Running « Why I Run

Running

Running — 3 Comments
30
Aug 10

Spirit of Columbus Half Marathon race report

Here’s the short version. Yesterday at the Spirit of Columbus Half Marathon, I set a new personal record: 1:51:48.

Funny thing is, I almost didn’t even run the race. Back in the winter when I committed to training for and running the Chicago Marathon, my friend and running guru, Mike B, helped me put together a solid training plan, and he suggested a half marathon late in the summer as a tune-up for Chicago. He had run the Spirit of Columbus half and thought the timing was just about right, so I signed up. Since then, life has had its way of conspiring against the timing of this particular weekend. Here’s what this weekend’s schedule ended up looking like:

Friday, immediately after work: end of the year party for my younger boy’s baseball team. Stand around in the hot sun.
Saturday morning until noon: my company’s community service project where we helped a local YMCA build a new playground for the kids. Shovel dirt into wheelbarrows, move wheel barrows, dump dirt, rake dirt. Hot sun.
Saturday afternoon and evening: kickoff to younger son’s 2011 baseball team, where I am head coach. Hot warehouse.

Not exactly how I’d describe resting and hydrating for a race. By the time we got home, we knew we wouldn’t be able to make it up to Columbus until 10:00PM at the earliest, so we debated not going at all, or me just going alone. In the end we all just piled into the car and made our way up there, and I am so glad we did.

Sunday morning came early after a fitful night of sleeping, which always seems to be the case before a race. But, I was feeling pretty good, got a small bite to eat and drink, kissed my family and made my way over to the start. My family planned to meet me somewhere around mile 5 or so, and then again at the finish. I looked around to see if I recognized anyone, but no such luck, so I focused on stretching and getting my mind right for the race.

When the gun went off, I repeated a mantra over and over for the first mile: nice and easy. Watching runners go flying by me was tough on my ego, but I knew I’d be better off later in the race. As I passed the first mile mark, I turned off the governor and spent some time finding a comfortable pace. I had heard of runners who could find a “gear” and just go with it for miles without thinking about it. I had never found that in race before, but it did this time. I found a cadence that felt right, and just went with it. By the time I hit mile three, I glanced down at my watch and saw that I was running at an 8:30 pace ,which was a surprise. It was surprising because it felt so comfortable rather than like a big effort. No huffing and puffing, just nice easy breathing. A little worry crept into my head about going out too fast too soon, but I decided that I’d let my legs and lungs tell me if I was running too hard, not some artificial limit I had in my head.

So I had found my gear, and I just kept going. Miles 2 through 9 were all right about 8:30 and I honestly wasn’t feeling tired at all. At the 5 mile mark, I heard a voice yell, “Go Sean!” and I turned to see a friend from DailyMile, Jenny J. She’s not only an amazing runner, but is an incredibly giving person who is constantly motivating people, both on DailyMile and in person. What a great shot in the arm early in the race to hear someone cheering for you. Fast forward to mile 7 or 8 (I can’t remember exactly), and who do I see but my wife and two boys cheering for me and giving me high fives as I ran by! Then I noticed Jenny J was right there next to them cheering as well. Boy does it make a difference to have people cheering for you in a race. I found out after the race that they had gotten to talking before I passed by and had figured out the DailyMile connection. About a mile later both my family and Jenny passed by the stream of runners in their cars and beeped their horns and cheered a few more times before heading down to the finish line. Again, incredibly uplifting.

When I arrived at the ten mile marker, I knew my goal of 1:55:00 was well within my reach, but I didn’t want to take my foot off the throttle just yet. In fact, I was still feeling remarkably strong and comfortable, so I decided to pick up the pace a tad. When I look back at my splits, I’m still a bit shocked by my last four miles.

Mile 10: 8:11
Mile 11: 8:16
Mile 12: 8:12
Mile 13: 8:06

Crossing the finish line in Columbus

I think the smile on my face tells the story. Still feeling great as I passed the finish line.

