Absolut(ly) Fit

Beer Festival / Giveaway

2012-06-01T12:12:00.000-04:00

I'm tired of whining about my weight, so this week, I decided something big. I decided to give up my beloved beer.

It only takes one look at my blog header to know that I'm someone who enjoys going out and having fun. Despite all the marathons I've run, I've always been insistent that it be balanced with fun. (The guy I'm currently seeing told me he was surprised when he met me in person, because he thought based on my profile that I would want to eat salad all day long and never touch alcohol and run a million miles a day. A million miles a day is probably accurate in terms of the speed of my life, but otherwise, totally off the mark.) However, something has to give if I want to drop these pounds, and I've decided that trading beer for wine is a good quick hit. Ever since taking a wine tasting course in college, I love wine as well, and it's a lot harder for me to toss back than a few pints of good beer - so the trade should be a good way to ease up on the drinking and cut a fair number of calories.

At the same time, I do believe strongly that all good things should come in moderation (blah blah cliched talk, I know). But when I think about it, I'm not drinking beer in moderation. Not because of how much I drink when I'm out (it's usually not more 3 or 4, and that would be a big night for me) - it's more that beer has become my go-to drink when I go out, whereas it should be something for special occasions. So that's what I'm going to move toward - beer as a special occasion drink instead of an every weekend thing. No limiting how much I drink on that special occasion (usually me getting tired and falling asleep from the alcohol is limit enough), but cutting back to having beer only once a month or so. The idea is not necessarily to specify exactly how often I drink beer (some months there may be several big events and some there may be none), but more to make it a planned occasion that I can get excited about in advance, rather than "oh I'm out so maybe I'll have a pint or three."

What quantifies a special occasion? Right now, I have three instances coming up in the next two months: my birthday in mid-July (which I'm holding at my favorite beer bar in the city - blog readers welcome!), the Half Sauer Half Kraut marathon in mid-June (which is German themed and has beer along the course plus a beer garden at the finish, which is the specific reason I decided to run it), and the American Craft Beer Festival this weekend.

So now let's get off the subject of cutting back and throw caution to the wind. Ohhhhh boy to that last one - this is going to be a doozy! I really ought to be giving up beer for six months after all the beer I'm going to get my hands on tomorrow. I am currently sitting on a flight on my way to Boston and drooling all over the spreadsheet someone over at BeerAdvocate was kind enough to create for the festival. 561 beers will be offered (at least, that is what's announced - a lot of breweries will probably also bring limited quantities of a few surprises not listed), and my goal is to get through them all. To heck with 400 unique beers this year; let's go for 1000!

Just kidding.

But I did go through the list to highlight the ones I really want to try... and it was quite a bit morethan I initially anticipated.

Allagash Brewing Co - Allagash Peeterman
Amherst Brewing Co - Pistachio Crème Pie
Amherst Brewing Co - Wedding Witte
Anderson Valley Brewing Co - Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout
Ass Kisser Ales - Berry Nice Ass' Strawberry Wit
Ass Kisser Ales - Porter Pounder Smoked Porter
Bear Republic Brewing Co - Hop Rod Rye
Beer Works Fenway - Rosemary IPA
Boulevard Brewing Co - Saison Brett
Boulevard Brewing Co - Test Saison Noir
Bridge Brew Works LLC - Coffee Stout
Cambridge Brewing Co - Arquebus
Cambridge Brewing Co - Blunderbuss Barley Wine
Clown Shoes - Blaecorn Unidragon
Cody Brewing Co - Gee Mans Lemon Honey Hypnotic Tonic
Cody Brewing Co - Honey Gingah Pale Ale
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery - Festina Pêche
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery - Theobroma
Enlightenment Ales - Enlightenment Brut- Bière De Champagne
Goose Island - Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout
Goose Island - Imperial IPA
Harpoon Brewery - Harpoon Ginger Wheat (100 Barrel Series #42)
Heavy Seas Beer - Letter Of Marque 2012 (Tripel Wit)
Ipswich Ale Brewery - Ipswich Oatmeal Stout
Jack's Abby Brewing - Barrel Aged Bière De Garde
Jack's Abby Brewing - Hoponius Union
Jack's Abby Brewing - Smoke & Dagger
Lawson's Finest Liquids - Double Sunshine IPA
Left Hand Brewing Co - Good Juju (Ginger Ale)
Maine Beer Co - Lunch
Martha's Exchange - Martha's Smoked Porter
Mayflower Brewing Co - Mayflower Porter
NoDa Brewing Co - Coco Loco
NoDa Brewing Co - Ghost Hop White IPA
Paper City Brewery Co - Fogbuster Coffee House Ale
Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project - Fluffy White Rabbits
Prodigal Brewing Co - Brother Mutt's Smoked Marzenbier
Redhook Ale Brewery & Cataqua Public House - Sunny Side Up - Peached Triple
Sixpoint - Apollo
Somerville Brewing Co - Slumbrew Porter Square Porter
Stone Brewing Co - Double Bastard Ale
Stone Brewing Co - Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery - Duck-Rabbit Baltic Porter
The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery - Duck-Rabbit Barrel Aged Baltic Porter
The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery - Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout
Thomas Hooker Ales & Lagers - Chocolate Truffle Stout
Three Heads Brewing - Bromigo Smoked Maple Amber
Throwback Brewery - White Heron Chai Porter
Tröegs Brewing Co - Flying Mouflan
Watch City Brewing Co - Senchual Green Tea IPA
Weyerbacher Brewing Co - Merry Monks' Ale
Widmer Brothers Brewing Co - Marionberry Hibiscus Gose

