I'm Not Dead

Been a rough week. I haven't really done much since my last post in regards to training, which sucks. Gonna suck a LOT more in a couple hours after our first night of hills. Although as someone told me today, it will make for a fun read tomorrow. So wish me luck and we'll catch up then...

Day Forty - Na Na Na Gonna Have A Good Time

Last night was our first test. A timed mile. We've known about this test for a couple weeks now, pretty much since Ramon and the other coaches started teaching us about effort levels. Going into the test I was actually sort of excited about it. I mean, we've been doing around 5 miles on our Wednesday sessions, so I was looking forward to running one single, little, baby timed mile as sort of a night off. How rudely I was awakened yesterday when I got the email about what we were actually going to be doing at practice.

The Intermediate runners (moi) were going to run a warm up mile, then turn around and run their first timed mile back to where we started. Then we were going to run a few minutes of recovery, then another timed mile. After that we were to recover again, and run a third timed mile. Shit.

On the way to practice I stopped off and bought something that I've actually needed for a couple of weeks now - a running watch. I checked out the fancy Nike ones, but rather than spend 80 bucks I decided to go with a much less sexy Timex number with a velcro strap. 25 bucks later I'm on my way to being able to time my splits. What a dork.

Dropped off the bag and headed over to the park. After our Mission Moment, which was really touching this week, we headed out on our warm up jog up the east side of the park. As has become the norm I sort of found my own running space somewhere in the middle of the pack. It's weird, I see groups running in front of me and groups running behind me, but for some reason I seem to be given a wide berth. Maybe I do look like Will Farrell streaking, I dunno. Or maybe it's just hard for me to hide the fact that I'm a genuinely unlikeable person. Regardless, it's kind of nice to be out there sort of on my own and doing my own thing at my own pace. It's really the only chance I've had lately to be alone, which is something that I tend to enjoy.

Anyway got up to the starting point and I found myself in the second group of about 30 or so runners. We got up to the line and I was a little worried. I tend to get competitive and mixing myself in with the Advanced and Intermediate folks tends to make me one of the slower runners in the group. I'm not...fast. I just tried to tell myself to ignore the fact that I was going to get smoked by most of the people in my group and to compete against myself. I thought that I might be able to run a mile in about 7:30. We started running and I set what I thought was a decent pace. Not sprinting but also definitely pushing myself. We were supposed to be running at an effort level of about 3.5, which I think I settled into pretty well. I was worried about starting too fast and gassing towards the end, but as I got about half way I felt really strong and actually picked it up. I would say I was definitely in the latter half of my group, but after the first 15 seconds or so I didn't get passed and I was actually catching up to some of the faster runners. Just so you know, we were all sort of running against the natural flow of traffic and there was quite a bit of it last night. At one point I got caught behind a group of slower runners and after checking my blind spot I decided to make a move to pass them. I didn't see the guy running full on towards me until a couple steps before we would have collided and while I was able to duck out of his way the guy behind me almost didn't see him coming because I was in the way. My bad. Gotta brush up on that etiquette, I guess. I pushed it towards the end and crossed the line at 7:41. About 10 seconds slower than I would have liked to have run a mile, but all in all, I was happy with the time.

And now it was time to recover. As I was catching my breath and jogging slowly I started to get a little nervous about mile #2. I was worried that maybe I had, for lack of a better term, shot my load on the first one and that I would suffer for it. I wanted to keep the three miles somewhere in the same vicinity time wise and I didn't know if I could match the pace I had set. I got to the turnaround and headed back to the start line. I passed a couple of mentors on my way who were chatting about strategy for their next mile. When I passed them I got really paranoid that I was doing my recovery lap too quickly. I got to the start and took off again. Within a minute or so one of the mentors just cruised past me. Seriously, it was like I was going backwards. For a second my competitive streak told me to try and keep his pace and I'm glad I didn't listen because I would have been dead meat after about a minute. He just kept getting smaller and smaller way ahead of me and I just had to concentrate on keeping my pace and not giving myself a cramp. Got to the turn at the 3/4 of a mile mark and used it as a place to start my kick - no similar landmark going the other way. I got to the finish and was mildly surprised to see that I had improved on my first mile. My time was 7:37. Not bad.

Started my recovery lap on the west side and realized that one more of these was about all I had left in me - if that. My calves tightened up and I was really felling the strain in my knees. I was watching other runners trying to figure out what they do to make it look so much easier but I couldn't put my finger on it. I just tend to run "heavy" in the sense that my feet and knees take a lot of abuse. I have tried to alter my stride so that the impact is less, but it still feels like I am just slamming my feet down as I go while other people seem to have a much better glide going for them. My lack of speed, I suppose, is only secondary to my lack of grace. I hit the turnaround and headed back, pretty much giving up all hope of a sub 8:00 mile on my third try. Got to the start and just went as hard as I could. Again, not a sprint, but as hard as I estimated I could go for a mile. Hit the quarter mile marker and thought to myself that there is no way I'm gonna finish this one on pace. I saw a couple guys about 100 yards in front of me really start to pull away and felt like I was going in slow motion. I had passed a few people on the second part of my recovery who were headed in the other direction and I was getting scared that I would see them pass me despite my ridiculous head start. As I got towards the final stretch I went into an all out sprint, hoping to save my time from being too far off the first two miles. I crossed and looked down at my watch expecting the worst and saw that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. 7:47. I would have loved for my third mile to be my fastest, or to even have been within a second or two of my first mile, but keeping it under 8:00 made me happy and I wasn't too upset by the whole thing. Something to work on improving...

