Andy Gapin

Yesterday, I ran a marathon. A full one. 26.2 miles. It was physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And it was worth every bit of the pain that I’m currently in as I type this.

Less than a year ago, I was training for my second half marathon, the Walt Disney World Half Marathon, and I had absolutely zero interest in running a full marathon. Full marathons are crazy! 13.1 miles was tough enough. How do people do 26.2? But after that race, my feelings quickly changed and I started wanting to do a full marathon. I convinced my wife and we signed up for the Philly Marathon and instantly started worrying about what we had gotten ourselves into.

Training officially started on July 4th with the Cranford Firecracker 4-miler that we run every year and the last four and a half months have been a crazy roller coaster ride. My tendinitis still wasn’t fully healed and my wife and I were still planning our wedding (we took this into account by starting training two weeks early). Since July 4th, we had our bachelor/bachelorette parties, wedding, honeymoon, and three other weddings to attend. All of this made finding time on the weekends for our long runs very difficult at times. The training plan we had picked out was supposed to be intense, but because of injuries we were still trying to kick and lack of time, that plan got altered significantly. Training for a full marathon becomes your entire life and takes up all your time, but we didn’t always have any time to give up in the first place. I would have liked to be running five days a week and get three 20-mile runs in before the marathon, but that wasn’t a reality. I ran three to four days a week and did two 20-mile runs, neither of which were easy.

The first time you run a full marathon–and maybe subsequent times as well, I wouldn’t know yet–is insanely nerve-racking. You’re constantly doubting yourself and worrying that you can’t do it. Every minor little pain or soreness suddenly becomes this big deal as you find yourself slowly turning into a hypochondriac. In the weeks and days leading up to the race, this only gets worse. You know you trained and put in the work to do it, but you still can’t quite figure out how you’re actually going to finish this thing in once piece. A marathon sounds like an amazing idea when it’s still months away, but when it’s days, hours away, you realize it may have actually been the worst idea you’ve ever had. People will ask you if you’re ready for it, but there is not being ready for it and it doesn’t matter if you are or not. Race day comes quickly and the race isn’t going to run itself. There is not being ready, just doing.

Somehow, I actually got a good night’s sleep the night before, which was probably helped by the fact that I went to bed at 8:30. Once we got over to the starting area, I made my way over to my starting corral and tried to find a good spot within there to place myself. I saw the 3:20 pacer and placed myself right behind him. I felt like this would be a good place for me and decided I would park myself right next to the pacer for the next three and a half hours of my life. A 3:20 finish would put me at a pace just a few seconds slower than I did my last 20-mile run at so it seemed attainable, but it also seemed like it would be a good way to help keep me on track and prevent myself from starting out too fast and dying later in the race.

When the race started, there was this insane feeling, “this is happening and there’s no turning back now.” There was a lot of energy in the beginning, everyone was pumped up, but there were a lot of people all huddled close together. It was hard to find room to run, some runners ended up on the sidewalks, and I had to actively work to keep near the pacer.

By the time we got to the third mile, things started to even out a little, but it was still tight and I still had to fight to keep my own space. I heard the pacer say we were 22 seconds ahead of were we needed to be and I was feeling great so far, except for my left ankle, my tendinitis was starting to act up. I was actually a bit shocked, even though my ankle hasn’t been bothering me much for a couple months, this was still very early in the race for it to be a problem. I tried to stay focused though, my ankle was going to have to hold up now. Luckily, this pain didn’t last more than a mile or so.

At this point, we were coming down Columbus Blvd and then made a quick turn around the block to get onto Front Street. By now the group around me was thinning out a bit more, but Front Street isn’t very wide and there were still cars parked on the sides of the street. This felt like the most dangerous part of the course, but it was also right about this time that I got pulled in with a couple guys running near me, Jonathan and Doug. We started talking a bit and the three of us stuck together for a while. There was a lot of camaraderie among the three of us as well as the rest of the 3:20 group as we came around the corner onto South Street. We were all pretty pumped.

The course is only on South Street for a few blocks, but there was a ton of energy packed into those blocks. The streets were lined down both sides with people cheering. This got me into a bit of trouble. I had just finished telling Jonathan that I wanted to stick with the 3:20 pacer to help keep me from going to fast, but the energy down South Street really started pushing me forward. I wasn’t doing it consciously, but I soon noticed that the pacer, who was just off to my right for the last few blocks, wasn’t there anymore. I turned my head a bit more and didn’t see him. From this point on, I was on my own. I had lost Doug and Jonathan, and I didn’t see that pacer again for another eight miles.

From here on, I tried to keep my pace in check, but I was full of energy and focused as the course turned onto Chestnut Street for miles six and seven into University City. The course had thinned out a lot at this point and I was practically running by myself at certain points.

Now, it was time to turn onto 34th Street and begin three miles of seemingly endless climbing, with a quick flat spot near the Philadelphia Zoo (which stunk like animal crap). Just after crossing the 9th mile marker things got rough for the first time. We hit the biggest climb of the course and it was a bitch. In reality, it probably wasn’t straight up, but it certainly felt like it at the time. At nine miles in, I had plenty of energy and leg strength to tackle it, but a conscious effort needed to be made to not blow too much energy on a section of the course just barely a third of the way into the race.