Ummmm yeah. 57 beers. Served in 2oz pours, but still! I'm sure there's no way I'll try even half of those. Plus, let's not kid ourselves here - I'm not disciplined enough to only taste the ones on my list - if a brewer is handing me a sample of something else, I'm probably not going to turn it down. (Screw moderation; for this beer fest, I'm going big or going home.)

Since I know a lot of you out there are beer lovers (why else would anyone love running? Kidding!), this post may be making you a bit jealous... so I've decided to let you in on at least a bit of fun. Contest time!

To enter, please comment with the number of beers you think I'll get to try at tomorrow's festival (remember, 2oz pours, though in many cases I'm sure I'll take a few sips and then give up in the interest of trying as many as possible - and that will still "count"). Instead of Price is Right "closest without going over" rules, though, I'm going with closest without going under. Give me a goal and I will reach it! (Just please don't insist that I try all 561 beers or you may never find out the results because I will die of liver poisoning). The winner will get some kind of beer-related prize in the mail, yet-to-be-determined because it will depend on the rules for shipping alcohol to your state (yes, state - sorry, US readers only). If I can't send you actual beer, I have a few other prize ideas up my sleeve, so hopefully you won't be disappointed.

Contest closes tomorrow, Saturday June 2, at 1pm - at which point my Twitter feed will start blowing up with how I'm doing. (Though if my phone dies, I will be carrying pen and paper to keep tracking/rating beers in order to update Untappd post-festival). Winner will be announced Saturday night or whenever I am coherent enough to post again.

One last thing - if you are a female runner in the New York area, I'll be leading a group run on Sunday morning through Urban Girl Squad, followed by a seminar on tips for running in the summer heat. Sign up and come on out for a great run-the-beers-off morning! (Note that I will not actually be attempting a 50 miler, which is approximately how far I'd have to go to truly "run the beers off," but we'll do short distances of 2-6 miles depending on which group you choose; later in the day, I'll also be heading out for a non-sponsored 10 miler if you'd like to join that too).

Happy Friday and happy drinking!

Race Report: Vermont City Marathon

2012-05-31T20:27:00.000-04:00

Going into the weekend, I was really excited. While I had a few "obligations" (working the expo booth, doing an hour-long talk on my marathon journey, and of course running the marathon), it was all stuff I was excited to do. Plus, I had plenty of downtime to catch up on sleep, drink beer, eat my favorite pizza, and hang out with my mom, whom I hadn't seen in a while. This was exactly what I needed to start blowing my self bubble back up! Maybe the key to balance is just taking more weekends like this, and/or actually using some of my vacation time - I found out last week that I'm about to start losing mine since I've only taken two days in the last year. Oops! I think I have found the reason for my burnout :)

But two nights before the race was set up to be perfect. I got 11.5 hours of sleep on Friday night (though even after all that sleep, had to be woken by my alarm on Saturday morning - I have so much sleep debt right now!), grabbed a bagel at Panera, and then made the 3 hour drive to Burlington with my mom. On the way, I intended to write my Colfax Marathon report and also practice my presentation that I'd be doing at the expo that afternoon - but ended up skipping the race report in favor of catching up with my mom (it had been a month since we'd last seen each other in person!), and hurriedly went through my presentation. When I arrived at the expo, I was not nearly as rehearsed and prepared as I would have liked, but there was nothing I could do except wing it.

I arrived at the expo with just enough time to get my bib and have some Stonyfield Farms Greek yogurt before my assigned slot to work at the pacer booth. I headed down to the booth to meet two of my copacers who had already been working for an hour (because of my expo speech at 4pm, I had been assigned 2-4pm instead of the conventional 1-3pm or 3pm-5pm that most pacers had). We chatted about the course, the weather (not a trivial small talk topic at a late May marathon!), and of course, all things running. In between, we signed runners up for pace groups and told them everything we knew about the course. I got especially excited to meet a few blog readers who thought I would be there and stopped by to say hello (PS - kudos to you all for figuring out that I'd be there even though I never bothered to update my upcoming races page until last week.)

After my pacer shift, it was speech time! I headed into the seminar room and found quite a crowd was there to hear me talk, which was really cool. (I had been nervous beforehand that no one would want to come, particularly since I had just spoken last year.) In the end, though, it went even better than last year (or so my mom told me after), and I had a lot of fun. I really hope I get to come back and do it again in 2013!

