Day Eighty One - Lunch Break Cross Training

Another quick post. Gym was closing early at the office today so I headed down there this afternoon for a cross training session. All of the eliptical machines were taken when I got there which is basically why I don't go to the gym during the day even though everyone else at my office does. I reluctantly decided to spend some time on the bike until one of the machines opened up. I suck at the bike. 5 minutes into it the eliptical next to me opened up. For a split second I thought about staying on the bike just to test myself but I was shutting the thing down before the thought even left my head. I hopped on the cross trainer and did 40 minutes at 50% resistence on a hill course. I tried to keep my heartrate under 130 to sustain a weight loss level, but then again, I don't know if those charts and graphs on the machine are bullshit or not. It was actually harder to keep things in the middle range then it is to go balls out. Worked up a nice sweat by the time it was all said and done. Stretched, showered and back to work.

Simple as that. Another cross training day in the bag. More later...

Day Eighty - A Quickie

Mondays are supposed to be a day off on our training schedule, but seeing as I took Sunday off and didn't know what the rest of the week was going to look like I decided to go for a short run last night. Met my girlfriend at her office after work and we walked up to Central Park. I had gone to www.mapmyrun.com and worked out a short trail. We headed up the east side of the loop to the Great Lawn, then across the lower section of the lawn to the west side of the loop, back down to Columbus Circle. Easy as pie and not much of a workout, but better than nothing, right?

I just read Jen's blog about how she filled out all her paperwork and chose roommates - no idea what I'm gonna do about that as I really haven't made any friends yet - and got all her flight info for Phoenix. And all of a sudden I feel like there are a million things I need to do all over again.

Short update today for a short run. That's all folks.

DAY 79
TODAY'S MILEAGE - 2.75
TOTAL MILEAGE - 158.68

Day Seventy Eight - Terrible Weather, Terrible Run

Saturday was our long run, as usual. Somehow in the space of 2 and a half months the words "long run" have changed from 6 miles to 15 miles with 20 on the horizon. Woke up at 7:15 to the sound of pouring rain outside. Sweet. I got outside and headed up to Riverside Park finding the weather pleasantly warmer than I had anticipated. That made the rain a little easier to take. By the time I made it to the park my shoes were already soaked through. Jen showed up shortly thereafter and we got our marching orders. 15 - 16 miles. We all know the distances of the various loops in Central Park and they told us that where we were starting from would give us a half mile to the park and a half mile back. Fair enough. We headed out together, with Charlotte as well, and made our way through the downpour to the park, laughing at how miserable the weather was and reminding ourselves that we'd remember this day come January 14.

We made it to the Park together when the girls decided they needed to stop for a pee break at Tavern on the Green. I wished them a good run and headed South. The rain let up and I was a little bummed out, actually. I mean, I was already wet, why not just keep raining on me? The wind did pick up at this point though, which kept me cool despite the fact that I was wearing the wrong clothes for inclement weather running - time to do some shopping. I had decided on a path - 2 Full Loops (6 miles each) and then one Lower Loop (1.7 miles) plus the one mile round trip to Riverside for a total of 14.7 miles. Half way through the first loop I started thinking that there was no way I was going to be able to finish this run. I was running alone (everyone was kind of doing their own thing and I kept passing Team members running all over the place which kept making me think I was doing something wrong - I may have self esteem issues). I finished the first loop on a high, finally feeling like I was getting into the zone where I can just go and not think about it. I was at the 1 hour and 10 minute mark and I stopped for a goo. A goo is basically a packet of...well...goo that has all sorts of...um...nutrients (?) and stuff to help you with the long distances. If running were a video game they'd be a power up. Make sense? They come in little single serve packets and have the consistency of toothpaste. Best to have water handy when you suck em down. I like the tri-berry ones myself. Anyway, I stopped for a goo and some water then headed back out on the loop.

