Posts from — November 2011

So I woke up this morning with the good intention of running 3 miles to the pool, swimming 2000 – 30000 yards and then running 3 miles home.  I had even woke up earlier in the night to eat something so I would be fueled for the approximately 2 hours of working out.  However, when my alarm clock rang, I had a fit of weakness and self-pity and said to myself, “What is the point”?

I figured with only 2 weeks before I am to have surgery to repair a hernia, followed by a mandatory 4 week recovery period that there was really no reason for me to be working out.  Any fitness I would gain from today’s workout would be lost in the 4 weeks following the surgery.  This led to a philosophical debate in my mind.  I thought to myself, if I really enjoyed training shouldn’t I just get up and do it for the pure joy of it and never mind the fitness boost it would give me?  At 4:30am though, the potential good feelings that would come from working out was negated by the thought of leaving my warm bed for the cold darkness that was just outside my door and the thought that I would lose the cumulative fitness gain over the next 1.5 months.

Of course, after the sun rose and my clock struck 7am, I became aggravated for not sucking it up and getting outside.  This is almost always the case when I blow off workouts.  I guess deep down I do find the joy of putting a good workout in, just for the sake of it.  Otherwise, I would not be filled with self-loathing for blowing it off.  Yes, it is going to be doubly hard to maintain focus and continue working out for the next 14 days, but I do not really have a good reason to stop right now.  I guess I should take it a bit easier than normal, but I should still get out.  I just have to view this two week period and the 4 week recovery and just another process in my overall training, fitness and good health and make the most of it.

As for today… It is not too late for an evening run and I did get to the pool yesterday.  So I will try to give myself a break, although I don’t think I will succeed.

I am the Yin and Yang of ageing.  On the one hand I am in close to the best shape of my life, I am always mistaken for being 10-15 years younger than I really am and I have the maturity level of my children (did I mention they are quite mature for their age?).  On the other hand, I recently find myself stricken with a large variety of ailments; one would think I am almost close to death.  It has gotten to the point where I am starting to feel bad for my health insurance company.

In the past month I have been told by doctors to:

• Get a cat scan to diagnose a deviated septum
• Get a blood test to check for proper liver function
• Have a sleep study conducted to see if I suffer from sleep apnea
• Schedule surgery to correct an Epigastric Hernia
• Take antibiotics to clear up an ear, nose and throat infection
• Have procedures performed to remove fatty deposits under my skin

I am seriously getting sick of doctors.  Of the above procedures, I have already conducted the sleep study (I am sick of having dreams of suffocating), scheduled the hernia surgery (it will only get worse), and taken my antibiotics.  The worst of it is of course, the hernia.  I have no idea where this came from.  All I know is that if I don’t get it taken care of, it will only get worse.  Once it was diagnosed, the doctor told me it wasn’t an emergency to get it done.  However, I told him to schedule it immediately as I want to get the recovery process over with.  I am told I will have to cease training for at least 4 weeks.  If that is the case, my feeling is to have it done before the end of November, so I can take it easy over the Holidays in December.

The most upsetting part of this is that a month of inactivity will really set me back.  I’ve been on fire with my training lately and I was looking forward to going into the New Year, healthy, motivated and in shape.  Now I have to be extra diligent with my diet so as not to gain weight and I will lose a great deal of aerobic capacity.  I guess I will just have to work harder once the new year arrives, but not so much so that I rip my stitches and cause my guts to fall out.

So the 2011 New York City Marathon has come and gone and I am already looking forward to next year’s event.  Well, not so much as looking forward to it as much as concerned with how I am to get in it.  I don’t have the 9+1 required to get in the race, so my only option is to pray for the lottery or to raise money.  I am not one to leave things to chance when I can be assured of something, so I have decided to go the raise money route.  So for the next year, my fundraising project will be for Team For Kids; an organization whose mission it is to:

“provide free or low-cost school and community-based health and fitness programs to children who would otherwise have no access to regular physical activity. Currently, their programs serve nearly 100,000 children each year in more than 400 schools across New York City, the nation, and South Africa.  With obesity still on the rise, NYRR’s youth services equip children with the tools they need to become physically fit for life, while also incorporating goal-setting, character-building, and nutrition education.”

Basically, they keep inner city children from becoming couch potato diabetics, encourage social and physical well-being and give direction to children who otherwise may just get lost in the system.  It seems like a worthy cause to me.  If you are interested in helping me raise money for this cause, please visit my donation link here:

http://www.runwithtfk.org/Member/PublicPage/7402

Anyway, onto my 2011 NYC Marathon race report…

I hopped on the Prospect Park Track Club bus to the Marathon start around 6am for the usual journey to Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island.  It was a bit cold out in the morning, but not too bad and I didn’t really suffer while waiting for the race to begin.  I hung out with several friends and we passed the time away idly chatting, napping or snacking.  The sun felt good and with about an hour before the race was to begin, I stripped down to my running shorts and a short sleeve running shirt.   After stowing my bag in the UPS baggage truck, my friends and I headed our separate ways to the appropriate corrals to line up for the start.