And now, for the best part of the day - my mom and I headed to American Flatbread for our now-traditional pre-race meal of pizza and beer. American Flatbread is in my top two favorite pizza places in the country (second only to Cambridge1 in Boston, which I am lucky enough to get to go to next weekend!), and they usually have an awesome selection of draft beers as well. Saturday was no exception - they had a great lineup of XYZ beers, none of which I had ever had, but all of which were delicious. Furthermore, we decided to try this fabulous concoction:
PACER PIC

And that's where I discovered that I am a sucker for good herbed sausage. Near the end of my time in Charlottesville, I became obsessed with this hole in the wall creperie, The Flat, that had an incredible sausage-spinach-feta crepe that I would put as one of the top 10 foods I've ever eaten... and this pizza would probably also go into that top 10. It was covered in fresh herbs, which tasted amazing, and the crust was perfect. Hooray for carb loading!

My mom and I headed back to our hotel around 7:30pm, and I marveled at how early it was. What a fabulous night's sleep I was going to get! Wrong - after watching a TV show for a little bit, I found myself wide awake. We turned the lights out, I put my sleep mask on, and I literally lay there for over an hour stressing about various things before finally giving up and grabbing a book (These Girls, by Sarah Pekkanen, which was totally awesome). I kept putting the book down and trying to sleep, but reluctantly picking it back up when I realized I wasn't tired. What the heck?? I was glad I got a great night's sleep on Friday, since I knew that was what mattered for the race, but I was bummed that I couldn't get another good night's sleep too. I need some catch up!

I finally hit the hay at 12:30am, which meant that my 6am alarm clock rang way too early. But when I'm pacing, I have no choice - time to get up and at 'em! I pulled on my designated pacer's uniform (which was pretty darn cute - black and yellow like a bumblebee) and we headed down to the start. It was only when we were halfway there that I realized I had forgotten to grab a Powerbar for breakfast... empty stomach marathon it would be! (Though I had so much pizza/beer the night before that I was more than covered.)

All of the pacers were supposed to meet at our designated spot at 7am in order to meet up, get our signs, and take a team picture. However, a lot of pacers were very late, leaving me to wonder when I'd have a chance to hit the portapotty. At 7:30, I finally gave up and left to get in the portapotty line - if I missed the pic, I missed the pic, but it was more important that I be ready to pace. Fortunately, KBVCM is usually pretty awesome with logistics - and they had tons of portapotties so I was back pretty quickly and had time to make the group shot.

As soon as the pic was taken, we headed out - all taking various routes through the crowd to reach the corrals at the start. It was neat to look over everyone's heads and see the pace signs flying high and fanning out, like worker bees out to get the job done! (Okay, so maybe the yellow and black of the women's uniforms was putting too many thoughts of bees in my mind). I made it to my usual spot (which happens to be next to a streetcorner - why yes, I do have a regular corner!) and quickly found a pack of runners clustering around me. Some were those that I had met the day before at the expo, some were brand new, and one was a very familiar face - Kristen, whom I had paced at the New Jersey Marathon in 2011, was planning to run 4:45 but then saw me and decided to bump it up and join my group. She told everyone around that when she saw me, she had to run with me because I make marathoning so fun! That gave me an amazing feeling to start the race, and I hoped I could live up to her claims.

The other pacer, Jen, and I didn't end up standing very close to each other - while we had chatted briefly beforehand, we didn't discuss pace plans or any other logistics. I usually start out pacing marathons with an announcement to the group to introduce myself (and my co-pacer, if I have one), explain the pacing strategy, and encourage questions. However, since Jen and I hadn't touched base, and because the crowds were so loud for the first 1.5 miles, there wasn't really a good time to do that - so I simply told the plan to anyone who asked. I always try to pace Vermont about the same way - 10:30 warmup pace for the first 2 miles, 10:10 pace for the next 11 miles, and 10:25 pace for miles 14-24, and 10:30 pace for the final 2.2 miles. This puts me at the halfway point in 2:13:10, which is pretty close to even splits but still frontloading just a tiny bit. With so many people doing the half marathon relay (and the resulting spectators at mile 12 yelling "only 1 mile to go!"), I like to give my full marathoners the comfort that at the halfway point, they get to slow it down a little bit - plus, the second half of the course is always much hotter.

Since Jen was behind me where I couldn't see her, I focused on just setting what I thought was the right pace - but due to more crowding than usual in the first few miles, I found oursevles about 45 seconds behind when we hit the out and back highway connector at mile 4. This is another reason I like doing the first half a little faster - we didn't need to dramatically speed up to fix it; we could just chip away a little at a time and maybe do another mile or two in the second half at a 10:10 pace to make up the difference. In the meantime, I told my group that we were "doing great" - which we were.

