100 Days to Chickamauga

I just did the math and discovered that today marks exactly 100 days until my Marathon. That made me ponder the state of my preparation. Where am I meeting my goals and where am I still lacking? Besides running a marathon, many of you may not know what my goals in relation to it are. For the sake of accountability, I will share my Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) with you. (Yes, I am a geek engineer, with a MBA to make matters worse...)

1. Miles per Week: 35 – Many of the books I have read on the subject have indicated that this is the minimal level of training required to run a "successful" marathon. To date my highest mileage week has been 34.5 miles. As my long runs get longer I should reach this goal. I may have to start adding a second run a couple days a week or come to grips with the concept of rising EVEN EARLIER to get more than 3.5-5 miles in each morning. Especially after school starts and I will be pinched for time in the morning.
   
2. Weight: 183 – This was established as my goal long ago based on the significance of that being the weight at which my body mass index (BMI) would fall below 25. I would then no longer be classified as overweight, which is where I am now with a BMI just over 26, or obese, which is where I started with a BMI over 37. My 15-day moving average weight is currently 196.0. After my half marathon last fall I weighed 199 but then "took a break" over the holidays and drifted back up into the 202-203 range. Putting in the miles I am, this one is harder than it sounds as the hard training makes me HUNGRY, but I am still hopeful as that really only works out to 1 lb per week going forward. Problem is, I have been in the 196-198 window for about 3 months now…
   
3. Run Sub-4 hour Marathon – This one is a little hard to measure without running the full distance. If you do the math, 4 hours to run 26.2 miles works out to just over 9 minutes and 9 second per mile. I ran my half marathon at 9:05 pace to come in under 2 hours but somehow I know I couldn’t have kept that pace for the next 13.1 miles… back then. Since then, my 10k times have improved from 53 minutes to 48 minutes. Plug a 48 minute 10k into various prediction calculators that account for slowing over the course of the longer distance and they predict I should run somewhere in the 3hr45min range for a Marathon. The other observation I made looking at my running data since March though, is that my average pace is SLOWING each month. Starting in March my average pace per mile has gone 8:43, 8:45, 8:45, 8:52, and 8:53. Although this was a bit of a surprise to me at first, there are some explanations. Since March my monthly mileage has tripled from 42 to 132 increasing the wear and tear on this poor body. Since March the morning temperatures have doubled from a refreshing and dry 35 to a hot and steamy 70+ (some scientists say to expect add 30 seconds for each 5 degrees over 60). Lastly, since March more of my miles are now coming from my Saturday long runs which are generally run at a slower pace ~9:00/mile. I’m not in panic mode on this one yet.
   
4. Run 6 days a week – This one is based on knowing that the key to my success is consistency. I always take a rest day on Sunday for the Sabbath of course but it also works well that my long runs are on Saturday. I’m not saying I won’t backslide, but this, with the loving support of my wife, is the metric I’m doing best with for now. In the month of July I only missed 3 days (not counting the 4 Sundays of course). One was the day we went to Six Flags and I would contend I walked a good 20 miles that day. The next was the Monday following my week of vacation where getting myself out of bed at 5 am… just didn’t happen. The last was pure and simple laziness last Thursday. There have been a few evening runs to make up for missed morning runs but for the most part, it is now part of my morning routine. Over the month of July I averaged 5.5 miles for each day I ran or 4.9 miles per available running day.
   
5. Raise $1000 for Diabetes Research/Treatment – This is one that is a bit out of my control. As you all know I chose to join a fundraising group, the Diabetes Action Team, as part of my marathon training. After an initial flurry of donations, I haven’t seen anything for a while. To date I have raised $170 through the good graces of some of my friends and family. I hope I have been true to my word to not harp on you and drown you with emails and solicitations but if you haven’t donated yet, please consider donating as you read this. I am truly humbled each time I get one of those "A donation has been made in your name" emails and it always drives me to rise each morning. Some of my best runs have been the day after a donation as they push me to be my best. So I ask you again, to share in my joy and help me reach my goal. If I can run 500 miles year to date with probably another 400 or so over the next 100 days, is a donation to a worthy cause too much to ask? Either way, I love you all and hopefully, if nothing else, I have your thoughts and prayers.

Roswell 500

GENTLEMEN, START....YOUR....ENGINES!!!

OK, so they aren't quite ready to introduce that as the next event on the NASCAR series but I thought I would drop a quick note celebrating that with my run this morning I eclipsed the 500 mile threshold for 2008. By the end of the week I will pass 700 miles since I started tracking last August. I don't think I will reach the 1000 mile mark for 2008, but I may get close... I think it will all depend on how much I slack off after my marathon in November. If history is followed from last fall, I have no shot of reaching 1000 (see chart below), but perhaps if I sign up for a spring marathon I will be motivated to push through the cold months as well. We will see. Got to get the first marathon under my belt first...

The Pirates of Penzance

Over the weekend I was watching TV and came across a movie that I hadn’t seen for quite some time. From the title of the post you already should know that the movie was The Pirates of Penzance. It was the 1983 production with Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, and Linda Ronstadt. If you haven’t seen it, MAKE THE TIME. It truly is one of the great musicals, if not movies, of all time. Gilbert and Sullivan plays have stood the test of time wonderfully but perhaps none more so than this one.

While I was enjoying the movie I thought it was funny that every time Mable (Linda Ronstadt) and her sisters came on screen I almost half expected to see my sister Coleen. Every little line or common quip I could hear her quoting even before they said it onscreen. Perhaps it is because of her years of theatre that I associate more movies with this one sister than anyone else I know. EVERY time I see or hear any of the songs from any of countless musicals, i.e. Oklahoma, 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, the first thing in my mind is my dear sister. Due to the time difference I was quite certain my sister was still in church when the movie came on or I would have given her a call. By evening, the moment had passed and I never got a chance to give her a call.

One of the nice things about running is it gives me the free time to just let my mind wander. As I pondered about my sister and these associations I began to think of my other siblings and other family and if any of them have similar associations. With some I thought of movies, others songs or bands, but in each case the movies below trigger immediate thoughts of one of my siblings for various reasons. I hope no one takes offence as none is intended… So here is my list:

Mom – Pride and Prejudice – The black and white, not the new one.
Dad – October Sky (also Short Circuit – I have never seen him laugh so hard at a movie before or since)
Lorin – Rain Man – You would think this ties into the autism thread but really it stems from my childhood view of my eldest brother as the smartest man on earth!
Keith – Any movie with John Candy but particularly Uncle Buck. For some reason I can just see him making snow shovel pancakes. It is more than just the similarity in looks, it is his demeanor and his non-verbalized expectation of the best from other people.
Diana – Along with Dave, one of the harder to come up with something from "Pop-culture" to associate with her. Although I have many fond memories of her, they don’t really tie to movies or songs. From those memories, various objects remind me of her: model paint, birch beer, Breyer horses, and children’s storybooks, particularly "My Turn on Earth".
Coleen – See Above…
David – I thought hard on this one and I really couldn’t come up with a movie but what kept coming to mind was early 80’s rock, Journey, Loverboy, Rush, etc. I can’t get through "Come Sail Away" without picturing Dave at some point.
Oliver – You would think the obvious "Oliver" but the first movie that came to mind was Tron. Of course the other one that instantly brings Oli to mind is Rock Horror Picture Show. I’m sure he’ll wear that with a badge of honor… much to my mother’s chagrin.
Pat – The obvious would be Twins with his DeVito to my Schwarzenegger, but in reality it is all things from the 80’s. As no one was closer to me during that time, just about everything from that decade remind me of him.
Jamie – Although most everything is seen through the light of how I experienced it with her, I’m going to have to go with a song, I’m guessing she knows which one already… Whistling in the Dark by They Might Be Giants. Yes there is a story there.

So what I want to know is two things, am I the only one that associates particular movies with a single individual or is that common for all of you? Secondly, do any of you associate particular movies with me? Other than the obvious of course… Superman, The Incredibles, The Incredible Hulk… Of course, I could also be The Very Model of a Modern Major General...?

Stepping It Up

I had a good week of running this week. I reached several milestones that based on my last post I have decided to celebrate. If you look at my training log (I know you are all watching it SO closely) you will see that every week I always had one weekday that I had managed to miss in EVERY week... before now. This week I managed to run every day (except Sunday of course). I had to do a few of them in the evenings to make up for missed morning runs, but still, every day. The next goal will be to actually do all my morning runs.

I am also to the point in my training program where my Saturday long runs are finally longer than 13.1 (half marathon). This morning I ran 14.46 miles. For anyone who knows what the heck I'm talking about, I ran the entire 6 mile length of the Alpharetta Greenway, then an extra 1.23 miles to Lake Winward, and back. It took me 2:10:30, which works out to 9:02 per mile.

This all added up to my highest mileage week to date at 34.5 miles. With any luck July should end up upwards of 130 miles. And FYI, I'm at 194 today although my weighted average that doesn't fluctuate as much is higher around 196. Still headed to 183, that's the plan anyway.

Oh, I almost forgot, we also picked up a Wii Fit this week. So far, pretty fun. I think I have a second career as a ski jumper...

Increased Expectations?

I noticed something today. Where I used to celebrate and crow about every milestone reached with my running, I noticed I haven’t done it as much lately. Examples for this include: I posted when I crossed the 100 mile mark on my log but I haven’t really celebrated the century marks the 5 times since then (ok, looking back I marked the 200 miles this year point). I posted about my first 80 mile month and my first 100 mile month, but when I repeated the 100 mile month in June, I didn’t rush here to write about it. I have almost 100 miles on my "new" shoes (below) I got over a month ago but I didn’t write about them at the time like I did the first time I spent $100 bucks for a pair of shoes… (FYI, I just moved from the Saucony Omni 6 to the Omni 7 which is this year’s version – I like the 6’s more). So, the question is, how fast does something move from monumental to mundane? If I didn’t run 100 miles in a month I would feel like I am letting myself down but I now EXPECT to reach that threshold each month. Reality is that to prevent injury when running as many miles as I am I have to replace shoes after around 500 miles on them so big whoop if I got a new pair. I was excited somewhat, but why should you be excited? Of course, that question could be applied to the entire blog concept I guess.

Perhaps I am jaded by the lack of comments and say, "Wow, I didn’t get a single comment on my 100 miles post, why should I point out 200, 300, etc…." Maybe celebrations are not meant to be linear and I will be as excited about crossing the 1000 mile mark as I was about 100. Logarithmic Joy? It used to be that some of my runs were so exciting to me that I transformed them into fictional stories to glorify them further, where now, other than races, the only way I write about the events of individual runs is when something other than running occurs. So there may be a combination of dynamics here as to why I write about something one time but not another but the question is, does it even matter? I think you would be even MORE bored to read that this morning I ran 3.7 miles in the dark and saw 1 deer, 5 frogs, and countless dried worms on the sidewalk.

Maybe the constant droning about running gets stale. Maybe that is why my wife had to throw in a picture of an 18 year old (at the time and time since) backside. Running posts can only convey so much enthusiasm and dynamics. Of course, my life is not exciting enough as it is to support a blog. Other topics from the last few months I could write about? Movie reviews: Indiana Jones, C+ - IMHO, too much unrealistic reliance on CGI, Kung Fu Panda, B - I saw with a screaming 3yr old but a bit predictable, WALL-e B+ - funny and original but a bit too heavy on the anti-corporate/lazy human propaganda. Swimming Pool Maintenance: balancing pool chemistry is harder than you would think, no wonder pool boys would rather be doing something else… I’ll try to put up video of Caleb and me on a roller coaster when I get a chance, but other than that, I got nuthin…

Of course, I’m still doing better than my parents and 7 siblings combined who either don’t or RARELY blog and hardly ever comment!