I loved the course the Spirit of Columbus organizers put together. Having a half marathon at the end of August in Ohio is really rolling the dice, but I believe the course they chose went a long way toward making it a non-factor. The grand majority of the run was along a shaded path along the Scioto River, which meant that although the heat did start to build in the morning, we didn’t really feel it until the end of the race when we emerged from that path and into downtown Columbus. The shade really helped us keep cool. They also did a great job with water stops and having sponges with cold water available.

Finally, while I’m proud of having set a new PR in this race, the greatest benefit was not my time. This point in full marathon training for Chicago can be quite a slog. High mileage and long training runs in the heat of the summer gets pretty old after a while. Having a great race, which really proved to me just how far my fitness level has progressed is priceless to me. What price can I put on that kind of confidence?

After the race with my family. Taken by Jenny J.

Life / Races / Running — No Comments
27
Aug 10

Running with a purpose

I’ll admit it, when I started running a little less than a year ago, I did it for selfish purposes. I felt old, fat, and honestly, not a very good example for my two young boys or my wife. Running has helped me become a better example for my family.

As I got into running more and more, and started to participate in the running community, I also noticed that there where many regular people out there who were runners that I could look up to and gain inspiration from. While I figured that more experienced runners would be able to give me tips and advice on my running, what I didn’t know is that I would find people whose lives were true examples of the very characteristics I want to teach my boys: hard working, giving, positive, loyal, and there for you when needed most. One of those people is Joe Marruchella.

I first “met” Joe on DailyMile, a social site for runners and other endurance athletes. What I first noticed about Joe was how incredibly positive he is and how much he gave of himself. I’d see him giving encouragement, pats on the back and sometimes, a kick in the butt to other runners on DailyMile. Always in a positive way. Always with a you can do this attitude. And he had the credibility as an accomplished runner to deserve the numerous “followers” he had. On one particular day early this year, I was reading an entry he made on DailyMile where he talked about Running For Dom, got curious, and clicked through to his blog to see what it was all about. This is where things changed for me.

Joe’s lifelong friend, Dom D’Eramo, had been diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2009, just a few months after the birth of his second child, a daughter. Joe, a self-described “regular guy,” decided to take on an extraordinary task as a means to raise money to help his friend fight this disease. Joe would run two marathons in the span of just thirteen days in the spring of this year. No, he didn’t choose the easiest marathons, he chose two of the most challenging: the Boston Marathon and the Pittsburgh Marathon. As I read about his incredible journey to help his friend Dom fight for his life, I knew I wanted to help.

I decided to reach out to Joe just say that I admired what he was doing for his friend and wished him good luck on his runs. It was from these brief exchanges that a friendship was born. Joe finished those two marathons for his friend, and in the process raised $26,200 to help with the mountain of medical bills the D’Eramos faced. Not that this alone was not enough, but if you really want to get a glimpse into the kind of human being Joe is, please read his race recap of that second marathon. This man, physically and emotionally spent, decided he’d just keep on giving, and helped other hurting runners make it to their finish line. Waiting for him at the finish of the Pittsburgh Marathon was Dom. As it should be.

Joe and Dom

You just can’t sit back and read about someone giving his all like this, you have to reach out and say, “What can I do to help?” And so that’s what I did. I helped Joe reach his fundraising goal, which helped the D’Eramos cope with medical expenses.

Dominic D’Eramo fought and fought and fought. But cancer took him last Sunday, August 15, 2010. He left behind a wife and two young children.

When Joe returned from the funeral services, instead of simply wallowing in sadness, he immediately started thinking of how he could continue to honor Dom’s memory, but more importantly, how he could make sure Dom’s children were taken care of in the way Dom himself would have wanted. Since then, Joe has been helping the family setup and begin to fund 529 College Savings Accounts for the two D’Eramo children.

And so, I am doing what I can to help raise money to help fund these accounts. I’ve decide to run the Chicago Marathon for Dom.