The 5 mile out and back on the connector is always tough, both mentally and physically. It's long, it's boring, it's sunny, and the road is cambered pretty severely, which gave me some IT band issues the first time I ran it. I reminded my group to make sure to roll out their IT bands after their race ("with a foam roller... or a wine or beer bottle for extra therapy"), and we plugged along. I was proud that I figured out the timing just about right for the hill at the end, correctly estimating the distance from bottom to top so that I could count it down ("60 seconds to go... just 30 more seconds, don't give up now!"), and we reached the top still as one big group. Onward!

We flew through the relay station and passed the start line again - this time with no announcers because they were scrambling down to the finish line. It always amazes me how fast the winners can finish a race! But we weren't lacking for crowd support, and we soon headed back to Church Street to say hi to our favorite drag queens (yes, there are always drag queens out on Church Street cheering on the runners - this year they dressed as cheerleaders, which was extra fun) and then hit the beautiful downhill that would lead us to mile 10. Dou-ble di-gits! (Clap, clap, clap clap clap.)

Once at the bottom, I joked with my group about the musician that I knew was coming up - a guy who plays the guitar and sings only two words, over and over: "Run away... run away, run away!" Because he's mic'ed, you can hear him for several minutes, and by the end of it, "run away" is exactly what I want to do! This time, I confused him with another musician, and joked to my group that apparently this year he had learned a new song... until we went a mile further and I found my old friend still singing "Run away!" So we did.

Next up: the Gu station at mile 11.1. I had been counting down the miles until this stop by popular request, but when we arrived, there was no Gu to be found! I was really disappointed, but at the same time, forgiving - out of all the years I've run VCM, this was the first year I'd seen them run out of Gu where it was promised. Instead, I chomped down on one of the gels I had in my fuel belt, and gave one more away to another runner. I was glad no one else asked for one, as I only had one left and I wanted to keep it in case of emergency later in the race! I hoped that the Gu station at mile 18 would be more fully stocked.

We headed down into a neighborhood and then got our first glimpse of Lake Champlain as we circled around to come back - and of course, I made the requisite joke about wanting to jump in and go for a swim to cool off. Sometimes I feel like it must be so lame to run with me multiple times because I reuse a lot of the same jokes year after year. But with any luck, people in the 4:30 group one year are getting faster and moving up to the 4:15 group the next year? At least I hope so!

Just one baby hill to take us up to the halfway point, so here I turned my attention to the few half marathon relay runners around. While the hill at 12.9 is steep, it's also very short (~45 seconds bottom to top), so I tried to encourage people not to give up when they were just a few minutes from finishing their race. The narrow path is not ideal for passing, but I saw a few half marathoners pick it up to head left for the relay exchange point - yay! And with that, the full marathoners were on our own.

We headed down the bike path, and now I started psyching everyone up. The best mile of the race was coming up - the Assault on Battery! What terrified me before my first Vermont City Marathon has now become my favorite part of the whole race. It's a big long hill (452 steps), yes, but the Taiko drummers at the bottom provide an incredible pounding bass, and the crowds cheering all along the barriers give me so much energy - I end up feeling like I'm at the Olympics! My first year, I ended up charging up the Battery like it was a downhill, and while I haven't been able to do that since (as a pacer, it wouldn't be fair to my group), I always get a major boost of energy and excitement. I would put it as one of my favorite parts of any marathon, period.

This year, though, while I spent the two miles leading up to it getting everyone pumped... it was a crazy letdown. The crowds were not nearly as big as any other year I've done it, and a lot of them were just... standing there. I understand that it's tiring to clap for runners (not being sarcastic - I have done it for races before and understand that it gets old), but it's frustrating to have people who at least made the effort to be out there, and then just stand there staring at you. No fun! I felt bad that I had psyched up my runners for something that wasn't all that great in the end, and I hope the real spirit of the Battery comes back next year. (On the plus side, the Taiko drummers were amazing as always - thank you, drummers!)

We reached the top, and I reminded all the runners around me not to walk yet - there was a water station less than a minute away, so better to wait until then. Luckily, this aid station did not disappoint - it was right where it was supposed to be, and the volunteers congratulated us on completing the hill as they gave us our water/Gatorade. Thank you, volunteers!

We turned out of the park and past the start one more time - now we'd head on a long out-and-back disguised with some small side loops through various neighborhoods before turning onto the bike path for a gloriously flat journey to the finish. From here on out, no more real hills (just a few tiny bumps in the road)... but a lot of sun, particularly on the main road straightaway. Fortunately, tons of residents had come out to set up their own makeshift water stations as well as sprinklers, making it at least a bit more bearable!

When we turned into the neighborhood at mile 18, I got kind of quiet. I never ended up writing a race report last year (partially because I was embarrassed and partially because time got away on me), but last year, I passed out in the heat here and had to be taken to the medical tent. I didn't get to finish pacing the race and I felt absolutely horrible about letting down my group. I found out that another pacer had gone down around the same point - but they cut the course in order to rejoin their group at mile 23 in order to at least help pace them for the final miles (of course not accepting a medal or official finish time), and I wished I had thought of that. This year, I was worried - it was somewhat hot again. Would I pass out? I felt great, but something about that spot still scared me.

