off.
This course is relatively flat. Its not "Florida flat" or "Kansas flat" but with its proximity to Lake Champlain there are no major hills. Since there are no major hills and this will be my last marathon until October, I'm going for a PR at this one!!!

State #10 / Marathon #14
Freedom's Run Marathon
Harpers Ferry - Shepperton, WV Oct 1st

This is another cool race that I noticed late this year and planned on running in the near future. Like Gettysburg, this race is packed with Civil War history. The race starts in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and travels north to Antietam, Maryland. Once in Maryland the course take you through the Antietam National Battlefield and then back south to Shepparton, West Virginia and the finish. Since this race starts and ends in West Virginia it counts as a West Virginia marathon. This is good news because the remainder of the West Virginia marathons are primarily in the mountains of southern West Virginia!!! This won't be a flat course by any imagination but my calves and quads will be far less angry with me after I finish this than with any of the more southern West Virginia courses!

This race is also fairly close to home as well. I've made the trip before and it is a little over two hours by car. A little too far to drive to on race morning but there are plenty of places to stay within an hours drive.

State #11 / Marathon #15

Hartford Marathon

Hartford, CT Oct 15th

Now we come to the beginning of my act of madness!!!! Part one is in Hartford, Connecticut. This race has gotten some really good press and autumn in Hartford should be pretty without being exceptionally cold. This race is also a flat one. The organizers even brag about how flat this course is. There are no hills after Mile 5! None, zilch, nada. Even the ones before Mile 5 do not look like anything to write home about! I had planned on running this one in 2011 for a little while and with the absence of hills planned on this being a PR attempt course. It was then I noticed one in Rhode Island and this brings me to part two of this mad adventure!

State #12 / Marathon #16

Amica Marathon

Newport, RI Oct 16th

Part two of this craziness is in Newport, Rhode Island. As I mentioned I already planned on being in Hartford on October 15th. The Amica Marathon is the following day, October 16th. With the distance between the two being only a little over an hour drive and the logistical opportunity staring me in the face I couldn't pass this one up!

Ok, ok....I know, I know.....two marathons?.......in one weekend?!!!!! Here's the good news. Both are flat. The Amica Marathon is even flatter than Hartford! Both should be scenic. The organizers of the Amica Marathon state the course was ranked #4 by Runner's World in 2010. The course spends a lot of time by the ocean and the rather pricey mansions near downtown Newport.

Now for the reality. Yes, its a lot of running in a weekend. Its really no more than an Ultramarathon and its over two days rather than trying to cram all 52.4 miles(gulp!) in one day. Plus I get two medals and two states for the same mileage as an Ultra! The obvious downside though is that even though both these courses are set up to be PR courses, relatively flat and no serious hills, I'll probably have to dial it back a bit for each of them. My plan, for now anyway, is to aim for a sub-5 hour marathon in Hartford(4:59:59 would be fine) and then give Amica my best shot. I don't think I'll break a PR in Newport but then again I'll have five marathons under my belt for 2011 by then and a whole summer to train for this particular attempt. So who knows?

Well that's it for this post. I may have another one or two before the end of the year but just in case this is it for 2010, Happy Holidays to you and may all your running wishes for the new year come true!

Gotta run!

.....if you don't stand up you don't stand a chance....(Genesis)

Getting ready for 2011!!!

2010-12-01T21:32:00.002-05:00

Howdy Folks!

   Well its a rainy day here as a Noreaster blows through the Mid-Atlantic states today! I'm currently in the middle of a long vacation and since its raining so intensely I have time to think about next year! Hard to believe we are already in the last month of 2010 but so it is!

   Now most people know to routine of having a New Year's resolution but as you also know most people only keep those resolutions until the middle of February at best! Part of the problem is that they have not given their resolutions the proper reflection that they deserve. After all, if you come up with your resolutions quickly and without much thought it is not hard to see why they would fall to the wayside just as quickly. Outside of traumatic events, human nature is not set up to make major life changes quickly. Just like a race strategy for a marathon, you have to have a plan!

   Now before you go and think that I thought all the plans that I am going to lay out for you today, don't. I've been giving these plans several months of thought. Much of what I'll mention is simply building on what has worked for me this year but then who ever said that a resolution to continue what worked from the previous year doesn't count as a resolution?

Resolution #1: Break 1000 mile mark
   I'm currently at 856 miles and will probably end the year between 900 - 930 miles. While this is still a record for me it does bother me that I'll come up about 70 miles short. Considering that in the first three months of 2010 I only ran 87 miles finishing 2010 with over 900 miles is a great triumph! Still if I had run 50 miles for each of those three months I'd be able to complete this goal in 2010 and move to a new one for 2011. I resolve to be more consistent and give at least fewer excuses for not getting my runs in. I'll come very close in 2010 to this goal but in 2011 I will break it!

Resolution #2: Complete final three state marathons needed for application for 50 States Club
   You need to have completed 10 marathons in different states in order to join. I currently have completed seven state marathons. They are FL, VA, PA, NY, DE, MD, and OH. I don't have a finalized list for 2011 yet but I have some strong ideas. I'm looking at NJ in May, WV in October, and CT in October. The marathons are the New Jersey Marathon, Freedom's Run Marathon which starts in Harpers Ferry, WV and takes you up into Antietam Battlefield in MD before winding you back to WV, and The Hartford Marathon. I don't have any big trip marathons planned for 2011. I already know my school schedule will be crazy so why make plans you are unlikely to be able to keep? If I can fit a March marathon like The Little Rock Marathon or The Georgia Marathon that would be fun but I'm not holding my breath for either of those this next year.

Resolution #3: Eat three meals a day, every day
   My last two resolutions will have nothing to do with running directly but have everything to do with running efficiently. First I need to continue to eat better. I have improved on this for 2010 but I could be a lot more consistent. I am one of those people that habitually skips breakfast. If I have the day off I usually eat breakfast but if I'm working I rarely do. Proper nutrition is incredibly important to running well so I need to do a better job on this for 2011.

Resolution #4: Eat my fruits/veggies
   Again, I have improved on this for 2010 but I'm not consistent with this yet. I have no excuses for this one either. My wife runs a small produce farm so fruits and veggies are readily available just outside our front door! I need to start on this one now though because with the holiday season brings the "cookies and cake" season. For me this season lasts from late November until Easter(usually early April). Although I love cookies and cake, neither of them will help propel me to a sub 54 minute 10K or a sub 4:30:00 marathon!

   Well that's it for this post. Gotta run!

.....we were never meant to compromise....( MercyMe )

800 miles and counting....

2010-11-18T08:15:00.000-05:00

Howdy Folks!

As the title states there is a new milestone in my running history. Last Saturday I passed the 800 mile mark for this year. My previous record for a yearly mileage total was about 730 miles. What is also interesting is that I passed this mark with my friend...wait for it....Mark!

If you've been following this blog then you know my goal is to pass 1000 miles in a year. Now while I still have about 6 weeks left in 2010, I don't think my schedule is going to allow for the 190 miles that I'd need to catch the 1000 mile goal. That said, I should be in good shape to pass 900 miles this year!

Ok, ok....so you passed 800 miles. What's the point? The point is consistency and increased mileage per week. Both have been issues I've needed to improve on but have struggled with in the past. I have some new insights on each and I'll go over those with you now.

Consistency has probably been my biggest hurdle. I suppose like a lot of other runners, I have my ideal conditions that I enjoy running in. The reality though is that those ideal conditions happen very infrequently. Most runs have to be done in less than ideal conditions. Whether its too hot, too cold, too windy, too wet, too early, too dark, too many other things to do or a list of other complaints there is always a excuse to not get out and "just do it", as the Nike slogan says. It is actually a bit bizarre when you think about it. Life as a rule is pretty unpredictable so one would think that the constant fluctuation in weather patterns, length of daylight, and the myriad of other things that tug at our time would be the expectation. By carving out ideal conditions we actually limit ourselves to such a small window of opportunity as to make our goals untouchable. This leads to failure which leads to frustration and disappointment and eventually giving up. The solution is to 'just do it". Pick a goal, plan how to reach it and then go at it one day at a time.

My other struggle has been with increasing my daily mileage. For the past two years anyway, I have known that if I wanted to run faster I needed to run farther. I have been slowly chipping away at the 4:30:00 mark for the marathon and my best efforts have come after training with higher mileage totals than I started in my first few years. This year I was able to put together four 100+ mile months prior to my Air Force Marathon attempt and the results speak for themselves. I clocked a 4:35:59 marathon and only took four walk breaks, all in the last five miles, in order to ensure that I drank every bit of Gatoraid at the hydration stations. This would not have been possible without the increased mileage in my training. This increased mileage, though, would not have been possible without the consistency, there's that issue again, in which I trained over the summer. So the two issues are incredibly linked.

I still have friends who make comments about my running and in them make the assumption that I am a born distance runner. I'm not. It has taken me six years to get where I am today. There have been many days that are only noteworthy in that they are part of this continuing journey I am on with running. They won't be individually remembered but instead have faded into the watercolor portrait that is my last six years of running. Their real significance comes, not on the day in which they happened, but on days like last Saturday when I passed 800 miles in a year for the first time. Then they shine like the sun.