...speaking of which - we'll be tested again in November. After 6 weeks of hill training. Wish us luck.

Fundrasing thanks today go out to Howard. Much appreciation for bringing me within spitting distance of the 50% mark.

Headed to the gym today to knock out about 5 miles which I'll then come back and tell you all about in great detail. I'm sure you're waiting breathlessly. Until then...

DAY 40
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 5.7
TOTAL MILEAGE: 91.2

Day Thirty Nine - A New Accessory

Not much to report today. Did my normal cross training day routine at the HBO gym - 45 minutes on the elliptical machine. Felt good, especially after being able to take off Monday as scheduled. I feel like I've been making up miles on my off days (which is a no no), so it's nice to be back on the real schedule. The only real news to report is that I may have found a solution to a problem I have been having with my headphones. And if you head over to http://girlyoubetterrun.blogspot.com you'll find out that G-Rocks has been dealing with a similar issue. Granted, Jen's issue is that her ears are too small while mine are too big, but that's beside the point. It seems that when we sweat the earbuds that our iPod's (Dell Jukebox for me because I'm all alternative and shit...and Dell gave me a line of credit so I can buy things like computers and MP3 players with fake money that I don't have) tend to slip or pop out of our ears. It gets really annoying stuffing them back in over and over again and it's usually more of a pain in the ass than it's worth to try and listen to music while excercising. Well, seeing as I have absolutely no pride and long ago dismissed any thought of actually looking cool while running, I made a decision today. I went down to the running store on the block where I work and bought a headband. A blue one. Two actually. And then I went to the gym and then I put my headphones in and then I put a blue headband on in such a way that it would hold the headphones in place. Like, over my ears.

Yes, over my ears.

I look like a lunatic. A complete psycho. But you know what? Those bastards stayed in the whole time.

Congrats to Jen for luring another unsuspecting victim into her web and welcome to the team Drew. Also congrats to Jen for working her way through her issues with her IT band and for being a fundraising dynamo - she topped $5000.00 this week. Speaking of fundraising - my newest round of thanks goes out to Alicia. It's pretty crazy - Alicia and I have never even met face to face - we have a working relationship that takes place over the phone between New York and LA and she is helping me meet my goal. Amazing. Thank you Alicia and everyone else who has been so generous.

More later...

Day Thirty Seven - So Much For The Afterglow

Woke up Sunday morning, still in Maryland. My new best friend and training guru Adam was taking the day off but I wanted to get a few miles in. He sketched a course around the neighborhood out for us and Becky and I took off to run 3 or so miles. The first mile was tough. Really tough. We had a long day of drinking, eating and watching football on Saturday (11:30PM never felt so late before) and it took us a while to get into any kind of rhythm. My knees were feeling sore and my calves were tight from the day before. That feeling of accomplishment from Saturday was wearing sort thin...but not totally, so I let myself feel rickety and worn down.

We got the opportunity to learn a little something about ourselves early on in the run when a small child fell off of his bike about 100 yards away from us and we basically did nothing. As heartless as that sounds he didn't appear to be hurt, just scared. He got right back up and walked his bike to the side of the road. Plus his brother was there to help him out. In retospect, I think it would have been better if we just kept running instead of stopping, watching, then continuing with our run, but at least we made sure that he could walk. I think there are people out there that would have instinctively run over to the kid without a second thought. I am not one of those people which leads me to believe that a) there may be something seriously wrong with me or b) while I may not be a completely rotton person, I'm nowhere near ready to be a parent.

Just a note: by the time we ran back down the street the kid was back on his bike (this time wearing a helmet) so maybe we've just got really good instincts and the kid was fine the whole time.

We sort of screwed up on our course (although I maintain that had Adam's drawing been to scale we would have been fine) and didn't go quite as far as we would have liked to. Got back to the house a little less than a half hour later, and while I was technically supposed to go about 4 miles, I was happy to be done and more than willing to let myself slide on distance. I'll assume we were running about a 10 minute mile and that we covered about 2.5 all together. Felt good to get out and do something after the long run on Saturday, but I don't know how the 4 would have felt. It was nice to have company on both of my runs this weekend though and I know both Becky and Adam helped me get where I was going.

After a fantastic lunch (The Sunday Sandwich - I just like the name) we headed back up to NYC. Thanks to Lara and Adam for a great weekend and congrats on your beautiful home. I'm hoping we can make it back down again soon. Also thanks to Dan for driving and to Bridget for letting me have the front seat.

A special thanks to the latest contributors who have generously donated to the cause: Marc, Mike, Skyler, Jen G. and Larry. I'm getting really close to hitting 50% and you guys are a big reason why. Thanks so much.

Today is a day off, which is a good feeling. More later...

DAY 37
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 2.5
TOTAL MILEAGE: 85.5

Day Thirty Six - The Nine

Woke up in the guest room of our friends' beautiful new home in Pasadena, Maryland on Saturday morning.