But when I got past the telephone pole where I had slumped down the year before, I started to breathe a little easier. I felt very strong and was still doing a great job of motivating my group - no passing out this year! I enjoyed another shot of Gu at the mile 18 aid station (yes, this one still had Gu!), and then we headed through one final neighborhood to cross the 20 mile mark. I spotted my brothers' good friend Megan on the way and cheered her on as I ran by. I still had a sizable group around me; now I just had to navigate the final few miles to 21 before we'd turn onto the bike path and have a nice straight shot to the finish.

Getting on the bike path represented the absolute last hill we'd face in the race - and this one almost can't be termed a hill, because it's literally 5 seconds of uphill running that's like the equivalent of running up half a flight of stairs. From here on, the trick would be not succumbing to the plethora of water stations - one per mile - that would slow us to a walk and make it hard to keep the pace. The heat was on!

The final miles on the bike path are flat, but also a little bit boring - so this is where I generally try to keep the energy up with motivational talk about how short a distance we still have to go. I reminded people that the beer stop was at mile 25 (yippee!), and also talked about how they'd come this far and they'd really regret it if they threw all their hard work away and didn't push it in the last few miles. I felt bad that I wasn't quite as peppy as usual, but it's a fine line to walk between energizing people and annoying those around you, so I tried to keep it reasonable.

I ended up getting a few people in my group to go on ahead, but the group was really disintegrating every time we hit a water stop. By mile 23, it wasn't so much a group as me running on pace and trying to pep up whoever was around me, whether they were part of "the 4:30 group" or not. Checking my watch, I found that I was running dead even splits for these final miles - but I knew that even keeping the same pace was tough given the heat and the mental challenge. I wished I had banked just a little more time in the first half, so that we could slow it down now, but it was too late now - just had to keep going.

We hit the mile 25 mark and I was very disappointed to find that for the first time in my years running VCM, there was no beer stop. (I later found out that the police had shut it down - seriously ridiculous!) Bummed out just a bit, I pressed on - there was only ten minutes of running left, and I wanted to encourage as many people as I could. I tried to focus other runners' attention on how many minutes were left in the race, since it's very easy to remind yourself that you just need to keep going for 7 more minutes (or whatever), and I found a few runners responding positively to that.

Finally, I passed by the big rock that marked the entrance to the park - and the fences of cheering crowds awaited me. My mom was front and center by the Albany Running Exchange tent, holding a sign she had made especially for this race: "Vermont - First Marathon, 71st Marathon - Go Laura!" I loved it :) Seeing her and my friends with Albany Running Exchange made me so excited, and I wished I could sprint to the finish - but I had a job to do. Checking my watch, I realized I was basically exactly on pace for 4:30, so I kept turning around and running backwards, reminding those around me that if they could hear my voice, they could break 4:30... they just had to finish in front of me. (Unfortunately, I couldn't slow down to help them do that!)

I headed past the beer tent to the second to last turn, and was surprised not to see a 26th mile marker - that is usually my favorite part of a course. But I quickly had bigger fish to fry - my pacing sign, which had been wobbling like crazy the whole race, was blown apart by the wind and fell onto the course. Yikes! I knew I was close enough that it didn't matter, but I wanted to finish holding my sign - so I took a few seconds to stop, go back, and retrieve it. I tried in vain to reassemble it while I was running, but ultimately gave up - I would just have to finish holding the stick in one hand and the sign in the other. Still proud!

As I came down the finish chute, my broken sign didn't stop the announcer from recognizing me, and I was thrilled when he called out my name. He pointed out that Vermont had been my first marathon several years ago, and said that I "now run more marathons than anyone in the world!" Hmm, not quite :) I was a little embarrassed by that gaffe (the same way I am when people say I'm the youngest person to run a marathon in all 50 states when I was actually only the youngest woman), but there wasn't much I could do except smile and keep heading across the finish line. And when I reached down to check my watch, I found that I really had something to smile about - I had finished in 4:30:06! That's pretty perfect pacing, if I do say so myself :)

Post-race, I met up with my mom, and also finally had the chance to meet Emily at the beer tent, despite missing her at the race the past several years. And after that? A shower followed by another trip to American Flatbread with my mom - I just couldn't resist :)

Race stats:
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 4:30:07
Pace: 10:18
Overall place: 1546/2421
Gender place: 577/1085
Age group place: 156/233

Acting with Intention

2012-05-24T17:37:00.002-04:00

One of the most eye-opening things about my retreat this week has been seeing how there are a lot of people dealing with the same things. Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy to spend so much time stressing about the food choices I make and working out on the road - I mean, thinking about these things that much has to be some kind of eating/exercise disorder, right? I'm very conscious of the fact that I read a lot of healthy living blogs, and that some of those blogs may either portray themselves unrealistically or flat-out be promoting unhealthy behavior. For my part, I am pretty honest about what I post, but I also know that I'm a lot less likely to post when I'm not in a good place (hello, six month break from blogging when I was dealing with depression). I know that if someone is writing a running blog, their blog is probably going to focus a lot more on their workouts instead of the other stuff that they do, so I try to remember that what I see isn't all of their life, and they probably make poor choices at times just like I do. But it does get tough when you see people posting about double workouts every day like it's no big deal (lately I do double workout days a lot, but it's definitely not easy) - and of course, having seemingly no issues with their weight like I do. On the work front, I see most of my coworkers seeming to eat whatever they want and rarely going to the gym - and then it makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong. How are they maintaining their weights with basically no effort, while I'm obsessing and still not completely happy?

Well, this week I found out that some of them are worried about it. Nearly everyone in my small coaching group talked about getting more exercise in as one of their potential daily rituals to start incorporating. I was also surprised to find out that I'm not alone in wondering what career is right for me - a quick show of hands revealed that 70% of my coaching group was considering leaving the firm (and discussions during breaks showed that other groups had about the same distribution). Whoa! I think a lot more of us are caught up in the "I'm stuck but don't know where to turn" thoughts than I would have ever guessed (and this became even more evident when we did a songwriting workshop and someone suggested that the opening line be "I work 80 hours a week in a cube with no windows; I don't know how much more I can take"). The question is... what do we do about it?

I think Jocelyn hit the nail on the head in her comments the other day - we can change the things we don't like. Sometimes we get so caught up in the cycle (must get that next promotion!) and societal expectations (go make as much money as you can or you'll never be able to afford a nice home / vacations / whatever!) that we don't realize that all of these things are, in fact, choices. One of the big themes of this week has been learning to "act with intention" - and, in fact, when we were asked about the last time we "made an intentional decision" (aka didn't just go with the flow but made a conscious decision to do something with a goal in mind that mattered to us), I was mortified to realize that I couldn't think of any time in the last six months that I had done that. Going against the grain is hard!

And of course, there's also the issue of what's realistic. Today I ended up being a bit negative during the programming that we had, and I think it was in large part because it's the last day and we now have to leave the bubble of our ideals and go back to real life. It's all well and good to figure out that my perfect day would be waking up at 8am with no alarm and spending the day reading/working out/cooking/hanging out with friends... but if I quit real jobs in search of that, I'd probably be broke and still not getting what I want. You can't get everything exactly the way you'd like it to be, and there are always going to be things you don't want to do. I think the major takeaway for me this week is that a lot of things I've considered necessary evils might not be so necessary - that maybe it's possible to get more of what I want and less of what I hate.

It all comes back to defining success. We were asked to write our personal definition of success on the very first day - I struggled with that assignment quite a bit. Today, my coach pointed out that coming up with a personal definition of success is kind of like defining the meaning of life - it's not easy to do and we'll probably never have all the answers. As much as I'd like to strive for perfection in every way, the real answer is to figure out which things are the most important to me and which I can let slide. And of course, the key to doing that is acting with intention/purpose.

My purpose for the next hour? To go meet up with my friends at the beach bar for a drink before we all fly home :)

Balancing Life

2012-05-22T14:19:00.003-04:00

I have a lot to say about my experience with the Colfax Marathon, but before I get to writing my race report, I really want to write about some amazing things I'm experiencing this week.

As a reward for my promotion this past year, I was invited to go on a personal development retreat out in California. We are staying at a stunningly beautiful resort on the Pacific Coast, eating delicious (and surprisingly healthy!) food, doing morning workouts outside overlooking the ocean... and spending a lot of time in seminars and one-on-one coaching sessions to do a checkpoint on our lives, identify our values and goals, and figure out what changes we need to make to be happy. It's so rare that we ever take the time to stop and think about these things (or at least, I don't). I am overwhelmed with gratitude to my company for providing this opportunity, which I can already see is going to be life changing.

But on the other hand, I'm also pretty freaked out by it all. When I truly stop to think about it, I am not honoring my core values, and I'm not often getting to do what makes me happy (professionally or personally). While I am an extremely goal-oriented person, I'm starting to realize that what I'm terrible about is identifying those goals to begin with. Instead of setting goals that are really what's important to me, I set goals that I think I should set. I should work hard to get promoted, because that's what people do. I should go out with my friends on a Saturday night because that's what 20somethings do, even if I'm exhausted and getting sick from lack of sleep. I should finish running a marathon in each state, because I came up with the idea on a whim but then I told so many people that I felt I needed to stick with it.

To be fair, most of the goals I've set are ones that I'm glad I stuck with. I'm proud of myself for running a marathon in all 50 states - probably even more proud of the fact that I stuck with it despite it not always being easy or fun to do so. I'm glad I went out with my friends on Saturday night, because I had an absolute blast and it was great to catch up. And I'm glad that I'm doing well at my job, working hard, and continuing to get promotions and bonuses. But are promotions and bonuses the way I define success? They're how society has taught me to measure it, but I'm not so sure that they're what I actually want.

Food for thought: take a minute and draw the four circles of your life. Draw one for career, one for family, one for community/friends, and one for self. Maybe something like this...