That's all for now. Gotta run.

....shine on you crazy diamond.....( Pink Floyd )

The Twelve Steps of Runners Anonymous

2010-11-13T09:57:00.001-05:00

Hi folks!!!

I saw this online and thought it was worth sharing. Very creative and also very true!!! Enjoy!

The 12 Steps of Runners Anonymous
by John Farrow
1. We admit that we are powerless over our character flaw and that our lives seem to others to have become unmanageable, but we sort of like it that way.
2. We have come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity, and that power’s name is Runner’s High.
3. We have made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the pursuit of the perfect Runner’s High and to travel near and far in our quest for the perfect race and a new PR.
4. We have made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves, and find that we need to increase the mileage on our long runs, intersperse our training with fartleks and tempo runs, do a track workout now and then to increase our speed, add cross-training to our weekly routine and always get enough carbs in our diet.
5. We have admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our shortcomings that we have occasionally taken a day off from training, indulged in fried foods, failed to consume at least eight servings of pasta per day, failed to use the most up-to-date heart rate monitor and that our fridge contains nothing but beer and running shoes.
6. We are not entirely ready to have all of these character flaws removed until we qualify for Boston one more time.
7. We humbly ask others to lighten up and get off our case with respect to our character flaws so that we can go out for another run.
8. We have made a list of all persons we have harmed and are willing to make amends to them when and if they find the time to accompany us during our weekly 20-mile run.
9. We have made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when doing so would interfere with our training.
10. We have continued to take personal inventory of all miles run on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly basis according to each shoe worn, as well as to constantly monitor our heart rate, respiration, fluid consumption and leg turn-over rate during our runs and when we were wrong have promptly taken the necessary steps to get back on track.
11. We have sought through visualization to improve our running technique and ask only for strength and endurance when next we hit the wall.
12. We have had an awakening as a result of these steps and have redoubled our training as we have tried to carry this message to non-runners everywhere and to practice these principles throughout our training.􀀀
ARR News, May 2002
Albuquerque Road Runners Club

That's all for now. Gotta run!

....band on the run....(Wings)

...and now time for plan B....

2010-11-04T22:16:00.002-04:00

Hello Folks!

Well I wish I had terrific running news but sadly I don't. Due to financial issues that my and my wife's cars decided to inflict on us I will not be attending the Las Vegas marathon this year. Thankfully the car repairs happened before the ticket and race entry were already paid for but none the less it is a disappointment. Nevada would have been my 8th different state on my quest for the 10 state minimum needed to join a 50 State Club. I had plans then to substitute a closer marathon just to keep up my endurance but my current school schedule has made that an impossibility at least until December.

Don't get me wrong, this is not the worst thing that could happen and I do have a healthy appreciation for that fact that otherwise I have it pretty well. Just a bit bummed out is all. I think I'm thinking about it more because my school schedule has been so busy recently that I haven't been able to run for several days at a time. My current streak is 9 days! Thankfully I'm going to be able to get out tomorrow!

I've put some thought in to planning my next marathon but I've hit a wall as far as making a decision. My mother suggested I knock out all 13 original colonies first. This is a great suggestion as since I live in the Mid-Atalntic I could drive to most of these states. The trouble though is which state to tackle next? I've been giving some thought to making Georgia and the Georgia Marathon in March my next marathon. The only trouble is March is a tough month for me as late January and all of February are such crappy months up here to train in! There are a number of states with marathons in May(a much better month to get ready for a marathon by) but this year May is already spoken for with school. I might be able to make a quick trip out to New Jersey but that's about as far as I'd get with the free time I'll have.

Any thoughts? What would you do next? My ideal months to run a marathon in are from late April through early December. Anyone have a favorite marathon that falls within the original 13 colonies? Suggestions would be appreciated.

That's all for now. Gotta run!

....and I'm standing at the crossroads....(Cream)

Courage in the face of disappointment

2010-10-16T15:00:00.002-04:00

Hello Folks!

As some of you may know, this year’s Chicago Marathon was closed early for the second time in its history due to extreme heat. Now I’ve run in hot weather before. In the 2007 God’s Country Marathon the temperature soared to the upper 80’s. This race, while it does run through a large forest, is totally run on asphalt and is devoid of any shade. I still remember a bank clock that displayed a temperature of 91 degrees as I was headed into Coudersport, PA and the last few miles of the marathon. I drank at every water stop and I was thirsty within minutes of throwing my cup to the side of the road. While the bank clock was obviously picking up heat reflected off the road there was no doubt it was hot!

I had a friend that ran Chicago this year and I recently learned he did not finish. I don’t know the whole story yet but what I do know is that he took himself out at mile 22 and went to the medical tent. Now I’ve been following his training for a while and he seemed to be doing all the right things to put himself in position for a great marathon. Obviously I feel bad for my friend as I can only imagine the disappointment he must have felt coming so close to the finish. I have a similar feeling anytime I see someone injured during a race. There is so much training that is involved in getting prepared for a marathon that I can’t help but wish anyone who attempts this feat a safe race and a big smile as they cross the finish. I personally can’t even imagine how my friend must have felt. I recently even had this very discussion at the Air Force Marathon this year with a fellow runner about how I’d rather be injured in the early miles than in the last 10K of a marathon because I couldn’t dream of getting that close and not finishing. This time was different though. This wasn’t just another unfortunate runner. This was my friend. I began thinking.

In the past I had always joked that if I was within six miles of the finish that I’d drag a bloody stump behind me rather than take a DNF (Did Not Finish). Upon further reflection though this is really a screwed up way to look at a race. After all, I’m NOT an elite athlete so there is no money waiting at the finish line. My family will not starve based on the outcome of this or any other race. In fact, the only thing waiting for me at the finish line, other than my family, is pride. That said, it really takes more courage and strength of character to walk to the medical tent than to limp to the finish.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying not to push yourself. Anyone who has watched my set of videos from the Air Force Marathon this year knows that I took a bit of a risk by running the race differently than I’d planned, or trained for. I planned to do a 7:1 run/walk and ended up running almost completely non-stop for the entire marathon. This wasn’t entirely reckless though. I had ideal weather conditions for most of the marathon, I had moral support from a very helpful official pacer named Nancy, and most importantly I had done some 10-12 mile non-stop runs in my training. There is a big difference though between pushing your limits and trying to knock them down with a sledgehammer. This is where race strategy comes in.

I’d love to tell you that I developed my race strategy after careful preparation and exhaustive study on racing form, body mechanics, and nutrition. I’d love to tell you that but I’d be lying. I developed my race strategy like most people, through trial and error. Simply put, I screwed up a lot! I can’t say that I’ve made every mistake in the book but I can say that I’ve shown preference to a few that I’ve made repeatedly! My personal favorites are starting too fast, overestimating my ability, eating too much before a race, and eating the wrong combination of food before a run or race( Tex-Mex and beer before a long run…..bad idea!). These mistakes though have made me a better runner in that I better understand what my body can do and what I shouldn’t even bother asking it to attempt. If you take your mistakes and learn from them then they cease to be mistakes. They become educational experiences, opportunities for growth, and a definition of priorities and boundaries. True lapses of judgment are when we ignore these lessons and grab for an imaginary brass ring.

I know my friend will bounce back from this recent disappointment. He has a lot of other people cheering him on and who are proud of his accomplishments. So here's to my friend as I proudly raise my Gatoraide. Even though this race didn’t turn out as you planned, just know that its your courage and strength of character that people will remember, not your finish time. Well done!

That's all for now. Gotta run!

....looking like a true survivor.... (Elton John)

Time to say thanks!

2010-09-27T11:22:00.003-04:00

.

   After having some time to process my 4:35:59 marathon PR at this month's Air Force Marathon it became clear to me that I have a few people to thank. Some people may think that marathoning, and running in general, is a solitary activity and thus any achievements are those of the runner and the runner alone. Not true! Even if you are an antisocial personality you can't ignore the fact that ANY race requires other people to volunteer their time and effort to put on. Even the greatest of hermits requires others to compete. With that said its time for me to acknowledge those people who have helped me to achieve this latest feat! This will not be an exhaustive list and if you are not individually mentioned do not think it is because I've forgotten your help. Marathons are not short races, at least the way I run them, and I thought about all of you during the latter miles when my energy and legs were starting to fade.

   Let's start with the obvious. I want to thank God for putting me in the United States where I have the opportunity to run for fun rather than in some other part of the world where I would have to run for my life. Thank you to my parents for encouraging my running and even traveling out of state to come and cheer me on......several times! A special thanks to my Dad who, as a runner in high school, was the initial inspiration for my running journey. Thank you to my wife Susie who not only encourages my running but puts up with my spazzing-out antics just prior to any race! A lesser woman would have divorced me long ago! Thank you to my Uncle Jim who was the inspiration for taking on the marathon in the first place. Finally a big thank you to my sister Eileen who has been a part of my cheering section as well as my personal running gear benefactor!

