Love Rox Half Marathon

This past weekend, Alek and I trekked down to Richmond, VA for the Love Rox Half Marathon.  When we selected a race in Richmond, we expected that by going a few hundred miles south we could escape the cold and snow that may be plaguing New York at the end of February.  Also, the race was followed by a wine expo!

We left for Richmond from my cousin's place in Northern, VA around noon on Saturday.  Packet pickup for the race ended at 3pm.  Under normal conditions, it would have been a 2 hour drive to Richmond.  However, conditions were far from normal.  There was a lot of snow coming down in a state where plows don't keep the roads as clear as we're used to.

We pressed on and made it to the packet pickup at 3:30 PM.  The folks from Richmond Multisports were packing up the race day stuff and getting ready to head out.  They were kind enough to grab our bibs, but they asked us to get our shirts and wine expo tickets either before or after the race.  

The snowstorm spared Richmond, so once we got there driving was fine.  As we arrived at the hotel, we saw people slipping and falling.  It was incredibly icy in a city that doesn't understand that spreading salt will resolve ice issues.  

After settling into the hotel, we made the treacherous 3 block walk to the Penny Lane Pub for dinner.   The pub had tasty food - including a "Grown-Up Grilled Cheese".  Alek ordered it, I had a bite.  Best grilled cheese ever!

On race morning, we were just 2 blocks from the start line, which was also right outside of the convention center where the wine expo was held.  We walked up around 8 to get the remainder of our race stuff and then walked back to the hotel to finish getting ready.  

Love Rox long sleeve technical shirt

It was considerably warmer  on Sunday, which made for mostly great running conditions.  The race was supposed to start at 9:30, but I think it was closer to 10 by the time we started running.  It was a two lap course, around richmond that included crossing a small canal through a park and then crossing the James River over some traffic bridges.  There were a few hills, but nothing horrible.  There was still some ice in the park and around bridges, so we all had to be careful when running.  However, the worst part of the race were partial road closures on busy streets where cars were idling and runners were breathing exhaust fumes.  

The course

The park with some icy patches

Race Start

Frozen Canal

The Richmond Police were out in full force directing traffic.  The officers were saw were all happiness and smiles.  It was great to have their support along with that of the Richmond Multisport volunteers while we were out there.

Alek and I finished in 2:33:19, shaving 17 minutes off of our Manhattan Half Marathon time.  That's a huge improvement for one month!  The course was less hilly than Central Park, but I think we made bigger gains in speed from actually training.  I'll write a bit more about my personal training experiences later this week.  

Finisher medal and bib

After my 21st half marathon, it seemed appropriate that we go taste some wines!  

Wine Expo!

Winter Vacation 2015: I'm on a boat MotherF#%$

If you’ve ever been on a cruise, then you’ll already know that they mean tons of eating, frozen drinks, and for most people, weight gain.  When we set off on the JOCO cruise, I didn’t want to set myself back by over eating, drinking too much, and not working out.  My plan was to drink only red wine, as frozen tropical drinks pack tons of calories.  And red wine has definite health benefits (although I'll admit that I may occasionally over state them).  I also planned to try to have salads as much as possible, and to remain active.

I was mostly successful, although I did indulge in one frozen mudslide.  

My trainer, Julia, gave me a routine of squats, planks, and pushups to do daily.  This routine took me less than 15 minutes, and was a good compliment to whatever the main activity of the day was. 

When we were at sea, the main activity was typically running on the ship’s track.  On the track it took 4.5 laps to run one mile.  The longest track run I did was 6 miles or 27 laps around the track.  While the ship was moving the wind was blowing at about 45mph.  The wind tripped me (blowing my feet around while running), blew my shirt up, and when running directly into it I felt like I was running in place.  A group of sunbathing women next to the track cheered me on as I passed them during every lap of the 6 mile run.  I was pretty happy for the entertainment.

Independence of the seas, you can see her track toward the top, right edge of the ship.

Despite the wind, I was pretty happy to be running outside, especially since winter in New York has be pretty unpleasant.

The ship’s gym was quite large with a lot of equipment, so on days when I just wanted to take a short run without the wind I would use the treadmill.

Both the gym and the track afforded some beautiful views of the open ocean, which was pretty neat and different from the scenery at home!

The view as we left Haiti.  Kayaking that day was easy, so Alek and I also did a 5k on the ship.

Port days were a different story, we did some kayaking in St. Kitts and Labadee, Haiti.  In San Juan we walked for much of the day roaming around San Cristobal and playing with all of the cats that love to hang out in Old San Juan.  At St. Maarten, we swam with a dolphin.  These were all really fun activities.  Since a picture is worth 1000 words, I’ll leave you to enjoy these photos rather than providing further descriptions.  We haven't yet taken the photos of kayaking off of the GoPro, so I'll share them some other time.

A lighthouse at El Morro.

The lawn at El Morro.

Caaaats!

How did it all work out?  I came back one pound heavier than I left.  It was a setback, but not nearly as bad as it would have been if I had indulged in all of the frozen drinks that the ship had to offer.

Winter Vacation 2015: Running in Ft Lauderdale

From January 31 through February 8,  Alek and I, along with Tammy, Chris, Nate, and Matt went on the JOCO Cruise Crazy, an 8 night Caribbean cruise with some amazing entertainers including Jonathan Coulton, Paul & Storm, Pat Rothfuss, John Scalzi, Matthew Inman, The Both, and many others.  If you're curious about this cruise, I don't think I can summarize better than John Scalzi, so please head over to Whatever and take a look at his post.

I have a few things to say about trying to get workouts in on vacation, so I'll share them over the course of a few posts.

We flew into Ft Lauderdale on January 30 just to avoid any stress with airport to ship transfers.  We stayed at The Hilton Ft Lauderdale Marina.  Alek and I decided to get up and get a run in before meeting the group for brunch, or for me and Alek, elevensies, since we’d already eaten breakfast prior to the run.

Finding a running route in an unfamiliar city can be tricky.  We wanted to run in a pretty area, and avoid being next to traffic as much as possible.  As we were heading out, Nate was on his way back in from his morning run (he seemed to have skipped first breakfast).  Naturally we asked him for a good running route.  After Nate described his route to us and walked away, a helpful hotel employee came by and gave us a Hilton Branded pocket map with a few different running routes.  

We went outside to use the map.  This thing had clearly not been proofread by anyone  before printing.  It contradicted itself everywhere.  We set off on what was maybe the 4 mile blue route, but could easily have been the 6 mile blue route or the 6 mile red route.  After two miles of not arriving at the cross street we were planning to turn left on to, we crossed the street and turned back.  On the other side of the street there was a better activity path and it was closer to the beach.  The views were pretty.  The run itself was fairly easy, with a the only hill being right outside the hotel as we had to cross a bridge to get over some water.

Nice beach front view - check out the kite surfer.

Hotel running maps are awesome things to have, but would be much better without all of the confusion!

Manhattan Half Marathon: A brief, late recap

I promised this post nearly 3 weeks ago, but life happened. Better late than never, right?

On January 25, Alek and I ran the NYRR Manhattan Half Marathon. Like several NYRR Half Marathons, this is a little more than two laps around central park. The weather was great. There had been small amounts of snow on 1/24 and the blizzard that wasn’t came on 1/26. However, on 1/25 it was sunny and warm (well, warm for January anyway). The park was covered in snow with the reservoir and the pond mostly frozen over. It was peaceful and beautiful. There were also many amazingly adorable dogs whose pictures I was too busy running to capture.

A lonely little snowman in the park.

Peaceful frozen reservoir

NYRR gave neither medal nor t-shirt for participants of this race.  We got only an ugly McDonald's colored hat.  For a winter race, I would have loved a beanie or fleece hat.  This was provides no warmth for a cold winter half marathon.  The description for the race mentioned that this was a Fred Lebow-style hat, so I guess I understand the choice as the race carries his name.  That doesn't mean I love it.

