Ladies and gentlemen, I have a real problem. I kill iPod Shuffles at a rate even the most prolific serial killers couldn’t match. Victim number six was the light blue Shuffle I been using since July when the last victim was found lifeless at the bottom of our washing machine.

The light blue one had been special. It got me through the tough, hot, humid training runs during the summer and then led me to a 20 minute PR at the Marine Corps Marathon in October. Indeed it helped me survive 32 miles in less than 24 hours just this past weekend in Florida.

…and then I killed it. Once again, I forget to unclip it from my running shorts, then sent it spiraling to its own drowning death with Tide Mountain Fresh (with Downy) as its only companion.

Another iPod Shuffle suffers a brutal, ugly death at the hands of our washing machine.  I believe this is the fifth Shuffle I’ve killed by drowning since realizing I was a serial killer.

On a brighter note, the Apple stock I bought 18 months ago, has gone from $200 to $350.

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

Yes, I realize this saying is related to weddings and it’s typically reserved for the bride, but it seems appropriate for my race report for the Toronto Marathon, so I’m stealing it.

Something Old

That would be me.  I am now officially an old man who cringes at the sounds of a party.  In the hotel room next to me.  The night before a marathon.

Becuase my kids had a full day of baseball games and tournaments on their schedule for Saturday, and because my parents were also in town visiting, I didn’t want to leave Cincinnati until Saturday evening.  My flight got me into Toronto at about 8:30 PM and to the hotel by about 9:30 PM.  As I made my way down the hallway to my room, I could hear loud music and a bunch of people obviously in full party mode.  There were plenty of, “Dude!  That’s so cool!” to be heard.  It reminded me of dorm parties in college.  So I called down to get my room moved, which they did without any fuss at all. After getting situated, I got to bed by about 11:00 PM.  Not too bad.  Now, I typically don’t sleep well the night before any race, so I didn’t expect a full 6 hours, but I also didn’t expect to hear from Dude and the Dudettes again either.  But, Dudes ‘R Us and crew decided that the hotel couldn’t possibly contain their “epic blowout” (that’s an actual quote), so they noisily made their way to the elevator.  And back.  Twice.  2:00 AM and 4:00 AM.

Dude.  Not righteous.  I felt like the old man at the end of every Scooby Doo cartoon.  ”And I would have made it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids…”

Something New

I went down to the start area early on Sunday morning.  This was a well organized set of races, and the way they set things up was great.  The half marathoners started at 8:00 AM, the marathon started at 9:00 AM, marathon relay runners went off at 9:20 AM and the 5K start was at 10:00 AM.  That made for almost no congestion at the beginning of the race.  No time spent zig-zagging in and out in order to keep any kind of pace at all.  Loved it.  They also had an indoor area where runners could wait before the start, which helped me a ton.  Since I couldn’t make it to Toronto until late the evening before, I had completely missed the expo, which meant I had to pick up my bib Sunday morning before the race start.  It was pretty cold Sunday morning, in the mid-40s, and it was raining off and on, so being able to relax inside for the hour and a half I had until the gun went off was very welcome indeed.

Another “new”.  The race started promptly at 9:00 AM in a light drizzle and temps somewhere in the 40s.  I had made the call that morning to wear a long sleeve running shirt instead of the short sleeve one I had thought I would be wearing.  Later on, I’d be very glad I did.  I settled in early and found my pace pretty easily, right at about 8:30 min/mile.  There were a few nice downhills and one decent uphill pretty early on, but even with those, I managed to keep my pace pretty steady.  As I was running along, I realized something the “something new” that should have been incredibly obvious:  I wasn’t in the U.S.  More specifically, the markers along the course were all in kilometers, not miles.  Didn’t seem like much of a big deal, I’d just keep watching my Garmin to keep on pace.  Until I couldn’t.

Something Borrowed

Just after the halfway point, the course takes the runners under a large, relatively long underpass.  This was borrowed from the Chicago Marathon, I’m certain, because how else could I keep up this ridiculous analogy?  In Chicago, that underpass is right after the start, and it threw me for a loop then too.  That same kind of satellite-blocking underpass in Toronto was far later in the race, but it had the same result for me:  mild panic.  When I glanced at my watch for the next couple of miles, it was reporting really odd paces.  Like 13:00 minute miles although I hadn’t slowed a bit.  The great part was that we got to go through it again at about mile 24 and mess me up one last time before the end.  I need to investigate this more so that I don’t get mentally thrown by this in the future.  That, and I need to begin wearing a pace bracelet so I only really need to know my elapsed time.  Lesson learned.

One other borrowed item; a quote.  All week long prior to the race, the weather report kept getting worse and worse.  Last Monday, the race day forecast was mid 50s and overcast with a slight chance of rain.  As the week progressed, it deteriorated to what it actually ended up being on race day:  high 40s/low 50s, steady-ish rain with wind gusts from the north at 20-30 mph.  After seeing that, a friend of mine sent me a quote from Bill Bowerman, the famed University of Oregon track coach:  ”There is no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.”  I kept repeating that to myself after making the turn back towards the finish.  This out and back portion of the course is a tough, long slog under good circumstances, but it was even harder on Sunday.  The turn for the change from “out” to “back” is made in the middle of mile 19, and honestly, I was hurting by then.  As I made the turn, we found three wonderful things greeting us:  steadier rain, a long slow uphill, and the hard wind in our faces.  I wished I had borrowed Bowerman’s steely resolve because my pace really deteriorated during this stretch.

Something Blue

Once again, the something blue was me.  More on that in a moment.

As I fought hard through the last portion of the race, I found myself having to stop to walk every now and again because I found myself cramping pretty badly.  Just my hamstrings at first, then lots of other leg muscles later.  While I had been alternating Gatorade and water at the stops in the second half of the race, I still don’t think I did a good job with my electrolytes.   I had absolutely no issues at all with dizziness and my heart, which was a huge relief, not only to me, but to my family and friends as well.  But, I think if I would have done a better job managing that, I could have finished the race a bit stronger.  Another lesson learned.

When I finally made my way into Queen’s Park for the finish line, I was just physically wrecked.  I know you’re supposed to be, but since this was my first marathon where I ran the whole way, I hadn’t really experienced the physical toll before.  I couldn’t get myself to run, even though I had just a quarter of a mile or so to go.  I tried repeatedly, but I had nothing in the tank.  One of the race volunteers wearing a red vest saw me struggling and came up to me to help.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Hurting,” was all I could muster.

“Sick or just tired?”

“Not sick,”  I said.

“OK, so let’s try something.  No running yet, but let’s just see if you can bounce a bit.”  And so I bounced.  ”Let’s turn that into a shuffle. Just a shuffle.”  And I started to shuffle.  ”Doing great.  Can you make it a jog?”  So I jogged.  ”Don’t look now, but you’re about to enter the chute.  50 meters to go.”

I looked at the finish line, looked her in the eye and said, “Thank you,” as I took off to finish my vindication marathon running.

Whomever you are, thank you.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you.  Amazing what a positive impact a complete stranger can have.

After crossing the finish line, I kind of stumbled my way through getting my medal, a mylar blanket, a carton of chocolate milk and a bagel.  I asked a volunteer to point out where the shuttle buses back to the hotel were.  My flight back home was at 4:30 and by then it was a little after 1:00, so I knew I couldn’t waste much time.  I made my way to the buses and  started to shiver a bit since the wind was still up and I was soaked, head to toe. I, along with about 6 other marathoners gingerly climbed the stairs of the bus, then ever-so-slowly sat down in our seats.  After sitting and enjoying the heated bus for about 5 minutes, the driver announced that the bus taking us to the Marriott had just pulled up.  ”We need to get off this bus?”  ”You sure do.”  And in unison, 7 rain-soaked, exhausted, freezing runners, said, “F*#k.”  Pretty comical moment.