Things kept pretty steady through mile eleven, but I was starting to feel my pace catching up to me. I started to fear that I wouldn’t be able to hit that 3:18 finish that I was now targeting, but I also knew I still had a bit in me before I needed to start slowing down. The next two miles along the Schuykill River remained pretty uneventful, I just kept on doing what I was doing and thinking about my strategy for the rest of the race.

As we began to approach the Art Museum at the 13th mile and where the half marathon splits off, I started to keep a look out for my family. The area around the Art Museum was filled with people and energy to propel us into the second half of the course. I saw my parents right before the 13th mile marker and that helped pump me up a bit and my pace, which had been very slowly slowing down over the previous few miles, picked back up a bit.

It was also at this point that Jonathan caught back up to me…or rather I slowed down to him. He came up along side of me and we started chatting again. I asked how far ahead of the pacer we were and, much to my disappointment, it was just a matter of feet. I looked over my shoulder and there he was, I guess I had slowed down a little more than I thought I had.

From this point on, the rest of the course was an out and back down along the opposite side of the Skuykill. Jonathan and I spent the next four miles talking about running and staying just in front of the 3:20 pacer. We passed the leaders of the race heading back down to the finish line as we were coming up on the 15th mile (they were approaching 25). As much as an out and back can suck sometimes, this was was a nice benefit of it. Those guys were flying.

These four miles were the last good ones I had. By mile 17, I knew I wasn’t going to be finishing at the current pace. I knew I didn’t need to take it down yet, but I wouldn’t be able to hold on for long. As we came up to the 18th mile marker, the pacer let us know that we had about a mile and a half to go until the final turn around of the race. This mile and a half was the longest mile and a half I’ve ever run. It felt like it was never going to end. It was definitely the longest feeling section of the race.

The 19th mile was a bit of a turning point for me. Things started getting harder faster and faster and I knew I needed to drop back a bit. I could keep the pace up for a little while, but I wasn’t making it to the finish line if I didn’t slow down a little. I decided that now had to be the time and I slowed myself a little as we started to get into Manayunk. It was tough watching the balloons on flag the pacer was running with get further and further off in front of me, but the slow down had to happen.

I was all alone again and focusing on just keeping my pace decent and not dropping off too much, but things started going to crap quickly, just as they had in my training runs at this point. As I came down Main Street in Manayunk, I tried taking in as much of the energy from the crowd as I could, but it wasn’t enough, I was starting to struggle. There were people handing out beer to runners here and that sort of blew my mind. I guess the liquid carbs could be helpful, but beer was the last thing I wanted right now.

As I was coming down Main Street, a few of my wife’s friends screamed out my name and that gave me a small boost right before the final turn around. I came back up Main Street and saw them again as I climbed the little hill I had just come down. I wasn’t feeling too good and, even though they said otherwise, I couldn’t have been looking too good either. At least I knew the rest of the course was almost entirely downhill.

I crossed the 20th mile marker and it was time to enter new territory. I’d never run more than 20.25 miles before, but it was time to change that. I knew it was still a little too early to start pushing, but I was quickly running out of stamina. I had the energy, but my legs didn’t have the ability to use that energy anymore. All my legs wanted was to just walk for a bit, but I knew that wasn’t an option. If I started walking, even for a few seconds, that would have been it. I would have never started running again. I had to just keep on going.

The next few miles progressed about the same, I just kept going as best I could and by mile 22 I started looking for my wife coming up the other side. I finally saw her around mile 24 and she was looking pretty good, but I was fading quickly (and she was just barely past mile 14 so she had a long way to go still). I had already been doing a serious countdown to the finish in my head.

Somewhere just before the 25th mile marker I caught up with Doug. He wasn’t looking too good, but I wasn’t either. He was running with a couple guys who seemed to be in great shape still. They were cheering him on as they were going and really trying their best to pump him up (he needed it). I was unaware before, but apparently it was his birthday and the guys he was running with were making sure everyone watching the race knew about it and were cheering him on. The energy around these guys is what helped me push to the finish line. The four of us stuck together for just about the rest of the race. Doug and I pushed it out as best we could while the other two guys seemed just fine.

Besides seeing Doug, the 25th mile marker also brought about the realization that at this point, if I just started walking, I could still finish by my target time. It was really tempting, but I had come too far, I had to keep going.

As we got up to the Art Museum, I started making my final push. Both sides of the road were lined with people cheering and I started throwing everything I had left at it. I was running as fast as I could after having been running for almost three and a half hours. I was passing everyone I could and using each person as extra motivation to just keep on going. By the time I got close enough to see the clock, I was starting to feel relief that I was just about done and it was over.

I didn’t even really see the clock when I finished. I had a rough idea of what was on the display, but I wasn’t looking at it. I was just focusing on getting across that finish line and staying on my feet. Doug came up right behind me and we celebrated for a minute while trying to make our way over to water and food. Before we even made it there, Jonathan, who I didn’t notice passing at any point since leaving the 3:20 group, had also finished and met us in the line. We spent a few minutes lamenting about the pain we were all feeling, but it was an insane feeling and seeing these guys at the finish was a nice way to end the race.

After I finished, I could barely walk. Everything below the waist hurt more than it ever had in my life. The pain and tightness was insane (even as I type this, it still is), but it didn’t seem to matter. I had done it. I completed a full marathon…and I did well. I couldn’t have been happier. From here on out, I spent the next hour and a half walking around trying to find my parents and then trying to find a spot at the finish line to watch for my wife. The walking was awful and slow. I must have easily walked close to another two miles after finishing while trying to find them and not a single inch of it was pretty.