**Auntie Anne - I'M SORRY I didn't call, but we were only there for about a couple of days and it took a near act of God for the six of us to find a weekend that worked for everyone and we spent most of the time drunk and I don't have my own car and I love you guys and promise to see you all soon.**

Adam, our host, and I had talked the night before about going for a run in the AM. He's training for the Baltimore Marathon in October and was planning on running 15 or so miles. I felt bad slowing him down, but told him I would be up for 8 or 9. He decided to do 12 and I decided to start nursing my drink if I wanted a prayer of making this happen. Those that know me are aware of the fact that I am...shall we say...a total freaking light weight when it comes to booze. In fact, I think this was the first Friday that I had anything since we started training seeing as I already fear Saturday - but a Saturday with a hangover? No thanks.

Adam and I got up at around 9:00 and started talking about our run. We had both taken it easy the night before and were mildly surprised that one by one the rest of the group got up and told us that they'd join us on our run. Adam's wife is into running as well and just completed a 10 mile race a few weeks back. Bridge and Dan run together pretty much every weekend and Becky has been running solidly for a couple months now. So here we were, the Brady's in sneakers, piling into two cars at 9:45 and headed over to the Baltimore/Annapolis Trail.

The Trail is a really nice, flat, paved walkway that runs about 15 miles from Annapolis to Baltimore. We hopped on at mile 7 and headed...I dunno...North? It doesn't really matter. Adam told us that the trail was usually populated by lots of cyclists, but on Saturday there was a charity walk for MS coming the other direction, which cut down on bike traffic. Two by two our group started turning back (thus the reason for 2 cars) and at about 2 and a half miles it was just Adam and myself. I was feeling surprisingly good and got a little lift when Adam mentioned that we were keeping a 9:30 pace per mile.

Quick note - Adam is a few weeks away from his race and he is light years ahead of me in preparation. Bill, do you have a running watch? No. Bill, do you have gel packs? No. Bill, do you have vaseline for your nipples? Not yet. Bill, do you have cool looking running clothes and badass socks? OK, I added that one. But yeah, I need some stuff. It was actually great running with Adam because he kind of pointed me in the right direction in regards to what works for him training wise and what doesn't. He was also tremendously positive and kept making me feel like I am genuinely on my way. When we hit the 3.5 mile mark he asked how I was doing and I realized that I felt really good. I told him I might turn back at 4 miles and he just nonchalantly said, "No, we'll do 4.5 then turn back." I thought, yeah, why wouldn't we?

We stopped at the halfway mark to get a drink and eat a gel pack (delicious). Before this thing started I had so many ideas in my head about running. I have to breathe THIS way and I CAN'T have a conversation with someone while running and I CAN'T ever stop during a run or I'll never start again. One by one these ideas are being destroyed as I learn more and more about how you teach your body to run long distances. So after our short break we started running back. And we still felt good. We were passing the MS walkers that we had seen before and the run just felt natural. I knew I was getting physically tired, but we just kept up the pace. With one more brief stop for water we realized that we were probably under 9:20 per mile. I was thankful that Adam was there to help set the pace as I wasn't sure that I could have kept it without him.

I got back to the starting point and Adam continued on for a mile and a half in the other direction, then came back. In the meantime I stretched and chatted with a couple of the people doing the MS walk. It was a national thing and they were walking 20 miles on Saturday and another 10 on Sunday for a tremendous cause. Good for them. I also met a couple that was nothing less than bedecked in TEAM gear. They were training for a 100 mile bike race that they were going to be completing on roller blades. These people are nuts. We talked for a few minutes and wished eachother luck and away they rolled. Adam got back, and we headed home.

And that's the story of how I ran 9 miles this past Saturday. I'm trying not to be too proud of myself, but really, I feel great about the whole thing. Not that I just completed the distance, but that I did so in such good spirits and that I felt so good afterwards. My legs definitely tightened up a bit by the time we headed out to the bar to watch Notre Dame get the crap kicked out of them that afternoon, but it was a good kind of tight that told me I had pushed myself further than before and I was happy with that. Now, in the grand scheme of things, 9 miles is still way short of a marathon and there are people out there that can run that distance in their sleep, but it's something that I'd never done before and something that I would have never thought I could do a couple months ago and something I thought that might actually kill me after last Saturday's disaster.

But it didn't. And that makes me excited for next Saturday. Even if Bridget thinks I look like Will Farrell streaking when I run.

DAY 36
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 9
TOTAL MILEAGE: 83

Day Thirty Four - Three Days...IN A ROW!

Because of my schedule (I'm a social butterfly) I don't think that I've actually done a full week of training since this whole thing started. Just to catch any new readers up (I say that as a joke - I know it's just me and you Jen), here's our schedule:

Saturday - Team Session: Long Run
Sunday - EZ Run (Currently 4-6 Miles)
Monday - OFF
Tuesday - Cross Training
Wednesday - Team Session: Endurance, Form, Etc.
Thursday - EZ Run (Currently 4-6 Miles)
Friday - OFF

For me a training week starts on Saturdays because I believe strongly in living my life arbitrarily.

Anyway, for one reason or another I have had a difficult time getting all five workouts into any given week. I'm averaging about 4 I think. Even this week I took Sunday off after my horrible run on Saturday. It's easy to do when you convince yourself that you're too busy and that you've been working really hard and blah blah blah.

So yesterday was sort of a big day for me. I had gotten my cross training in on Tuesday and attended the Team workout on Wednesday. So yesterday I was left to my own devices and it was raining and I was feeling a little tired but it was a day I knew I should definitely run because it would give me the three in a row thing that I haven't really been able to pull off regularly (if at all). Basically, laziness was the issue and I was giving myself all sorts of excuses to skip the 4 miles or so that I should have been running.

