Looking Ahead

Well after a longer than intended hiatus, I'm back, just as preparation for the fall really gets going. In regards to the previous post, I think I'll take a page out Mel Brooks' book and leave the last post without a Part 2, at least for the foreseeable future. I expect I'll come back to my trip as I get closer to the Rome Marathon next March.  After Shamrock back in March, I started developing hip pain.  I ended up doing two and a half month of physical therapy to fix the problem.  As I have been training for my fall races I think it worked, thankfully.  But, aside from the two races that were on the calendar, I was basically on the shelf for about three months.  As a result, I lost both a fair amount of fitness that had been built up through Walt Disney World and Virginia Beach as well as much of my motivation to train.  Once I got back from Europe, I found that I didn't really have much to say, that is until the last few weeks.

In the last month, I've started training again.  I didn't really have a choice if I wanted to be ready for Marine Corps at the end of October; and truth be told, I'm still a bit concerned that I may not have enough time to sufficiently train.  However, what's starting to get me jazzed for the fall is the release of medals for several of the races that I'm running.  My Fall racing season kicks off with a trip to California. I fly out two weeks from tomorrow for a trip to the Reagan Library, a day of driving Route 66, two nights of Baseball, two days and nights at Disneyland and, oh yeah, a 5K and a Half Marathon.  First up is the inaugural Awesome 80's Run:

I found this race through one of my ROTE friends who live in California. It's a 5K/10K race at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend.  Once I saw the medal, I just couldn't pass this race up. This is the first race of a series that is rolling out all over the country.  For future races and cities, check out this site: https://register.awesome80srun.com/

The next day is the Disneyland Half Marathon: The Disneyland Half is the second leg of my Coast to Coast Challenge.  Disney offers a third medal for those who complete a half or full marathon in Orlando (as I did in October) and a half marathon in Anaheim. I’ve been to Disneyland once before, back in the summer of 2008. At that point, the Disney California Adventure expansion was still four years from completion, so I only visited the flagship park.  The Disney property in Anaheim is much smaller than the property in Orlando.  As a result, most of the race is off property. The course runs through both parks before heading off through East Anaheim.  The course passes by the Honda Center (a.k.a., the Pond) where the Anaheim Ducks play; and it passes through Angels Stadium where the L.A. Angels of Anaheim (wordy much?) play, with a run on the Warning Track inside the stadium. The run returns to Disneyland and finishes at Downtown Disney in front of the Disneyland Hotel.

Back on the east coast, next up is the Philadelphia Rock n Roll Half Marathon on September 16.

I wasn’t really impressed with the VA Beach Rock N Roll medal last year.  I am very impressed with this one. The course does a loop through the city center, passing Independence Hall then running along the Schuylkill River before finishing in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Having looked at the elevation profile, I think that this is the flattest road race I will have ever run. 

My third race of the fall, alas, has not, and likely will not release its medal before the race, as it a smaller race.  On September 30, I’m running the OCNJ Half Marathon.  I’m really looking forward to this race. My times running in Virginia Beach have made me love running at the beach.  However, unlike Virginia Beach, Ocean City NJ has a real wood boardwalk.

Two weeks later, I have my last half marathon before the Marine Corps Marathon on October 13 in Baltimore. This race should prove to be a good indicator of my level of fitness going into Marine Corps.  As the medal indicates, the course is very hilly.  I’ve run the 5K at the last two Baltimore Running Festivals and I’m finally graduating to the Half Marathon.  These races also have the best race shirts I’ve seen at any the races I’ve run before; due to the fact that Under Armour is the primary sponsor of the Running festival.

The week after the Baltimore Half is the Army Ten Miler. Instead of a medal, they have a finisher coin. I’m not sure what to do about displaying it.  Any suggestions would be helpful. This is my final long run before the following week’s Marine Corps Marathon.