P.S. - Many Many Thanks to my sister Coleen and her Husband and my High School Friends Ryan and Deanna who are my most recent donors toward my marathon fundraising efforts. I am truly humbled by every contribution! I am 17% to my goal with 4 months to go… I also only recently found out about another person in my life now taking Type II Diabetes medication but I will leave it to HER to tell others as she sees fit as she has decided not to broadcast it but yet not keep it a secret either.

Blog Hijack

This was discussed in the comments section of this post, and I was going to post it on my blog and link back, but we all know that Perry gets way more traffic than I do and I didn't want it to languish away all alone, lol.






Now you can all discuss what a lucky woman I am (as well as marvel at Real's mad photography skillz). -jamie

Peachtree Road Race - Report

I know you all are on pins and needles awaiting the report for my 4th of July race, right? Okay, so most of you probably didn’t even know I was running a race on Independence Day. Now that I live so close to Atlanta and running has become a larger part of my life, I think it would be a bit of a crime to not run the annual PEACHTREE ROAD RACE. This race is the largest 10k race in the world with 55,000 allowed slots that sell out in 2-3 days. (The Bolder Boulder is fast approaching with just over 54,000 runners this year but they don’t cap their runners and even allow same day registrations. Bib numbers are bought and sold on places like Craig’s List and the race T-shirt is a status symbol in this town.

Some of this may be old news to you but the story really starts at the registration process. The Atlanta Journal Constitution prints the entry forms in a Mid-March Sunday Newspaper which you have to buy and then mail in the form and a check (if you want a seeded time group you also send in a copy of an official race result). The story starts when I forgot to get that Sunday paper and didn’t realize my oversight until I was at work the next day, which also happened to be my birthday. I hastily called my wife and had her track down a form, print out my race results, and mail off my entry form. On her way home from the mailbox, she turned left out of the shopping center and clipped a glass truck, totaling our mini-van. So you can say that my Peachtree entry cost me several thousand dollars!

A few weeks later I noticed my check had cleared giving me the heads up that I was accepted into the race. In late June I got my race packet in the mail with my race bib and timing chip. I was placed in group 1B as I expected. The field is so large that they try to seed the runners as best they can. First are the elite runners and invitees, they are followed buy the "sub-seeded" group who have times faster than 42 minutes, group 1A runners have official times between 42 and 50 minutes, and group 1B have official times between 50 and 55 minutes. Although I logged a 48 minute 10k on Memorial Day that was after my registration went in in March with my previous PR of 51 minutes and change. So next year, should I run it, I will be eligible to move up to group 1A. For runners slower than 55 minutes or with no official time you are assigned groups 2-9 and for those in the back the race is long over before they take their first step.

That is the groundwork, here is race day. I awoke at 5 am and showered. I immediately noticed that the 30-40% humidity we had enjoyed all week had been replaced by 85% humidity that morning. I dressed and kissed my wife goodbye and headed downstairs. I really wasn’t in the mood to make anything so I grabbed two pop-tarts and a Diet Mt. Dew. Not exactly the breakfast of champions but I have run further on less and pop-tarts have never bitten me before. I drove to the train depot to take MARTA to the race rather than deal with traffic in and around 55,000 runners.

I arrived at the start area about an hour before the race started. This was according to plan so I could use the facilities prior to running. The portables had a 30-minute wait but it was well worth it. I watched the wheelchair runners start while I waited in line. The line was twice as long when I finished as it was when I started so I don’t know what those runners ended up doing… From there I made my way to my coral. Each group is herded into fenced areas that you can only enter with an appropriate bib. Once in I moved as far forward as I could without feeling rude for cutting in front of other people. This does not mean others wouldn’t do it however. MANY people pushed and shoved as the start approached to get that extra 5 feet closer to the Kenyans… I understand competitiveness but if it is that important to you, get there earlier!

