Exceeded Expectations

It is Sunday at 5:20am and I am up the earliest I have been for a workout this year. I think I am getting my act together. My friend Rob and I are supposed to ride up to Rockland Lake, but I think I am going to convince him to stay in Prospect Park. I don’t relish do a 70 mile ride on a 3.4 mile loop but I have my reasons. They are: I am coming down with a cold, I am not sure how far I am going to be able to go and I don’t want to get stuck out in the middle of no where, and lastly, I want to be home early.

While I am out riding my wife is planning on taking my kids to their grandparents’ house. However, my son asked me last night to take him to the park so we could practice baseball all day. He wants to be better than Derek Jeter. I just can’t turn down that request. We spent over 5 hours in the park yesterday practicing baseball and he wants to do so again today. Spending quality time with my children like that trumps any desire I have to go out for a long ride on my bike.

When I spoke to Rob before heading out for the ride, he agreed that we should stay in the park. The sky was heavily overcast and the sky looked to threaten rain at any minute. We started out on our ride slowly. Truth is, I was slow and Rob was riding to my pace. I struggled on this ride just about from the start. My longest ride for the year has only been 24 miles and I would have been happy to get in 40 for the day. It is scary how out of shape I’ve become. Just last year I was whipping around the park in under 10 minute loops. Now it was a struggle just to break 11 minutes. Rob was a good sport about my sluggish pace and stayed with me throughout the ride. Occasionally, e would get ahead, but would slow down at some point to let me catch him. I somehow rode with him 60 miles which was more than enough for the day. The distance completely exceeded my expectations.

Before I left for the ride, I told my wife that I would be home early so not to take the kids to her parents while she went to work. So after the ride, I went home to quickly eat, shower and dress. I then took my kids out on our bikes to the baseball fields where we had batting practice for several hours. My daughter fielded the balls while my son practiced hitting. Baseball practice was finally over after my kids discovered that they can stick a plastic water bottle over a water fountain spigot to make it shoot up into the air. They did this for about 20 minutes, until they were soaking wet and cold. We went home to have snacks and try off. We then played hopscotch and soccer out on the sidewalk of my house until it was time to go to my in-laws for dinner.

50 Year Window

Sometimes I feel as though I am looking through a 50 year window. I am seeing things in the present, but somehow it feels like what I am witnessing occurred many years ago. It is kind of driving me insane. Of course, this most specifically happens while I am with my children. I will remember forever this past Friday when I stayed with my son on the ball field long after his team’s practice was over. We were practicing hitting and every time he would he the ball he would start running the bases. The look of pure joy as he rounding third and headed for home while I tried to chase him down with the ball was enough to make my heart melt. However, while watching him, it was as though this current event happened long ago. I am already longing for days that have not yet passed.

I passed a pleasant weekend. I played poker with some friend later on Friday evening (lost $40), but had to leave early so I could wake up to take my son to his baseball game Saturday morning. My son went 3 for 3 with 3 runs scored and made a play at the plate. He loves playing baseball and is certainly enjoying it infinitely better than I was at his age. After baseball and horsing around with my son and his friends we headed home for lunch. My wife and daughter were heading out for her soccer game when we arrived. I wanted to get to her game, but I couldn’t get my son back out the door since he wanted to hang around and rest for a while. I was sorry to miss her game and I vow to myself not to miss her next one. I was able to get in a good 25 mile bike ride in the late afternoon, when my mother came over and took the kids out to a movie. It was my best ride in months.

Sunday morning I took my kids out on their bikes while I ran a lap of Prospect Park. While circumnavigating the park, I ran into my coach who happened to do a duathlon that was held in it earlier that morning. We chatted for a few minutes and I let him know I am contemplating the Greenbelt 50k on May 12. He told me as long as I keep jumping into ultramarathons I will be just fine for Lake Placid. I just need to get in the pool a little more. We then finished up our lap of the park and soon headed back out to it to play baseball with my friend as his kids. I felt a little bad for my daughter who didn’t really seem to want to play baseball, but fortunately our practice didn’t last too long.

After leaving the park all of us headed out to Coney Island. We went to the beach and played in the surf for about an hour. Their clothes, hair and bodies were full of sand and saltwater by the time we left. Fortunately they were mostly dry by the time we got back to the boardwalk and I was able to easily brush the sand off of them. We then headed to the Wonder Wheel for a ride in the swinging cars. This was their first time in it and they had a thrilling good time. I then dumped a ton of money in the arcade where they played Skeeball and other games that award you tickets, which could be traded in for an assortment of crappy prizes.

After the arcade the boys at some pizza and I promised my daughter I would take her to Nathan’s for a hot dog. Before we went to Nathan’s though we went to the Coney Island Freak Show. The show can best be described as a collection of circus side shows reminiscent of years past. It was hokey and amusing at the same time. They had a contorting girl, Geek the Freak, a man who at the glass of a light bulb and a fire throwing. The show went on for a long time and was filled with pitches for donations to see additional exhibits.

The show went on much longer than expected, so we had to leave a little early in order to get to my mother-in-law’s house for dinner. We didn’t have time to get to Nathan’s for my daughter’s hot dog which deeply upset her since everyone else had gotten something they wanted to eat while at Coney Island. So after dinner I agreed to take her back to Coney Island so she could get her hotdog. She ate it during the car ride home and the look of happiness on her face was worth the side trip.

Boston Marathon 2007

I sometimes find that the longer the race the less I remember. My coached mentioned that to me when I called him after the 50k. He pointed out that I barely had a word to say about it, whereas two weeks earlier I did a sprint duathlon and was quite verbose about that. However I will do my best to recount the marathon.

First off, the weather was completely anticlimatic. It was no where near as cold or rainy as advertised. There was only about 25 minutes of rain the entire time. It was windy at times, but nothing that I felt was so bad. I was very disappointed in the milder weather. If I was going to do a marathon in bad conditions, I'd just as soon have them be really terrible.

Since I was expecting colder and rainier conditions, I had dressed a lot warmer than necessary. I wore running shorts with tights on my legs, a long sleeve Craft base layer, a Nike dri fit top with a zipper in front and my Hammer Nutrition winter cycling jacket, plus a thin hat and running cap. By mile 5 I had tied the jacket around my waist, pulled my arms out of the sleeves of the second layer and forced it down about my waist by squeezing through the neck hole. Then I stuffed my hat into the waist band of my shorts. With all this crap about my waist it was just about impossible to reach into my jacket pockets to get a gel or electrolytes. That is all there really is to say about the weather. It was windy at times and I got the occasional chill, but I have definitely trained and race is worse weather.

The travel to the start was interesting. We stayed at the Cambridge Gateway Inn, which was about 25 minutes out of town by the Boston T (subway). Two stops away from where we had to get off, the trained stalled between stations. After about 15 minutes of them trying to fix the problem, the conductor promised the marathoners we would miss the race and had another train come up from behind to push. I have to give credit to people of the Boston T, as instead if making us get off the next stop to wait for the next train, they just pushed us to our station so we could make the busses. We made it onto the next to last bus. The bus ride was also interesting. Apparently the driver was unsure where to go and kept consulting his directions while driving. Each time he did that the bus would swerve from one lane to the next or we would suddenly stop short as we got too close behind the vehicle behind us.

The best part of being late for the busses was that we didn't have to wait long for the start once we arrived in Hopkinton. I was with my friends Larry and Willie and then miraculously found my friend Jon. We were supposed to meet Jon in Hopkinton, but his cell phone wasn't working so I couldn't get in touch with him. He stumbled upon us as we were putting our bags in the baggage car. It was raining in Hopkinton so we sought out shelter under the entrance to the high school. Larry, Willie and John all had high bib number and were in the second wave of the start. I had a low bib number and should have been in the first wave. I had to fight off the temptation to go start out ahead of them with my wave. However, I decided it would be better running with some friends. While we were standing in our shelter a runner from Uganda joined us. He was still wearing regular street clothes and had to change into his running gear. Everything he took out of his bag was brand new, with the tags still attached. We had to point out to him that he needed to remove his tags. The race started at 10am and it was by now a few minutes after. This fellow still hadn’t even checked in his bag. Anyway, we wished the guy luck and the four of us headed to the start.

The start at the back of the back is tremendously crowded. Our first mile was a 10:36. It was impossible to go any faster due to the thick crowds. It took several miles for the crowd to thin out enough to run a faster pace. Jon and I started to run a faster pace and Larry and Willie kept a slower pace. Eventually Jon and I had our pace running at an average of 8:30’s. We kept this going up through mile 13 and Wellesley College. The Wellesley girls were out in force with many of them holding signs telling runners to kiss them. It was tempting to stop. One wise guy had a sign saying Kiss a Boy.

By the time we passed mile 13, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold the 8:30 pace. I told Jon to run ahead; as I knew I would have trouble finishing the race if I tried to hold that pace for much longer. Several times I was tempted to quit and just take the railroad back into Boston. It would have been so relaxing to just sit on a train and take away the suffering of running. The urge to do so was somewhat strong. But as I have always said, I wasn’t hurt, injured or sick, so I really had no reason not to keep going. It was just a matter of how long it would take, which felt like it would be forever. Besides, how could I go back to my kids and tell them that after spending all this time away from home, I just decided not to finish what I set out to do.

As the marathon progressed I began to notice the timing clocks along the way. They were indicating a time that said I was running really slowly. It looked to me that I would be well over 4 hours. When I passed a clock that said 4:05 I got really discouraged and started to fear that Larry and Willie would catch up to me. Larry like to say how if you go out too fast that he will be seeing you later. I expected him to pass me at any moment and hear him start rubbing it in that I went out too fast. About 10 minutes later though, I past another clock and finally realized that the clock was reading from the 10am start time and not the time I started which was 38 minutes after that. I felt a little better once I realized that and saw that I could still break a 4 hour marathon.

At Heartbreak Hill, around mile 18, I passed a bunch of spectators ringing cowbells. All through the race I was worried that I didn’t get my kids souvenirs yet and I realized I could grab a couple of bells and be done with the chore. So I ran off the side of the road, asked the guy handing them out of I could have a couple (he said yes) and ran the last 8.2 miles with a cowbell in each hand. I would have stuff them into my jacket pockets, but it was impossible to get anything in or out them. I didn’t really mind carrying them in my hands as they were light and seemed to keep my hands warm.

I remember getting to mile 22 and feeling discouraged. It seemed like it would take forever to run the last 4 miles. I guess I was just feeling tired from the 50k two weeks ago. I was feeling fatigue in my hamstrings early in the race that should not have been there unless I did a lot of running recently. I guess the 50k counted as a lot, even though I hardly did anything during the two weeks between races. I just wanted it to be over and hoped my splits remained even for the remainder so I could at least predict when I would be seeing another mile marker.

Anyway, I made it through the last 4 miles of the race and finished in 3:56:19. Definitely not my best time, but not my worst time either. I was happy with breaking 4 hours. I am also very happy that I didn’t go out with the first wave. That would have been very ugly. I probably would have gone out much faster and would have really been hurting later on. The best thing about having a low bib number, but starting in the back of the second wave, was that my checked bag was about the only one left in my baggage bus. Due to the rain before the start of the race, the numbers were practically washed off all of the bags. About all you could make out on my bag was the words “New York” and the baggage handlers immediately knew that had to be mine when I asked them to look for it. I guess they could distinguish my Yankee accent.

After getting my bag I put on all of my warm clothes while I waiting for Larry and Willie at our appointed meeting place. I had to wait about 35 minute, but during that time I just relaxed, ate and made some phone calls. I was in no rush to make it back to the hotel. Fortunately, the train didn’t have any problems on the return. We walked the mile back to the hotel from the train station. After we showered and rested a while we went to a bowling alley next door to the hotel and ate chicken wings, burgers and drank beer. I would have bowled a game or two just for the hell of it, but the guys weren’t into it. After eating and drinking, we went back to the hotel, where I soon fell asleep for the night.

A Day in Boston

So Larry, Willie and I spent the day in Boston. We started out at a local IHOP, where I had the Ruti Tuti Fresh and Fruity breakfast for the first time in years. It filled me up nicely. After, we went to the marathon expo where we talked to some people, tried out some free products and said a lot of Hmmms and Huuhhhs. We hung out for a couple of hours which gave my friend Jon a chance to get off his Amtrak train to catch up with us. We made tentative plans to meet for dinner and we agreed to call each other later.

Dinner turned out to be much earlier though. Larry wanted to scout out the restaurant we decided to eat at to make sure we could find it later. By the time this happened it was already 3:30, so we figured we may as well eat dinner now. The food was delicious and plentiful. I can’t recommend this place enough. It is a must eat. Check it out at http://www.lafamigliagiorgio.com/. It is located on 112 Salem Street in Boston’s North End.

All through the day I did my sponsor, Hammer Nutrition justice by wearing my Hammer Nutrition winter cycling jacket. It is what I plan to wear for the race tomorrow. It is very flashy and most of all warm. I talked to the representatives from the Polar booth and “The Stick” booth about Hammer. It seems that Hammer is not to well know in the running community, but I am doing what I can to spread the word.

After dinner we whet to Whole Foods for supplies – freshly ground Peanut Butter, Organic Jelly, Organic Oatmeal and Organic Soymilk. I think I will be well fueled for the race. I still have a blueberry muffin from this morning to eat.

I did nothing else for the day. I didn’t even start getting my things ready until Larry stopped by my room and helped to make the decision as to the appropriate gear necessary for marathoning in a Nor’easter.

My xomputer battery died on the bus ride out, so couldn'y write a report. Really, it was nothing to report and the who trip was over quickly and without incident except if you count the time I missed the bowl taking a piss when the bus hit a bump.