Finally, on October 28, all the preparation is done and I will run the Marine Corps Marathon, a race that I never would have thought I could/would run. This is the first race that I have serious concerns about finishing.  I have to finish the first twenty miles at a six hour marathon pace.  This is much faster than either of the marathons I have run to date.  Now WDW was not conducive to running a fast race because of all the distractions on the course, and the pace I took Shamrock was much slower because I was dealing with hip issues.  I should be good to go.  The reason for the concern is that the two cutoffs for the race are based on gun, rather than net time.  In the next ten weeks, I hope to have ramped up my pace enough to finish.  If all else fails, I’ll be counting on my ROTE chums to get me over the bridge in time.

Once I’m past MCM, my weekends largely go away. There are a couple of small non-medal races in December, the Jingle all the Way 8K in Washington and the Celtic Solstice 5 Miler in Baltimore.  But most of my weekends will be consisting of two runs a half long run on Saturday and a long run on Sunday.  But this is all for a good cause as it is working toward my first Goofy Challenge.  For those who don’t know, the Goofy Challenge consists of running the Disney World Half and Full Marathons back to back.  I’ve also decided to throw in the WDW 5K for good measure.  These are the medals that have had such a big deal made about them over the last few weeks:

Going almost unnoticed between the release of the half and full marathon medals, the 5K was released late last week.  I really like it. I wasn’t sure if I would want to wear it with the other medals. I can say that I will have no problem wearing this one solo, at least on the Friday of the 5K, at that it will stand up well with the other medals.

Through a runDisney facebook campaign, which to my mind was a fairly laborious process, the new medals for the Half and Full Marathons were revealed.  I won’t further belabor the point for those unfamiliar with this (and for those who were following nothing more really needs to be said). For any of the uninitiated who are curious, check out “The Great Medal Caper” on the runDisney Facebook page. 

The Donald medal that came out of the process was pretty similar to the 15^th anniversary medal that was released last year. Basically, they took last year’s medal, removed the color and set it against a circular background. I was one of the ones who liked last year’s design, so I’m happy that the design was incorporated into the new medal design. Though a part of me wishes we had gotten a running Donald similar to the running Mickey we’ve had for the last few years.

The main event of “The Great Medal Caper” was the 20^th Anniversary Marathon Medal.  The final designs were leaked in the days leading up to the formal reveal.  Based on what was leaked, I was not confident about the medal, truth be told I’m still not over the moon yet (though I expect to be as soon as I can see it in person. The race medal was billed as something unique and spectacular before the reveal.

The medal designers certainly accomplished the unique part; at least as far as individual Disney races are concerned. The medal is a double spinner. The Mickey Head spins, as does the ring of text between the inner Mickey and the outer ring. I am optimistic that once I see it in person I will get very excited about it. However, ultimately, this isn’t the medal I expect to be most excited about; because it isn’t the medal that by the time it is placed around my neck that I will have been working toward for the previous two and a half years.

The first long distance race I ran was the 2011 WDW Half Marathon. I planned to finish it, go back to the hotel, clean up, and go about my business with Disney Vacationing.  I did not expect to do anything like that again.  However, once I finished I realized that I was going to run the marathon the next year. The next morning I got up and went to watch the end of the Marathon. At that point, watching the people make the final turn out of EPCOT, I realized that I could run the marathon.  It didn’t take long to formulate the full plan of 2011 Half, 2012 Full, and 2013 Goofy. And so, here I am, gearing up to do something that, about two years ago, I would have said you were nuts if you told me I’d be where I am. However, I won’t be doing it alone, for two reasons.  First, a friend of mine is going down with me, running the races and splitting a room at Port Orleans Riverside with me.

However, the second reason is that since last year, I’ve been making connections with many new friends through ROTE. These connections have enabled me to run with fellow ROTErs in Virginia Beach and earlier in the summer in the Baltimore 10 Miler.  I expect to have the chance to run with a subset of them at each of the races in the fall except for the OCNJ Half and possibly the Jingle all the Way 8K (as of right now, no one is on the roster).  I will not be difficult to spot many of us as we will be wearing snazzy new red tech shirts (the color in the photo is a little off). This is going to be a fun fall.

