Philly Marathon 2008

Sigh.... I wish onomatopoeias were more effective when written. Getting this marathon behind me has been an enormous weight off of my back and chest. Here is a bit of a race report from what I can put together from memory.

The weekend leading up to the marathon, my beautiful wife came down with a serious chest cold and was knocked out of commission for the entire weekend. I was extremely worried about getting the same chest cold. I ended up getting a bit of a head cold on Tuesday, but thankfully it didn't move into my chest. I was feeling almost 100% by Saturday so I figured I was good to go for the race the following day. I picked up my race packet and the walk through philly was bitterly cold.

The race day started uneventfully with some Multi-grain Cheerios and a banana. I got to the start line without any hiccups. The race started and the first mile went by pretty slow. It was flippin' cold out, but I had on a few layers and I warmed up within the first couple miles. My plan was to start the race slowly and eventually work up to my goal pace of between 8:15-8:30 per mile. The following graph should give you some idea how the race went:

As can be seen from the graph above, the race went pretty well for the first 18 miles of the race. I was right around target pace and I felt pretty strong. After 18, my legs started tightening up and the pain in my legs start building to a level where I started questioning whether I would break 4 hours. I made a deal with myself that I would run to mile 21 and start walking for a minute or two and then run until the next mile marker, a similar stategy I had employed during my first attempt at 26.2.

I was able to run to 21 and I was right around 3:00 hours. I quickly did the math and figured out that I could average around 12 min/mile for the remainder of the race and barely sneak in under 4 hours. I started my strategy at 21 and I was able bang out the last 5 miles around 10.5 min/mile pace and cross the finish line in 3:55:25. After I crossed the finish line, I stopped my watch, bent down, put my hands on my knees, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. 4-6 months of training behind me and I accomplished my goal.


After eating/drinking the world's sweetest recovery food (warm chicken broth with rice), I started on the long trek home. The walk to the car was cold and painful (i had a serious blister on my right foot) and the walk up and down the stairs of the parking garage was painful due to the soreness that had already set in on my legs. But a small price to pay for finally absolving myself of the 2005 NYC Marathon memory.

22 miler

Yesterday was my 22 mile run. Ay yay yay... that was a doozy. My legs started losing steam at around 17 miles and I felt like the last 5 miles were a death march. The first half of the run I think I was running 8:30s, but I definitely fell off that pace after mile 16 or 17.

I was extremely sore for the rest of the day and my legs are still aching like never before. I guess that means I am actually training above and beyond what I have done in the past, which is a good feeling. My left knee is still a bit sore after the run. I didn't tweak it or anything while I was running, but I think the pounding eventually got to it.

This run pretty much signifies the culmination of the ramp up for the marathon and it didn't give me the confidence that the marathon will go well. Hopefully, come marathon day, my legs will be a little better rested and I will be able to pull out those 8:30s for the first 20 miles and then get through the last 6 at around a 10:00 minute pace. That would put me at a 3:50 finish, which I would be quite happy with.

Total mileage for the week was just above 35.

20 miler

I completed my 20 miler yesterday morning. I certainly wasn't burning up the sidewalks, but I finished in about 3 hours... right at 9:00 pace. The weather was perfect again... low 40s when I started. My legs started tightening up around mile 17, but I was able to finish up. After I finished, my calves cramped up pretty seriously. I have never had muscle cramps after running, so I must be pushing my self near my limits or I haven't been eating well enough. Overall it was about 31 or 32 miles for the week. I would have liked to hit 35 but maybe 2 weeks from now when I do the 22 miler. Eesh... i do not look forward to that.

My knees feel pretty good today (one day after the run). Nothing notable about the run... no squirrel attack and no parade.

18 miler

This weekend was my scheduled 18 miler. It was gorgeous Saturday when I woke up, 50 degrees and slightly overcast. My longest run up until this point was a 16.4 mile death march before PDR in hot and extremely humid weather. I blamed that miserable performance on the weather, so I had high hopes for this morning.

The run was a completely different story from that run 3 or 4 weeks ago. I wasn't running at a blistering pace (around 9 minute miles the entire run), but I wasn't overheating and I wasn't progressively slowing down. I made it to the turn around with out many problems other than some aching in my knees. I have a feeling the aching is due to the age/mileage on my shoes, so I purchased a new pair. I didn't want to break them in today, but they should be ready by next long run. The last couple miles of the run were a bit of a struggle, as my legs started burning something fierce (similar to the PDR sensation), but I was able to finish up with enough gas to make it up the final hill near my house.

