8 Weeks to go!

Haven't written anything in a while pretty much because my schedule has sucked and been spending a lot of time still shoveling out our property. We got a notice of violation from the Brookline PD for our sidewalk, so 3 hours of Friday was that. Hopefully though, I won't have to talk about snow anymore and we are past the worst of winter with only 1 week of February left.

With the busy week I had made some changes to my schedule and didn't find time to do any crosstraining on Wednesday (yearly condo association meeting instead - could write a whole blog on this) or Friday (3 hours of shoveling), so I felt really fresh for my long run on Saturday. That said, on both my Tuesday and Thursday runs I felt the development of potentially my first injury in training this season where the region between my calf and ankle were got very sore and was causing me to limp. It was still a bit sore Saturday morning but I had stretched it out a long and used the "rumble roller" a torturous foam roller to massage the region. After dropping off the wife at work, I raced home to get out to the DFMC training run of the week, I ended up being late but I felt so good that I blazed by everyone within the first 0.5 mile. I kept hoping that Steve, the other DFMC runner with a similar pace to me would be there, but I never found him (because he wasn't there). Anyways, long story short I did the Newton Hills twice plus the distance to and from my home that brought me to 20 miles. It also was the best run, I've had in a while, possibly ever. I felt great and was cruising at a pace ~6:50min/mi or 4:14min/km for the entire run. It was as if the up and down hills weren't even there. Shout outs to Andrew Scholte and Chris Montgomery who I saw out there on the course from TMRICE. Thumbs down to Jill Conway and Jason Rossman who were nowhere to be seen ;-).

I really owe a lot of thanks to the DFMC volunteers for being out there on the course and for the water to wash down the 3 Gu I took. They are so friendly and a pleasure to talk to and really put a difference perspective on the run. They are so appreciative of the runner's raising money for Cancer Research as they have all been touched by cancer in some way. They and their stories are really inspiring to keep on pushing.

It also happens to be National Margarita day tomorrow, so the 1st water stop was set up in that theme, which was totally amazing. In that spirit, I took a shot of spirits at the water stop on my 2nd trip and had a shot of tequila to wash down my Gu. Probably not a good idea but it was fun and it didn't seem to affect the end of my run at all!

The amazing volunteers at water stop #1

I wish today had been Marathon Monday but I still got 8 more weeks of training to make sure I am going to crush this marathon. As much as I hope to do the marathon in under 3 hours, my real goal is just to be able to actually feel good and enjoy the marathon, which has only happened once in my previous 5 attempts. At this point, things seem to be going well but a lot can change it 8 weeks. Hopefully it doesn't!

March madness is coming up and I hope a bunch of you will be willing to play in my march madness pool where 50% of the pot will go towards my fundraising goal. If interested, please contact me - you don't need to know anything about College basketball! It is just a lot of fun and often people who know nothing win these things, since they are so hard to predict. There will be prizes for last place, the first place leader after round 1, and the overall winner! If you don't want to play and just would like to donate, please click here.

Thanks for reading!

Week 6-8 recap and reason number 2 - you probably don't want to run a marathon

It's been a busy week and I haven't had a recap of progress over the past few. As I am sure many of you know, or are experiencing first hand if you live in northeast US, snow has taken over with little evidence it is ready to give up it's iron grip of power. And while I was cocky last Saturday, the snow finally did me in this week. I managed only 1 run and 4.5 miles so far this week (tomorrow will be outside for the long run) and instead replaced Monday and Thursday's runs with sad depressing elliptical trainer workouts. At least I'm able to stream movies on the iPad via amazon instant video with feature titles this week of The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman (not worth watching) and Pain and Gain featuing Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnston (slightly better and apparently a true story). I may have to cave next week and go to a gym for treadmill workout, especially with projected snowfalls on Sunday and Monday.

Very inspiration through 8.5 miles on the elliptical

Other than the snow, I can't complain much. I have been a little tired since donating blood last week but that could also be because I haven't taken a day off from cardio in almost 2 weeks.

This past Sunday was the Super Sunday 5 mile race and TMIRCE despite a solid effort and two ringers, we got our asses handed to us finishing in 6th place as a team, a whopping 1 hour behind first place. On a personal note, I finished in 32 minutes, 1 minute slower than last year. I can't say I am too disappointed with the finish, as it was probably about 15 degrees (celsius) colder this year and I had run 13 miles the day before. It was just fun to get out there and run all out for 5 miles. The New Bedford half marathon in March will be a much better test for how successful my training has been.

So, as I promised, another horrible reason you don't want to run marathons/train for marathons. Unlike the first reason, nipple bleeding, I have personally experience this second one, toe nail destruction. Luckily for everyone, I never kept a documentation of the toe damage I personally have experienced but am happy to say that my toes have healed (they don't always). So what kind of toe damage am I talking about? Well it usually involves some form of bleeding either caused by your toe nails cracking or a blister that is really, really bad. The worst kind of blisters are when they occur underneath your toe nail (how does that even happen???) causing your nail to lift and eventually fall off. So while I have had many toe damaging events, the worst one happened in the Jacksonville marathon, where my feet and toes were already sensitive due to running the Baystate marathon just 2 months earlier.

Jacksonville was supposed to be a good BQ (boston qualifier) location with a flat, scenic course and cool temps. It was flat and scenic but unfortunately for Dan and myself, it was far from cool. The temperature peaked at ~87F, making it extremely uncomfortable, especially after months of training in temperatures in the 30s/40s. Anyways, the heat also causes your foot to get a little sweatier than normal and meant that my feet were sliding more in my shoes than usual. After a lovely, 23 miles/37km, I heard and felt two almost simultaneous cracks, which happened to be the nail on both my big toes. Needless to say this was largely the end of my running that day as I struggled to a 3:16 marathon (slowest since my first). I am not sure I would have even finished in 3:16 if not for the motivation by another runner (who is also running Boston this year), Penny. It took almost 4 months to totally recover from the carnage, just in time for the Ottawa marathon :-)

So what was the lesson I learned in Jacksonville from snapping my toe nails?

Never run a Florida marathon. :-)

Thank you to Izabela for her generous donation! Just over 2800 to go to reach the minimum.


Below is a recap of the past 3 week. Just over 10 weeks to the marathon!

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
Week 6 Scheduled	5-6	7-8	Cross train	7-8	Cross train	16-18	OFF	35-40
Week 6 Actual	1.2	5.25	46min elliptical	12.6	35min elliptical	18	Stretch	37.1
Week 7 Scheduled	4-5	6-8	Cross train	8-9	Cross train	12-14	OFF	30-35
Week 7 Actual	43min elliptical	6	56min elliptical	9	40min elliptical	13	5mi race	33
Week 8 Scheduled	5-6	7-8	Cross train	8-9	Cross train	16-18	OFF	36-41
Week 8 Actual	40min elliptical	4.5 track	37min elliptical	63min elliptical	30min elliptical	18 projected	Much needed OFF