   Now a bit less obvious but still important. Thank you Jeff Galloway for your run/walk training method. This allowed me to get in to running on my terms rather than trying to tackle so many miles too soon! While I use this training method less and less each year I have to acknowledge that without it I would not have gotten to where I am now!

   Thank you Bart Yasso for your Yasso 800s! This speed workout helped me gauge my endurance and ability to shoot for a 4:30:00 marathon and put me over the edge in gaining a PR for the 5K!! Thank you also for your book "My life on the run" which reminded me about LSD which I added to my training. LSD means Long Slow Distance not lysergic-acid dythilemide just in case you were confused.

   I want to thank my friend, and fellow runner, Christophe for the helpful kick in the pants about a year ago. If it wasn't for you I would not have attempted longer runs without a walk break and would have remained stuck in my routine. I also would not have figured out my diet....I know its embarrassing to say this as a nurse but its true....and kept eating the same old crap. Again with the routine thing! Because of you I cleaned up my dietary act and dropped 15 lbs that I KNOW helped me run farther and faster than I ever have!

   Finally, thanks to all of you in my cheering section. From friends like Mark Y. who I did some training with me to all my friends who sent me Facebook encouragements, I owe you a huge debt of thanks!!! You all know the one about the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. For me these spirits take on the voice of characters I've seen in the movies. In the latter miles, when the only thing that really gets you through is willpower, my "angel" is Lt Dan yelling "Run goddammit, run!" and my "devil" is Sean Connery from The Untouchables yelling "Alright, enough of this running shit!" Needless to say, the din of these two can make my head spin. What has always helped me is actually to shut them both off and think about you. Some of you have gone so far as to call me your inspiration for running or sticking with a difficult task. Now I don't know if its humility that makes the thought of me as an inspirational figure hard to swallow or if its just a nagging thought that maybe you just need a better circle of friends, but in either case I am honored that something I've done has made your life better! Its your thoughts and your encouragement make every step possible. There are too many of you to mention separately but you know who you are and I will always be grateful for you!!!

   Well that's it for this post. Gotta run...(thanks to you) :-)

....thank you so much!.....(Bob Hope)

...and the changes keep on coming...

2010-09-24T19:31:00.001-04:00

Hi Folks!

Well I have another new update! I've now added a widget from Dailymile.com as part of this page. This widget will track my total miles ( as entered on dailymile.com ) along with the most recent text post. My actual total miles for 2010 to date are 687.3 miles. I'm debating adding them in the "other" category in order to bring the widget up to speed with my real total miles. Not heard of dailymile.com? Well basically its Facebook for runners, triathletes, or anyone engaged in an athletic pursuit. It does actually link with Facebook, Twitter and other social media so I hope to save some time not having to update my Facebook, blog and email separately. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, with the completion of The Air Force Marathon, I have now added Ohio to my list of marathon states. This puts me up to seven total states. Three more to go and I can send in the application to the 50 States Club!!! Below is my most recent State Marathon Completion Map.

Well that's all for now. Gotta run!

.....and the times they are a-changin'.....(Bob Dylan)

Lights...camera....action!!!

2010-09-20T16:54:00.001-04:00

Hello!

   Well it has finally happened! Runners Anonymous has gone to video! I have now added a Youtube page to this blog. Now all posts will not be in video form but I felt that some things just lent themselves to the video format more than the written one. I have posted an introductory video and am currently working on one for the Air Force Marathon that I just completed on September 18th. Still waiting for pictures to come in as my parents were in attendance and I don't have copies of the pictures they took as yet.

   The link to the site is http://www.youtube.com/user/RunnersAnonymous I hope you enjoy the first video. I tried to make it entertaining as well as informational.

   That's all for now. Gotta Run.

.....video killed the radio star....(The Buggles)

6 Weeks and counting....

2010-08-04T11:12:00.001-04:00

Howdy folks!

Well as the title states, I have only 6 weeks left until my next marathon. Hard to believe a mid September marathon can be only 6 weeks away! Where the heck did the summer go? My training is coming along well and I should be in shape to break the 4:30:00 mark this time. I still have a couple more long runs and a few more speed workouts but I will be in as good a shape as I've been for a marathon.

This marathon will be my 10th overall and my 7th different state! I recently found an app that will let me create a map of all the states I've completed a marathon in. I've include the final pic below.

The yellow represent the states I've completed marathon in to date. As of Sept 18th I be able to add Ohio.

Now back to my training. Part of my conditioning has been a reduction in my weight. When I started marathoning I was about 170 lbs, give or take 3 lbs. (usually it was give) Over this past winter I put on some extra weight and got up a solid 175 lbs. Currently, I weigh in at 160 lbs. No doubt my increased speed and endurance are a direct result of the 15 lbs I'm no longer carrying!

I've accomplished this weight loss by two simple strategies. First, I increased my running to 100 miles per month. Second, I pay more attention to my portion size. I used to be the kind of guy who could comfortably put away 3 Big Macs, large fries, and a large coke. I've been blessed with a rapid metabolism so I can eat ridiculous amounts of food and not gain a thousand pounds. That said, the increased fat and sodium still have the negative effects regardless of any external proof. I had a friend of mine that lost a bunch of weight recently and he stated his only strategy was to watch his portion size. He still ate the same foods as before but he just ate much smaller amounts. Since he kicked my ass at the Clyde's American 10k this year by over 5 minutes I figured his point was worth a trial. Slowly but surely I saw the pounds come off and my speed increase. I've since taken it a bit further and I do watch what kind of foods I eat. My friend is a vegetarian so his normal choices were a bit better than my heavily carnivore influenced diet but now I eat a lot more fruits and veggies than before.

I'm not exactly sure how much weight I want to lose. According to US Department of Health calculations the "fighting weight" for someone my height and build should be 155 lbs. That seems a bit on the small side to me. Of course all the elite male marathoners are about my height or smaller and weigh in at 135-140 lbs! I still think that I'd be willing to sacrifice a few minutes on my marathon PR in order to not have to buy my pants out of the boys section at the store! I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Well that's all for now. Thanks again for reading. Hope this was helpful and enjoyable! Gotta run!

.....its getting better all the time......(The Beatles)

Excessive Heat Warning day musings

2010-07-24T18:21:00.000-04:00

Hello folks!

Thought I'd drop in a quick post since I can't run due to the heat we are having here today. Locally we have "an excessive heat warning" until 9pm tonight. The temperature is forecast to get close to 100 and with the humidity the real feel is forecast to 107 or greater! Currently its 98 degrees on the north side of my house where the thermometer is located. Too hot to run but I still have a few thoughts for my readers.

I received the Utica Observer Dispatch, which is the local paper where The Boilermaker 15K is held, in the mail today. One of the benefits of running The Boilermaker is that the local paper with the big write-up is mailed to your home. This year was a record year for The Boilermaker on several different fronts. This year had the largest number of entrants(over 13000), largest number of finishers(11524), new men's/overall record finish time(42:46), and a new women's record finish time(47:57). While I didn't have the best run of my life at this year's race, I am glad to be a part of a record year in the history of this great race!

Speaking of great races I have one coming up soon! The Herrs Honey Run 5K is on Aug 22nd. This is a local 5K put on by a local Honey manufacturer(good honey too) and held at a local park. I could say a lot of nice things about the park, the organizers, the honey but what makes this a must do for me is that my PR for the 5K is at this race! I set it in 2006 and it is currently 25:25. I did run a faster 5K when I was 15 years old but I don't think it's fair to compete against a time that I set over 25 years ago! I tend to return to races that I currently have a PR for that distance in. I've come close at two other 5Ks since but never beaten 25:25. This year though I think I have it in me to not only beat 25:25 but 25:00! I did some speed work last week (4x800s) at a 7:45/mile pace and felt well afterward. I have two speed work sessions planned prior to this race (6x800 and 8x800). If I can maintain the 7:45/mile pace then that should put me in good shape for a 24:04 finish time(7:45 min/mile). Who knows, five seconds faster and I'll have a 23:59 finish time?

After that great race I have The Air Force Marathon in 9 weeks from today. This will be my 10th marathon overall and my 7th different state that I've run a marathon in! I've heard lots of good things about this marathon and I'm anxiously looking forward to it. Although I do hope the temperature drops a bit by September when this marathon is scheduled! I'd hate to see this marathon turn into a repeat of the 2007 Chicago Marathon that was cancelled part of the way through due to extreme heat.

As for high temps and running I have a 20 miler scheduled for tomorrow morning. I'd planned on doing it today(Saturday) but the extreme heat made that a no-go so I'll attempt it tomorrow when the forecast high is not supposed to be over 90 degrees. I know, its still hot but its a good 10 degrees cooler then today! I'm anxious to see how my new backpack hydration unit works out! I bought a new bladder for it at Walmart for under $10 so it should to be good to go....this time.

Well nothing to do now but wait, rest, and hydrate. Thanks again for reading! Gotta run!