All told, the run ended up being 18.2 miles in around 2:45. Not quite the pace I was hoping for the marathon, but I will take it. Ohh and I got attacked by a squirrel on the return part of the run. I was running near some bushes and a squirrel lept out in between my legs and tried to trip me. Thankfully he didn't claw or bite me, but we both left uninjured from what I could tell. And for those wondering if squirrel fur is as soft and fuzzy as it looks... it definitely is.

To blog or not to blog

It has been another 5 months or so since my last blog. I have long considered shutting down the blog, because an unmaintained blog is worse than no blog, in my opinion. However, I have never given up hope that I will actually return to consistently blogging, but it seems I just never make it a priority.

A quick summary of the races in the past 5 months.

Broad Street - 1:10:31 - I was pretty happy with this race, even though i was 2 minutes off my PR. I was nowhere near the shape I was in when I PR'ed so I was pleasantly surprised by my performance.

Run for your life 5k (september 9, 2008) - 20:54 - This 5k is run through Great Valley Corporate Center and is one of the hilliest races I have run (other than the pretzel city sports races). I was pretty pleased with my time for this race and I think it will set me up for a sub-20:00 5k on a flat course. I don't think I will be running any 5k's for at least a couple months, but maybe the reindeer romp in december.

PDR - 1:51:who cares - This race was probably the worst race I have ever run ... including my 4:45 marathon. The race fell in the middle of a week long bathroom remodel, so I wasn't very well rested for the race. I had been training fairly consistently and had peaked in the low 30's for mileage/week (which is pretty good for me), so I figured I would be able to get a reasonable time for race, regardless of how well I was rested. I was definitely wrong. After the first mile or two (near my goal pace of 7:15-7:30ish), my legs were burning and I considered dropping out of the race near the art museum. I decided at the 5 mile mark that I would treat the race as a training run and finish no matter what the time. The last 8 miles of the race were pretty much me stumbling towards the finish. I am not sure if it was the lack of rest or the lack of significant speedwork that doomed the race, but after a week of sparse running, I think I have finally progressed to the acceptance part of my grieving.

I am running the philly marathon in a little under 8 weeks and my training is going pretty close to plan. Before the PDR, my training peaked with a 16.4 mile run and I hope to return to long runs this weekend with an 18 miler. If everything goes perfectly, my goal for the race is anything under 3:40, but I would be pretty happy with under 4 hours. Based on my long training run paces, I think the 3:40 is reasonable... but who knows what my body will do when I hit the 20 mile mark.

Pre-BSR Jitters

I stopped playing soccer sometime in March (the team I was playing on disbanded for the time being) and my ankles and knees haven't felt better since I started playing again. I should probably take this as a sign that maybe soccer isn't my sport anymore, but I love the competition and it is nice to get back into something I have missed for almost 10 years. Even though my ankles would probably regret it, if the team gets back together, I plan on joining up. Sorry to everyone that will hear my complaints about soccer injury after soccer injury, but I can't keep away.

The Broad Street Run is coming up tomorrow and I am quite nervous. It has been since last September since I have raced (and pretty much that long since I have blogged) and I am quite apprehensive because I am not where I would like to be with my training. I am never where I would like to be with my training, so I should be used to the feeling. My goal for tomorrow is to break 70:00 and hopefully have a fairly evenly paced race. If I can accomplish this, it will be a good start to a few other summer races, 10k in chalfont and possibly a couple of the West Chester XC series 5ks.

I have been entertaining the thought of making another attempt at a marathon this fall. I am considering philly because it is no traveling, reasonably flat, and hopefully comfortably cool. NYC was fun and it would be nice to go out there and take it on again, but maybe I will take the easy road. No matter where I am going to run it, I will definitely have to commit to it within the next month. I will not half-ass my way through another marathon (one was hard enough for my fragile ego to take), so I want to give my self plenty of time to increase mileage so I don't risk injury. eek... marathons scare me...

My Kryptonite

Not to compare myself to superman (and in the running sense I am very far from superman), but my ankles are my kryptonite. Last week, I resprained my left ankle during a soccer game. This rash of ankle injuries is beginning to show me (no matter how resistant I am to accepting the fact) that i can't do everything I want at the intensity that I want. I can play soccer, but I should also expect that I am likely to get injured and my training for running is likely to be interrupted. At a minimum, I need to learn my physical limits and train/play inside of those. I am so ridiculously competitive that once a game starts or a race starts, it is hard for me to not compete as hard as I can.