I ended up finishing the race at 3:24:09 with an overall place of 1059 out of 10213 runners. Not bad at all. That time fell right into my target zone. I was looking at finishing between 3:20 and 3:30 and I nailed it.

Yay! And ouch.

*Thanks to my friend, Dan, for a few of the photos of me looking like crap around mile 22!

Yesterday was hot, so very hot. So what was a good thing to do? Run a race! Right? No, I know. It was rough and hot, but the fiancée and I run this race every year. It’s in her hometown and there’s pizza at the end, how could we not do it?

Each year seems to be hotter than the previous one so this year I was smart and set my expectations a bit low. Given that we’re in the middle of a heatwave and the humidity is always awful in New Jersey in the Summer, I gave myself a goal of 22 minutes. I thought that felt fair for me and my ability.

I started off with a quick first mile (mostly uphill) at 6:35, but that wasn’t sustainable and I knew it. Even that first mile was hard with the humidity. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I was pretty much willing to pay someone to inject some oxygen straight into my lungs. Being way ahead of where I wanted to be for the race, I decided to pull it back a bit, not that I really have a lot of say in the matter anyway. It was much more of my body’s decision than mine. It turned out that I pulled it back way too much and finished with a 7:15 minute/mile pace overall. That’s quite a drop for a 3.1 mile race.

Some days you just don’t have it and the weather has no interest in helping you out. Yesterday was one of those days. Even with all of that considered, I was pretty disappointed with my time. I’ll get over it though. I mean, that time still put me at 190 out of ~2200 runners. Not bad.

On the plus side though, the fiancée earned herself a PR at 23:50 (chip). Hot diggity!

On a side note, this was also the last run in my Vibram Five Fingers KSOs. They are officially retired now–from running, at least. They got me just about 470 miles of road running which isn’t half bad at all. They still could have some life in them, but a few of my toes have worn through and I can feel the asphalt through the holes. It’s time to move onto my second pair of Five Fingers, this time the Bikila model which is specifically designed for runners and has a bit of tread on the bottom.

Pace: 7:15
Overall time: 22:34 (gun) / 22:32 (chip)
Vibram Five Finger KSO total mileage: 468.84

Yesterday was the annual Firecracker 4 miler in Cranford which my fiancée and I run each year. It’s a fun race, but being that it’s on the 4th of July, it can be very hot and humid. Luckily, yesterday wasn’t too bad. I enjoy the course quite a bit and there are generally plenty of people sitting on the side the road spraying you down with a hose to keep you nice and cool. Very appreciated. The race is also pretty well organized and you get a pint glass along with your t-shirt. Good stuff.

Yesterday also marked the two year anniversary of the first race my fiancée ever ran. However, in those two years, we’ve never once actually run together for a race, so I decided we should give it a shot (there was some prompting from her for this). It was fun running a race with her and she kept a good pace too, I was impressed. She ended up with a new PR for 4 miles at 32:49. As we approached the finish line we held hands and I stopped just before line and let her go across first.

Generally, I try to give it everything I have when I run a race and shoot for a new PR each time, but with the ankle still not fully healed, it seemed like a good idea to take it easier and not shoot for anything crazy. I would like to run a 4 mile race again soon though for a PR, I think I can do close to 26 minutes. Which is crazy because my time for the Firecracker last year was only 1:06 faster than yesterday with the fiancée. This says a lot about how far we’ve both come in the last year. She took almost two minutes off her time and I’m not looking at running 5-mile and under races at close to 6:30 minute/mile. Crazy.

This race also kicks off the official start of our marathon training. Exciting.

Vibram Five Finger KSO total mileage: 421.67

Today was my third official half marathon. It should have been my fourth, but last month’s RU Unite Half Marathon was an abbreviated course due to some flooding. Actually, the shortening of that course was the reason for signing up for today’s race in the first place, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

If you looked outside at all today, you would know how gloomy the weather was around here. Luckily, during the race, there wasn’t much active rain, just a constant misting. Though, to be honest, I don’t think I would have minded some rain. I was hot and sweaty anyway so it probably would have just felt good. Besides, the course was already completely soaked as it had been pouring overnight. More rain probably wouldn’t have hurt much.

The Superhero Half Marathon is run through a double loop course in Morristown, NJ and is in its second year. The race is a rather low-budget affair, but is still organized well-enough that that actually becomes a bit of it’s charm. The race is open to both individual runners and two person relay teams.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from myself. My ankle still isn’t 100%, though it’s getting close, and I wasn’t as trained as I would have liked. My training pace has been considerably slower than where I was six months ago, but my speed, stamina, and power are starting to come back a bit. Slowly. My goal for today was simply to beat my first half marathon time (1:47:11) by a couple minutes and finish under 1:45. I figured that shouldn’t be too hard.

I started off the race right near the front, but I didn’t take off nearly as quickly as most of the other people near me. I didn’t really think about this beforehand, but one of the weird things about running a race that also has a relay is that the relay runners just kind of take off since they don’t need to conserve much energy. This threw me off a slight bit as I was looking around at people passing me when I felt I was keeping a decent pace.

Pacing myself was actually a bit interesting because I ran without my iPhone. This is not something I’m used to at all. I always run with music and RunKeeper to keep track of my pace. I can deal without the music because I generally tune it out while running, but I’m still terrible at pacing myself so I rely on RunKeeper as a crutch to let me know where I’m at. However, with the wet weather and the likelihood of more rain, I didn’t want to have my phone strapped to my arm so I decided to just run without it. Early on, this was a bit weird, but I very quickly grew to appreciate running with just me and the course and nothing else. I didn’t have RunKeeper chiming in my ear and telling me some pace that would have just cause me to feel like I was either running too slowly or was way ahead of my target and therefore could ease up. The course itself didn’t have any clocks anywhere so when I finished, I really had absolutely no idea what the time was going to be. I had about a 10 minute window in my head of what to expect. But I really did like this. I was able to just run and adjust my pace solely on how I was feeling and not based around the clock. To be honest, I think this helped.

The course is interesting because it’s two laps around a big 6.7 mile loop (the second lap is 6.4 miles as the finish line isn’t exactly at the start line). This is kind of a double-edged sword. It’s cool because when you start the second lap, you know what to expect. You know the course ahead and you can use this to your advantage. However, it’s also a little boring in the second lap because there isn’t new scenery to look at and you sort of dread certain uphill sections of the course for the second time around.

The course is billed as being fast and flat, but I felt like it was anything but that. Somehow the course felt as though it defied physics and the entire loop was uphill. It was like running in an Escher painting. It just didn’t make sense. Hills are an interesting thing because I destroy short steep hills and actually pick up speed on them, but longer, more drawn out hills completely kill me. The course had mix of these so some were easier to handle than others.

Overall, I had a love/hate relationship with the course, but I would definitely run it again.

Early in the race, I didn’t feel great. I started fatiguing very early and started to dread the miles ahead. By the time I got through the first 5k, I was not feeling good at all. But somewhere after that, I picked it up and got a boost of energy. I ran the middle of the race strong and I even stayed strong through most of the second half. I think I actually felt better later in the race than I did early on. Still, I was glad to see the finish line when I got there.

When I finally got close enough to see the clock at the finish line, this was the first indication of my time or pace that I had all race. I was expecting somewhere in the low 1:40s, but I was elated to see that I was actually at 1:37. I hauled ass to the finish line and finished in an all out sprint at a very respectable 1:37:14 (79 out of 1160 finishers). To be honest, I’m extremely happy with this time. It’s more than four minutes slower than personal record from Disney and at 7:25 minute/mile, my pace was actually just slower than my training pace was for Disney. Still, given the injury problems and everything there is to take into account, today was a very good day for me. I couldn’t be happier, I mean, come on, I was just looking to run 1:45.

So now that this race is finished, I’m going to take a couple weeks to let my ankle finish healing and then it’s time to start training for the Philly marathon. I’ve got a nice long training program laid out so I can try to run it strong. Exciting!

Vibram Five Finger KSO total mileage: 420.26

Yesterday, I set out for what was to be my third half marathon over the course of 364 days. I wish I could say that I actually ran 13.1 miles though. Unfortunately, due to some pretty torrential downpours on Saturday, one of the parks that the race runs through was flooded. Thanks to this flooding, the course had to be adjusted to just 9.55 miles.

While I only had a month to train for this race after two months off from tendinitis that I’m still not fully recovered from, I really wanted to run the full half marathon. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from my body given the circumstances, but I was hoping to at least repeat my 1:47:11 from the same race last year. The RU Unite Half Marathon last year was first half marathon ever and even though I said I didn’t think I’d do it again after that, I’m now addicted. Three months ago, I ran my second half marathon, the Disney Half Marathon, and pulled off an incredible time of 1:33:05 that I’m still extremely proud of…especially considering that I ran in pain. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to touch that time yesterday, but I did feel good enough to at least know that my time from last year was doable again.

Like everyone else that ran yesterday, I prepared for and woke up for a 13.1 mile race. I think just about everyone was disappointed when they heard the announcement that a large portion of the course was flooded and the race would have to be scaled back. We paid for 13.1 miles. We trained for 13.1 miles. Some of us ate (or were planning to eat) for 13.1 miles. A lot of things were done expecting 13.1 miles. Obviously, no one can control the weather, but it is no secret Johnson Park in Piscataway floods often. It really doesn’t take much, a little drizzle can make that park flood. My unscientific estimate based solely on anecdotal evidence would be that Johnson Park floods at least 3-5 times each year. It’s just something that’s expected by anyone that lives here. It is a wonderful park and I really enjoy running through it, but if you’re going to plan a race that runs through it, you have to have a plan B. You just have to. You’d be silly not to. Unfortunately, CGI Racing did not have a plan B for yesterday. Again, I know they can’t control the weather, but this was something that should have been planned for. I know putting together an event this size and getting road closures and such are not easy, but when you’re putting that much work into something, you need to plan for things like this.

What made the length of the race even worse was that at the start, runners were told over and over that the course was shortened to 10 miles. 10 miles, not 9.55 miles. That’s not a huge difference, but it’s enough to make a difference. I think most people felt lied to about this. I know I did and I know my fiancée and our co-worker also did.

Not cool.

Alright, enough complaining, right?

The weather was sunny for most of the race and the temperature was nice, if not a little on the warm side, but the wind was strong. The wind was so strong that it was a definite factor for everyone. Parts of the course were with the wind at our backs, but it felt like the majority of the time was spent with a strong crosswind that noticeably moved runners around. At two different points, gusts were so strong that they blew my left leg sideways into the back of my right leg mid-stride as I was pulling it forward almost causing me to face plant. It also seemed that every uphill portion was straight into the wind.

With a significantly shorter course, I adjusted my expectations and my plan. I ran faster than I would have for a full 13.1 miles, but still, I didn’t feel as strong as I would have liked. In fact, I felt downright weak early on. It took me a while to get my stride on and settle into the run, but it never really felt quite right. I averaged a 7:32 mile which is pretty respectable, but that’s still 10 seconds slower than the 13-mile training runs I was doing four months ago and almost 30 seconds slower than my pace for the half marathon three months ago. But with an injury, you’ve got to be happy with anything and I am…ish.

I finished up with a semi-sprint and crossed the finish line at 1:11:53 (chip time) to place at 290 out of 2881 participants. My knees felt like they were going to give out during that last little push. It was awful. I ran 12 miles last weekend and felt stronger at the end of that than I did yesterday. What gives? At mile 8, I had a nice little second wind boost, but that didn’t last long, only about a mile. I came home and felt dead, the rest of my day was shot. Even taking into account how much harder we all had to work because of the wind, I shouldn’t have been beaten up like that for a sub-10 mile run. I really shouldn’t have. I hadn’t felt like that since the half marathon last year. I could make excuses for it like my injury and the wind and whatever else, but I was just off and that’s that.

Despite not feeling strong at the end, I still wanted a 13.1-mile race. I wanted to get a third half marathon under my belt. I really did.

So the fiancée and I have decided that we’re going to sign up for another half marathon next month that we were on the fence about. I want it, but I do want to be careful about my ankle. It’s still healing and, while it does feel better than it did a month ago, it has a little ways to go still.

More importantly, we signed up for the Philly Marathon in November. It’ll be our first and we’re super excited, yet insanely nervous about it. A year ago, after my first half, I said I would never run a full marathon, but here I am, already signed up for one.

Finally, after over two months of not being able to run, I’m getting ready to start again. My last run was the Disney World Half Marathon in early January, which while being a huge success, I was in a bit of pain during due to tendinitis in my ankle. Since that run, I’ve been to the orthopedist twice, rested a lot, and been visiting a physical therapist. Sadly, I’m not pain-free yet. Instead, I actually have pain in places that I didn’t have pain in before I stopped running. I don’t know what happened or what to make of being in arguably worse shape than I was before I stopped running, but I do know that I ran for four months with the pain in my ankle and it didn’t get better or worse during that period. Based on that and the fact that I’m no better than I was before I stopped running, I’m just going to start training for the Rutgers Unite half marathon next month. Screw it, right?

Some may say that this isn’t a smart idea, and it may not be, but I’m hating this no running thing. While I’ve enjoyed the extra free time, I do miss running a lot. I feel like something’s missing and when I see other people running outside, I get jealous. And let’s not forget the fact that I am signed up for next month’s race already, so I’d really like to run it rather than have that go to waste (yes, I realize that injury could be much, much more costly than a single race).

So the plan is to start running again this weekend with a very short run and build up quickly. I’ll train for a month, run the race, and then take off time again for my ankle if it’s still hurting. At that time, I won’t have any races I’m signed up for, except for maybe the Philly Marathon in the Fall. Before my ankle decided to start being stubborn about healing, I was hoping to run my first marathon in mid-May, but clearly barring some miracle, that’s just not going to happen, so November it is!

While training for the Disney half, I had been targeting to break under an hour and a half for this race (1:35 was my target for Disney and I beat that by two minutes), but I’ve come to terms with that not being realistic now. With only a month’s training after two months off and with what may be slightly more pain, I’ve accepted that this race will be slower instead of faster. My only goal is to not be slower than my previous time for this race, 1:47:11. That should be doable, but we’ll have to see how I feel throughout all of this. I am going to be very conscious of how things feel and I’ve promised myself that if things don’t feel right, I’d stop and not make things worse.

As usual, you can follow my very uninteresting running log, but that doesn’t show up on the main page of my site.

So, uh yeah, wish me luck?

Oh boy, half marathon number two. I clearly remember thinking to myself during the last few miles of my first one that I would never do that to myself again. However, it’s become apparent to me that long races are similar to childbirth in that they both must trigger the same chemical in the brain that makes you forget the pain and want to do it again. For people who have been doing this kind of thing for longer than just a couple years and who have run more long races, this must already be an accepted fact, unless maybe I’m alone in this feeling.

Anyway, once the fiancée and I found out that our group trip to Disney World just so happened to span Disney’s Marathon Weekend, we knew what the deal was. This needed to happen. Once we were signed up, we started a long training process. We knew that we’re both the kind of people that don’t know how to just run slowly and enjoy the scenery, we both run for time and are constantly trying to improve that time. With that in mind, we knew that we’d to really have to up our stamina so that we could run hard for 13.1 miles after three full days of walking around Disney and with another three and a half more days of the same following the race. Unfortunately, the four months of training we did leading up to the race was littered with injuries for both of us, more so for the fiancée than myself, but my ankle has been in bad shape for four months now. With all of the injuries, we didn’t get to do the training we wanted to do, but somehow we did it.

I guess I’ll talk about the course first. The race starts outside of Epcot and takes runners towards Magic Kingdom. There’s a lot of open road running for a little while, but eventually, the course leads runners into a crazy path through Magic Kingdom. Once you enter the park, you’re right on Main Street and there are people cheering everywhere. It’s intense and it’s loud, the adrenaline starts pumping like crazy here. The race continues into Tomorrowland and then around through Fantasyland. To exit Fantasyland, it’s a run right through Cinderella’s Castle. After Cinderella’s Castle, the course goes through Frontierland, but skips Adventureland. Instead, runners are taken out of the park by Splash Mountain and start the trek back to Epcot along some dark roads (the sun still isn’t up yet, but more that later) that don’t have a lot going on. Here it’s easy to lose a some of that adrenaline that was pumping through Magic Kingdom. There are random cheer spots and DJs that help with that though though. At one point the course double back on itself as it gets a little closer to Epcot. Here, I was able to see the last wave of runners going by in the opposite direction only a couple of miles into the race. It was kind of cool to see the very end of the pack and the cleanup crews right behind them.

The conclusion of the race takes the runners right into Epcot and around Spaceship Earth. Runners head into Epcot and do a 180 around the Christmas tree at the entrance to the pathway around the World Showcase Lagoon. With less than half a mile left here, it’s time for the final push to the finish line. The course goes down the other side of Spaceship Earth and out into the parking lot for a huge finishing area with bleachers and tons of people cheering.

Even though the half marathon only hits two of the parks, it’s a great course. The full marathon course is even better and hits all four parks, but none of that for us…this trip.

Okay, so with the course out of the way, let’s get to how I did.

The race starts bright (read: dark) and early at 5:35am. Not only is the sun still not up yet, but about 90% of the race was in the dark for me. With the race being this early, we had to get up at 2:45am to get dressed and catch a bus over to the starting area. The bus drop off was about a twenty minute walk away from the start so we needed plenty of time. We made sure to call it an early night the day before and tried to get in bed by 7:30, but I think I only mustered about three hours of sleep. Luckily adrenaline took over and the lack of sleep didn’t feel like too much of an issue. Surprisingly.

The race had eight waves of runners spaced six minutes apart, I was in the first thanks to an ambitious goal and a decent first half marathon time of 1:47:11. Once I got up to my starting coral, I could already feel a little soreness in my feet from being on them constantly for the three days before…and my right knee hurt which was a little worrisome since that’s generally the one that doesn’t give me problems. I tried not to worry about it too much though, I just needed to get through the 13.1 miles ahead of me.

The air was also pretty chilly. I ran the race in shorts and a t-shirt, but it was only about 50 out and I didn’t bring any throw-away clothes so standing around waiting for the race to start wasn’t very pleasant. I tried to warm up as best I could while the pre-race stuff was going on on the stage in front of me.

The race started off with a blast of fireworks and we were off. There were a lot of people around, but the road was wide enough that it wasn’t hard at all to get around people and find my own space to run. While I had read a few descriptions of the race before that said some spots get crowded, I never felt like I had to fight for my space. The beginning of any race seems to be a big struggle for me still as I try to find my pace while getting around people, I have a bad habit of starting out too fast because of it. This time I did a better job than normal, my first mile time was 7:22/mile which was my average pace in my training runs. From here, I kicked it up to about under 7 minutes/mile for a few miles. Probably more than I needed to, but I was able to keep the pace without feeling like I was pushing too hard.

It wasn’t long into the race before my feet felt legitimately sore. As much as I love my Vibram Five Fingers and as much as they’ve really helped me become a better runner, I probably could have used a little cushioning. The soreness mostly came and went throughout the race. My ankle proved to provide me with more pain than my feet did, but again, that came and went. The worst thing for my ankle was the curves in the road. Many of the turns in the course are along on and off ramps which are banked quite a bit. Not being able to land my foot with my ankle completely straight felt awful. I faced the same issue while training when turning at street corners (did I mention that my ankle pain started four months ago and I’ve been running on it since?). I tried to suck it up as much as I could though. I’ve been planning on seeing a doctor and taking a few weeks off so I knew that I just needed my ankle to get me through one last run before I could let it heal. I wasn’t going to hold back now.

When the course took me into Magic Kingdom, I was a little tired, I was keeping a 7:04 pace at this point, but I got a huge pick me up from all of the people and the cheering through the park. It was wonderful. I also felt kind of like I was doing a photo shoot since there was a photographer every ten feet on both sides for a while. This was kind of awesome and I tried to pose for as many of them as I could as I went by them. Just for fun.

Magic Kingdom was a great mid-race boost of adrenaline, but having read about the course before, I knew I was in for a few miles of nothingness after that so I tried to mentally prepare myself for that.

Throughout the quieter and darker roads, I just kept on pushing myself to keep my pace. I slipped a little, but not much. My pace only lost a few seconds. If my feet weren’t in such bad shape, I think I could have stayed stronger through this section and actually picked things up instead of slipping a little. It really wasn’t so much my ankle here as it was the bottoms of my feet…though that’s not to say that I didn’t entertain the idea of stopping at the medical tent for a quick ankle taping in the 11th mile.

As we approached Epcot again, I was dreading the final hill which I was able to see coming for a few minutes before I got to it. It looked long, but surprisingly, my legs motored up it and sped around a few other runners. This was great a great pick me up for the end of the race.

