Week 3 - Sore and tired to start the week

So no posts over the weekend because we were in Montreal visiting the family for a quick visit and it was crazy busy. At least I still managed to get in my long run for the week, a super hilly 12 mile run over the mountain.

Even though the weather was great, the ground was still frozen over on the mountain from an earlier snow storm, which made it slow going there. Once I finished the hilly section though, I really crushed the back half of the run, going way faster than I had intended. Along the run I ran into one of my best friends and his girlfriend, which made for a nice minute rest. Other than that no issues with no Gu or water, although my shoulder did feel like it was burning 2 or 3 times.

The rest of the weekend was pleasant seeing friends and family and before we knew it we were driving back to Boston. Sad to leave Montreal and my family but the show must go on.

Today, was a half day at work and it was pretty much empty there with the only other person there being Xiang. Mike made a brief appearance but it couldn't have lasted more than 30 seconds. The big boss was there and we chatted a bit, I set up some stuff for tomorrow and then headed home to do my run for the day before picking up the wife from work.

My legs were still sore from Saturday's run and I really didn't feel like going out even though it was a pretty decent day. Finally managed to get out there and labored to one of my slowest runs in ages considering it was only 5 miles.

I really need to start getting off my ass and fundraising, even more than I need to be getting off my ass to run.

That's all for me tonight. At least tomorrow is track tuesday!!! 

Christmas day: 12 celsius - Is it really Christmas?

After a night of Chinese food and watching the first episode of House of Saddam on amazon instant video, I was definitely ready to relax as much as possible all day. All I had to do was spin down some bacterial cultures at work and do a 6-7 mile run. Easy, right?

After finally managing to sleep past 7:30am for once, we woke up to a facetime call from my sister to see my nephew! He is growing so fast and I am looking forward to seeing him this weekend!

Pretty much loafed around for a few hours and then headed to lab to spin down the bacteria. Managed to dump some $ on clothes from Banana Republic while waiting for the centrifuge to finish and then headed to pick up movie tickets for the wife!

When I got home, the movie Serendipity was starting and I am a total sap and love it (and pretty much all chick flicks). Luckily after 50 minutes of watching it, I pulled myself off my ass to get out to run before the sun went down. Little did I realize despite my mom's warning, it was seriously windy in Boston. Like crazy windy.....
Anyways, managed to stay on track with the advanced training program from DFMC and completed the run, just a bit slower than my usual runs.

I did manage to run into Marius, Jess' father, on my run. Pretty random and coincidental since Jess' mom's passing from ovarian cancer this past year is one of the major reasons for me deciding to run with Dana-Farber this year. It was nice to see him. Even though I personally haven't been struck by cancer in my family, it was hard to see my friend go through the pain of this horrible illness. Hopefully through my research at Dana-Farber and the money I raise towards the Barr fund, we can get a bit closer to developing treatments and/or cures for many of the different cancers we face today.

A bit of a somber post for Christmas but serendipity got in the way. ;-)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Almost finished week 2 of training!!!!

http://www.runDFMC.org/2015/runningresearcher

Christmas eve traditions

So first time posting in a few days but finally with Christmas eve upon us I finally have some time.
It has been a busy few days since my last post.

Saturday was the first DFMC group run. It was out in Wellesley with 5 miles of the Boston marathon course from mile 15 through 20. It was a beautiful course but SUPER hilly. I can see how a marathon runner would get destroyed at this point in the course during the race. Even though the turnout for the run was about 90-100 runners, it was a lonely run for me finishing at least 10 minutes before anyone else who did the 10.5 miles on the course. It was great to have the volunteers out on the course and
see people on the way back. Jason from my usual run club, even saw me on the course and gave me a shout out, which gave me an extra boost. Met a bunch of cool people though and will continue going to the group runs even if it is a bit lonely.
The rest of the day was super busy with guests from out of town, work, and dinner with friends. Needless to say, I was toast after dinner and went to sleep pretty early.

Sunday wasn't much more relaxing with heading in to work at Dana-Farber, an elliptical workout since I took Friday off, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, laundry and house cleaning. Honestly though 1 week into training and so far so good. I am faster than I thought I would be at this point and I feel great even though I have upped my mileage per week significantly in the last while.

Monday was a regular work day except for realizing that I basically messed up a bunch of my work the past few weeks and had to junk everything, which means that I won't have that much to do over the holiday break since Harvard is closed over the break and will get to take a little bit of a rest. My run was pretty decent even though it was raining.

Tuesday was a quiet work day. I went out to Bedford with Dr. Kruse to see if my protein had actually crystallized and unfortunately it turned out to be salt - so back to the drawing board but I won't lose hope yet. The company in Bedford was pretty ridiculous not exactly representing themselves well. If they were trying to sell an instrument to us, they sure weren't trying hard.
Anyways - Tuesdays is always track and even though everyone told me they weren't coming to run club, I headed out to the McGrady track at Harvard even though it was raining pretty good.
I decided to run 6 x 800m all alone. 3.5 x 800m in, Dan showed up which was a pleasant surprise as I didn't have to run alone anymore. It also meant I had to restart the workout, which was tiring but pleasant to have the company. We pushed the last few pretty hard, and got to a sub 3 min 800m for the last one, slower than usual but great considering the super rainy and windy conditions.

Today was another off day for running with elliptical instead. Work was short as I was the only one there, since everyone else was off for the holidays. I left my ID at home which made it quite the hassle to get security to let me in but after 20 minutes of negotiation, they let me. It was a short day for me too and I headed home to hang out with my beautiful wife. We joined some friends and had some classic MSG filled Chinese food for dinner, a Jewish Christmas tradition. It was pretty decent by Boston standards, which admittedly are pretty low for Chinese food.

Well now you are caught up with my boring but busy life.
I haven't been doing anything fundraising wise, so I am going to need to pick that up big time in the new year. Any ideas for fundraising would be greatly appreciated!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Day 4: Is it April 20th yet?

So yesterday I didn't post because Shirley and I were pretty busy and we tried to go to this Hanukkah event at the Museum of Fine Arts hosted by CJP. Well that was a few hours of our life that we will never ever get back. I would criticize it some more but I was always told not to beat a dead horse. I managed to get in 40 minutes on our elliptical trainer before bed, which was super difficult because I was so tired from being up to 2:30am the night before finishing my lab meeting. At least I got it done and stayed on track.

Today was a quieter day at work, mostly because a technician in the adjacent lab contaminated all our insect cells but things still look up for my project so I am pretty motivated scientifically now. Everyone is in pretty good spirits with the holidays coming and people seem to be wrapping up for the year.

Anyways, I left work and ran over to Crossroads for the Thursday night run with other Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge runners. I ran a solid 7+ miles with Tim and Steve and together with my run there, ended up at about 9 miles for the night. My left arch hurt a little during the run but that was probably partially due to the shoes still being new, at least I hope that is why! I definitely have increased my mileage relatively significantly since November, so I hope this isn't my body kicking back for basically running 20km a month, June through September!

Because Shirley and I never take a break, we delivered some Hanukkah goodies to some of our friends and then went shopping to get Christmas gifts for her work and boss. I never had much of a chance to stretch/eat post-run and I am so tired and sore already. Apparently I was a little spaced out too as I freaked out that I missed my friend's birthday that I texted her frantically. She called me old. I guess it is true that I am old now that I am 30 and will be 31 before Marathon Monday.

Thankfully tomorrow is another elliptical day meaning little to no impact and we have David's 35th birthday party which should be fun! Also, I have to proctor my exam at NECO tomorrow ~ so it should be another relatively short lab day! Yay!

Check in tomorrow for another boring recount of my day! It is hard to be funny without being that offensive. So I will leave you with what I thought was the funniest card in CVS. Hopefully I don't get sued...

Happy Hanukkah And Track Tuesdays!

Today was actually pretty easy to get out for a run because it was Tuesday, which obviously means run club at Harvard Stadium with my run club TMRICE. 

Pretty good turn out because of the great weather and powered through 3 x 400m/1200m but Irish Chris was just too fast for me tonight as he usually is!

Had to leave quickly to get to a lovely Hanukkah event hosted by Dan and Bea. Unfortunately, since I got there late, I missed most of the partae but still nice to finally see people after so long! Jess said that I need to advertise this blog otherwise it is just a diary. Not that there is anything wrong with that?

Now I am working on my lab meeting for tomorrow, like an idiot, and hoping to get to bed before 3am tonight. Why do I always leave it until the last minute? At least I am excited about what I am working on right now. That only took over 2.5 years!

So back to making my lab meeting ~ Happy Hanukkak y'all!

A demain!

First post of many....First day of training!

So new to this blogging game but in order to stay motivated throughout the winter while I train for the Boston Marathon, I am going to try to write about it and have the added pressure of the maybe one reader I have checking in to make sure I ran that day. Hope I won't disappoint!

Today was the first day of the 18 week training program I am doing for the Boston Marathon. I am following the "advanced" program as the intermediate and beginner programs seem a little too easy. Honestly, I am not really THAT worried about running the marathon, although it will be pretty hard to train through January and February. I am worried about not having my usual marathon implosion where I have a total meltdown. Given Boston's course, it sets up for a classic Zimmy special.

What I am definitely super nervous about is raising money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Not that it isn't a great cause but there are so many amazing causes out there it is hard to motivate people to donate - or so I think. It is my first time raising money for charity. I chose to raise money for Dana-Farber and the Barr fund because I have dedicated the last 2.75 years of my life working there towards a treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia and I know what a quality institution Dana-Farber is.

Anyways - tonight even with a tight schedule between work and Hanukkah planning - I managed to get out and do a pretty fast 5.25 miles. You can check it out here on my garmin connect:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/651676017

Anyways - my lovely wife wants me to spend some quality time with her finally so I will end here.
Over the next few weeks I hope to explain why I am raising money specifically for Dana-Farber (and Ovarian cancer) instead of the many other wonderful charities for the Boston Marathon.

Here is my fundraising link in case you wanted to :D
http://www.runDFMC.org/2015/runningresearcher

Track Tuesday tomorrow!