After the race started it took me a good minute and a half of shuffling before I finally crossed the start line and started my watch. The only thing I remember about the first mile was just the sheer throng of runners. Winding past slower ones, giving way to faster ones, and more than anything, enjoying the spectacle. This was the first race that I have run that I would also call an "event". There was more to it than just a bunch of runners trying to brake their personal records. That hit home when we passed the priest throwing "Holy Water" on all of the runners!

At the end of the first mile I noted my first mile was 8:41. Far slower than I had hoped but also a lot better than it could have been considering the throng of people I was engulfed in. It is hard to say that the crowd thinned out as that is relative to other races I’ve run, but at least I could make my way around slower runners by this point. My second mile time of 7:44 was not blistering but fast enough to keep my sub 50 minute goal alive after the slow start.

As I moved into the third mile the coarse took a slight downhill trend and the spacing became even more generous. I decided that if I had any chance at 50 minutes, I had to make my move now, before the uphill portions closer to the end of the course. As I noted my third mile time of 7:15 I began to believe my goal was reachable, especially considering the running space I was now enjoying. Somewhere during my 4th mile I was given a Waffle House headband which I strapped on. I had skipped the first few water stations due to runner congestion and the sweat was really starting to pour down off of me. The headband helped, as did my first water station. My fourth mile time of 7:45 was a bit slower than I had hoped after the third mile but still acceptable.

Then I hit Cardiac Hill! In the fifth mile you run up a hill that has been lovingly named "Cardiac Hill" due to its proximity to a downtown hospital and due to the many heart attacks that a hill this large this far into the race causes. I was passing quite a few people up the hill and felt strong. I think this is due to the many hills in and around my neighborhood that I run on a daily basis. You can imagine my disappointment when at the end of the mile I noted an 8:46 split. How is it that I ran even slower than with that mass of people at the start line? With 1.2 miles to go I had just under 10 minutes to do it. I gave myself 2 minutes for the last .2 miles and knew I had to run sub 8 for the 6th mile if sub 50 was going to materialize.

That final mile is a series of ups and downs and I tried my best to push into each one. The heat and humidity were definitely taking their toll on me but my breathing was not overly labored. It quickly became so as I kept telling myself that if you are still breathing well, your not running hard enough! I passed the 6-mile mark with a 7:42 mile and 2:06 for the final .2 miles to make my goal. I knew I had it then and sprinted as hard as I could to the finish line. With a 1:52 for that last stretch I crossed the finish line in 49:46 for my official "Chip Time". Now the clock read 51:17, but that was my "Gun Time". The chip time represents the amount of time it takes to go from start to finish, netting out the wait I had as those ahead of me started the race.

From there we were funneled through the chip return lines, and then the T-shirt collection lines, and then the try my new sports drink lines, then I finally followed the signs back to MARTA for the train ride back to my car. I will not even begin to describe how gross a commuter train packed with a couple thousand sweaty runners is. I’ll just say I was glad to get back to my car…

Final results, I came in 2218th out of 55,000 registered entrants. That is based on the "gun time" as they follow the rule of "first to cross the finish line". If you look at the results you will see several people ahead of me that have slower chip times but had the good fortune of starting earlier than me. I guess that is the value of moving up to 1A next year and then rudely elbowing my way to where I can grab an Ethiopian… As for my age and sex rank, they only do male/female and over/under 40. So, for the under 40 males, I came in 991st! Been there, got the T-shirt, unless something changes, I most likely will be doing it again next year.

Memories of Me? / Comment "Fishing"

I got this from my SIL and Real and more than anything I was jealous of the amount of comments it generated on their blogs. Hopefully it will have the same effect on mine...


Here are the directions:


1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!


2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.