I’d really love your help in raising money. If you can spare any amount, please go over to a site I’ve set up and pledge what you can for my run. If you pledge $1 per mile and I complete the marathon, I’ll ask for a $26.20 donation. If you can pledge $10 per mile, your donation would end up being $262.00.

http://runfordom.why-i-run.com

Health / Running — 1 Comment
15
Aug 10

Learning has (not) occurred

For the past few months, I have written about the heat and how I’ve dealt with it on a number of occasions. In a post in June titled “Learning to run in the heat”, I actually wrote these words:

“A bunch of more experienced runners all say the same thing: when you run in heat and humidity, you need to slow down.”

Although I know I’ve made some progress, I also know I need to get it through my thick skull that it’s OK to run at a slower pace. Today’s long run was scheduled to be 18 miles, and I went into the weekend feeling pretty confident that I’d be able to handle it since last weekend’s 17 went so very well. But this week’s weather has simply not been good, and frankly, I did a terrible job adapting and being smart about it. Since Tuesday, every day this week has had heat indices in the triple digits. Highs in the mid 90s and humidity also extremely high. So what did I do? Nothing different. Dumb. By the end yesterday’s mid length run (8 miles), I was wrecked, but rather than thinking through why that might be, I just chalked it up to “not feeling it.” Then I spent most of the rest of the day standing out in the sun.

This morning I got up early to try to beat the heat for my long run, but I didn’t take into account the humidity. When I started out at 6:00, it was only 75 degrees, but the humidity was at 100%. The fog was so thick, it was hard to see in some places. So what did I do different? Again, nothing. Noticing a pattern? I went out running 8:40 miles. By just a few miles into the run, I was absolutely soaked head to toe with sweat. Even my shoes. I did try to keep up by drinking more water than I usually do, but anyone who has every played any sport knows, you can’t catch up on hydration. Just after seven miles, it really started to get bad. I started to get very shaky and noticed I had stopped sweating. At least I had the brains enough to know that was a bad sign and I shouldn’t just push through it. Nevertheless, a failed long run.

I’ve written about my two boys many times. One of them is 10 years old, the other is 8. Ask either one of them to name the most important muscle and they’ll point to their head. I’ve told them to use their brains first a million times. If only their father would listen to his own advice.

Milestones / Motivation / Races / Running — 1 Comment
10
Aug 10

Two months until the Chicago Marathon

Things always seem so far away when a journey begins, then time seems to accelerate as you get closer.

Well, August has begun and the heat from July has decided to stick around for one (hopefully) last hurrah. As of today, I am two months away from an attempt at achieving a lifelong goal: complete a marathon. The Chicago Marathon is on October 10, 2010, and I’ll be there toeing the line with roughly 44,999 others. I’ll be the one in running shorts.

This past Sunday was the longest run of my life: 17 miles. I was so nervous about it that I didn’t sleep well the night before and awoke in the morning long before my 5:30 alarm went off. After grabbing a quick bite to eat (my pre-long run traditional banana with peanut butter), a drink or two of water and doing some stretching, I set out at 6:05 AM. As I started down the road I live on, it turns east and I had a picture-perfect view of the moon with just the tiniest hint of a sliver. The sky was still pre-dawn dark blue and as I looked up at the moon I saw a meteor streak by. I figured that had to be a good omen. For the next couple of hours I wound through the streets of my hometown, try my damnedest to maintain a steady, even cadence and pace. All in all, my Garmin tells me I did a good job at that. At about mile 13, my wife met me to give me fresh, cold water bottles and good conversation to keep my mind off the running. Both the water and the talking helped a ton. I finished up in 2:33:03, or a pace of 8:59/mile. Now this week’s 18 miler doesn’t seem so daunting.

I’ve found running to be like a parent watching their children grow. The growth happens in tiny, almost imperceptible, little increments, every day. But every once in a while you get a glimpse of some startling, new capability and you just smile. When I could only run 30 seconds at a time without getting winded, 17 miles might as well have been to the moon. When I finished my run on Sunday, I allowed myself a little smile in recognition of how far I’ve come.

But, I’m not done yet. I’ve got more buidling to do if I’m going to make it to 26.2, so that little smile is all I get at the moment. Now it’s back to building up the milage in the heat and humidity of August.

Here they are, my stated goals for the Chicago Marathon, in order of priority:

Finish the race without injury.
Finish the race within 5 hours. (avg. pace: 11:25/mile)
Finish the race within 4 hours. (avg. pace: 9:09/mile)

I believe I can attain all three of these goals, so now I need to do the rest of the work to get there.

Milestones / Motivation / Running — 1 Comment
29
Jul 10

July wrap-up, making progress

July has been an interesting month of running on a number of fronts. Overall, I’d have to admit that it has been the most challenging month of running I’ve had since beginning this journey last September. Now that it is nearly over, I can also say that I’ve made the most progress during July than any other month so far as well. Here’s why.

Marathon training really kicked into gear. While my official training plan started at the end of May, I had already been running the types of weeks that the plan called for up until the end of June. That last week of June and then all of July has been pushing further than I had gone before, both in terms of absolute mileage as well as the other aspects of training. Towards the end of July, two of my long runs were personal records for me in distance since they both went further than the half marathon I ran in May.
The weather. I’ll admit it: the weather kicked my butt for the first few weeks. Since I only really began running last September, I had never experienced a real summer training. So far I can say that I prefer the winter. I’m an educated man, yet it never occurred to me that running in the heat and humidity would be more difficult. I had a handful of runs that I just considered failures because I just couldn’t finish, and that really took a toll on my motivation and confidence. As I sit here today, with just a couple days left in the month, my confidence is back and I attribute that to figuring out how to overcome this new challenge. While I doubt I’ll ever love running in the oppressive Cincinnati summers, I now know how to handle it.
Travel. I’ve had to deal with fitting my training schedule around more travel than usual, so I’ve had to juggle days and times for my runs. I do better when I’m on a more predictable schedule.

One cool thing that happened this month was a run through Central Park in New York City. Running in Central Park and Golden Gate Park are two that I had put on my mental running bucket list, so I was very happy to make one of them happen. I had to fit a long run (15 miles) into my travel schedule, so I figured, why not make it in Central Park? When I run early in the morning at home, I may see one or two other runners out there but not many. Running through Central Park was more like running in a race. I got to the park at about 6:00 AM and I was shocked to find hundreds of runners out on the paths and their were dozens of cyclists too. I had been worried about doing 15 miles all on my own without anyone for motivation/support/pacing, but with so many people out there, I always had someone to keep up with, or try to beat to the top of some of the long hills. The time and miles flew by like they have during races. Here’s my run:

Careful observers will note that the Garmin distance shows 14.82 miles, not the 15 I claim. If you watch very closely, you’ll see a bit of a jump during mile 11. I stopped to get a drink of water at the fountain, had to wait in a bit of a line, so I stopped my watch. When I started running again, I forgot to turn it back on for about 2 minutes, so I estimated that to be somewhere around a quarter of a mile. MapMyRun.com helped confirm it.

So, now I’m looking forward to slogging through the heat of August and really getting up to mileage numbers I’ve never done before: 17, 18 and 20 miles. I’m doing a half marathon in Columbus, OH on August 29th as well.

Life / Motivation / Running — 4 Comments
13
Jul 10

Asking for help

Marathon training has been going well. I think I’ve finally learned to take it a little easier on long runs in the heat and humidity, so I’m feeling stronger throughout the run.

This Sunday will bring a new milestone for me: a personal record for distance. My training plan calls for 14 miles and to date, the longest I’ve ever run is the 13.1 in May’s Flying Pig Half Marathon. And it only goes up from there. I’m looking forward to pushing myself further and further, but at the same time, I’m nervous about failing.

I have always been terrible about asking for help when I needed it. I believe that stubbornness has an upside: self-reliance. However, I’ve also noticed that I run better and more confidently when I’m with others. So I think I’m going to have to reach out to running friends to see if anyone is crazy enough to run with me for some portion of these hot Sunday long runs.

Fitness / Gear / Health / Running — 3 Comments
4
Jul 10

Good riddance to June

It’s (obviously) been a while since I’ve posted here, so I’ve got a lot to cover. Let’s get to it.