Ok, I am Going to Boston

I am booked on the Fung Wah bus to Boston. 15 smackers for the trip. I prefer Amtrak, but that would cost about 100 bucks. I may as well make this economical. You know, save for the childrens college education. More reports when I am on the bus.

Pondering Boston

So I am headed to the Boston Marathon this weekend. At least that is what I think I am doing. I am really not sure yet. About 25 percent of my mind wants to go and about 75 percent doesn’t. The chances of going really stand at 50/50 or perhaps closer to 60/40 that I will go. The marathon promises to be held in Nor’easter conditions, which is looking to make this long run, even longer

I know I just did the Kurt Steiner 50k just two weeks ago, but since that time I just haven’t been running well. It is more a mental thing than anything else. Physically I am just fine. I didn’t even have any soreness the day after the 50k.

The fact that the weather is supposed to be horrible for the marathon is one of the reasons why I want to go. This way I can always look back and say I did the Boston Marathon under the worst conditions it was ever held. Then again, hanging out with my kids at home while the rain and wind pelts my windows as we play games all day is incredibly appealing.

I know what part of my problem is lately. I’ve gone through this ambivalence towards training and racing before. I guess you can kind of call it a burn out. I’ve gone through 3 cycles in my life where I have gotten back in shape, only to let my fitness slip away after a few years of training. I am like a bear that needs to go into hibernation and wake up in the spring. I am fighting mightily against this urge. I am getting older and I don’t have many more spring times. In each of my previous cycles the in fitness and out of shape periods have become progressively longer. If I let myself go into hibernation, it could be many years before I feel another spring time. By then it might be too late to ask my body to get in shape again. I need to keep this going for the sake of my kids, wife and most of all myself.

So for anyone out there reading this between now and Sunday morning; what do you think? Should I go torture myself in the wind and rain come Monday morning or should I kick back and relax with my kids this weekend? The New Jersey Marathon is only two weeks away and I can always sign up for that, plus have my kids cheering for me at the finish line.

Or should I just do both?

Testament to Fitness

So I ran 31.06 miles Sunday or if you like better, 50 kilometers. I did it in Forrest Park, Queens where the Broadway Ultra Society was holding their annual Kurt Steiner 50K and Metropolitan 50 Miler. I guess it is a testament to my existing fitness that I could just go out and run 50K. I certainly didn’t train for it, as my longest run for the year was 13 miles back on February 4.

I don’t know what possessed me to follow through on doing this race. I guess it really boiled down to the fact that I signed up for it a several weeks previously and my friend Larry was waiting to pick me up in his car at 7am. The fact that I got up in time for it is a miracle since I didn’t get home until after midnight the night before, having gone to my uncle’s 80th birthday party. But Larry was waiting for me brightly at 7am outside my front door and I couldn’t just back down and decide not to go. I at least had to try. The night before while I was at my uncle’s party my wife told me that I should go out and do it. I should at least try or otherwise I would likely be sitting around at home cursing myself for not going. I knew her prediction would be true so I figured I should go and the worst case would be that I’d have a long subway ride home.

I had no plans for how I would do during the race. I was going to be impressed with myself if I got past 3 miles. My biggest concern going into the race was how I would get home if I had to bail out. I couldn’t really focus on the race as my mind was too filled with anxiety over other issues in my life. While running I could at times feel anxiety was over me like a wave in a storm surge battering up the beach. I tried to focus on the running and just let my cares and worries disappear. At times I would feel nothing other than the pounding of my steps at other times I would be filled with worry and just want to quit. I had my friends Larry and Willie with me so every time the worry took hold I just concentrated on keeping pace with them.

The 50K consisted of 10 loops of a slightly longer than 3 mile course. I know runners who hate loop courses, but I don’t mind them. I like their predictability and the metronome type precision that comes with running a steady pace. All I had to do was count off 10 laps on my Polar heart rate monitor and I would be done. The laps ticked off one by one, each the same as the last. The only differences I noticed were in two places where someone didn’t bother to clean up after their dog. Other than that the course appeared unchanged throughout the day. It was heavily overcast all day and rain threatened at any moment, so not even the sun was available to cast different shadows. Occasionally you would see someone new sitting on a park bench.

It was impossible to know who was in front of you and behind you. The course consisted of two loops interconnected by an out and back stretch. You got to see the same runners over and over again. You also had runners doing the 50 miler as well as the 50K. The most interesting part of the race was watching the two front runners for the 50 miler battling it out between each other. They were within 100 yards of each other throughout the entire time I was out there.

Having finished this race in good form, with nothing but the most minor of soreness in my legs, I have confidence in my ability to do the Boston Marathon in just two weeks times. I should also be ok for the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, provided I at least continue to get in a couple of swims per week. It just feels like such a struggle lately.