It was here that I made the crucial decision to do my short lower loop before tackling the final 6 mile loop. I figured it would give me a little change of pace and more of a feeling of completion when I got around the big loop for the second time. I think it was a good choice. I fell back into step after the goo break but then stopped another 15 or so minute later to take a leak. I was almost done with the lower loop and back on the big one, but something happened during my pee break and I never really found a comfort zone again. That last six miles was ROUGH. I felt like I was going backwards. My feet started to hurt. I was certain I had at least two blisters between the mixture of wet socks, shoes and feet - fortunately they never raised. My speed was completely absent. I was just trudging around the park and feeling every footfall on my feet and knees. People were sprinting past me, or so it seemed. I just kept feeling slower and slower. I passed a familiar face from Team and he asked how I was doing and I said fine because I am a liar. Headed up the hill in Harlem I started cursing myself out loud. Fortunately there was no one around to hear me. "Come on you bastard" and other colorful phrases pushed me to the top, but barely. Near the resevoir I passed another Team member who was standing on the side of the road, waiting for soemone I think. He was one of our honored team mates (a cancer survivor - once paralyzed from the waist down, now training for a marathon and oh yeah, he completed an IRON MAN!!! a few months back) and I tried to pull my shit together as much as possible to look respectable as I passed him. We said hi and he asked how I was doing. This time I answered honestly and he said "Nah, you're looking great." That pushed me. It really did. Although I'd be lying if I said it pushed me all the way. About a mile later I was losing it again and I saw a guy running towards me. Probably about my age, although in much better shape than I am. He was running at a good clip and I noticed his hat. It was old and faded but I could easily see the logo on the front. I never realized how many transplanted Red Sox fans like to go running in the city. It made me think of Jen's friend Steve. Steve is the reason we're doing this whole run and I couldn't help but think how much Steve would love to be out running in the rain and wind in Central Park today. It sounds corny as hell, I know, and I'm not going to lie and say it made me feel great and that I found a burst of speed or anything like that. But I finished. And I didn't think about stopping. I bitched about how far it was, but I finished.

Heading back to Riverside Park was a bear. I hit every red light and even though I tried to keep moving while I was stopped by body was launching a major protest. At this point calling what I was doing running would have been the height of generosity. I had to think back to my 7 mile run in West Hartford a few months back to remember a comprable day. I finally got back to where we started, 14.7 miles under my belt and feeling like I'd gone twice that. Soon enough I guess. Long day. Bad run. Two days later and my knees feel OK (I find that they are somewhat sore almost constantly these days) and my feet are still hurting - remind me to tell you how terrified I was that I was going to lose a toenail around mile 10 - but other than that I'm feeling myself and ready to get back on the horse. I know they're not all going to be easy, but here's hoping for a couple just slightly easier than Saturday. Regardless, I think I was right, I'll remember that one for one reason or another when I'm on the road in Phoenix.

Thanks for reading.

DAY 78
TODAY'S MILEAGE - 14.7
TOTAL MILEAGE - 155.93

Day Seventy Six - Marathon Pace

In the spirit of, oh, I don't know, actually training to run this marathon I decided that it's probably a good idea to get back on my running schedule. So I decided to run 5 miles today, just like I'm told I should. I headed up to the gym after work and hopped on the treadmill. I suppose I could have run outdoors, but it looked pretty chilly...although I guess I should be getting used to that, right? I decided to set the speed of the treadmill to match what I HOPE to be running as my marathon pace of 9:30 per mile. Now - that is a lofty goal, I understand. And I'm not saying I'll settle for anything less. I mean, to get there I'm going to have to do some real work seeing as my Staten Island Half Marathon pace was about 10:00 per mile and this is...well, twice as long. Anyway, gotta have a goal, right, and I figured no time like the present to start working towards achieving that goal. So I set the pace for 5 miles at 9:31 per mile, or 6.3 miles per hour.

It was not an easy run, although I'm willing to place some blame on the treadmill factor and some on the fact that it's been a while since I just flat out ran. The good thing was that it was my muscles that were tired - my legs obviously, and not my wind that made the run difficult. Cardiovascularly I'm at the point where I can just keep going, it's just a point of whether my legs hold me up or collapse underneath me. No danger of collapse last night, but the 50 or so minutes I spent running felt like twice that. But I did it. Kept the pace for 5 miles and then did a 2 minute cool down before stretching and hitting the showers. So while it wasn't a banner night by any stretch, at least I know that I can keep my desired pace for less than a fifth of my total distance...

...wait a minute...that's not very encouraging at all.

Damn.

Friday is a day off and Saturday is 11-15 miles in the park. I think I'll go for somewhere between 13 and 15. Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading. More later...

DAY 76
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 5.18
TOTAL MILEAGE: 141.23

Day Seventy Five - Back From The Flip Side

Remember me?

So...can we skip all the apologies and explanations and just take my word for it that I would be updating more if I could? I mean, it's not like I just took all the money you guys have been donating to me and blew it on boats, booze and hookers or something, and if someone told you that, well that's just crazy talk.