But I didn't. After work I headed to the gym and got on the treadmill. I always feel like Astro from the Jetsons on those things. They're just the weirdest invention to me. I want to run, but I don't want to go anywhere or risk having to interact with other people. And yet I think the cross trainer is the coolest thing ever. I'm weird. Anyway, I get on the thing and I do a half mile to warm up. Then I crank it up to 6.3 miles an hour (9:34 minutes a mile). I stuck with that for another 4 miles, which wasn't what I would call "easy" but it also wasn't a killer or anything either. It was just running. After four miles at that pace I did another quarter mile to cool down and called it a day. I realized while stretching that, while I was sweating like a banshee, my heart rate actually returned to normal quite quickly. I wasn't breathing heavy or anything. I guess that's sort of the expected result of running 60 miles in a month, but it was still a nice little surprise.

Off to Baltimore for the weekend, but we're staying with some AVID runners who have invited me to join in on a 15 mile run on Saturday. While that won't be happening I will try and hang with them for 9. You'll hear all about it should I survive. But that's tomorrow. Today is a day off and I'm going to enjoy it and let my tired legs recover.

Thanks for reading. More later...

DAY 34
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 4.75
TOTAL MILEAGE: 74

PS - Oh yeah - our coaches and some mentors are off to New Hampshire for the weekend to run this crazy 200 mile race through mountains and stuff that they run relay style. My mentor Dragan has three six mile stretches that he'll be running for his team. I don't know if I would have said this a month ago, but that sounds so cool. Good luck to them.

Day Thirty Three - I Can Always Hear You Coming

Last night was rough, but in sort of a good way. You know what I mean.

We met up at the usual place and got our instructions for the night. We were going to be running a shorter distance but alternating between E4 (OK, maybe it's not balls out sprinting like I figured it was last week, but it's pretty close) and then recovering at E1 (we learned that there is no such thing as going too slow for recovery, so I'll let you figure out what E1 means to you because I'm all about making you think). And we were going to do this until they told us we could stop. Scary stuff. So I'm standing there thinking about how hard last week was and how I set my E3 too high at first and then at the end I couldn't go as fast in E3 and how this week I would adjust it when it hit me...

...you know that moment when you're learning something new and you sort of get it but not really and then BAM, it all makes sense. Like, you might not know everything about it, but you figure out the process and it makes sense and you can't even really believe that you didn't see this before because it seems so clear? I remember the same thing happening when I was learning to play guitar. It was like...so, bar chords...are...OH! It's an E but with the other finger barring the fret. It's just an E chord! That makes so much sense.

So yeah, anyway, about this time last night that happened in regards to effort levels. I'm standing there going "OK, not too fast because you don't want to crap out too soon when Ramon said something that cleared everything up (despite the fact that he's been saying basically the same thing for two weeks now). He said "It's OK if you're not going as fast at the end as you are at the beginning, as long as the effort is there." AH HA! EFFORT DOES NOT EQUAL SPEED. So I didn't set my pace wrong last week. It just got harder to keep up with the effort level after running that long. You're muscles are going to tire, but if you can maintain your breathing and keep up the effort you are doing the proper workout. Which is not to say I didn't make mistakes last week, because clearly I did, but at least I understood the nature of those mistakes a little better.

So with my newfound understanding of the world we took off on a warm up jog up to The Central Park Driveway. Once there we split ourselves into groups and at intervals started running really fast on the quarter mile length. Ramon was standing in the middle (sort of) and when we reached him we would downshift from E4 to E1 to recover until we reached the other end, then turn around and haul ass back to him, then recover to the other side. We did this back and forth for probably 35 minutes or so. Maybe less, who can say? In the end I would guess I did the loop (half a mile total) six times, plus the 3/4 of a mile up and back from our starting point as a warm up/cool down.

Oh yeah - the title of this entry. Towards the end of the 2nd E4 section of my 5th lap I caught up with a guy that I had met the very first night we all met as a team. When we switched to E1 he said to me that he can always hear me coming because it sounds like I'm on E5. Now, part of that I'll blame on the sinus infection I have been fighting for a couple of weeks. Another part I'll blame on me trying to breathe through the ridiculous cramp I had in my left side (I think E4 - E1 running is very conducive to these cramps as I heard other people complaning of them too) and my patented (i.e. stolen from some random girl I ran with like twice in college) Cramp-Away Breathing Technique. The other part I'm just going to have to own as part of my generally terrible breathing habits as I run, seeing as I am a recently retired smoker of 10 years and the fact that I am in generally poor health all around. It's funny because earlier in the run I was thinking "Man, I'm really loud" but I told myself that it was probably amplified in my head and that no one else could hear it. Thanks for kicking me in the insecurity, buddy.

After the run I joined G-Rocks and some other Team members for a quick beer before heading home. We talked with this couple who did a triathalon last year (wow) and is training for their first marathon now. You know why they do the swimming first in a triathalon? So you don't drown, idiot. See that, I'm dumb so you don't have to be. And now you know.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading, more later...


DAY 33
TODAY's MILEAGE - 4.5
TOTAL MILEAGE - 69.25 (SO CLOSE TO 70)

Day Thirty Two - Running Out of Punk Cards

Not much of an update today. Was supposed to run on Sunday but punked out. Almost made it up on Monday, but that is supposed to be a rest day and the last time I messed around with the schedule like that I almost ended up dead on the side of the road in West Hartford. So I had a nice long time to recover before yesterday's Cross Training session. 45 minutes on the elliptical (man, my first pass on spelling that word wasn't even CLOSE) with a 5 minute cool down. Tried to keep things in the "Weight Loss" zone again this week because that's where they should be, so says my gut. Felt good.

Tonight's group run is going to be a bear. Remember effort levels and how we worked with E2 and E3 last week? Well this week it's shifting from E4 to E1...until they tell us to stop. We'll be up on the 102nd Street Transverse if you want some cheap entertainment for the night. I'll post all about it tomorrow if I live.

Other things going on: Jen has doubled her personal fundraising goal from $5,000.00 to $10,000.00. Unreal. She'll probably hit it too. Good for you, Jen.

Personally, I put out the second email in my multi-tiered fundraising campaign. This time it went to friends and acquaintences from work. I already heard the email referred to as "demanding." The guy was joking but I feel kind of like a dick now, which is, I guess one of the reasons that I am not so great at fundraising. I just keep reminding myself that the next time someone is looking for some support I gotta jump in feet first, because honestly it's not that much to ask. My rule with sending out the email was to send it to folks that I thought I would donate to without question of they asked, so if you're reading this and you thought my email was pushy, just know I sent it to you out of love. All you gotta do is ask and I'll be there.

Huge thanks those who have made a donation: Nancy, Brenda, Sean and Susan - you guys rock and I'm very appreciative of your support.

I guess that's all I've really got for now. As always, more later...

Day Twenty Nine - Something I Learned About My Nipples

Headed home to Connecticut on Saturday to see my family. After having lunch I took a drive with my dad to measure some distance for a run. We headed out from his house to the West Hartford Resevior. I had wanted to run 8 miles and we figured out the resevoir was 3.6 miles from his place. The drive seemed REALLY long and all of a sudden 7.2 miles seemed like a long enough run for the day. After all, my Team mentor DID tell me not to overdo things on my own, didn't he? We took a slightly different route back to the house and the final mileage ended up at 7.6. He suggested a different turn that could add a tenth or two on the way out to the resevior as well. I got changed and started running.

The first half of the run felt great. It was hot and there were a lot of hills, but I was wisely going at a very controlled pace and I had prepared myself for the terrain during the drive. Plus it felt good heading up all the hills knowing I would be coming down them on the way home. About two miles or so into the run I realized that the t-shirt I was wearing might be a problem as it started...well, for lack of a better term, chaffing my nipples. Something to note for the future, I figured.

The last stretch up to the resevior was all uphill and it was a pretty tough stretch, but I kept my (slow) pace and felt pretty good once I got to the top. Ran another half mile or so to the entrance, then turned around. As soon as I did I felt the sun strongly on my back. It was great as I hadn't worked up quite the sweat I would have liked to at this point and I was hoping that some moisture on the shirt might provide some relief to my teats. I started heading down the hill, letting my momentum do most of the work, conserving as much energy as possible and regaining my breath (FWIW, three in, three out the whole way - worked out really well).

Things leveled out at the bottom of the hill and that was my first inkling that something was wrong. My legs had stiffened a bit on the downhill and I just couldn't seem to loosen up. I was BARELY jogging at this point and the though of picking up the pace seemed ludicrous with over 3 miles to go. I told myself that stopping was not an option and I believed this. I kept moving despite the fact that things started to feel like one of those dreams where you run but can't get anywhere.

Somewhere around the 5 and half mile mark I officially crapped out. It was the first time since I started training that I felt like I had to stop and walk. I probably should have but I guess I would rather hobble along like a moron than stop and walk for a quarter mile. I just kept thinking that I hadn't even gone a quarter of a marathon yet and how screwed I would be if this happened on race day. Granted, I will be better trained by then, but I guess my rationalle was that if I couldn't do 7.5 today, how on earth would I ever do 26.2?

There was a long stretch of about a mile on the same road that I thought would never end. Finally I hit the 6.5 mile mark and knowing I was that close to home...didn't really change anything. I was done. I did walk a few steps as I crossed New Britain Ave., but then started running again as I got to the other side, trying to push myself to a halfway respectable pace. I was able to finish running, but barely. I figure with the few changes to course that I ran approximately 7.75 miles. Took me an hour and 28 minutes, which is about 11 minutes and 35 seconds a mile.

Now, there are a lot of things I could talk about learning from this run. About pacing and about hills and about taking the days off that Team recommends before a long run. All of those things added to the overall "bad" feeling I had for most of the run, but the thing that most stood out to me was the fact that my nipples were at this point KILLING me. I took a look expecting the worst, but honestly, they didn't look all that bad. A little red, I guess, but I couldn't believe that the level of discomfort I was feeling wouldn't be accompanied by something REALLY tough to look at. I honestly probably wouldn't even mention it if it wasn't for the conversation I had yesterday with my Uncle Guy. Guy is a health NUT and has been really into marathons and triathalons for the past few years. We got to talking and he was really pleased that I had decided to run a marathon (he's running Vegas in December so if he comes to Phoenix in January it will probably only be to run the half - what a baby). We got to talking about Team, training and my diet (yeah, really gotta address that and soon - yogurt for breakfast this morning was a good start I think) and he mentioned that his nipples get really sensitive and that he shaves his chest and puts bandaids over them on long runs. This did not seem like a great idea to me, but he also mentioned that Vaseline works too. On your upper thighs as well.

THANK GOD. Thank God I'm not the only one with crazy sensitive runners nipple and thank God there is not one, but two possible solutions to the problem. So, if you see me putting vaseline on my nipples in the near future, don't get any crazy ideas. I'm just going running. Probably.

Want to apologize to those who have donated and haven't received a personal thank you from me. Fired up my laptop on Friday night to take care of that and the peice of shit died on me...for the second time in 6 months. I hate computers. Problem is being solved though. In the meantime, thank you thank you thank you for your generosity. It has been incredible. Thanks to Greg and Melissa (who brought me right up to $1000.00) just a few minutes ago. You guys rule. Thanks again.

More later...

DAY 29
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 7.75
TOTAL MILEAGE: 64.75

Day Twenty Eight - Picking Up The Pace

As predicted, I didn't run on Thursday. I did get to go to the premier of The Wire though and ran into an old friend, so the day wasn't a total waste. Friday is one of our "off" days, but I decided to go for a short run to make up some mileage after work (actually, I was going to take the day off but G-Rocks sort of guilted me into it, even though she doesn't know she did). So I headed up to the gym after work. I decided to run on the treadmill so I could set a pace and see if I could keep up with it. After a quarter mile warm up I set the pace for 9:05 a mile (the next setting was 8:57, which seemed outrageously ambitious) and started huffing it. The first mile was...not so good. I felt a mild stitch near my right kidney and then another in my left abdomen. My legs were OK, and the speed wasn't really bothering me. If you've been reading I had mentioned altering my breathing and this was my first attempt at three in, three out for an entire run. It seemed to work pretty well. I also remember a piece of advice I was given by a runner in college for how to get rid of a cramp when you feel it coming on. She said that you should take as much breath in as possible and blow it out with as much force as you can. I have no idea whether this is sound advice or not, medically speaking, but since then it has seemed to work pretty well for me. I'm sure I have spent a lot of time sounding like a lunatic breathing in and out with as much energy as I can muster, but people do seem to get out of my way a lot, which is nice. So I breathed my way through the cramps. The second mile felt a little better than the first and the third felt very good actually. I finished the run in just about 31 minutes (the warm up and cool down added to the overall time) and felt a sense of pride that I could knock out 3 miles at the pace I hope to set for the marathon. Now, I'm not delusional enough to think that I can rock that pace for the whole 26.2, but the fact that I've got a couple of them in me is a start.

DAY 28
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 3.26
TOTAL MILEAGE: 57

Day Twenty Six - I've Made A Terrible Error In Judgement

Apparently I don't know fast I am. Another way to say this is apparently I don't know how slow I am, but I'm a glass half full kind of guy, so we'll go with the former. Last night was a group workout where we learned a little something about effort levels. I'll break it down the way I understand it. There are basically four effort levels. E1 (effort level 1 for those of us not renewing our MENSA memberships any time soon) is basically breathing in a conscious state. I kid. E1 would be like a slow jog - somewhere around 50% of your max effort. E2 moves up to between 60 and 70%. This is the effort level we are supposed to be using on our long runs. You should be able to hold a conversation at E2. E3 brings things up to about 75 - 85%. You're definitely working harder, but you can still maintain this level of exertion for extended periods. Your breathing should be at the same rate as E2, but your breaths should be deeper. E4 is just balls out sprinting like a lunatic. That's not what the Team people told me, but I'm a pretty smart guy and I like figuring things out for myself.

So last night we had instructions to alternate between E2 and E3. (For what it's worth, G-Rocks explains this all much better over at http://girlyoubetterrun.blogspot.com.) The intermediate group was told to be "on" (E3) for 6 light poles and "off" (E2) for 3 light poles. Simple enough.

We started with a warm up jog and then were instructed to count our strides for the first minute. I had no watch so had to mooch off of Charlotte. However, Charlotte has a shorter stride than I do, so I don't know if my count was accurate as I was trying to stay close. I think it was around 160 or so, but there was some discrepancy as to when I was supposed to stop counting, plus I remember getting distracted around 118 and letting my mind wander. I'm not that bright. Our next task was to count our breaths for the second minute. You can count breaths in or out - it all ends up the same. After you get both of these numbers you can do some convoluted math to tell you...something about running, but I kind of forget what the point was. One day I'll get a watch and do it proper and when I get the numbers I'll figure out how far I am from elite. I think you're supposed to take like 160 strides per minute (elite runners take between 180 and 190) and one breath every 3 strides or so.

OK, here's a little inside info on my running style. It's pretty much all based around my breathing. I start out breathing in on a four count, then breathing out on a four count. To keep things simple I count along with my strides. Right - 1, Left - 2, Right - 3, Left - 4. Still with me. I try to keep this up for the first third of the run. This would be my E2, I guess. After a while this starts to get to be too much and I switch things up. I move to a three count in and a three count out, still staying with my strides. This is my comfort zone, as the four count can be a lot of breath to take in. When I get REALLY tired (usually the last 5 minutes or so of the run) I switch to two in and two out, although I am usually able to alternate back to three every minute or so. The way our coach Ramon described things I think what I need to do is alter my breathing so that it's the same for the duration of the run - probably three in and three out. I need to make that work for when my effort level is low and for when it's high (up a hill, or at a faster pace - although it is important to remember that SPEED DOES NOT EQUAL EFFORT). Anyway, that's a peek into my untrained running habits that I'm probably going to have to break if this thing is going to work.