I decided after this last ankle injury that I will continue to play soccer, but will wear an ankle brace while playing. It limited my range of motion, but I didn't roll my ankle, so that is a start. I have also returned to the road for some limited mileage. I have been running without the brace without pain, so that has been encouraging. Eventually, I hope to get back on the trail again to break up the monotony of the road.

My Run for Life 5k 2007

Last night I ran the Run for Life 5k in the Great Valley Corporate Center. This year was the 3rd annual running of the race individuals from our company. The first year our team placed 3rd, the second year we didn't have enough people for a team, and this year we set a record with the number of people running on our team (5... woo hoo!!).

As is probably apparent from my blog or lack there of, I haven't been training as consistently as I would like. I still have some lingering soreness from my ankle injury over two months ago. It may have been a better idea to take a month or two off of running to let the ankle heal up completely, and then get back into it. Who knows... maybe next injury I will take that tactic. but anyway, back to the race...

The course is quite hilly and I didn't expect any PRs out of my legs. The first two miles of the course are mostly downhill so I told one of my co-workers I would run the first mile at 6:15 with him and then ease off the pace and see what happens for the remainder of the race. The first mile came and went with a 6:13, followed by the second at 6:37... then the hills began. I slowed to a snail's pace and I believe the third mile was just under 8:00 pace. I was running in no-man's land for most of the race, so there isn't much to report. I finished with a time of around 21:13 (not official yet) and got around 26th place of around 230 people. For this course, I am pretty happy with the result. All the members of our team placed extremely well, everybody under 23 minutes, which was great. Sadly it wasn't quite fast enough for the team awards. We lost out again to the likes of Centocor, Vanguard, and Community Volunteers in Medicine (the recipient of the fund raising money). I am not sure of our team place, but we probably placed 4th or 5th.

Hopefully this race will lead into a great fall training season culminating with two successful races. The first is the 10k bridge run where I PR'ed last year with 42:11 and the second is a 5k to be determined (possibly the reindeer romp). My goal for the 10k is anything under 42:00 and the 5k is to break the seemingly unbreakable 20 minute plateau. I didn't get the 20 minute 5k this summer, but i think there is a chance by year's end.

My 2 Week Hiatus

About 2 weeks ago, I tweaked my ankle playing soccer. It wasn't anything serious, I just caught a ball on my toe and it twisted my ankle. I was able to play through it, but have had soreness in my ankle ever since. It seems to be improving every day (except the day i "had" to play soccer because it was the final game of the season), so I believe this week I should be able to make it back to running regularly. Soccer is also on hiatus until september sometime, so that also should give me more time to focus on my running. I have a feeling my 5k goal may be long gone, but who knows, maybe I will put together a good streak!

Tomorrow, Kristin is starting a new contract job working for a big law firm in philly!! Way to go Kristin!! We were planning on doing a dry run of the commute today (and probably grab some food in the city), but SEPTA has closed down the El from 69th to 40th street for the weekend so we would have to take a bus around that part. It kind of defeats the purpose of a dry run seeing as how it will be completely different tomorrow, so we may figure out something else. Anyway... good luck tomorrow Kristin, you are going to do great.

My Soccer

The last few months I have been playing indoor and outdoor soccer typically once a week, but twice a week for the last couple weeks. I played soccer for probably 8 years when I was a kid, and I had not played for probably 10 years. It has been great getting back into and I am finally getting some ball skills back and feeling a little more confident out there.

I am always shocked by how bad of shape I am in when I try to do any other activity other than running. When I first started playing soccer, my legs and torso were sore for probably a week. it is amazing how your body adapts to whatever you typically do and sorta atrophies for everything else. I still get sore every week, but certainly a lot less. Soccer has also been cutting into my running time because of the time committment and the soreness. Long-term, it is probably better to mix up my activities. I was able to get my weekend 10 miler in today and it felt great getting on the road. It was probably 70 degrees and beautiful when i was running this morning. I was definitely not burning up the road out there, but a nice leisurely run.

I may not make too much progress towards my 20 min 5k until after the twice-a-week season is over, but who knows, maybe soccer will help my speed on the road.