Ugly hat, modeled by me.  I have one up for grabs if anyone likes it :)

 My previous time for a half marathon in central park was 2:05. This year our time was 2:50:02 with a 13:01 pace. I am sadly much slower than I used to be, but I’m working to fix that now! The goal for our February half on 2/22 will be to run faster than than 2:50.

This was also my 20th half marathon! Hopefully for 25, I’m back to setting PRs.

One more note on progress: we now have 1/4 NYRR 5 borough series races required for guaranteed entry into the 2016 NYC Half.

2015 first (hopefully not only) post

Happy 2015!  I'm a little late with that - but at least its still January!

2014 held many setbacks for me.  The year started with my toes still injured from the 2013 NYC Marathon - which led to me not really running much early in the year.   One of the worst pre-marathon mistakes you could possibly make is not trimming your toenails.  I doubt that I'll ever forget again....

By March, my toenails were better and I was back to running shorter distances.  But by April, the herniated disc in my lower back made it difficult to walk, running seemed like a distant possibility.

After a cortisone injection and quite a bit of physical therapy, I started running again.  Despite having guaranteed entry into the 2014 NYC marathon, we decided to register for a cheaper marathon in case medical issues prevented me from running.  So we registered and trained for the 2014 Lehigh Valley Via Half marathon.  We quit the race after 23 miles (I'll save the details of that for another post).

Through it all, I managed to gain quite a bit of weight (40 lbs total since April 2013) and become significantly slower than I'd previously been.  Since I can't change the past, I'll just do better in the future. Now for the optimistic part of this post!

Even with all of the 2014 setbacks, we were able to get in our NYRR 9+1 to qualify for the 2015 NYC Marathon, for which Alek and I have both registered.  I've also started working with a personal trainer to help me work toward becoming stronger overall so that I can mitigate my risk of future back flare ups.

We've signed up for Spartans twice before, and not run them because we weren't ready.  This year, we're doing it.  We're signed up for the May 9 Citifield Spartan.  Team Sadpony, late morning wave (10:45am - 12:00pm) with a preference for 11:30, just in case you'd care to join!

Our planned Half Marathons so far are:

January 25 - Fred Lebow Manhattan Half (yes, we completed it I'll write a post later this week).
February 22 - Love Rox Half Marathon (Richmond VA) 
March 21- Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon
April 12 - Queens Half Marathon
May 19 - Brooklyn Half Marathon

We have ideas for a few of the remaining races, but want to make sure that we can register before they sell out.

I'm already feeling much more healthy!  Its good to feel like I'm back on track!

Finding My New Limits

When planning out my running goals earlier this year, I had planned to train hard for the Brooklyn Half (on May 17) to learn what my limits actually are so that when I start marathon training I could set a reasonable completion time goal.

I still plan to learn what my limits are at the Brooklyn Half.  With 31 days to prepare, I have a new plan to jog/walk the race.  The required minimum pace is 13:45 per mile.  If I can walk half of the race at a 15 minute/mile pace and jog half at a 12 minute/mile pace I'll have an average pace of about 13:30, which is good enough.

My doctor said that running will not make my condition worse - so if you're worried about that, don't.  He did say that I probably wouldn't be able to run this half marathon, but that a full marathon in September is not out of the question.  He suggested that while I have pain, I walk or bike.

Yesterday I walked 4 miles at a 2.5 mph pace on a treadmill.  I'll need to pick that up to a sustained 4 mph walk for my race plans to pan out.  Its important to ease in so I can learn what I can do without hurting afterwards.  The 4 mile walk was fine, in fact I felt less pain after walking than I did before.  I'm planning to try another 4 miles at a 3 mph pace tomorrow.  On Saturday I'll attempt a jog/walk for about 6 miles.  If at any point the jogging is too painful I'll stop.