Europe in Pictures (part 1)

I expect to be posing in greater detail about the trip I'm currently taking.  For now, I think I'll let my pictures do the talking.  Below is one picture for each day of the trip.  More details when I return.

Climbing Pike's Peek (and no, that's not a typo).

I had expected to post more over the last few weeks. Then again, I also expected to run more in the last few weeks as well. I've been on the shelf for the last few weeks. My hips started bothering me in the weeks leading up to the Shamrock. This recurred about halfway through the race. A few weeks after I got back, I decided to get looked at by a doctor. He took X-rays and determined that there was just gluteal tendinitis. I'm discovering through this that my running mechanics are a bit off. When I'm running, unless I'm intentional about it, I have a tendency to run a bit duck footed. This is throwing my alignment off completely. Additionally, my hip flexors, calves, and left hamstring are particularly tight. I've been in PT for the last two weeks trying to resolve these issues. Hopefully they will be worked out before the Baltimore Ten Miler in mid June.

I did manage to run a 10k over the weekend; the Pike's Peek 10k in Rockville. It starts at the Shady Grove Metro station and runs down MD 355 to White Flint Mall. The course was quite familiar as it was the base course for nearly all of the longs I did in preparation for my previous two marathons. Because of my injury issues, I probably wouldn't have run it but for the fact that enough other people in my Sunday School class were running it that the decision was made to make the race a class outing.

For the first mile I ran with the other guys from class; they're in much better shape than I am. I managed to keep up with them through a roughly ten minute mile for the first mile. This was easily the fastest mile I've run in a long time. I fell back at that point and tried to recover. It took about five minutes after that to get my breath back to the point that I could start jogging again. From this point I reverted to my original plan of a five minute run/one minute walk interval.

At this point I ran into another guy from the upcountry whose name, regrettably, I'm blanking on. Anyway, he had tweaked his hamstring early in the race and was planning to just walk the rest of the way. We ended up running/walking the rest of the way together. By the end of the race several of my leg muscles, including My hamstring, had also started to tighten. There is no doubt that we both finished in a better time than we would have had we both run solo. That's one of the great things about running races, the chance to make friends.

I wasn't able to better last years time. However, considering the injuries I'm dealing with, I'm pleased with missing last year's time by only five minutes.

Well, for the next couple of weeks, the blog will go from primarily about running to primarily about travel as I'm leaving tomorrow for Europe. I'll spend four days in London followed by nine days primarily in Rome. I'll try to post some during the trip, but there will be a fairly extensive post post-trip. I'm hoping to run some to try to rebuild my fitness level. The Warrior Dash is coming up almost immediately post trip.

Since I'm planning to run the Rome Marathon next year, I'm interested, though not looking forward, to experience running the cobblestone streets of Rome. I want to know what I'm dealing with. I guess its fair to say the trip to Rome is a part sightseeing/part scouting trip.

Assuming that I don't get my iPhone stolen in London/Rome, I hope to post again soon.

Discovering the Joys of PRing though Intervals

After a two and a half week hiatus, I'm finally back after running a 15K and a marathon, but more on them in a minute.  For the first time ever, I tried running intervals during the Gate River Run.  I repeated the experiment during the marathon the next week.    Even though I had never tried them before (and I know that generally you shouldn't add something new on a race day) I found that I actually enjoyed running them.  During the GRR, I ran a 5-minute run, 1-minute walk interval. The next week I decided to walk with a friend who was doing a 9-minute walk, 1-minute run interval.  I think I will try to pick up the pace a bit for my next race, but for the Shamrock it was probably just what I needed.  One final general observation, which goes for both races;  I was really surprised just how many people were wearing their race shirts during the races, though there were fewer in Jacksonville than in both Virginia Beach races.  Wearing a race shirt in the race is generally a sign of a rookie; it just isn't done.