After entering the corral, I found myself next to a young woman named Carley, who told me that this was her first marathon and she was concerned about her feet because she was wearing borrowed shoes.  It turns out she forgot/lost her running shoes in the taxi that she took to the start and managed to borrow a pair from some volunteers in the Athlete Village.  It was quite the rookie mistake, but she kept a good attitude about it.  I wound up running with her for the first 6 miles, after which I stopped to see my family and she continued on to where her family was going to meet her with a brand new pair of shoes in her size.  I saw my family, dumped some clothes off on them, and then got back to the business of running.  I was hoping to see Carley again just to have some company and also because we were running compatible paces with the same marathon goal in mind; that is 4 hours.  It was not to be however and I ran that that point forward on my own.

My plan was to run the first 13 miles at slower than goal pace and then to speed up.  I stuck with this plan and began to increase speed at the Half-Marathon mark, which is the bridge leading into Queens.  I was careful not to go too much faster as I know the race doesn’t really start until you make it into Manhattan and begin the trek up First Avenue.  My pace did increase, although not too much because the field was so crowded that it was slow going most of the time as you tried to push through all of the runners.

When I got to First Avenue, I made my way over to the right hand side of the road, where I knew my mother would be waiting for me on 63^rd Street.  I had warned her earlier in the day, that if I was running well, to not expect me to hang out for very long.  When I arrived there, I still thought I had a shot at breaking 4 hours, so I just quickly said hello and then kept moving on.  After this point, my only other planned stop was around 84^th Street where my daughter was volunteering for the marathon with her teammates of her high school track team.  I could not manage to find her and this was my only disappointing part of the day.  I did stop to look around and to text her from my cell phone that I had passed by our meeting spot and that she should no longer look for me.

Having lost about a minute to find my daughter, I renewed my sense of urgency to get moving and beat 4 hours.  I did the math in my head and I realized that I was cutting it very close and that I really needed to step up my pace.  I started to give it my all and held nothing back.  Unfortunately, I was just too undertrained in terms of running to be able to muster a much faster pace and the best I could really do was between an 8:30 – 9:00 minute mile pace.  It would have been sufficient had I run the entire race at this pace, but it wasn’t going to do the trick at this point to break 4 hours.  I then set my sites on breaking 4:05.

As I got in The Bronx, I knew that a 4 hour marathon was dead and I saw that 4:05 was slipping away.  My pace wasn’t decreasing, but it wasn’t fast enough to get to the mark.  I decided to just go for whatever I had and see what the marathon gods would give me this day.  I ignored the knots that were forming in my quads and just kept on pounding away.  As much as I thought the running field was crowded, I thought that the crowds this year lining the roads was much less.  Perhaps because it was such a beautiful day, people thought of better things to do than watch a marathon; or perhaps, everyone was in the marathon itself.  The last few miles were spent expending energy bobbing and weaving amongst the walking dead and those who were still able to run, albeit slowly.

It was an uphill battle to Central Park.  I had forgotten how long and steady of a climb this section was.  Actually, I was reminded of it, as I heard someone on the bus earlier in the day talking about it so I was prepared for the long slog up it.  I made it into Central Park and knew I was home free.  It was just a few short miles to the finish and I kept my pace steady.

Eventually I crossed the finish line and proudly reached for my phone and did a Foursquare check-in to announce to the world that I have completed yet another NYC Marathon.  I then proceeded with thousands of other runners through the Death March that is the trek to the UPS trucks that held our bags containing warm clothes.  Once I got my bag, I took my time to change into warmer running gear and began the preparation to run home, back to Brooklyn.  Yes my plan for my transportation home was to run another 13 miles home with my friend Larry and Willie.  Larry started a tradition a few years ago of running home from the marathon, and for the first time in a while, I felt good enough to join him.  However, this year as fate would have it, Larry and Willie were feeling the effects of running 26.2 miles and declined to do so.  Instead I wound up at the Prospect Park Track Club reunion area, drank a beer and had a snack.  Then I made it to the subway home, where I later ran into Larry and Willie.

Once home, I took a lovely Epsom Salt bath and then joined some friends at Larry’s house for some beer, chicken and pasta.  It was a lovely post race feed, but after a while I started to get tired and soon headed home.  The very next morning, I signed up to be a member of Team For Kids, as I knew I wanted to insure that my current streak of NYC Marathons remains intact.  Next year will be my 8^th consecutive and my 9^th overall.

Here are my splits: