Philly Half and marathons #9 and #10

OK, so I haven't had a chance to get my last couple events onto my blog with the start of school and soccer so here goes.

1)Like I said, school started back up so I've been busy with the new class I am teaching and soccer season in full stride.  But my first event of September was a half marathon I was running in Philly.  This race had lots of meaning for me.  This is the same race that my dad used to do when he was an avid runner many years ago.  He had a very good PR in the half of just over 1:30.  He never did a marathon, so I have that on him, but he would remind me frequently that he still had the half marathon record.  Needless to say I wanted to change that.  I had to.  I love my dad, but I also get my competitive nature from him, so I'm sure he expected nothing less than killing myself until I beat him.  Which I did, 1:29:58.  I was totally psyched, because it was everything I had in me to beat it.

2) At the end of the month was marathon #9 of the 12in12in12in12, the Maine marathon.  It was located in Portland, ME and was a mid-size marathon and was well run and fun.  The town of Portland was OK, it didn't feel like Maine though.  I've been to other areas of Maine, Boothbay Harbor and it felt much different.  As you may be able to tell from the picture below, it was wet.  Very, very wet.  It poured rain the whole time.  It wasn't too cold, in the high 50's, but the rain was constant.  I can't complain (much) since it was only our second marathon where the weather wasn't perfect.

 Not a sign I see on the sewers in Pennsylvania.  I did make sure I had a lobster roll sandwich while I was in town, which was only 25 hours.

 Pretty cool, bagpipe player on the route.

3) October's marathon was in Baltimore which made it convenient because it was only a day trip.  It was also great because Craig and I had company for this marathon, our friend Chuck Priestley.  Going into the 12in12in12, we thought we would be able to talk numerous people into running with us.  Going into marathon #10, we had no one who had run a full marathon with us.  Our bud, Tim "takin care of bidness" Bambrick had run the cape may, charlottesville and delaware half marathons with us.  So it was nice to have some company again, and what made it even better was that it was Chuck's first marathon and our 12in12in12 challenge is what kind of motivated him to train for Baltimore.  Here we are together at the end

 Walking past Camden Yard on the way to the start.  That is Craig in his "Where's waldo?" throw away outfit.

 Camden Yard.  The marathon was the day after the O's got knocked out of the playoffs by the Yanks, we heard lots of Baltimorians lamenting about the game.

 This was pretty cool, as we were running around mile 4, we saw this big sign and a lot of cheering.  The dude had just proposed to his girlfriend/fiance, who was running the marathon.  I thought proposing on the beach of Hawaii at sunrise was pretty impressive, but this was pretty memorable I'm sure.  Nice move, stud.

 Not sure what kind of museum this was in Federal Hill, but the outside was a cool mirror mosaic.

 AWESOME RACE SIGN!!!!

 My tribute to Darin Triolo who used to live in Baltimore, this is when we ran through Fells Point

 It wouldn't be an October marathon without someone handing out candy corn!

Next race is marathon #11 in Harrisburg.  Not sure, but I think Chuck had such a great experience with his first marathon, he will run our November marathon with us.  Although, he said that on the way home from this one, he may reconsider when he can't walk for days!

#8 West Virginia's Parker's Marathon

#8 is in the books!

 Craig and I completed #8 of the 12in12in12 this past weekend in West Virginia, Parker's marathon.  It was TOTALLY different from all the marathons we have done up until this point.  It was run on an old railroad track that is now a running/hiking/horse riding trail.  It was pretty cool, but not easy, that is for sure.  I don't know why, it was definitely softer than running on the road, but my legs definitely hurt worse during this race than any of the past marathons I've run this year.  Nice scenery.  Not much crowd support.

The trail went through a quarter mile tunnel that was pitch black, so dark they gave us flashlights on the way into the tunnel and collected as we came out.  It was very cool.  Here is a video we shot as we ran into the tunnel.

Craig out for a Sunday stroll, a 26.2 mile stroll

For any negatives about the race, it was all made up for and more at the end.  The spread the volunteers put out for the runners was the best and most generous I've ever seen.  Burgers, dogs, chicken, tacos, pasta salads, potato salads, grilled fish, vegetables, waffles and more.  It was incredible.

And this was a whole table full of homemade desserts!

 

  The Dutchman's Daughter, house turned restaurant.  Perfect place for a pre-marathon dinner

We were only there for a short period of time.  We left PA around 1:30 on Saturday and got to our hotel around 9pm Saturday night.  Then we left after the race, by 12:30pm. 

 West Virgina gets a bad rap around the country, but all in all, it was aesthetically pleasing.  Even if we didn't have cell phone service the whole weekend we were there!

Next up for the 12in12in12, Portland, Maine marathon September 30th.  And we actually realized the we should rename our challenge to the 12in12in12in12.  That's an extra 12 if you're paying attention.  That's because we will have run all of our marathons in different states at the end of the year, so it will be 12 marathons in 12 months in 12 states in 2012!

#7 San Francisco

Completed marathon #7 of the 12in12in12 in San Francisco this weekend, and it was memorable.  I must say, I knew going into this challenge, that it would be an experience, but honestly I wasn't really sure what to expect.  And a lot has happened so far, including arriving in Myrtle Beach 4 hours before the marathon after driving all night, and running in jeans for two of the marathons.  But this weekend may have topped it all for one reason: DEAN!

For a while now I have followed the ultrarunning adventures of Dean Karnazes, and to say he is amazing, just is the understatement of the millennium!  I can't list all of his accomplishments, they are things you wouldn't even believe.  And his story about how he became the ultimate ultrarunner is incredible. You have to read about him for yourself, here's his website: http://www.ultramarathonman.com/web/  He's got two great books, Ultra Marathon Man and Run! that tell his story, and will inspire you to do something incredible yourself.  Honestly, they are incredibly motivating.


So, back to San Francisco.  Craig and I are running around mile 3 and guess who runs by us?  You guessed it, DEAN!  I lost it.  I yelled "Dean" and he kind of startled him.  Then I ran up next to him and got a chance to talk to him.  I am not sure how to describe it, but it was AWESOME!  We talked about, well, him of course and the Badwater race he had recently completed and about his books.  Up to that point, I think he hadn't really been noticed by anyone, he was just blending in with the marathoners, even though he was really just out for a training run, probably one of his 2 four hour training runs that he does each day.  Someone else came up and introduced themself to Dean so I thanked him for chatting and then left him alone.  I tried to take a couple pictures together but they didn't come out very good because we were moving, but here they are anyway.

Back to the marathon.  It was a great race, very scenic and I must say very hilly which is to be expected in San Francisco.  But I felt really good throughout it so it wasn't difficult for me.  We had the chance to run over the Golden Gate bridge, but it was early in the morning so it was still shrouded in fog and we couldn't even see the top of it.

That is the Golden Gate from a mile or so away, you can see the fog and clouds sitting right on top of it.

 Here are some of the other San Francisco sights we ran past.

 These were two unique marathoners: one was a naked woman (really it was a naked suit she was wearing) and a guy in a dominatrix outfit, which included a collar, attached chain, and tight leather underpants.  Sweet outfits, they make my jeans marathon look unbelievably tame.

 Famous hippy Haight and Asbury streets

 Uh, not really sure, but had to take a picture of the legs out of the second story window on Haight street

 Unique marathon sign

 AT&T park where the Giants play.  But Craig and I got a better view of the park the day before.

On Saturday we decided to go down to the Giants v. Dodgers game and see if we could get tickets.  Tickets at the window for seats were over $100 each, and for standing room only they were over $50 each.  Scalpers were selling them for around the same outside the stadium, even though we got there in the 4th inning.  So we went to a gate and bribed a security guard $20 and he let us both in, it was great, he even did the whole shake hands, exchange money trick.  I have to remember to smile when I take pictures of myself, that's my concentration face I guess.

That's San Francisco, marathon #7.  Next month is a very small marathon in West Virginia, should be a very different experience.

Interesting training runs - July 2012

So in between #6 Lake Placid marathon and #7 San Fancisco marathon that is coming up this weekend, I've had some interesting training runs.  First, were some summer runs in the heat.  We've had some hot days here over the past couple weeks, and I mean days that topped out over 100 degrees, and that is not heat index, that's degrees.  All the news channels talked about it like it was the end of the world.  "Don't leave the house!"  Of course I took that as a personal challenge, and had to run on those days.  I set out for a 10 mile run on the 100+ degree day, and although I love a good challenge... well, it was freaking hot!  So I ran 8 that day.  We'll call it a draw.  Then recently we had a mid 90's day where the heat index was over 100.  I ran to the track and did 3x1 mile repeats at 6:40 pace, a total of 9 miles which is what I set out to do.  So I won that one.

My most interesting run came two weekends ago.  There is an event in Philly called the Back on My Feet Lone Ranger which is a 24 hour ultrarunning event.  I volunteered to be a pacer for the race, a race I did a few years ago.  It is a great event.  I was not sure what to expect as a pacer, especially because I had volunteered for the early morning hours, 2am to 6am.  When I got there they set me up with the girl who was leading the female race, Sabrina Moran.  She is the American record holder in miles run over 24 hours.  She's a machine.  Check out her blog http://notallergictoadventure.blogspot.com/
So I ran with her from 2:30am until 6am, 17 miles.  Then she continued on until the end of the 24 hours and won the race completing 139 miles.  Incredible. It was very interesting to run with her and see what she went through pushing her body to the limit.


This past weekend I was at the beach with the fam and got in two great 10 mile training runs on Saturday and Sunday, running on the beach.  I started around 5:30am each morning and ran as the sun came out.  Well it came out one of the two days, the first day was completely overcast so I couldn't really tell when it became lighter, as you can see from the below pictures, but Sunday was different.  Got to see a GREAT sunrise.  Check out the pics below



Saturday's no sun, sunrise run

 These are the pics from Sunday.  It started out also overcast, but there was a break in the clouds, right on the horizon, so I hoped that the sun would appear.

 And then it started getting brighter...

 ...and redder!

 And the waves were great too which added to the view

 until

 I also had the chance to save a puffer fish that got washed up on the beach. 

 As the red disappeared, the clouds also broke apart.

 I got some good pics of the seagulls flying through the view as well

 Love this one because of the birds

 And by the end of the run, the clouds were gone and the sun was completely up.  Awesome run.