.....if you don't stand up you don't stand a chance.....(Genesis)

An unhealthy reliance on technology or Murphy strikes again.

2010-07-20T09:31:00.003-04:00

Greetings blogophiles!

I’m back from what was supposed to be a 20 miles run. Scratch that, I’m wrong already. Today’s run was originally planned as a 26 mile run. I ended up salvaging a 6 mile run with plans to do some mile repeats this evening at the local high school track. My day started at 3 am. With South Central PA getting a hotter summer than normal I planned to hit the trail by 4:30 am so that I would be finished around 9:30 am and not have to run through another 90+ degree day! I got a free backpack hydration unit from my parents that I believe came from a garage sale or second hand store. I’ve been interested in one for a few months as a 24 oz bottle is not enough fluid for me on a 20+ run with temps in the upper 70s - low 80’s and a relative humidity in the 80s. The only hitch with the hydration pack was that it was missing the cap for the bladder. No problem though as a standard 20 oz Pepsi bottle cap fit perfectly! I filled the bladder with 64 oz of water and stuck it in the fridge to cool for the 6 hours that I had to sleep before my 3 am alarm went off.

Upon awakening, I pulled the hydration backpack out of the fridge. I had put bladder back in the backpack and upon pulling it out of the fridge noticed that the bottom half of the backpack was soaking wet. (Probably the real reason this was at a second hand store in the first place) With any hope of having more that 24 oz of fluid shot down my plans for a 26 mile run were shot down as well. No biggie, I can still take my 24 oz bottle and put in a 20 miler, right?

If you’re a frequent reader then you are aware that I recently got a Garmin 205 GPS. I’ve used it for every run since I bought it two weeks ago but decided to give it a rest today. After all, all I needed was a watch that would do 5:1 run/walk splits for me and my Timex Ironman does that perfectly! I grabbed my watch and started to put it on when I noticed my next problem. I don’t know if my face was more blank than my watch but it was clear that my battery had died. All is not lost yet! My Garmin will do intervals! Unfortunately, the Garmin 205 will not repeat intervals continuously like my Timex but I set the number of intervals to 99 which should be more than enough to get me through a 20 mile run at a 5:1. Off to the trail!

At the trail I start the watch and my 20 mile run, or so I thought. The Rail Trail is nicely marked out with mile markers and the old railroad markers fall near the ½ mile mark. I passed the first railroad marker and noted that I hadn’t heard my alarm for the interval change. Hmmm? Well if I was running a 10 min/mile that isn’t a big surprise. Of course at this time I’m anxiously waiting on the alarm that has to be coming at any second. It was kind of like Wile E Coyote after he lights the fuse to the TNT, runs around the large boulder and waits for the explosion that doesn’t come until he goes back to the dynamite to inspect what went wrong. I got about two more minutes of running in before I had to go back to the dynamite and look.

I stopped running in an area clear of overhanging trees to get as much light as possible. My Garmin was already into the second interval. I was only a few minutes away from the next walk break so I started running again. This time with one eye on the trail and the other on the Garmin. As the Garmin ticked down and reached the walk break interval I heard the problem. Maybe it’s better stated that I didn’t hear the problem. I don’t want to be unfair the the fine people at Garmin who designed this watch but I have it on good authority that mosquitos scream louder than the alarm on the Garmin. I could just barely hear the alarm over the din of my feet hitting the crushed stone on the trail. I gave a brief thought to just taking my walk breaks at the mile markers but dismissed this as I haven’t done a long run in a month and didn’t want to try one with more than an 8:1 ratio. My plodding pace for the long training runs is more in line with an 11:1 ratio. My hopes for a long run were now as silent as my Garmin interval alarm.

I did salvage a nice 6 mile run out of the deal but had I known that every piece of equipment or technology would fail me today I would have opted for a couple more hours of sleep! Still I was able to use the Garmin to check my pace. I used this feature to push my pace to around a 9:30 min/mile for much of the rest of the run. I pushed the last mile to a 7:30 min/mile pace.

I have today and tomorrow off from work so I have time to get watch batteries and a new bladder for the backpack so that I can be ready for Saturday. With the uncommonly warm weather we are having this summer I’m thinking that it might be better to increase my mileage by adding a longer run ( 10-14 miles) in every week in place of a 6 mile run rather than running 26 - 30 miles all at once. I’d still do a 2 - 3 20 milers before the Air Force Marathon on Sept 18^th but this might be a better bet. I can always go after the 28 and 30 mile training run in October and November while I’m training for the Las Vegas marathon in December. Sounds like a plan!

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading! Gotta run.

….her diamond watch had stopped cold dead…..(Chicago)

The Boilermaker 2010

2010-07-14T15:50:00.001-04:00

Hello again! As you've no doubt guessed from the title and the picture this blog is about this year Boilermaker 15K road race in Utica, NY. I've blogged about this race a few times, as this year was my 6th consecutive year, so instead of going into great detail I'll get right to my points.

As some of you know this year was supposed to be my year to pace a friend through the 9.3 miles. Unfortunately my friend hurt his achilles tendon tripping off his new driveway two weeks before the race. With my friend sidelined this year I was on my own.....literally! In past years I've had some morale support in the crowd. My parents and my wife have each taken turns cheering me on as I neared the finish in past years. This year the crowds were just as supportive as ever, I just didn't know any of them.

The race itself was very much like previous years. The City of Utica and the local folks came out in droves to support the runners. There was more than plenty of water, ice, and popsicles to keep you cool on the run. The music provided about ever half mile was fun and very motivating. In fact in one spot, there were two women singing a 60's Motown song with 10 drummers on full drum kits backing them up! A lot of things were done extremely well at this race. There was one thing that continues to be a frustration for me personally. This is the race seeding.

On the sign up process for The Boilermaker entrants are asked to state what time they expect to finish in. This is a complete honor system, unless you state a finish time under 1 hour, and for the most part people are honest. The frustration is that instead of putting all the people who say they can finish between 1:15:00 - 1:20:00 in the same corral, for example, there are a certain number of spots for 5 of the 6 corrals so the fastest stated times get those spots. Everyone else is banished to the 6th (last) corral. Now if you plan on running in a beer can costume or just want to take in the experience at a 9:30/mile pace the last corral is just fine. If your plan is to run between a 8:00 - 8:30/mile pace this last corral is a giant pain in the ass! Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to me.

I've been doing a lot of training this spring and I felt confident I could run a 1:20:00 and had an outside hope that I could finish a tad faster. Not wanting to overstate my abilities I put down a 1:20:00 finish time on my entrance form. I had done the same last year and was given a spot in the yellow corral (5th out of 6). This year though this same expected finish time left me back in 6th corral otherwise know as Dante's beer can wearing, "I've never run farther than 5 miles", two hits off the asthma inhaler, running hell!

The race starts and after a 9 minute hiatus the section of humanity I was in starts moving toward the starting line. After jogging for a few hundred feet in what felt like a very slow motion cattle stampede I managed to cut across to the left and get off the road and on to the sidewalk/front yard. I immediately pick up my pace and start passing those people left on the road. I wasn't the only person on the sidewalk so I wasn't able to get to my actual running pace but it was a lot faster than if I had stayed on the road. I got to the first mile in 9:00. SHIT!!!! I was hoping for a 8:30 first mile. I stayed on the sidewalk as long as I could but found that slower runners were now pouring on to the sidewalk to get some breathing room from the sardine can that was the road. I had to dodge several people who decided that stepping in front of a guy trying to get up to an 8:00/mile pace was a good idea. I had planned on getting to the two mile mark in 17:00. I passed the two mile mark in 17:50. SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!!!

The rest of the race was pretty much the same. I did my best to bob and weave around slower runners. I even managed to find pockets that I could speed up to an 8:00/mile pace but these only lasted about a half mile and then I had to choose between slowing down to a 9:30/mile pace for a few hundred yards or committing battery by running up someones back. I chose to stay out of jail........this time.

As I neared the finish I had hoped to put on a good sprint but sure enough there was an immovable crowd of runners who were very content with their 9:00/mile pace that the sprint that I hoped would start a half mile from the finish didn't get to happen until the last 100 yards. I finished in 1:25:32. Although my time was much slower than I wanted I had probably worked harder getting around the slower runners than if I had run a 1:20:00 on an open road.

So this brings me to my seeding frustration. In case The Boilermaker race director is reading this I would, once again, like to ask that you please assign corral seeding strictly based on expected finish time. This will no doubt make the front 5 corrals larger and the 6th corral smaller but it will better help ensure that slower runners are not clogging up the road in front of faster runners. How might this work you say? Take a look at this. Here are a six and seven corral seeding chart.