The view of Jacksonville from the Hart Bridge above the St. Johns River.

The Gate River Run was on Saturday March 10.  It started and finished at the Gator Bowl in downtown Jacksonville, FL.  The elite women were given a seven-minute head start over the elite men.  This allowed two women to cross the finish line before the first men, though the fastest man turned in a faster chip time by over six minutes.  The men's division winner was Mo Trafeh, one of the U.S. representatives to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.  I got his picture, but I couldn't quite work up the nerve to actually meet him.  I guess I'm turning into a running geek.

As for my race, suffice it to say, I was not one of the elite runners. I started well back of the elites.  I got off to a good pace. The first two miles were sub 13-minute miles.  The next two were sub 14. After that, I started losing time. I lost a lot of time getting up and over the Hart Bridge.  The Hart Bridge, which is incorporated in the design of the medal, is a very tall bridge over the St. Johns River.  Overall, though, I was reasonably pleased with my time of 2:14:08.  At least that was the time on my watch.  Unfortunately, when I pulled up my official time, somehow my chip time and the gun time was identical, even though I crossed the start line long after the gun sounded.  No matter though, whatever time I ran was a PR since I had never run a 15K race before.

The Beach/Boardwalk as seen from my room.

The next weekend I was off to Virginia Beach for my second marathon.  Course: http://shamrockmarathon.com/assets/2012Shamrock/Maps/2012%20Marathon%20Map.pdf. I wasn't sure what to expect.  Between injury, illness and occasional bouts of laziness, I had horribly undertrained for this race.  I was excited to finally meet some of the other members of Running of the Ears, known as ROTErs.  Most of the other ROTErs were running the half.  The consensus was that because of the variety of schedules arriving in VA Beach, that a meet up before the race would be better.  I went to dinner the night before at Mannino's Italian Bistro (http://www.manninositalianbistro.com/ordereze/default.aspx).  It was a ways off the beach, but it is the best Italian food I can remember having.  Anyone going to VA Beach would be well served to try this place.  I went back to the room and stayed up too late watching Louisville beat New Mexico in the NCAA tournament; totally worth it though.  I got up early the next morning to watch the start of the half marathon and to search (in vain as it turned out) for some of the other ROTErs.  It occurred to me that, never having met them, looking for them in a crowd of over 15,000 people would be problematic.  I did recognize a few of them as they crossed the start line, though.  After the half went off, I made my way back toward the start line of the marathon.  I knew that there was one ROTEr that I felt confident I could find.  We were in the same corral and the number of marathoners was much smaller that the half marathon field.  Nonetheless, it took until only about 5 minutes remaining before the start of the race before I found Janice.  Her intended pace meshed well with my undertraining; also I wanted to have a race partner.  It turned out to be a good idea.  I was undertrained, and on antibiotics for a lingering case of bronchitis. Add to that the fact that my hips started bothering me about halfway through the race, and I'm not sure I could/should have gone any faster than I did.

We started out running until the field thinned out and, largely, left us behind.  Once we weren't getting in anyone's way, we started into intervals of 9 minutes walking with 1 minute running.  The first half of the course largely mirrors the course of the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon that is held each year during Labor Day weekend. We started at 33rd St and Atlantic Ave heading south. The first half contains the only significant bit of elevation, the bridge over the Rudee inlet. The course continues past the Virginia Aquarium, through Camp Pendleton (not the one in California) and then back onto the Boardwalk.  Leaving the Boardwalk, we returned to Atlantic Avenue at 22nd St. and headed north past the Half Marathon start, roughly the halfway point of the race.  The race ran up the Beach to Fort Story.  I was very much looking forward to reaching Fort Story.  My friend Tiffani, from my old high school church youth group is living at Fort Story. Tiffani said that she would be out watching the runners come through.  When I got there, I discovered that her kids had made me a sign. I have fans... who knew?  We stopped for a minute or so and then we were off again.  We left the Fort and headed south; back toward the finish.  Upon leaving the fort, we saw the first numbered street sign. There were only about 50 blocks remaining.  We ran through several groups of cheering volunteers as we neared the turnoff for the Boardwalk.  As we were just about to make the final turn, we saw several more ROTErs who had run the half waiting for us cheering.  We made the final turn and saw the finish line just beyond the Neptune statue.  We ran on and, for the first and only time all day, separated so that I could ensure that I PRd.  I finished about a minute ahead of Janice.  We both set new PRs.