Last night started out great. I was moving along pretty quickly during the "on" portions and recovering nicely during the "off" sections. This lasted probably about 10 to 15 minutes. I think what I need to understand is that my E3 over the distance of a mile or two is going to be much different than it is over the distance of say 5 miles (or 26.2 for that matter). About half way through the run I was struggling...badly. My breathing was a mess and my pace was falling flat. My "off" times were just pathetic with me huffing and puffing trying to get back into form for the next "on" time and I just felt like I was moving backwards. On my fourth trip round the course that had been set for us I was BEGGING for this to be the last one. I had no idea how much time had passed or how far we had gone, I just knew I was done. Throughout the practice I had found myself keeping a steady pace with another runner and towards the end he just started blowing me away because he was able to keep his pace while I was falling apart. I finished strong, only because I KNEW we were done, but if I had to take another pass I probably would have collapsed. Tough workout that will hopefully go a long way in teaching me how to set my pace over longer distances.

Today is supposed to be a 4 - 5 mile EZ run as they call it, but I have a work thing that will probably prevent me from running (although I guess I could have done that instead of blogging just now). I'm gonna make it up tomorrow on the treadmill before work and then Saturday while the rest of the Team folks are running a 4 mile race in Manhattan I'll be up in Connecticut. I'll be with them in spirit though as I attempt 8 miles again.

The really big news today is that I sent out the fundraising letter to the first round of friends and family yesterday and got a very favorable response. A huge amount of thanks go out to my mom, Aunt Po, Jessie, D-Bo, Nye, Randy S., Lissette and Robyn who have all been very generous. See that? All you have to do is donate and you get what the kids call a shout out right here in my fantastic blog for all to read. Maybe I'll even come up with a bitchin nickname for you.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. More later...

DAY 26
TODAY's MILEAGE - 5.6 (according to G-Rocks anyway)
TOTAL MILEAGE - 53.74

Day Twenty Five: A Day Without Subtitles

Not even a month in and I can't think of something clever to title this post. I can't even think of something lame like I usually do. So we'll all make do without. Fortunately for everyone, I don't really have much to say tonight, so hopefully soon enough we can all forget about this ugly incident.

Cross training today - only my second cross training session since this whole thing began although I think it was supposed to be my fourth. Guess Tuesday has proven to be a bad day thus far. Anyway, headed down to the gym where I work around 5:00. I knew it wasn't going to be a very heavy day as I had to be back in my office no later than 6:30 as I had to get ready for a meeting at 7. I debated using the bike to work out but decided to go with what I knew and stick to the cross trainer. I decided to take it slow with a 30 minute workout and a 5 minute cool down. I know I should be doing more at this point, but again, I didn't really have a ton of time.

I also tried something new with the workout today. Usually on the cross trainer I set the resistance to 10 or so (it goes to 20) and go like hell on a hilly course for as long as I am on the machine (usually 45 minutes or so). Today I set the resistance at 8 and kept things a little less intense. I kept my heartrate lower and stayed under the "weight loss" umbrella rather than moving into "cardio training" territory. The good thing was that I felt like I could have gone on forever at that pace (it's really amazing how quickly your body builds up stamina when you push yourself) and I broke a good sweat at the 10 minute mark, which is par for the course on the machine. The bad thing was that I didn't really feel as though I was pushing myself the way I probably should be. Course, the cross training days are supposed to be days where our bodies heal themselves from all the running, so maybe that's not such a bad thing after all. And I gotta say that using different muscles was a HUGE relief as my legs felt great the whole time.

Well, I guess I ended up saying a little more than I originally planned. I've got about 90% of my email addresses together and I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but the fundraising letter goes out tomorrow. Hope you're all doing well.

Thanks for reading. More later...

Days Twenty Two & Twenty Four: A Change of Scenery

Headed upstate for the long weekend with my girlfriend to visit with her family. I missed the Team run on Saturday, but through emails and the September schedule I saw that we were scheduled to run between 7 and 9 miles. Ooof. I decided on 8. However, I only really had approximate distances so I'm doing a bit of guesswork with exact numbers in this entry.

Woke up Saturday morning to Ernesto's not so subtle pressence. It was pouring. For some reason I was kind of stoked to run in the rain. Seemed like fun. I opened the back door to let my girlfriend's dog Jake out back to do his business and felt th chill in the air for the first time. Running outside all of a sudden seemed like a very stupid idea. But the alternative was the treadmill and 8 miles in the same place seemed really discouraging to me so I decided to go with the original plan. I was dropped off down at Seneca Lake, which has a very nice running path along the shore. 2.5 miles from one end to the other. I figured back and forth would give me 5 and then a mile back to the house is 6. Didn't know quite how I was going to get to 8 from there, but I was comfortable with the idea of making it up as I went along.