We slowly moved from one bus to the other, and in another minute, we were pulling away to head to the hotel.  After what only seemed like three blocks, our driver said, “OK, you’ll hop off here, then go down this block, make a left, and the Marriott is 2 blocks up.”  ”You mean we have to get out and walk?” asked the Grumpy 7.  ”You sure do.”  And we all sang the same refrain again.

By the time I walked to the hotel and was waiting for the elevator, I was shaking uncontrollably I was so cold and tired.  A group of people who were walking toward the same bank of elevators stopped talking all at once to say, “You look kind of blue.  And cold.”

A warm shower has never felt so good.  And I did make it to the airport on time, made the flight, and was able to get back to my family in time to exchange marathon stories for baseball stories.

This marathon truly was a vindication for me.  After having to walk/run the entire second half of the Chicago Marathon last fall due to a knee injury, then blacking out after the 16th mile at the Flying Pig two weeks ago, this one was my first, solid, no injury, no issues marathon.  I went into it not necessarily caring what time I ran, just wanting to complete it running and anything else was gravy.

I learned a lot of lessons out there on Sunday.  I learned that I’m not quite as far along as a runner as I thought I was.  That’s not me beating myself up, it’s just me looking at the facts, and I am completely OK with that.  Now I know what I need to improve if I want better times.  I also learned that I need to rely a lot less on my Garmin to help me keep pace.  Sometimes simple really is better.

And finally, I learned that when you set a goal for yourself, and you let nothing stop you from getting to it, not even fear, you can remind yourself, your kids, your wife and your family, that anything can be achieved.

When I started this marathon training cycle, I had set my goals to be:  A) 4 hour marathon, B) 3:50:00 as a stretch, and C) 3:45:00 if everything went absolutely perfect.  Well, I attained my A goal by running a 4:00:40 marathon, and I’m damn proud of it.

Ragnar Van #1 with our Zensah Calf Sleeves

I’ve run with their arm sleeves for a while, but I did it mostly to bridge the gap between short sleeve weather and long sleeve weather, never for any therapeutic effect. This weekend, I got to experience what calf sleeves can do first hand.

The Ragnar Relay is a special kind of race. Instead of just one long race to run, each team member has three separates legs of the race and those legs are dispersed over time. For instance, my first leg started at about 5:00 PM, my second leg started at about 2:00 AM and then my final leg was at about 10:00 AM. In between, you spend a lot of time standing around or cramped up in a van, fighting for room with baggage, food coolers and the random gnome (don’t ask). All in all, your legs can really take a beating. Throw three race-pace runs through the desert into the mix and even the fittest among us can end up with tired, achey legs. I know I certainly expected to walk away from the weekend limping along, with a lot of pain and soreness, especially in my calves, but I didn’t. One day of rest and I was back out there, getting some mileage in.

I’m a believer. I’d highly recommend Zensah Calf Sleeves to help you recover from tough runs, whether in the desert or your neighborhood.

Joe Marruchella, one of my Ragnar team members had the same great experience, and so did Steve Speirs.

Zensah Compression Technology

Today was the perfect kind of day to take my new Zensah Arm Sleeves for a spin.  It was one of those odd January days where the temperature goes up enough to feel warmer but there’s still some drizzle in the air to remind you it’s not Spring yet.  I slipped on the Zensahs, put on my reflective gear and off I went for a 5 mile marathon pace run.  I could tell right off the bat that was going to love them as they kept my arms at the perfect temperature.  At the beginning of the run, before I had really started generating my own heat, the arm sleeves kept my arms warm and dry, which is exaclty what I had hoped for.  As the run went along and I got warm and started to sweat, the sleeves helped move the sweat away from my arms and let it evaporate to keep me feeling cool enough.  Again, keeping everything at that “just right” temperature.  While I didn’t need to on this run, I loved the fact that if I were running a longer run or a race and the day started to warm up, I could remove them without any problem, something I wouldn’t be able to do with a long sleeve technical shirt.