SIX CORRAL IDEA

Faster than 5:15/mile - elite corral

5:15 - 6:14/mile - second corral

6:15 - 7:14/mile - third corral

7:15 - 8:14/mile - fourth corral

8:15 - 9:14/mile - fifth corral

9:15 and slower - sixth corral

SEVEN CORRAL IDEA

Faster than 5:15/mile - elite corral

5:15 - 5:59/mile - second corral

6:00 - 6:44/mile - third corral

6:45 - 7:29/mile - forth corral

7:30 - 8:14/mile - fifth corral

8:15 - 8:59/mile - sixth corral

9:00 and slower - seventh corral

I included a six and seven corral chart because in 2005, when I ran my first Boilermaker 15k, there were seven corrals. It was in 2006 that the number shrank to six. I personally like the seven corral idea better as there is only 45 sec/mile difference between runners in any corral and the 8:59/mile cut-off would more likely put the folks looking for a serious finish time in a position to get one without much slower runners in the way.

Well that's it for another edition. Gotta run!

.......I can't get my car out of second gear......(Sammy Hagar)

Running with the Garmin 205

2010-07-07T10:19:00.000-04:00

Well hello again folks for another fun filled episode! Before I get into this weeks episode though I do have one thing to mention. About two months ago I launched the “new and improved” version of this blog. One of the new features was a loosening of the restrictions for posting comments. Sadly this has not encouraged more legitimate comments but only more spamming. Since I gave myself veto power over all comments before they are visible this is not an issue unless all you readers continue to be silent readers. In short, if you only wish to read this blog that’s fine but if the only comments I get are spam then I’ll have to go back to the more restrictive rules in order to block out the bloody spammers who hit me daily. I have one persistent soul who spams me in Japanese! Since this is supposed to be more of a dialogue than monologue I encourage you to please leave a comment. ‘Nuf said.

Now on to this weeks edition. I recently had a birthday and decided to buy myself a present. I bought a Garmin 205. This is a wrist-mounted GPS device for running/biking just incase you are not familiar with wrist-mounted GPS devices. As far as the Garmin family of GPS devices go this is somewhat old technology. The newer versions wirelessly download to your computer and look more like a watch than a 1980’s Brickphone strapped to your wrist! That said, the 205 series was top of the line as recently as 4 years ago so this is not exactly like comparing an X-Box 360 to Pong. I tend to stay away from new technology when its new because the price is overinflated. I can’t help thinking about all those people who spent $400 -$600 for a first edition iPhone and now you can get the iPhone 3GS that will run circles around the first edition iPhone and all for $99. This was no different. The 205, when it was new was about $300 -$400 dollars and I just bought a new one for $150 including tax!

Before I get into the features lets discuss the reason for getting a GPS device and if this is something you should consider. Let me start by saying that if you are a “zen runner” you probably won’t be impressed with this device. Someone who runs to commune with nature and/or “get away” from the stress of everyday life will probably not be impressed by a devise that tracks your every step.

The Garmin 205 is a useful devise for those who want to use data to help them improve their running performance. Certain Garmin versions come with a heart rate monitor, such as the 305. I have a Polar watch that has a heart rate monitor and I rarely use it. I didn’t like the strap around my chest and I found the heart rate data only moderately useful. The Garmin 205 does not have a heart rate monitor.

The features that I like about the Garmin 205 are real time pace, virtual running partner, interval timing, mapping data from a run(including altitude, pace, speed, and distance), and alerts for pace. I’l cover these features separately.

Real time pace is a measure of running speed based on min/mile. Unlike a traditional pace that is measured after you finish based on distance divided by elapsed time, real time pace is calculated by the satellite and displayed as you are running. I run where there is a lot of hills. Real time pace lets me know how hills affect my pace while I’m running. For example on one hill that I run on it is about a 15% grade. On the way up I plod at a 16 min/mile pace. On the way down I average a blistering 5:30 min/mile pace. Both directions feel about the same level of exertion but I never would have known my pace has such a drastic difference without real time pace. The real time pace is displayed in the bottom left window of the picture below.

Ever wish you could race yourself? Ever wish you could have someone who would pace you at a particular pace? Virtual running partner is the feature that accomplishes this on the Garmin 205. This virtual partner can be set to a particular pace or to a run in the history menu of the device. The Garmin 205 displays if you are ahead or behind your virtual partner.

For those of you that use the Galloway run/walk, interval timing is a necessity. You can set the Garmin to intervals based on either time or distance. This means that you can set your interval to 3 min running/ 1 min walking or 1 mile running/ 1 minute walking for example.

Since the Garmin 205 is taking several different types of readings from the satellite you have a wide choice of things you can graph using the Garmin Training Center software that comes with the device.

As you can see above, here one of my runs is displayed several different ways. There is the raw numbers at the top, a map of the actual streets I ran on in the middle, and a elevation chart of the run on the graph at the bottom. The run displayed is my normal 6 mile run.

For people looking to stay within a certain pace range for a run, such as a tempo run, pace alerts are very helpful. These are high and low pace levels that you set prior to the run. You get an alarm if you run slower than your low pace or if you run faster than your high pace. I used my heart-rate monitor for this function but I’d personally rather do a tempo run based on a pace range than a heart rate range.

The Garmin 205 is not a small device. The pictures below show the Garmin 205 with a dollar coin on the face and next to a standard watch in order to give you some idea of the size.

Even though this is a large device I did not find that it was cumbersome to run with. In fact by my second run with it I didn't even notice it was there.

The one complaint, if I can call it that ,is the extremely small display for the clock. The 405 allows you to set the device up to look like a standard digital watch. While the 205 does display the time on the menu screen the numbers are only a centimeter tall. If you have less than 20/20 vision I doubt that you will be able to read the current time of day without glasses, contacts, or a high-powered telescope. The time is displayed in the bottom center of the picture below.

This device does download to your computer whether you have a Mac or a PC by a USB cable connected to the charging stand. Ok, sure a wireless download would be better but it's not worth the extra $200 price tag. This watch does everything that I want a GPS device to do and the readout is big so its easy to read. The newest version has a touch bezel and I've heard people say that scrolling thorough the menu can be tricky with the touch bezel. I'm more of a button person myself so big, well marked buttons work just fine for me!

Well that's the latest edition. Hope you found it fun to read and informative. If you have any questions or comments about this blog or the Garmin 205 I'd love to hear from you.

That's all for now. Gotta run!

.......hey satellite man your time has come......(The Hooters)

Not what I hoped but still not that bad

2010-06-27T12:22:00.000-04:00

For those who have been following this blog you know that I have been adding progressively longer runs every ten days until I hit a 30 mile run. For the sake of those who may be new, I’ve been doing this to build up my endurance as I’ve noticed that my pace in the marathon takes a real hit after mile 17-20. Today was supposed to be the day I ran 24 miles. From the word “supposed” I gather you already know where this post is heading.

Everything started out normal enough. Got up, had my coffee, and had my bathroom stop to take care of things I’d rather do in a bathroom than on the side of a trail. It was after I started running that I noticed something was wrong.

I had awoken early (3:30 am) in order to beat the heat and humidity that was forecast for today. Well I beat the heat but the humidity was already there when I started running. Still, it’s summer and a bit of humidity is to be expected. I’m usually a bit tired at first on these runs, no doubt from the early wake-up time. I was at the second mile when I noted that my usual tiredness wasn’t resolving. Running energizes me and even though my body asks me why I’m running during the first mile this feeling always passes and the adrenaline kicks in. Not today. Today I was just as tired as when I started. My shoulders where heavy and my legs felt like rubber.

At first I put it off to the lack of sleep and the humidity. I got to bed late the night before and I probably got only 5 hours of sleep. The humidity was high too. By mile 3 my back was as soaked as if I had run 10 miles. To make matters worse I was in a forested part of the trail I run on. No breeze.

As I passed the mile 4 mark it was clear that a 24 mile run was out of the question. I just didn’t have it in me today. I opted instead to turn around at the 5 mile mark and make a 10 mile run. As I neared the 4 mile mark on the way back I did feel a slight elevation in my mood and alertness. I started to wonder if I had bailed out too early but by the time I got to the next mile mark it was clear I made a good choice to turn around. I finished the 10 miles in 2:00:18(12min/mile) which was the pace I had planned on for my 24 mile run. I drove home, showered, and then took a 2 hour nap!

Take-aways

Running, if you keep up with it, teaches you a lot of lessons. Today’s lessons were the following:

Know your limits

In order to be successful at running you have to know when you can push yourself and when your body is telling you it’s had enough and you need to back off or even stop. There is two traps in this lesson though. First, your body is naturally wired to tell you to quit long before you’ve actually hit your limit. It’s a defense mechanism. Unless you have a medical condition you can usually push past the first messages that your body has had enough. This brings up the second trap. In order to know your limit you have to push yourself to it a couple times so you recognize it. Again, barring serious medical issues, your limit is almost always farther away then your body lets you believe. Since I was feeling as physically tired after 5 miles at a 12min/mile 5:1 run/walk as I did the day before after a 6 mile run at a 9:45min/mile pace I knew it was time to head for home.

Have a Plan B

Running is contingent on so many different things that it is always a good idea to have a flexible goal. I find that having a inflexible running goals tends to lead to frustration and eventually, quitting running. This is not to say that all running goals should be like a limp noodle. You will, at times, have to push through some discomfort to reach your goal. Having a back-up plan allows you a “face saver” if you will and lets you still have the feeling of completing a goal, albeit not the original one. Having a Plan B allows you to attach a win to what would otherwise be remembered as a failure.