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:

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

Health / Running — No Comments
12
Jun 10

Learning to run in the heat

Back in February/March, I took my family on vacation to the Bahamas, and for the first time, had to run where it is warm. Since I just began running in September of last year, I had never run in temperatures above about 60F. I remember wondering why I found it difficult to run medium distances, and frankly, it never dawned on me that I might need a little time to get used to the temperature and humidity.

Fast forward to now and I find myself still getting used to it. A bunch of more experienced runners all say the same thing: when you run in heat and humidity, you need to slow down. I never quite believed it until today when I went running with one of my sons. Whenever one of them goes with me, I slow down and enjoy the time and conversation. So today, it was in the high 80s and the humidity was somewhere around 97%. My run was just over six miles, but for the first time since summer began, and I ran on a very humid day, I didn’t feel like it was a struggle. Lesson learned. Of course, the hard way, but lesson learned nonetheless.

Tomorrow will be my long run and the heat and humidity are supposed to be equal to today. I plan to slow down my pace a full 30 seconds/mile than my typical pace and see how it goes.

Running — No Comments
2
Jun 10

National Running Day

I’m pretty sure they’d take my blog away if I didn’t post something on National Running Day.

Today I ran 5.25 miles.

Blog, retained.

Motivation / Running — No Comments
31
May 10

Runners are giving

One of the things I noticed at my very first race last September was how much encouragement runners were giving each other, not only before the race but also during and after the race as well. I was so taken by it that after I ran the 5K that day, I stuck around to cheer for the 15K runners because I knew how much it had helped me to hear the claps, woots, and ‘looking good runners!’ along the way. (I also remember thinking that 15K was an impossibly long distance).

Since that first experience everything I’ve witnessed since then has only reinforced my belief that runners are giving. A few examples.

I had absolutely no experience in running long distances prior to this year. None. Every single time I’ve needed the benefit of more experienced runners’ knowledge, it was not only given freely and enthusiastically, but I’d get follow-ups asking how things went. It didn’t matter how mundane (sore nipples) or important (nutrition) the topic was, runners lined up to help. Mike B, Madison G, Ariana H, Chris B, Joe M, Rebecca B, and Erin K have been especially helpful.

When I got done running my first half marathon early this month, I went home, got some lunch then started browsing around to find some results from the race. While doing that I came across a story I had missed the day before from the ending of the 10K race. Amy Schoenfeld and Shari Klarfeld had battled for first place for nearly the entire race. Shari pulled ahead toward the end, but then bonked badly just a few feet before the finish line. Rather than running right by her, Amy Schoenfeld helped Kladfeld across the finish line first, then stepped across for second place.

Last month’s Runner’s World featured a story about Scott Jurek, arguably the greatest ultra marathoner in the world. After running 24hour races covering hundreds of miles, he routinely heads back into the course to encourage other ultra runners still out on the course.

In my last post, I was belly aching about a recent lack of umphhh in my running. Within minutes of posting, a local friend, Doug A., commented on the post, then got in touch with me to suggest we shake things up a bit and go for a run together to help cure those blahs. Maybe run a new route. Doldrums: cured.

But it goes beyond just advice and encouragement.

Joe M, a runner I only know virtually, has been raising money for his friend Dom who is fighting cancer. Joe had donations from countries all over the world, mostly from the running community.

Sara S, a runner from Milwaukee, just shared a very personal story about her battle with Chiari Malformation. Here are her words about why she even shared.

“What prompted me to share was that, in my own research efforts about Chiari, I came up flat. I wanted to hear stories, not medical fact-based info. I had found enough of that. I bought books, I read medical journal papers, I packed my brain with knowledge about my condition. I needed to hear someone’s STORY. I found very few. I realized that I can change that. I can share my story for the people who, just like me, need to understand the impact of their diagnosis, surgery, additional treatment, prognosis, etc.

So, I’m not afraid to share anymore. I will tell the story. I will pay forward the love, kindness and support that all of you give me by giving it to people who need a fellow “Chiarian” to talk to.”

Pay it forward indeed.

Why I Run