My injury is a back injury, however my pain is classic sciatica.  This means that my back doesn't actually hurt, rather the pressure on the nerve is making my right glute, calf, and ankle hurt. The pain is at its worst in the morning, getting better as the day goes on.  Sadly the race starts at 7am.  I'll come up with some plan to minimize the pain by the time I'm crossing the start line.

As a bright point: my treatment does seem to be working.  Last week, walking 2 blocks to the garage where we park our car was slow and terrible.  This week I can 4 miles with no pain.  Here's hoping that I continue to make this type of progress!

2014: The year of setbacks

I'm back!  At some point in 2013 I abandoned the blog.  I was getting bored of constant race recap and training posts.  I'm sure you all noticed the posts were mostly the same with little reason to actually read them.

2013 was an amazing year for me.  I completed the Goofy Challenge, the NYC marathon, 4 half marathons, and enough nyrr races to qualify for entry to the 2014 NYC marathon (which I decided to forgo).   I managed all that in the same year that Alek and I got married!

However, things started to go downhill (without me even realizing it) just before the NYC marathon. I made a huge, huge mistake the night before the marathon.  I forgot to trim my toenails.  When your toenails are too long and getting pounded by your shoes for 4 hours and 55 minutes, blisters will form under them.  OUCH!

So I ended up with blisters under both big toenails.  I went to a podiatrist about a week after the race and she drained the blisters.  I thought my problems were gone...

...months later, I lost a toenail.  No big deal, it had been there long enough that a sliver of new nail had grown beneath it.  Then I lost the other big toenail at the end of January.  Also no big deal the same situation as the other and it wasn't painful....

... until the toe became infected.  This was pretty painful and kept me from running for several weeks until the toe healed.  But it did heal and I got back to my routine.

I was running, doing p90x3, skiing, and feeling pretty good about myself.  My running pace has been slow.  I blame that on two things.  1) lack of consistent exercise since November.  2) weight gain over the course of the year.

On March 9, we took my 9 year old nephew skiing.  I decided that this trip would be a great trip to work on my skiing form since we would be sticking to easier trails.  I felt pretty good about my new form.  I woke up with a back ache the next morning but didn't think much of it as I'd worked pretty hard skiing.

Over the course of March, the back ache came and went.  I continued working out but skipped the p90x when my back hurt.  On March 30 everything went down hill.  After a prolonged car ride I felt like I could barely walk.  I saw a doctor several days later.  He diagnosed me with a pulled muscle and sent me on my way with a prescription for pain killers and muscle relaxers.

The next morning I woke up and just walking a few steps was excruciating.  I lied on my back for most of the day before finally giving in and going to the ER.  Once there, I waited for 2 hours only for them to tell me that there was nothing they could do but prescribe more painkillers/muscle relaxers and suggested that I saw an orthopedist/neurosurgeon.  I spent the weekend lying on my back.

Monday morning I called the doctor referral lines for both NYU and HSS to try to find someone who could get me in soon.  NYU initially said that they couldn't get me in until May.  MAY!  I couldn't walk - there was no way I could get through the entire month of April.  Both NYU and HSS eventually found doctors who would see me on Tuesday.  I chose to go with HSS because of their fabulous reputation for orthopedics.

I saw the doctor Tuesday afternoon.  He diagnosed me with a herniated disk after a physical test.  He then prescribed some nerve medication along with the painkiller/muscle relaxer.  He also suggested a steroid injection into my spine after an MRI to see exactly which disk was the problem.

Its now Saturday, after a few days on the new mediation and having the steroid injection yesterday I'm feeling far better than I did last weekend.  However walking long distances is still painful and I'm not sure when I'll actually run again.  Boo!

I'm signed up for the Brooklyn Half on May 17.  My current plan is to walk or do a walk run for the race - since I'm certainly not trained up to running a full half and I don't want to cause any more damage.

After the brooklyn Half, I'm hoping to start marathon training for the Via Marathon in September. But I'm going to take this one day at a time - the last thing I want is a regression to last weekend.

I'll keep posting updates. sigh...