 

A sign for me.  Almost makes me feel like a real runner.

Even though I was running only about 10% of the time, I still posted a better time than I did at the WDW marathon.  Part of that is due to some of the picture taking I did in Disney World.  However, I logged a much better time on the back half of this marathon that I did on the back half of Disney World; and I think that this is due, in no small part, to the intervals I ran.  In the coming weeks, I'm going to start experimenting a bit more with intervals as the group I'm hoping to run the Marine Corps Marathon with will be running 1 minute running, 1 minute walking intervals.

All in all, I enjoyed running in Virginia Beach.  There are stretches that are pretty boring; especially the stretch alongside a swamp on the backside of Fort Story. Most of the run was enjoyable; especially the parts near the water.  Once we got onto Fort Story, it turned out to be very pretty.  Fort Story, for all you history buffs out there, contains the site where the first English Settlers set foot in Virginia.  It also has two very picturesque lighthouses. 

The thing that was most enjoyable about it, though, was having a running partner.  I got to spend seven hours hanging out and progressing through a 26.2 mile course making a new friend; that's pretty cool.  Moreover, that's the kind of thing that running with a group like ROTE promotes.  VA Beach was my first race with other ROTErs and I could not be more excited to run with them again.  I'll get a chance to run with them in a number of other races this year including, Dover AFB Half, Baltimore Ten Miler and Half Marathon, Philly RnR Half, MCM, and of course the Disneyland Half and Walt Disney World Goofy.  I got to meet more ROTErs after the race.  ROTErs Megan, Jen and Lauren were waiting and cheering near the final turn.  They came and found us at the finish line after Janice and I completed our Marathons.  After we had time to clean up, we met for dinner at Baja Cantina on 23rd st (another spot that gets two thumbs up from me).  One of these days, I will get around to writing a post where I will wax poetic about the wonders of Running of the Ears.  For now, I'll just say that ROTE is a terrific site for those who enjoy running, love Disney, and want a place to meet and be encouraged by people with similar interests. We ate and hung out for about two and a half hours before we broke up and returned to our hotels and got ready to return to real life.

Fast forward a few days. I got back out on the track yesterday and ran a mile.  This may not sound like much, but this is much sooner than I usually return to running.  It's usually more like a full week between a half marathon and my next run.  It was two weeks between the WDW marathon and my next run.  I felt a bit sore but good overall.  I'm very hopeful I can keep fitness level up going forward. My next race is the Pike's Peek 10K in Rockville at the end of April with my next half marathon in June in Dover DE.  In between, I'll be squeezing in a trip to London and Rome.  Not sure how I'll squeeze in some running to stay on track, but it's a good problem to have.

One final postscript: In one of the most baffling ad campaigns I've ever seen, Pearl Izumi, a running gear company based out of Japan, has succeeded in ensuring that I will never buy anything bearing their name; even if I eventually work my way into their targeted demographic.  To see the ad that just came out check out fellow ROTEr Beth's blog: http://runningwithmickey.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/wow-just-wow/.  In short, Pearl Izumi is calling out marathoners that run a 7 hr marathon (a time that I'm just slightly below) as moseyers that are not giving the race their all.  Leaving aside the stupidity of alienating a demographic that is much larger than the elite marathoners who comprise a very small portion of each race's field, who are they to say that just because we are running at a slower pace than Boston qualifiers that we are not giving it our all.  I find this to be incredibly insulting both on my behalf, and on behalf of many runners who do give it their all to finish at six hours and above.  It is not easy to be on your feet for nearly seven hours; it took me until Tuesday to resume walking without me feet feeling sore.  I don't care for boycotts, as I generally don't like the idea of squelching speech in the marketplace of ideas.  However, in this case, Pearl Izumi has clearly stated that they do not want business from people like me.  I'm more than happy to take their hint.    