Seriously, I didn't forget about the marathon. I've just been...preoccupied. If you've read Jen's blog at all you've heard her mention a pilot that she has been working on. It's actually something that I wrote and have been in the process of producing, as well as acting in. Well, this past weekend was the shoot - Saturday through Monday - and it went really well. I'm very happy with the project at this point and frankly shocked that it actually happened. Now I've just got to get to editing and then we'll see where we go from there. Anyway, for the past couple of weeks that is where most of my free time has been spent, rather than running hills with the rest of the Team folks. I know, it sorta sucks, but I made it through and I'm ready to get back on the horse. And it's not like I haven't been running at all either...I've just been way off the training pace. But here's what I did while I've been away:

Day Fifty Seven - So Lame It Doesn't Deserve A Title

One loop around Central Park. Wanted to go for two but half way through the first one I realized I was kidding myself. Not a great run by any stretch of the imagination.

DAY 57
TODAY'S MILEAGE - 6
TOTAL MILEAGE - 117.45

Day Sixty Five - The Staten Island Half Marathon

I was REALLY scared knowing this run was coming up especially because my training was not going so well. Woke up early and met up with G-Rocks. We took a cab to the Ferry and headed groggily towards the Island. When we got there I started to get this feeling that I really did NOT belong here. Everyone looked WAY more prepared and I just felt like this was a disaster waiting to happen. We were really early too, so there was a lot of time to sit around and think about the horrors ahead. We each made about 3 trips to the port-o-johns (over hydrated I guess) before it was time to line up. The race started about 15 minutes late and I realized while waiting around the 10 minute mile sign that I was going to have to pee again...soon. There were a few other TEAM folks there, but we were sort of doing our own thing. Finally the run started and the first mile was rough. We got to the first mile marker/water station and they had some more johns set up, but the line was way too long as I didn't want to lose time waiting to pee. I'm not exactly sure what the running protocol is, but I think dashing off to pee in the bushes is generally frowned upon (although I saw a few guys do it along the way). Honestly, if I was just running for me I would probably do it, but with the TEAM name attached to me I was thinking it was probably a bad idea. Another line at the second set of johns and I realized I was going to have to stop at the next one regardless of the line. It was around mile 4 and the line was longer than ever. I lost about 3 and a half minutes waiting and then peeing. While I waited the leader was already passing us on his way back to the start. Jiminy Christmas, that was insane. We were all cheering for him, and then the few guys behind him by a couple minutes. Man, if you ever want to feel slow run a half marathon course that doubles back on itself with some serious runners. After peeing I felt like a new man. I cruised all the way through to mile 7 or so and then hit a hill that I was able to handle really well. At some point I passed G-Rocks on my way back and was too tired to shout anything, but we had a moment that helped pump me up as we smiled and pointed at eachother. At mile 8 I started to feel like running another 5 miles was a really bad idea, but after that I just kind of let my legs take over. I missed the mile marker at mile 9 and started kind of freaking out, but realized pretty quickly thereafter what happened. 10 through 12 weren't GREAT, but they weren't torture either. Just sort of there. The last mile got rough because the way the course was set up you could see the finish line below you as you passed the 12 mile mark, but then had to run another half mile and then back. When I got to the 13 mile mark I figured I might feel a burst of adrenaline that might carry me through the last 10th of a mile at a quicker pace, but it was not to be. I finished as I started, but the important thing was I finished. And even with my 3 minute plus pee break I averaged under a ten minute mile...barely (my final time was 2:09:47 - which you're just going to have to trust me on because I didn't register and kept my time myself on my stopwatch from when I crossed the actual start to when I finished). Gatorade and a bagel never tasted so good. After stretching (well, in a manner of speaking as I was actually too tired to REALLY stretch) I went back to the finish line to cheer on Jen, who arrived shortly thereafter. Her sister had come out to join the festivities too. It was my longest distance to date and my first official half marathon and I was happy with my time and just the fact that I finished, but I'll be honest - I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I'll be running TWICE that far in a couple of months.