Take stock and be proud of what you have accomplished

It’s so easy to be disappointed. Since we can’t control the weather, how we feel on a given morning, other runners, and a host of other variables there are a lot of things that can get in the way of our running goals. I remember during the 2006 Marine Corps Marathon having such a situation. I was at mile 8 and the call of nature signaled. Probably all the pre-hydration I had on the car ride down. Good news though, there was a port-a-john about 100 yards ahead. Bad news, I was at the back of a line of 8 women. Since I didn’t know where the next port-a-john was and figured people would not be happy if I urinated on the side of the Smithsonian I stood and waited 10 minutes before being able to get into the port-a-john. This TOTALLY wrecked my time for this race! When it was all over though, I realized that I had made up time through out the rest of the race. Although my ultimate time was less than I had hoped for, I was proud of this race in that I fought back over the next 18 miles and reclaimed some of the ground I lost standing at the port-a-john. Today was no different. Although I was disappointed I didn’t complete 24 miles, there is nothing “slacker-like” about getting up at 3:30 am and running 10 miles!

Well that’s all for this edition. Hope you enjoyed it! Gotta run.

….know when to walk away, know when to run…..(Kenny Rogers)

An interesting couple of weeks

2010-06-17T15:49:00.002-04:00

It's been a few weeks since my last post and I have some new stuff to talk about. For starters I took a trip back up to Syracuse to visit with family and friends. I had plans to run a 6 mile training run with my friend Mark on Saturday. True to form for Syracuse, it was cloudy, cool, and rainy. Very unlike the sun and high 80's I left in South Central PA. I think this is why moms everywhere are always telling their children to "take a jacket". You just never know.

At 5am on Saturday my alarm goes off and I get ready for my run. I take a long time to wake up completely so I tend to get up a bit earlier than I really need to. That and I am one of those compulsive early people. You know, the ones who were getting to the airport two hours early long before 9/11 and the airline requirements to do so. I'd probably go insane in France where "fashionably late" is the cultural norm, but I digress. So I arrive at Onondaga Lake Park for our run and the skies are machine gun gray with a large patch of charcoal black heading towards the park. Intermingled amongst the mix of gray and black is the whitish-yellow flash of cloud to cloud lighting. Now Mark's availability to run at 7am was time sensitive due to a practice for a dance recital that his daughter needed to attend at 9am. As I looked at the sky and the wind gusts through the trees I'm pretty sure I'm hosed. I call Mark and as I figured this storm, while probably only a half hour in duration, will be enough to keep him from running today. My hunch was right and we reschedule for Sunday and hope for better weather.

As I sit and consider whether to bail on running alone this morning something occurs to me. I drove 300 miles for this run! If I can wait the time it takes to drive 300 miles, what's a half hour? Well the storm was actually 40 minutes, but whose counting? I step out of the car and head to the start of the trail. Now Onondaga Lake Park is a wonderful county park that, not surprisingly, borders Onondaga Lake and is as flat as a pancake! I start out at a comfortable but not pedestrian pace. As I arrive at the 1 mile marker I glance at my watch. Nine minutes?!!! Now at home I'm flying at 9:30/mile so a 9:00/mile training pace is fantastic! My home run is also very hilly. It was while I was pondering how cool it would be to finish the 6 miles in 45 minutes that the storm I thought was gone showed up again. It started as a gentle rain but it was a downpour before I had finished another 25 steps. Thankfully this time the lightning was gone. One of the nice things about being soaked to the skin in under 60 seconds is that you quickly get to that point where you don't care that you are wet. It's kind of like tearing off a bandaid. I got to the 2 mile mark in under 18 minutes.

At this point I'm so wet looking for puddles to run through. I make the 3 mile, 4 mile and 5 mile marks all within a couple of seconds of a 9:00/mile pace. With one mile left to go I decided that I was not only going to make a 9:00/mile pace but I was going to beat it. I picked up the pace. At the marina and the 5.5 mile mark I picked up the pace again. At the last quarter mile I picked it up again to almost an all out sprint. I crossed the finish and hit my watch. 53:24! Hot damn!!! Now I've run this distance faster in a race but this was not a race. I ran this at a pace that I could hold a conversation at for the first 5 miles and the fact that this pace turned out to be 9:00/mile is outstanding! It's amazing how much faster one can run when one does not have to scale 10-15% grade hills every mile!

After the run I head to "the head" to deal with the call of nature. After washing my hands in the sink I walk over to the automatic hand dryer to dry my hands. As I'm standing at the automatic hand dryer soaked to the skin from 40 minutes of pouring rain and rain water rolling down my nose something occurred to me. Why the hell do I care if my hands are dry?!!! The irony hits me and I start to chuckle. It was probably also a good thing the park was empty because there would have been no way to explain why I was alone in the restroom and laughing!

The next day was Sunday and while it wasn't sunny it also wasn't raining. This time Mark was able to make it and we had a great 6 mile run together. I usually run alone so being able to run with someone, not to mention one of my best friends, was a special treat! Mark is a cyclist and has completed a century ride. That's a 100 mile bike ride in case you're too embarrassed to ask. That said, he is new to running and even his years of cycling don't mean much when it come to running. Anyone who has done both knows that biking and running are not the same. Lance Armstrong is even quoted as saying that completing his first marathon was the hardest thing he had ever done. This from a man that won the Tour de France seven times and came back from cancer! Again, I digress. Since this was going to be the first time Mark had ever run 6 miles I decided we would use a 7:1 run/walk. Mark had run 5 miles recently but just prior to today's run mentioned he hadn't run in about a week and a half. The pace was nothing like the day before but when it was over both of us felt fine and Mark had a new accomplishment to brag about.

Speaking of run/walk ratios, today I finished a 22 mile run in preparation for the Air Force Marathon in September. One of my problems with trying to break the 4:30:00 marathon mark has always been a lack of endurance to get me through the latter miles. I've been able to get to mile 17-20 generally without a drop-off in pace but by mile 21 at the latest my pace tends to nosedive. To fix this issue I started taking fewer breaks during my long runs last year. Instead of doing a 5:1 on a long run I'd do a 10:1 or even a one minute walk break every mile. The result was my pace improved in the latter miles and I ran a 4:47:05 and a 4:44:43 marathon. These represent the two fastest marathons I've ever run. For this year to add to my endurance I've decided to train up to a 30 mile run before tapering. In order to do this with the least possible chance for injury I'm employing a decreasing run/walk ratio as the miles increase beyond 18. Up to 18 miles I've used a 10:1 ratio. For 20 miles I used a 7:1 ratio. For my 22 mile run today I used a 6:1 ratio. I will take one minute off the "run" portion for each successive long run up to 30 miles. This will put me at a 5:1 for 24 miles, 4:1 for 26 miles, 3:1 for 28 miles and 2:1 ratio for the 30 mile run. In addition I'm only doing these long runs about every 10 days. Today I finished my 22 mile run in 4hr 19min. This is just under a 12min/mile pace which is what I'm shooting for. In between these long runs I will do tempo runs and a monthly Yasso 880 workout to boost up my speed.

Well that's all for now. Gotta run!

.....fast enough for you.....(Phish)

Nothing like a little spring cleaning!

2010-06-03T17:05:00.000-04:00

Hello folks!

   This is going to be a "pot luck" of blog posts. I have a few things to discuss but none of them contain enough content to be a post on its own. Since I haven't posted anything in a while I though this might be an opportunity(excuse) to get these thoughts out.

   The first item you are already aware of if you are a regular to this post. I've decided to update the look of this blog with a new background template. I think this one is a bit easier to read and frankly isn't as depressing as the black background this blog used to have. I've updated to the new editor so this should mean that using pictures, videos, and other media should be easier to manipulate on the screen when I'm posting. I've stayed away from a heavy use of pics or other media previously as it was a bit of pain in the ass! Hopefully this new editor makes this process simpler. Posting comments is now open to anyone but just know that I get to read them before anyone else does so if you are planning on spamming this blog or posting links to your business in the comment section you are wasting your time

   The next item is more of a question then anything else. With so many expert, and some not-so-expert, opinions on how many weekly miles you should do while preparing for a marathon I'm wondering what do you do to prepare for a marathon.? I've recently just upped my weekly mileage to a 6 mile run at least 3 times a week. I run 4 times a week so on weeks that I do a long run I have 18 miles of just base running miles. This means that if I do a 20 mile long run it is only 2 miles more than I ran the remainder of the week. I used to run only 4 miles X 3-4 days/week. This meant that I had only 12 miles under my belt when I went out to run a 20 mile long run. I've found that the extra miles do help with both my speed and my endurance.