Oorah...

This will be a short post with getting ready to leave first thing tomorrow to head down to Florida.  I registered today for the Marine Corps Marathon.  I only worked a half day so that I could be at my computer when registration opened at 3:00 this afternoon.  After a six mile run, I got home about 2:30 and began waiting for registration to open.  As it turned out, registration opened about twelve minutes early.  I registered immediately so that I'd be sure to have a spot, for peace of mind.  However, I didn't think that it was too urgent since it took 28 hours last year for the race to sell out.  About three hours later, the MCM website posted that they had sold out, much to my stunned surprise.  I expect that in the coming years they are going to have to implement some sort of lottery or qualifying standard.  Good thing they haven't this year.

This weekend I'm off to Jacksonville, FL to visit family and run the Gate River Run on Saturday.  The River Run starts at the Gator Bowl stadium and continues 9.3 miles through downtown Jacksonville on both sides of the St. Johns River.  For those interested in seeing a course map: http://us.mapometer.com/running/route_1747006.html. The course finishes just beyond the bridge in the picture.  I hope have a race recap up sometime later in the weekend, though I may not have it up until I get back. 

Getting Better

Well, I didn't get all three runs in this past week; but I did get nearly 84% of my mileage done. I'll try again to get three runs in this week. This is my 20 mile week on Saturday. My 20 mile course starts at the Shady Grove Metro and goes down 355, with a quick jaunt into Rock Creek Park, to DC then over to Conn. Ave, and then along the Mall finishing just past the Capitol. The plan for the week is 32 miles; we'll see how close I get.

It seems like my 16 mile run last week got my head back on straight. Until I did that run, I was really lazy and in motivated. Now though, I find myself actually looking forward to running. Although with two races in the next three weeks, it could simply be that it's crunch time. In two weeks I'm heading to Jacksonville, FL to run the Gate River Run. Then, three weeks from yesterday is the Shamrock Marathon in VA Beach.

Another thing that has me increasingly excited for the year is my involvement with Running of the Ears. http://www.runningoftheears.com/. ROTE is a group of runners brought together, primarily, because of their love for Disney and Disney races. The group members come from all across the country with quite a few in the area, several of whom are running some of the same races I am. I'm very enthused about actually meeting and running with other ROTErs.

For a while, I've been looking for a way to properly display my race medals. I got tired of hanging them on nails. I found the medal hanger in the picture from Allied Medal Displays: http://www.medalhangers.com/. I love the hanger. My only problem is that, at the rate I'm going, I may run out of room early next year.

Not dead yet.

I'd meant to post again sooner, but after I posted last time I went out for a run in worn out shoes and blistered, which cost me half a week. (Note to self, always start training for a new marathon with new shoes.). After I got back on my feet, I proceeded to get sick which cost me a full week, including my long run last week.

I got back to running Thursday with a fairly lackluster 4 mile performance; still a bit under the weather. I followed that up with a 16 mile run yesterday from Shady Grove to the Zoo. This was the first run I completed since I started training for the Shamrock; no mean feat since my lungs spent most of the afternoon fighting me. It felt much the same as the Half I ran last October that I ran with bronchitis. It's exciting because there were several times I thought about stopping, but persevere allowed me to finish.

After nearly a month of setbacks I feel like I'm finally back on track. With Shamrock four weeks from today, it comes none too soon. This should be the week I finally get a full week of training done. I've only got four weeks left; I've got work to do.