My WC 5k #1

There is a summer 5k Series put on by the Chester County Running Store and the WC girls cross-country team. I have had a long term goal of breaking 20 minutes in a 5k, but haven't had a good 5k since April 2005, when I got a 20:24 at the clean air 5k. There are no marathons coming up for me this fall, so I am hoping this is the summer that 20 minutes falls. There are 7 races in the series, so I am hoping by number 7, i am a sub 20 5k-er.

There was some serious rain in the late afternoon, so I figured that the course would be a mess. But a quick warm-up before the race calmed those fears, because all the trails seemed quite runnable. Before the race, I learned from chatting with folks who had run the course before that the course was pretty hilly, which made me skeptical of this being the course to break 20 minutes. The race was maybe 80-100 people but people took the start pretty seriously. The course ended up being not as hilly as I expected, some rolling hills, but nothing ridiculous, and I felt pretty well paced the entire race. About halfway through my lungs started tightening up, which made me think back to my asthma attacks during soccer as a kid, but no attack every came. I missed all the mile markers, so I don't have any concrete results that I ran an even race, but it felt like I did, but I only passed/got passed by a couple people.

Overall, I finished in a somewhat disappointing 21:15 or so. Cutting 1:16 off a 5k time in two months may be a tough, but we will see. If I stick to my plan of intervals once a week, I think it can be done.

My Autism 10k

This past weekend I ran a 10k up in Chalfont, PA. The race was tiny (probably only about 60 people). One of the guys I work with was running it so i decided to as well. The day ended up being a warm and humid one. Nothing too exciting to report about the race. I started off way too fast with the first mile clocking in somewhere around 6:15. The 2nd through 4th miles went by without any hitches around my goal pace of 6:45. The fifth mile felt like a death march and I think the heat and humidity were getting to me. I was able to pick it up for the last 1.2 miles and finished up around 42:15 which is only a few seconds off of my PR, which is 42:11 at the Ben Franklin Bridge 10k. The great part of the race was that I won my age group and got a $10 gift certificate to dunkin donuts. The first edible prize I have ever won. sweet...

the other day I was reading an article about the government giving subsidies to companies that are refining coal into a liquid form that can be a replacement for foreign oil. While I am all for relieving our dependence on foreign oil, I guess I always hoped we could get away from producing greenhouse gases at the same time. I am not an expert on alternate fuel sources and I won't claim to be, but the interesting thing about the article was reading peoples responses to the article. There were a ton of people who said things like, "Global warming hasn't even been proven to be man made". Whether global warming is man made or not, it seems clear that global climate change my have catastrophic consequences... so no matter the reason for it, we should fight it as much as possible. Even if it is not man-made, wouldn't it be nice if we could reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and slow the process? seems logical...

My Caesar Rodney 2007

Today was the Caesar Rodney half marathon in Wilmington, DE. For those that don't know, it starts in downtown Wilmington, somehow winds up and down all hills in Delaware, and then ends up essentially back where you started. This is my 3rd year running Caesar Rodney. My first year I ran my best half marathon to date (1:37:37), but last year, as with many of my races last year, was about 8 minutes slower. My training has been pretty consistent, but consistently low mileage (in the low 20s per week), but I have been getting in some sort of interval work (either 800s or miles) every other week. I had quite mixed feelings going into the race this morning... confident because I had done more interval work in the last six months than I have in my life, but quite nervous because of the worries that my mileage hasn't been high enough.

I didn't get much sleep because we needed to go out for some well-deserved celebrating Saturday night and the Bush consipiracy against all democrats (i.e., moving up daylight savings time... actually it is in the name of saving energy, so I can't fault him for trying, though I would like to... and I think I heard on NPR that the amount energy expended to update software around the US for the new daylight savings time may offset the savings... either way, i hope it saves a little), but I did grab a quick nap saturday afternoon so I figured I would be fine. I got out the door to the race without any problems, but I was still a bit nervous for the race.

When I got to Wilmington, I met up with a bunch of Philly Runners and tried to find a few people to run with. Alex G and Steve G were around my pace so the plan was to run the first few miles with them and then reasses and adjust pace from there. In the past couple years, I have always started off way to fast and then died at the end so my goal was to start at around 7:25 miles and work my way down from there. After the cannon went off to signal the start, the first miles flew by in just over 7:00 min/mile pace. I was concerned because I had a feeling I knew where this story would end, but sadly I forged ahead. At some point Steve G. left us for a quicker pace. Miles 4-8 are quite hilly and my pace dropped down to about 7:35 through the hills. Alex and I split up around mile 5 and I embarked on the last 8 miles alone. I eventually caught back up to Steve G (maybe around mile 8) and started seeing some of the other faster PRs (the course doubles back on itself) flying by.