   Finally, as with previous marathons, one of my goals is to beat Oprah. If you are new to this blog let me give you the background on this quest. In 1994, Oprah ran the Marine Corps Marathon in a time of 4:29:15. To date my best time has been 4:44:27. This puts me ahead of Vice President Al Gore (4:54:25) but I have not had a lot of luck breaking the 4:30:00 mark. I don't know why I keyed in on Oprah. I don't hate the lady and in fact I have only respect for her achievement. None the less, I really need to beat the crap out of her time and get this 4:30:00 monkey off my back! As I mentioned in my last blog I'll have two, maybe three chances this year. I took a look at the map for the Air Force Marathon and there are hills after all. The Las Vegas Marathon is probably my best chance as this has nothing I'd call a hill and has a net decline from start to finish. I've heard good things about the Wineglass Marathon being a fast course and the Harrisburg Marathon is essentially a flat course. the Air Force Marathon is in September, the Wineglass Marathon is in October, the Harrisburg Marathon is in November and Las Vegas is the first weekend in December. Hmmmm........ Well I still have a couple of weeks to mull this one over.

   Well that's all for now. Thanks for joining me for another edition of Runner's Anonymous! Gotta run!

.....you see I'm living with a crowded head....(Collective Soul)

Let the marathon training begin!

2010-05-10T07:35:00.002-04:00

Well school is out for the summer and I finally have time to start my marathon training in earnest! I have two (possibly three) marathons that I'm training for this year. The first is the Air Force Marathon and the second it the Las Vegas Marathon.

The Air Force Marathon is in Dayton, Ohio and about a 7-8 hour drive for me. It appears to be a relatively flat course and the Air Force promises fly-overs the entire race! The course ends on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base with a wall of planes on either side. I've heard that the view at the end is spectacular! This is a mid September race so the weather should be nice. The key word though is "should".

The Las Vegas Marathon is in Las Vegas (duh) and is an entirely flat course. This is a Rock and Roll Marathon course so it will be a "biggish" crowd with lots of entertainment along the route. The race is in December so the weather should also be nice. Emphasis again on the word "should".

Once I finish Vegas I will have only two more states to go to qualify for a 50 States Club. To join you need to have run a minimum of 10 marathons in 10 separate states. I currently have Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New York. I had hoped to get New Jersey in this year in May but couldn't manage the training with my current class schedule. I have a couple of options for the last two. I'm currently looking in 2011 at Los Angeles in March and Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Maine in October. I already know that my class schedule for late spring-early summer will put any marathon in May or June out of the question so that nixes New Jersey (again), Colorado, and Wisconsin at least for 2011.

Well there is no time like the present! Heading out for my first long run ( 10+ miles) since last October today. I've dropped a few pounds and the goal is (still) to complete a marathon in under 4:30:00 (10:17/mile). Oprah did it back in 1994 so my goal has been to beat Oprah! After I beat her time I'll start working on Ryan Hall or Meb Keflezghi. :-)

That's all for now. Gotta run!

.....schools out for summer........(Alice Cooper)

Clyde's American 10K 2010

2010-04-18T14:52:00.004-04:00

Hello Everyone!

Well here starts the next 100 blog postings! I feel a bit like Bullwinkle "for my next trick I'm going to pull a rabbit out of a hat!" If you got that reference you are either A) over 35 years old or B) watch an insane amount of Cartoon Network! Hopefully the next 100 postings will be interesting and I will "pull a rabbit out of a hat"!

As the title states, this post is about the Clyde's American 10K. This is the third time I've run this race but if you are new to this blog then let me mention that the race is in Columbia, Maryland and hosted by a restaurant! This is a fairly large race with usually over 1200 runners! This year 1290 runners finished!

I like coming back to this race for a couple of reasons. First, every year I've run it I set a PR for 10K. I'll save you a bit of suspense...this year was no different. The unique draw to this race though is the after-race food! I mentioned that this race is sponsored by a restaurant and the food for the runners is like no other race I've been to. This year there was chili with chicken, hot pasta with sausage, strawberries, bananas, several types of cookies, breakfast bars, bagels, trail mix, oranges, Powerade, soda(or" pop" to some folks), and beer! This race also used to give out a nice long sleeved cotton shirt. I know there are some folks out there who don't accept cotton shirts and look for races offering a tech shirt but this was a nice cotton shirt. That is until this year. The shirt this year was a very basic short sleeved cotton shirt with red banding around the neckline and sleeve-ends and writing on the chest that just said "Clyde's". No cool design on the front of the shirt. No long sleeves. Just "Clyde's". Maybe the economy had something to do with the shirt choice, I don't know.

This is somewhat of an early race with a 8:15 AM start time. Personally, I prefer an early start time but usually here in the Mid-Atlantic you don't see start times before 9 AM until mid May due to the fact that it can still be rather chilly in the morning. Today was no exception. When I pulled into the parking lot at 7:30 AM it was 37 degrees! I think it made it to 40 degrees by start time but it was still only 44 degrees when I left at 10 AM. Thankfully, there was not much of a wind and we did have intermittent sunshine. Although it was a bit cool, once I started running I felt fine!

Normally I'm running this race alone but this year I was lucky enough to run it with my good friend Christophe. No I didn't forget an "r" at the end of his name. Christophe is originally from Belgium and I met him at the 2008 Baltimore Marathon. Today was actually the first time we've been able to get together since October 2008 so it was great to see him again! Christophe has a Garmin so we had planned on him being the pacer. My 10K PR was 54:41(8:48/mile). It was my understanding that our plan was to run an 8:45/mile pace for the first two miles and then pick it up to 8:30/mile for the remainder of the race. This would have given us a finish time about 52 minutes which would be fantastic for me!

So the gun goes off and we make our way to the starting mat. This is a chip race so I didn't sweat the minute it took to get to the starting line. Once past the starting line though it was clear that what I thought the plan was and what Christophe thought it was were two different things! After the race, I learned that Christophe had meant a 7:45/mile pace NOT an 8:45/mile pace. I was with him for the first half a mile but knew that the pace was no where near 8:45/mile and settled back into a pace that better suited me. I got to the first mile in 8:06. I'd have liked to have kept that pace but this race has a section from about Mile 2.5 to Mile 4 that is essentially all uphill so I wanted to save a bit for the hills. I got to Mile 2 in 16:45 (8:22/mile).

There are two water stops in this race. One just before the hills and one just after. I skipped both. My usual training run is 6 miles and on hills so I've gotten used to not drinking over that distance. Now if it had been over 65 degrees I'd have grabbed a cup but it was in the low 40's and I felt fine. Somewhere in this section is the 3 mile mark. In the two previous years I never found the sign for Mile 3. This year was no different. I got to Mile 4, and the end of the hill section, in 35:30 (8:52/mile). I had lost 30 seconds per mile from my Mile 2 split. With the hills behind me, time to start making that time up.

I picked up the pace, not having foolishly used up too much energy on the hills. I started picking people off who had passed me on the hills. All of them looked tired. This is when race strategy and knowing the course pays off. I got to Mile 5 in 44:00 (8:48/mile). I had made up some time. If I held this pace I would tie my PR.....but then I didn't come here to tie my record.

I picked the pace up again. This section has some more uphills but not nearly as bad as the previous section. I rounded the corner on to the final street. At the top of the last hill you have just under a 1/2 mile to go. I picked it up again. At the last quarter mile I picked it up some more and all out sprinted the last 100 yards. I crossed the finish in 54:33 (8:46/mile) and had another new PR for 10K! Christophe was there to congratulate me at the finish having run a 47:15 (7:36/mile) 10k.........bastard! On a serious note, I'm glad he didn't wait around for me. I'd have hated to have been the anchor that he was dragging that cheated him out of such a great time! Well done Christophe!

I'm very happy with my finish time! I set out to beat my PR and I did it. Ok, I only did it by 8 seconds but a win is a win! I finished 389th out of 680 male runners (better than 43%). I'm usually around 40% compared to other male runners so anytime I stray over that is a win! I finished 526th out of 1292 runners overall. This put me in the top 40% of all runners. I'm rarely in the top 40% so this is a special victory. This race brings out some really fast runners. Christophe's 47:15 finish wouldn't have even got him an award as a 60+ year old man!

Well that's it for another installment of Runners Anonymous. If you're in the area and looking for a great 10k be sure to put Clyde's on your list. The shirt issue aside, this still was a great race and an awesome meal after you finish! Gotta run!

.....I'm just waiting on a friend.....(The Rolling Stones)

Mt Penn Mudfest....run or fun?

2010-04-04T07:45:00.011-04:00

Hello Everybody!

I have two" firsts" to tell you about. This is my 100th post! It's hard to believe that I've had 99 previous things to say about running but the counter on Blogspot doesn't lie. At least I hope not.

My other first is running in the Mt Penn Mudfest. This was the 16th annual for this race on Mt Penn which overlooks Reading, Pennsylvania. Runner's World has given this race plenty of accolades from putting it in the top ten trail races in the country to calling it the best trail race east of the Mississippi! Having not run any races east of the Appalachian Mountains, I'm in no position to comment on those monikers but it is a great race! For a trail race, it's also a big one with 825 runners.