At this point, I knew the finish line was coming up soon and, once I hit the 12th mile marker, I picked it up a little. I started pushing myself here but I was losing steam quickly. I just kept throwing what I had at course and knew I was getting close to the finish. Once I did the turn around at the Christmas tree at the World Showcase, I knew it was almost over. As I exited the park, I could see the finish line coming up and did one final push to the finish, but it wasn’t as big of a push as I normally do. At this point, I could see the clock ticking and knew I had rocked the race so I decided there was no need to really go for broke to shave for a couple more seconds.

I crossed the finish line at 1:33:54 clock time and 1:33:05 after actually crossing the start line. My goal was 1:35 so I was super elated. I had a HUGE smile on my face as I crossed the line and that smile stayed there for a long time after finishing. I was the 260th finisher out of 27,000 runners, but someone in a wave after me finished in a shorter time so my final place was 261. I will gladly take that.

This was such a great race. I really loved it and even though I was a bit sore from it, I felt insanely better than I did after my first half marathon. I could walk and kept no real downtime between the race and going back out for a day in the park. I actually kind of miss the race. I want to do it again, like right now.

The fiancée finished in 2:03:45 which was a little slower than her first half marathon, but insanely better than she hoped for. She suffered much worse injuries than I did and barely got any training in at all for the race. She still wasn’t fully healed up by race day and it had gotten to the point where she really just hoped to finish. All things considered, I think she’s a damn trooper and that’s a great time for her.

After the race, we wore our Donald medals around the park all day and kept a pretty big high going. Just like when we had our “just engaged” buttons on for our trip last year, we got tons of congratulations from people. On Sunday, we spent a few minutes watching part of the full marathon through Animal Kingdom which really just made me wish I was running that too.What we saw was one of the last waves of runners coming by at around mile 16, but it was still fun to watch because these were the runners that wore costumes and ran onto rides as they’d go by them. Some of these runners even congratulated us when they saw our medals for the half marathon. I thought they were crazy, but Disney’s Marathon Weekend definitely has a feel and sense of camaraderie unlike any other race I’ve ever run. I really loved this.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was just how many people did the Goofy Challenge which is both the half and the full marathon and nets you the Donald medal, a Mickey medal, and a Goofy medal. This seemed insane to me, but it seemed like a few thousand people most have done it. While it appeared that many of those people did more of a jog/power walk for one or both of the races, this is still pretty impressive.

We’ve decided that we have to do the Goofy Challenge, we can do it. I know we can. Even without having run a full marathon yet, I think we could train to do this. We’re looking at the 2013 marathon weekend to do this since 2012 may be tough on us with it only being a couple of months after our honeymoon. Either way, If we run this race again, I think we’re definitely going to cut down on the amount of time in Disney before the race so that we’re not already worn down a bit.

I’m still really excited about this race and like I said before, I’m kind of missing it. I want it again. I’ve got another half marathon coming up in April and I’m hoping to run even faster, but I’m taking some time to let my ankle heal first. If my ankle heals up, I think I’ll be in good shape to beat this time. My feet won’t be sore before the race even starts and I’ll probably have more sleep.

One other thing that I wanted to add is about a husband and wife that had run the race together previously, but could not this year. The husband is a part of the US military and is currently deployed in Iraq. Because they couldn’t run together and really wanted to, he set up a half marathon at his base in Iraq and got 500 other soldiers and military members to run with him. He synced up the start of the race so him and his wife would be running at the same time and they used the virtual partner feature of their Garmins to virtually run together. Before the race, they got to wish each other good luck via a live satellite feed. This was one of the most amazing things.

Below are are bunch of photos, some of us, some of the full marathon runners, and some of the medal we received. They were taken with a variety of cameras (my DSLR, a point and shoot, and an iPhone).

Today was the Westfield Turkey Trot 5-mile race through Tamaques Park, which was actually one of the parks that I trained in for the RU Unite half-marathon earlier this year. It’s a nice little park with a .8 mile loop so it’s good for short runs, but anything more than a few miles gets really boring.

Today was chilly and windy, not the most fun weather for standing around waiting for a race to start. Because of the high winds today, gusting up to 30 mph, it was hard to decide what to wear, but I stuck with what I would normally wear for a 39 degree run. I was freezing while waiting for the race to start, my toes even went completely numb. It was actually hard to fight the feeling that I didn’t dress warm enough, but I knew once I started running, I’d warm up. I was right. My toes didn’t thaw out until after the second mile, but by the the time I finished the first mile, the rest of me was plenty warm. By the end of the race, I was dripping sweat.

The course wasn’t too shabby. The race started with a lap and a half in the park and then continued through residential Westfield with a final half lap in the park again. The course was marked well and the race was organized, the only real complaint to be made was that the race wasn’t chipped. That means that at the end of the race, you have to run down a chute and stay in order. People grab the tag at the bottom of your bib which sometimes means that you’re standing there for a few seconds waiting for them. Unfortunately, this was another run with a dry-heaving finish for me. I nearly puked on the girl taking the tags at the end because I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Anyway, my performance…

My goal was 35 minutes and as you can see from the title, I beat that pretty decently. I started off feeling strong, but slowed a little as the race continued. Overall, my pace was 6:47 which is pretty solid for me, but I ran for a mile and a half with a side cramp that did not feel good at all and my legs were tired. The gusts of wind made it hard to breathe, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Even though I was slowly slowing down throughout the race, I finished strong with as much of a sprint as I could muster. 33:56 put me at 53rd overall out of 843 total runners. I was third in my age group. And best of all, since I’ve never run a 5-mile race before, that time was my PR.