DAY 65
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 13.1
TOTAL MILEAGE: 130.55

Which brings us to last night. That's right...it had been 10 days since I had run - the longest stretch between runs since I started this whole thing. Another night of hill training, although I feel like I pussed out on most of the tough stuff with hills as I have missed 3 of the 5 sessions. I'm hoping that this doesn't set me too far behind the pace, but seeing as our coaches told us how much the hills would help us, and that they've been dead on with everything thus far, I can't help but think I picked the wrong 3 weeks to be busy on Wednesdays. Because of the long hiatus since the half marathon I took it a little easy on myself last night, going at a little bit of a slower pace for the first 3/4 of practice. We were learning how to run downhill, which is actually very taxing on your joints and muscles. Who knew there was a proper way to run downhill? Trained runners, that's who. And now I do too. So we were to push ourselves going down the hill, then recover heading back up. I'm gonna take G-Rocks' estimate on distance - .25 down the hill, .25 back up...wash, rinse, repeat. I ran the first 5 with Jen and then did three on my own at a little bit of a quicker pace (funny, it seemed so much longer when I was on my own with no one to chat with). 8 total which gives me 4 miles, plus a .75 warm up and cool down for a total of 5.5 miles. All in all it felt good, but let's not kid ourselves - I was taking it easy and happened to come back on the downhill night. My right knee is a little sore today, which has been my one minor ache through this whole thing, but I know the hills put a lot of pressure on it, so I'm not too worried about it. More than anything, I'm just glad I went and hope that I can force myself back into the habit. I don't think it'll be impossible, but I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to hitting 6 miles on the treadmill at some point today.

Oh yeah, and I need some warmer running clothes, STAT.

So yeah, there's your update. They'll be coming at you much more frequently now that my life is a little less consumed with other things. Thanks for hanging in there. Don't count me out yet - I'm in this thing all the way to Phoenix. Hope things are good with you. More soon...

DAY 75
TODAY'S MILEAGE - 5.5
TOTAL MILEAGE - 136.05

Feeling Minnesota

OK...I know. I'm an unattentive bastard. I really have no excuse other than things being incredibly busy. Well, first of all let's take care of business:

DAY 44
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 5.25
This was a Sunday on a treadmill in a hotel in Tarrytown. This was the day after I missed my first Saturday run, which I hated to do, especially after such a great long run the week before.

DAY 47
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 5.5
This was a Team in Training Wednesday run. We did hills for the first time and I was very happy with the run. Felt great.

DAY 50
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 9.5
This was last Saturday's Team run. Down the West Side of Manhattan from Riverside Park to just north of Ground Zero and back. Great run and a new personal best distance wise.

TOTAL MILEAGE: 111.45

I had wanted to do a big "Century Mark" entry when I hit 100 miles, but I guess it wasn't in the cards as I just haven't had the time to keep up with the entries lately. A lot of what is keeping me busy is work, but there have been several things going on in my personal life too which have made it tough to even get two days of training in a week for the past few weeks much less keep you guys updated on my lack of training. G-Rocks also went to Amsterdam for a few days in the middle of all of this and I think her absense made it a little harder to stay focused. Still, I'm proud that I've been able to crack the 100 mile mark, even if I got an email from Dragan yesterday letting all of us know that if we had been true to the training schedule we'd be at 150 miles by now.

This weekend I'm out of town yet again. Another wedding - the third since mid August with two more on the horizon. It's also my best friend's 30th birthday, so while it's a bit of a drag to be heading out of the city for the 7th time in the last 8 weekends (last weekend we stayed in town so we could prepare for my girlfriend's move downtown on Monday - 4 flights up with all of her possessions on Monday - I counted that as my cross training for the week), I'm excited to have two graet reasons to be with a lot of old friends on Saturday and Sunday. In the meantime, I'm doing what I can to keep on schedule, but I gotta admit - the way work has been going I've reached a point where I am feeling a bit frayed at the edges and while I don't feel great about it, scaling back in the mileage per week has been a necessity. I've got two pretty big shoots to get through before the 12th and then I'm hoping I can get back on track. With the clock ticking down on time remaining before the race, I won't really have much of a choice. Here's hoping things actually calm down at work.

On the fundraising front, I hit $2200.00 today - that's 58% of my goal to you and me. Feeling really good about that. Things naturally drop off in the weeks following the initial push, but I've maintained a steady stream of donations on a weekly basis and I'm gearing up for Round 2 of my insessant email barrage, so get ready slackers. It makes me smile to have so many people to thank. Dan Wynne, Skyler, my sister SB and her husband Bob, Mr. and Mrs. Balsley, Katrina, Erin, and Robbie (a friend of Becky's who I have never even met - how amazing is that?). I know I owe you all thank you notes and I promise you'll get them as soon as I have a second. I hope you know how much I appreciate you guys and your support.

More later...I promise...