Many runners wear calf sleeves during and after their training help aid in recovery.  I’m soon going to enter the weeks in my marathon training where my long runs will be long enough to really feel the benefit of the compression Zensah Leg Sleeves give, so I may have to treat myself to some of those too!

Great product.  Highly recommended.

Zensah Compression Sleeves

I hated June.  It’s not really June’s fault, but the weather around here was tough to run though.  Many, many hot and humid days and I’m sure I’m not alone in saying it’s very difficult to breathe in those conditions.  Lots of rain, too, just to keep things interesting.  I know that this is good for me to tackle, but I’ve got to say that I found it much easier to run through the winter than I am finding it running through this heat and humidity.

Shoes.  After having finally found shoes that I love, the Pearl iZUMi SyncroFloat III, I was told that they are discontinuing the model in preference to the SyncroFuel model.  I tried the SyncroFuel for a few runs but didn’t like them at all, so, I hopped on Zappos (a site I love) and ordered 2 pairs of SyncroFloats to at least get me through the Chicago Marathon.

Back in February, I wrote about my penchant for killing iPods.  I can only assume that my brain must be fuzzy due to lack of oxygen at the end of a run.  I killed another iPod this past week.  I’m worried because I had ordered 4 refurbished Shuffles from Apple and I’m now down to only one!  I like the previous generation Shuffle much better than the recent one, so they’re no longer making them.  Panic will set in sooner or later.

After  having a few too many runs where I found myself getting light-headed, I decided to seek some help from a nutritionist.  I was a bit floored by the results.  I got an analysis of my metabolism, my body composition and my caloric needs.

• My body composition was measured (three times) at 7% body fat and 93% lean weight.   Which means of the 172 pounds I weigh, 12 lbs is fat, 160 lbs is lean.  While I shouldn’t lose more weight, I can up my lean body weight.
• My resting metabolic rate is about 2300 kcal/day.  This means if I did nothing else but lay in bed all day, I’d burn about 2300 kcal per day.
• If you average in typical daily activities, I’m currently burning about 700 kcal per day.
• My workouts have me burning about 650 kcal per day (when averaged across the week).  That will increase as the marathon training progresses into more weekly miles.
• When you add that up, I am burning roughly 3650 kcal per day.
• Here’s the bad part:  I am only eating about 1800-2000 kcal per day.

So, it should be no surprise that I have been getting lightheaded occasionally.  I’ve been under fueling by nearly half of what I need for quite a while.  So, I am beginning a whole new dietary plan that will not only get me how much I need, but what I need, when I need it.  I’ll report back once I see how this new eating program progresses.

Something else I’ve begun to work on is mental toughness.  Pushing through the times where my body is telling me to stop.

Finally, a couple of suggestions:

1. Follow Sara Santiago on Twitter. (@sarasantiago).  Absolutely brilliant and just hilarious.
2. Read Runnrgrrl’s blog.  Great stuff.  Always opinionated.  Always tells it like it is.  A must read.

I’m also excited to get my new shoes.  I decided on Brooks Glycerin 8s. After getting recommendations from friends on DailyMile and running friends at work, I tried a few different shoes, but really liked the Brooks.  They should be here on Monday, and my feet are already doing a happy dance.

After consulting more experienced runners on DailyMile, I decided to use some Body Glide tonight.  Yep, that’s right folks:  too much nipple pain on the long runs for this guy.  The Body Glide worked like a dream and I can report my nipples as pain free.  I can practically hear the collective sighs of relief.

I also brought water with me for the first time and it really did help.  In yet another fine example of a rookie mistake, I went bounding out the door never having figured out how to get the water bottles off the belt.  So instead, I got to figure it out mid-run.  In the dark.  With gloves on.  “For I am Costanza, lord of the idiots.”

I also used my first energy gel, a Clif Shot (Razz flavored) after about 6.5 miles.  Tough to tell whether it helped a lot since I don’t have another 10-miler to compare against, but it did give me a bit of a boost, so I’ll take it.

All kinds of firsts tonight!