I started down the path and was drenched within a few minutes. The only problem with this was the t-shirt clinging to my belly (which incidentally has grown since I have been running - guess my "I can eat anything seeing as I'm in training for a marathon" strategy may have to be addressed). I spent a few minutes pulling the wet garment away from my skin, but then figured I had a long ways to go and didn't want to get sidetracked with a new hobby, so I just let it cling. There were half mile markers for the first mile and a half of the path and then I either missed them or they went missing. Somewhere around 2 miles I lost the trail. No, I don't really know how. It just sort of ended at this beach area and split into like 4 different foot paths, none of which looked like the one I had been running on. Pissed off as I knew this couldn't be the official end of the path, I turned around and ran back to the start. From there I ran the mile back up the hill towards home, but when I got to my girlfriend's parents's street I kept going. Further up the hill. I kept considering turning around and heading back, but I felt really good and sort of wanted to see how far I could go. I finally took a right after 7 or 8 minutes, then ran down that road until it ended. I took another right, figuring that if I ran in a big square I would end up back on the right street sooner or later. It worked and I ended up back home after an hour and 15 minutes of running. The really crazy thing is that I was smiling for the last 15 minutes realizing how good I felt. I must have looked like a complete moron, running in the rain, soaked to the bone, grinning like an idiot and actually talking to myself about how good this felt.

I think I got about 4 miles in on the lake path, plus the mile back up the hill, and an additional mile and a half around the neighborhood for a grand total of 6 and a half miles. Far short of my 8 mile goal, but still my longest run to date.

On Sunday I was scheduled to run somewhere between 4 and 5 miles, but we slept late and had a busy day planned, so I pushed the run to Monday, which was supposed to be an off day.

Woke up on Monday and had too much for breakfast. I probably should have just had a piece of fruit and then gone to get the run out of the way, but I ended up sitting down with the whole family for breakfast, which is actually a very nice habit that my girlfriend's family has and one that I could see myself getting used to. A half an hour or so later I took off with a stomach way too full of toast and cereal (and a couple of strips of bacon). I ran up the hill where I had ended my run on Saturday. Took a bit of a longer loop and ran back down by the house. Took about 15 - 20 minutes and I figured I had been about a mile and a half. The run was very hard and I just couldn't get into the spirit or find any kind of groove. The thought of repeating the loop 2 more times was an unpleasant one and I decided to run back down to the lake. Once there I did about a quarter mile on the path, then doubled back, then up the hill and back home. A mile and a half in the neighborhood, a mile down the hill, half a mile on the path and a mile back home for a total of the 4 hardest miles I have run since this thing started.

Granted, my totals are not 100% accurate, but I assure you that I am erring on the side of caution and definitely not giving myself credit for miles not covered.

Sort of a mixed bag of training this weekend. I'm glad I kicked out the 10.5, but wish I had done the 12. It was also nice to run in a new place and through the weather, but something felt off about the whole thing. Could have been the simple fact that I couldn't stop stuffing my face all weekend and the mirror set up in the bathroom forced me to confront the fact that...well...I look like someone who is definitely NOT training for a long distance run. Definitely gotta put some attention into my diet and use some of the dedication I have put into training into eating better. Would be nice for this whole endeavor to result in some better physical health and a better feeling about my general appearance.

Want to say a huge thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Roxie, who became the second name on my list of donators right after their daugther. Fundraising letter goes out today and then the fun begins. Looking forward to hearing from lots of folks soon.

Thanks for reading, more later...

DAY 22
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 6.5
TOTAL MILEAGE: 44:14

DAY 24
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 4
TOTAL MILEAGE: 48.14

Day Twenty One - Back On The Wagon

Hey, remember me? It's Bill. I used to update this blog. Then I didn't for a while. Know why? Because I have been a very terrible marathon trainer this week and have fallen quite a bit off the pace. In fact, way back there when I posted on Day Sixteen was the last time I actually ran.

Until this morning that is. I got up early today and kicked out 3 miles. I wanted to grow a set and go for 4, but didn't want to screw myself for the weekend. Cause we're taking it to the next level tomorrow and going for 8 miles, followed up by 4 on Sunday, so I didn't want to overdo it (despite the fact that I have been underdoing it all week). But I feel slightly OK because today was technically a day off so I'm pretending that the little girly run I took this morning sort of makes up for the 3 days I missed this week.

Anyway, this morning was...eh, OK. My knees were bothering me pretty much the whole time, which has me a bit concerned. I'm hoping that it had something to do with the surface I was running on. I took the same path down Central Park West that we ran on Sunday, which was the other day I had the knee issues, so maybe I shouldn't run there anymore. I'm guessing tomorrow will tell some tales regarding my knees. My left thigh seems to be tightening up a little bit now, but that seemed to work itself out towards the end of the run, so I'm not too worried there. The good news is that the run didn't tire me out at all and I was able to maintain my breathing the whole way without getting winded at all, and at this point after a layoff for a few days I'll take any kind of positive I can latch onto.

Want to send a special thanks to Jen/G-Rocks/Roxie for being the first to donate to the cause. I told you she was awesome. Only $3775.00 to go ($4475.00 if I want to avoid the shame of running with a Red Sox logo somewhere on my body). Letter goes out on Tuesday and then the run really begins. Congrats to Jen as well for her fundraising efforts which have been incredible. She's almost already to her requirements (last I checked she was at $3666.00) and will undoubtedly make her personal goal of 5 grand and then some. Great work, and definitely inspiring.

How hard do you think it would be to collect 1 dollar from 3800 different people? That's my fallback plan if my friends and family stiff me.

Off to beautiful ("and I don't mean that in an Eddie Haskel sort of way"*) Geneva, New York for the long weekend. Gonna miss the Team session on Saturday, but I'm gonna rock that 8 miles on my own. Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading. More later.

DAY 21
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 3
TOTAL MILEAGE: 37.64

*Bonus points for anyone who can tell me the name of the character who I stole the Eddie Haskel quote above from...without using IMDB. We're on the honor system here, so just know that if you lie, I'll kill you.