How do your circles look now? How do you want them to look (doesn't have to be the same as above)? What, if anything, do you need to change to get them to look the way you want?

Here's what I drew:

I have a lot of change ahead...

Night Before the Race: Colfax Marathon

2012-05-21T11:12:00.001-04:00

I got into Denver late on Thursday night and headed to my friend Kelly's house, where I'd be staying on Thursday and Friday nights. Despite being exhausted, I couldn't resist staying up to catch up on life over a delicious bottle of wine! I finally crawled into bed at midnight (which to me felt like 2am Eastern, since I don't adjust my body's clock when I'm in Dallas and prefer to stay on Eastern time).

The next morning, 6am wakeup came far too early - but it was time for me to head out to my RRCA training course. I was going to get my coaching certification! I didn't know much about what to expect going into it, but right off the bat I was in awe: one of the other students in my class was Lorraine Moller, the bronze medalist in the marathon at the 1992 Olympics!!! It was so neat to get her insight on everything as we progressed through the class.

However, there was a lot about the class that did not make me happy - and actualy made me feel pretty bad about myself and my running ability. While at the beginning of the course we discussed how there are many types of coaches and running goals (to win a race, to complete a marathon, to lose weight, etc), the class seemed to be mostly focused on coaching fast runners who want to get faster. I was really upset by some of the things that were discussed - for example, that "beginning marathoners" are those with times of 3:45 or more (in 70 marathons I have never yet broken 3:49 - am I a beginner?). It was recommended that if someone is a "slow marathoner" and finishing in 4 hours or more, that they shouldn't do a long run of more than 3 hours, because chances are they are "only" doing that marathon as a bucket list once-in-a-lifetime thing, and therefore shouldn't waste time training more than 18 miles. Um, I beg to differ!

I may apparently be a slow beginner, but I think the best thing that you can do is as many long runs close to themarathon distance as you can squeeze in. While most people hate the last 6-8 miles or so of a race because they hit the wall and are exhausted and hurting, my favorite part of a race is generally the last 6-8 miles. My body is so used to the 26.2 distance that it's the equivalent of what other people feel when they run a 10K (hmm, funny how those training for a 10K definitely run more than 6.2 miles in training!) - you're tired at the end, sure, but the body is used to running that far and it's not shutting down or giving up yet. As a result, around mile 20, I usually find that those around me are slowing down - but I'm going at the same pace I have been since the beginning of the race, and using pretty much the same form. If it's your very first marathon, I agree that there's some value to getting to experience the magic of it being the first time hitting a long distance during the race - but I also would not recommend doing a marathon without having done at least one 20 mile training run, and I think the more you can get in, the more comfortable your body will be on race day.

Furthermore, I was really disheartened by how the classemphasized high mileage above all else. While I know that it's a bit crazy that I tend to just run marathons and not train in between (weekly mileage: 26.2 miles), and I wouldn't recommend that to those whom I train, I also don't think that 50 mile weeks are right for everyone. The point was hammered home repeatedly that crosstraining is not going to help your running at all and is a complete waste of time; only running will make you a better runner. I completely disagree with this - of course you have to practice running in order to develop good form and running economy (which is critical for a marathon, where one little tweak in your form can make a huge difference over the long distance). However, I think you can save a lot of wear and tear on your feet and knees by weight training, getting your heart rate up on the elliptical, or just doing basically any kind of workout that helps burn calories and stay fit. If you're training for a sub-3 hour marathon, maybe running 80-100 miles per week is the only way to do it, but for the vast majority of us out there who are (gasp) 3:45+ marathoners, there is a lot of benefit to crosstraining a few days a week instead of just pounding our bodies into the ground.

By Saturday afternoon, I was in a miserable mood, feeling like I was the black sheep of the class who believed that it was okay to just run a race and not try to win it. As I later discussed on Sunday night with friends, I believe that a race is as much about the journey as it is the destination. My favorite races were not those in which I PRed (in fact, I only remember snippets from the Kentucky Derby Marathon where my current PR was set), but those in which I had a blast along the way. I can remember every mile of the 2:40 half marathon I got to run with my mom, and I still list Running With the Horses as my favorite small marathon, despite it taking me nearly 5:45 to finish due to some knee issues. Am I proud of some of my faster finishes? Sure, but to me, getting a fast time is not the only measure of a race.

So when the course finally ended, I couldn't wait to get out of there, and I bolted for the safety of friends. My friend Caitlin moved to Denver with her husband last summer, and we had made plans to check out the awesome Denver beer scene that night. (This may not have been the best idea given that I woke up on Saturday with that nasty back-of-the-throat that signals the start of illness, but I couldn't resist.) We headed for Wynkoop Brewing Company, which offered 2 oz pours of every beer on tap for just $1 each, and I gratefully enjoyed that along with a bowl of steamed mussels, some bread, and a plate of the most delicious hand cut fries I've ever tried. Mussels and beer: the perfect pre-race meal!