From 9 to 12 the course is mostly down the hills we just climbed and I knew I would pick up some time there. The downhills were pretty tough on my shins and I my feet felt quite heavy pounding into the pavement. After mile 12 I knew I was going to get a personal record (PR), but was too scared to look at my watch to actually figure out how my overall time was shaping up. It seemed easier to just monitor each mile and keep it at the right pace, which at this point of the race was around 7:10, than to look at the big picture of an overall time. I turned the final corner and climbed a hill that seemed like a 100% grade and a million miles long. I finally crossed the finish line in around 1:35:21 (not official), which is about a 2 minute PR. The team I was running on, The Electronic Karate Blitzkrieg Of Destruction (TEKBOD for short) came in first and I got a blinking medal. Quite blingy. I will probably wear it around to complement my Heelys.

So I finally beat a time from about 2 years ago. My half marathon PR had been looming over my head for 4 races and it is quite a relief to finally break it. It feels good to be back to where I was in 2005 and a PR at Broad Street would be icing on my running the past 6 months (10k PR, Half marathon PR, and 10 mile PR??).

I wanted also to announce congratulations to Kristin for finishing the bar exam. I saw her studying everyday for 2 or 3 months on top of working full time. For maintaining her sanity, she deserves a medal... perhaps she can have the flashy bling I received today. Anyway... congrats Kristin, I am so proud of you!!

My three months

Apparently blogging has become a quarterly event for me. I think during my last blog, I was about a month into classes. Classes this quarter turned out to be a ridiculous time commitment. For my first time since starting my masters, i took two night classes. I wanted to power through the last year of class and finish by this march. Sadly, it turned out that both classes had fairly time-intensive projects, so I was spending nearly every night after work and every weekend day working on my projects. The good news is that I passed both classes and only have one quarter with a single class left!! I have been working on this part time for about 4.5 years, so this is going to be a pretty big relief when it is done.

Also this past quarter was Kristin's last quarter of law school and she presumably has graduated (the professor have something like 4 decades to post final grades). Congrats Kristin! And, she has started a new job full-time, so congratulations again!! The bar is looming in her future though, so there hasn't been much time for celebration. but we found time to squeeze a little celebrating in...

So much to talk about...My car has been progressively burning more oil on startup, so I finally did something about it today. With much help from vince, we were able to change all the valve stem seals which I am hoping will stop the oil burning. It was a pretty crazy procedure cuz I had both my cams out sitting on the bench and basically all parts of the head off without removing the head. Things seem to be running well, but I won't know for sure until I start it on a cold morning, because that is when it was smoking most. We did adjust the valves and it got rid of some of the tapping in the valvetrain, so that was good. ohh and it still runs.

What else... ohh yes... running. lots to talk about here as well. i ran the ben franklin 10k a couple months ago, and I got a pretty big PR. I checked and my last 10k PR was a measly 44:41, but this time I got a 42:11. I felt pretty good the whole race. I think I went through the first 2 or so miles with Steve G. from philly runners and then he took off from there. No miles I ran were over 7, so I was quite happy with the race. My mileage the past couple months has been down (probably 15-20 a week), but I have been getting some quality intervals in. I have been running 800s and 1600s with a guy from work over lunch at a nearby park. I think they have been helping my speed a bith, because I have been comfortably able to run sub 8:00 for some longer distances (i think i did an 8 this week at a fairly comfortable 7:50) so that has been encouraging. I at least plan on doing the ugly mudder at the end of february and the Caesar Rodney half in march, so I need to start upping the mileage. I can't be petering out at mile 10 again in this caesar rodney. A PR is a must.

One other development on the running front... New Balance stopped making my shoe, the 1221, or at least updated it, so I tried on a couple other pairs of shoes and just went with the upgraded model, the 1222. Apparently one of the upgrades they made was to make them blister little toes on the outside. I have been wearing some normal cotton socks, so I may try the thin, smoother running-type socks tomorrow. See how that goes. Also, I logged into the cool running website and tried their running log. It seemed allright, but apparently they are so concerned about your informations privacy that they just delete all your information for the next time you try to log in. doesn't seem like much of a log if it actually doesn't keep a log of anything. similar to seinfeld's problem with rental car agencies who are extremely good at taking reservations, but aren't as good at holding them.