The race is a 15k (9.3 miles) mostly on trails that are only one person wide. I say "mostly" because in order to get to the trail head the start of the race is about a half mile of road. This is without a doubt a hilly course. If you don't like hills on road races then you should probably stay away from trail runs entirely! Compared to road courses, trail hills are much tougher! When you throw in the fact that this is a Ron Horn trail race then you should know that at least 25% of the hills will require absolutely insane climbs! Ron Horn, by the way, is the organizer for Pretzel City that sponsors this race along with many others. This isn't just an exercise in self-punishement though. Ron Horn races also feature a very zany sense of humor. This race starts with a stuffed pig that is launched into the air about 75 feet! On the trail were Easter eggs that runners can return for a door prize. Finally, a select few of the runners are chosen to carry and egg(real egg) through the course with the winner of the egg carriers getting $200 in Godiva chocolate!!!

So "BANG!!!", off goes the pig and the race starts. After getting to the trail head it's uphill on a not-so-ridiculous trail. Keep in mind that this is still a trail. Even the best trails have loose rocks, branches, leaves, and of course...mud. As I mentioned, the hill was not too bad and I ran it fairly easily. The surprising thing was there were a lot more downhills than uphills, at least for the first 2.5 miles. Having run a number of these races I knew something was up. Easy sections always mean you'll pay for it later in the race!!! Anyway I got to the first water stop at Mile 2.6(approx) without much trouble.

After getting some water and my picture snapped by my wife, it was up the slow rising hill. Shortly after getting to the top was the first of the zany attractions....peeps! There was a table with people, one guy dressed in a dress holding and Easter basket, all handing out marshmallow peeps to the runners. I grabbed a yellow peep, started munching, and kept on running.

The next 2.5 miles where also more downhill than uphill. Hmmm? Could it be that this race might be without a really painful hill section? Not likely. I continued to pace myself expecting disaster in the form of a mountain goat climb just around the bend. This section though did feature a section of downed trees that was impossible to run through. This put you in a non-dancing Conga line as you stepped over probably 15-20 trees all while ducking the surrounding brush. After the downed trees it was time for 4 stream crossings. I've heard in past "wet" years (the last two years this race was run in the rain in 2009 and the snow in 2008) the streams have gotten to thigh height. This year the streams were only between calf - ankle in depth. You still had to take your time as the rocks underneath were just as slippery. I heard from the spotters at the stream crossings that a few people paid for their inattention or recklessness at the streams and ended up bloodying themselves! Oh yeah, before you can race you do sign a waiver that states if you get hurt it's your own damn fault! At the last stream crossing is the 5.1 mile mark and another water stop. I made it there in 57 minutes. Only 4.2 miles to go. Could I actually have a decent time when I finish?

Welcome disaster! The next 1.6 miles(approx) were all uphill. Leave it to Ron Horn to wait till you've completed over half the course and your shoes are completely water-logged from 4 stream crossings to throw the serious hills at you! There were no easy hills here. There were only small flat spots that connected one insane climb to the next. Some of these climbs were essentially just that....climbs! Imagine walking up stairs that are twice as deep and high as a regular staircase and you have a pretty good idea of what this section looked like. Now imagine doing a quarter-mile of these stairs, jogging 100 feet, and then doing another quarter-mile of stairs again. There is no point looking up, it's just too disheartening. It's best to just plod along and get to the top. It's kind of like in The Matrix. You've already swallowed the red pill and you can't go back!

At the top of the hill is the second stop for peeps and the "alternate beverage section". For the alternate beverage you had a choice of beer or a margarita! I chose the 4 oz cup of beer. I've never washed down a peep with beer before. While I can't see making a habit out of it, it surprisingly wasn't that bad!

Shortly after the beer stop you run downhill(Thank God!) to the water stop at Mile 7(approx). Remember how I said that the beginning was surprisingly mostly downhill? Surprise!!!! The end of the race was basically the beginning...in reverse. All those downhills are now uphills! Thankfully the insane hills were gone but when your tired even the easier uphills take a toll on you. I was able to run these hills but my legs hated me the whole way!

After clearing the last hill, it was all downhill(basically) to the finish. The finish was on a grassy field about 200 yards long and yes, there was a small hill to run up to get to it! After 9.2 miles it was time to end this saga and sprint. I got around the clump of people in front of me, who obviously had had enough of this race and decided to jog to the finish, and I was off. I wasn't at an all out sprint but when I heard the panting in my right ear of a fellow runner who thought he was going to pick me off at the finish I picked it up a notch and ran the last 50 yards with no sight or sound of him behind me!

I was done! I finished in 1:56:37. I was the 523rd finisher out of the 713 that finished the course. Now while I'd be mortified with this time for a road 15k (PR 1:23:22) this WAS NOT a road course! I got my "finisher's glass" and was happy for my finish time and having participated in such a fun but challenging course!

So if you're looking for a tough but very fun trail race, I highly recommend the Mt. Penn Mudfest 15k! You won't be sorry....at least not AFTER you finish!

Well that's all for now. Gotta run!

...climb every mountain....(Rodgers and Hammerstein)

Special thanks to my wife Susie for taking the pictures in this blog! You Rock and I Love You!!!

I like cookies...

2010-03-06T20:45:00.002-05:00

Hello!

Well it's been a bit of a hiatus but I'm back with another post. I ran my first step in a month today. We had a nice 50 degree day here in the northern Mid-Atlantic. If you've been following the weather news at all this year then you know that the mid-atlantic from Philadelphia to Baltimore to Washington DC has seen an extremely abnormal amount of snow this year! Baltimore, where I work, was the snowiest city in the US as of early February with 80 inches of snow! Baltimore normally sees about 15 inches a year so 80 inches posed some interesting challenges!

The weather also put a bit of a damper on my running for a month! I got plenty of exercise from all the shoveling I did but no running. There just hasn't been a safe place to run with all the ice and blowing and drifting snow the past month. The Rail Trail, where I do my long runs, still has a ton of snow on it. So much so that an event on the trail planned for today was just pushed back another two weeks in hopes the snow will have melted by then.

All that's in the past now. I ran today. I put in my usual four miles and I didn't feel too out of shape afterwards. I do have a new problem to deal with though. Weight. I put on about 10 extra pounds due to all the free time I had to eat and watch the ridiculous amount of snow fall. I like cookies. I forgot how much until I had a lot more free time than I planned on.

Anyway, thanks to all you who've stuck with this blog. It hasn't been super interesting in a several months but it will get more interesting shortly. I'm scheduled for the Mt Penn Mudfest on 4/3 and Clyde's American 10k on 4/18. If a trail run with silly amounts of mud and a 10k that ends with one of the largest spreads of food ever can't make for interesting reading.....

See you then. Gotta run.

.....yummy, yummy, yummy I got love in my tummy....(1910 Fruitgum Company)

What's a 4 mile run in 18 degree weather amongst friends?

2010-01-30T20:13:00.002-05:00

Hey folks!

It's time for another addition of Runner's Anonymous! Just got back from a four mile run. It's 18 degrees outside and snowing. Not a big deal to my northern readers and probably unfathomable to my southern readers. I know it sounds weird but I'd rather run on an 18 degree day than a 85+ degree day. You can always dress so that you stay warm enough while you run. When it's 87 degrees and humid out you can NEVER get cool enough!

The trick is wearing the proper clothes. In cold weather you have two real enemies. Cold and wind. You need to prepare for both. Today I wore my Under Armour top, tights and skull cap, a pair of "Smart wool" socks, nylon wind pants, nylon wind shirt(that I got from the 2007 Frederick Marathon), Brooks reflective winter gloves, and my Brooks Cascadia Trail shoes. I was a bit cold for the first 3/4 mile but after that I was warm but not hot and sweating.

If you haven't tried running in trail shoes in the snow I highly recommend it. Trail shoes are meant for conditions that street shoes are just not equipped to handle. I would have slipped a few times if I had my Asics on. Instead my feet gripped the ground like a mountain goat. Awesome!

Well that's all for now. Gotta run.

...that's a cold shot babe.....(Stevie Ray Vaughn)

Shiver By The River....part deux

2010-01-11T15:02:00.002-05:00

Hello again!

Well as promised a second week of Shiver by the River has been completed. Unfortunately, I know have a cold so this next week will probably be know as Sniffle by the River. I always manage to get a cold after starting a new job. Nice to know that Hopkins is no different.

This race was certainly cold but not a s bad as last week. Our race temp was 28 but the real plus was that there was next to no wind. Translation: this week felt 20 degrees warmer due to the lack of a wind chill!

Also different was our time for the 5K. If you haven't been reading along, I'm pacing with my wife Susie. Last week we just squeaked under 40 minutes. This week we squeaked under 38 minutes. Again, neither time is likely to beat anyone at this year's Penn Relays in April but an improvement is an improvement.

Susie is still doing a run/walk for the 5k but credit to her, the time walking has drastically decreased since she started running this summer.

That's all for now. Gotta ahh ahhh ahhhh ahhchooo.........run.

...I've had better days......(Tadpole)