Even though it was windy out, it was a good race and a performance I can be happy with. I would definitely run it again.

Last year, the Sean Hanna Foundation 5k was where I set what was my personal best 5k time which took until last Saturday’s race at Rutgers for me to beat. This year, I didn’t set out to PR again. I mean, it would have been awesome, but after last Saturday’s race, I was still so happy that I wasn’t about to hurt myself pushing harder.

I love this race for a few reasons. First, it’s in the name of a friend of mine who unfortunately passed three years ago from cancer. So unlike any other race, this one has a little more personal meaning to me. Second, the first year they did this race was my first ever 5k (let’s just say my time was more than seven minutes slower then than this year). Third, the race is run in Duke Island Park in Bridgewater. I really love this park. It’s where my fiancée and I run after work and it has a nice mix of forest, open park, and riverside paths. Forth, it’s a small race with a great vibe. Now, it’s not always the best organized race, but it was better than last week’s Rutgers race. This year, the race started really late, about 20 minutes, which was awkward and kind of rough after spending a little bit of time moving around and loosening up.

Like last week, I started off right in the front so I wouldn’t have to run around anyone. At this point, I know what kind of a runner I am and where I should be starting. I didn’t take off quite like I did last week when the race started, but I still started off quickly to separate myself from most of the pack a little. From there, there was very little position change, I think I passed one or two people through the rest of the race and that was it. My first mile was about the same speed as last week’s, but somehow I lost a lot in my second mile. I thought I was picking it up, but I guess not. I did pick it up for real in my third mile, but my legs started to feel like rubber a bit. I was pushing, but not quite 100%. As much as I would have loved to beat last week’s time, for the first time ever, I didn’t feel like I had to beat my best time so I didn’t push as much as I could have. And to be honest, I really didn’t have much more to give.

I finished just a little slower than last week, only 12 seconds off, but I didn’t feel like I was going to puke which was nice. I’m really happy with my time. Even though the weather was a little nicer for this race than it was last week, I was just glad to know that it wasn’t a fluke and that this is really where I’m at right now. 20:41 was good enough to get me in at 7th overall and 2nd for my age group. Even though it was a small race with just 179 runners, you can’t be unhappy with numbers like that.

This morning, I ran the Rutgers Alumni Run for Rutgers Against Hunger as part of the homecoming festivities. This was a small race, only 253 runners total. The course was pretty nice, very flat, but it wasn’t well marked at all. There were some small, easy to miss signs and a person or two standing at corners where you needed to turn, but they weren’t wearing anything to make them stand out from students on campus. The roads also weren’t entirely blocked off so you couldn’t go by that either. Because of the small size of the race, it was easy to end up all by yourself for a little while so if you weren’t paying attention and looking down the road at where other runners were turning, it was easy to miss a turn. Luckily, I did not.

Since the race was so small, I made sure to start right in the very front so I wouldn’t have to run around anyone. This was also helpful since there was no sensor at the start of the race leaving you with just the gun time at the end which doesn’t take into count how long it takes you to actually cross the starting line. The first mile of the race was straight into a long gust of wind, but I powered though it as best I could at a solid pace. The wind must have been around 20mph at the time and it was taking my breath away a little. Breathing was definitely a little difficult through this and starting out that way didn’t give me much of a chance to ever catch my breath again. I just powered through as much as I could though.

The second mile was my slowest of the three. I’m not sure why, actually. I was trying to pick it up a little, but I just couldn’t breathe deeply. I think I may need to do more intense cardio training to get my breathing up to par. Once I hit a pace faster than about 7:20/mile, I start losing the ability to breathe deeply with my diaphragm and I end up with nothing but short little breaths that just don’t get the job done.

Once I hit the third mile, I started to push a little more, but as I got down to the last half mile, I started feeling the throw up feeling coming out to play. I kept steady and fought it back, but couldn’t break out into that end-of-race sprint that I generally try to do. I wasn’t able to start sprinting until the last 50-100ft. Then I crossed the finish line…and threw up. This seems to be my new thing lately. Maybe it’s the peanut butter sandwiches I’ve been eating an hour before the race?

At any rate, this was by far my best race ever. My time was 20:29 which completely smashes my previous 5k personal record of 23:07. I’m utterly ecstatic about it, actually. My goal was 21 minutes and I beat that by a good chunk of time. Very happy about this. That time put me at 11th overall (also, 11th for men, the first female finisher was a little after me). The winner was 16:51 which is a time I don’t kid myself into ever thinking I’ll be able hit, but being able to finish in the top 5% is absolutely amazing.

In addition to that, this was a fun race because of the amount of people I knew running it. I knew six or seven other runners so it was great to be able to stand on the side near the finish and cheer for everyone as they finished.

I’ve got another 5k coming up on Saturday for the Sean Hanna Foundation. It’s their third annual race and I’ve been a part since the first so I don’t plan to ever miss one. I’m excited to see what this race has in store for me. I don’t know that I’ll be able to beat today’s time, but even if I can come close, I’ll be happy.