Post Wynkoop, we checked out one other beer bar in the area, and then I headed back to my hotel to rest up. 10pm - not nearly as I wanted given that I had to wake up at 4:30am to get to the race! I hoped that my impending illness wouldn't manifest (perhaps the alcohol would kill the nasty bacteria??) and that I'd wake up in a bit more positive spirits than I was in on Friday and Saturday - after all, 4+ hours is a lot of time to spend out running and miserable.

Weekend Recap: Workout in the Park and Scavenger Hunt

2012-05-17T16:45:00.004-04:00

Now that I'm finally all caught up on my race reports, let's do a little weekend catch up, shall we?

Since I was going to be out of town for the next two weeks due to RRCA certification, the Colfax Marathon, and the Vermont City Marathon, a big part of my weekend plans revolved around getting to see friends and the guy I've been seeing. Lately the work travel has really been wearing on me for the simple reason that I don't get enough time in NYC to see everyone! While in the past, I've taken many trips around the country/world to see different places and explore on weekends or for vacation, this morning I actually canceled my trip to Puerto Rico in August, and also spoke to my boss about picking a good week this summer for me to take vacation days just to stay in NYC - a "staycation." That would honestly be a lot more refreshing and rejuvenating for me than going anywhere!

Another problem lately for me has been lack of sleep, so I intended for Friday night to be low-key. Well, it was low-key as far as not doing anything crazy went (I went to one of my favorite beer bars, Valhalla, which was not inherently crazy); however, it was not a low-key night in terms of how late I stayed out and also how much I drank. Lately I've been drinking on an empty stomach (for no particular reason - I usually plan to eat and then for whatever reason it just doesn't happen), and as a result, midnight found me swaying with exhaustion as I swore that this was it and I was going to get a good night's sleep. Quote from the next day: "What time did I go to bed? Around midnight?" "Um... try 3am." Oops.

Despite my continued lack of sleep, Saturday found me up bright and early as I prepared to go to Workout in the Park with Melissa and Leticia, who had won my ticket giveaway earlier in the week. We had an absolute blast at the event, even getting some super-special VIP access that allowed us to be the absolute first people in the event (SO. COOL.) and also gave us our own private area to follow along with the workouts (have to say, it was nice to be able to do the workouts without tripping over the thousands of other women crowd in there). That said, the thousands of women was exactly what made the workout so special to me - I kept commenting how amazing it was to see so many people (of all shapes and sizes) so committed to working out and getting fit. It was really exciting to look around and feel like we are all in this together! Sometimes it can be disheartening to realize just how much effort it takes day in and day out to stay reasonably in shape, and particularly since I work/spend most of my time with male coworkers who don't really seem to have to do much at all, I feel like my workouts are Herculean and deserve a medal (and certainly a bit more weight loss than I've currently achieved). But our bodies are a constant work-in-progress, and it really gave me a sense of solidarity to work out with so many people and really feel that.

Another thing I felt? The workouts, which totally wore me out. We started with a special Crossfit Workout of the Day (WOD) that had us do five deep squats, five pushups, and five squat jumps, repeated for seven minutes of As Many Reps as Possible (AMRAP). I pushed myself as hard as I could and managed to achieve 14 rounds (plus 2/3 of the 15th round), which qualified me to win a Crossfit t-shirt. Woo hoo! My drawers are completely overflowing with t-shirts that I rarely wear (I almost never wear race t-shirts, mostly choosing fitted tanks and such instead), but I was so excited to meet the challenge that I kept the shirt. This is one I'll be proud to wear!

The downside of going so hard first thing was that I got crazy super-sweaty and tired - which did not serve me well for the next three hours of working out. We had a lot of fun with the different classes, but I ended up calling it quits a little bit early due to both that and the sun, which was gorgeous but sucking the life out of me. Besides, I still had quite a bit of running ahead of me!

3pm was the start of my friend Ali and Jess' fourth annual Scavenge for Life fundraiser, which goes along with Relay for Life to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Basically, you start at a bar and form teams of 4 (or come with your team already wearing matching outfits if you are hardcore like the eventual winners). At the stroke of 3pm, you're given a sheet with about 100 items on it, all worth varying points. In addition to collecting items (20 cigarette butts in a plastic bag, a movie popcorn bucket) and taking photos (the entire team inside a bathbut, someone with a unibrow, four strangers spelling out the letters YMCA), teams are also asked to check in at specific bars for 20 minute periods, during which time they will receive 1 point per drink consumed, up to a maximum of 8 points per team. (I think you can guess that that last category of the hunt spelled trouble.)

Favorite moment of the hunt: me trying to flag a car down when I realized they had a license plate with "123" in it, failing when they thought I was crazy, and instead trying to snap the license plate as it drove away. Meanwhile, Celia took off at a sprint (now it should be clear why I picked runners for my team) and managed to catch the car, so we ended up with duplicate photos (but sadly no duplicate points).

Second favorite moment of the hunt, when asked to take a pic of someone on the team holding a dog in the Union Square Dog Park: me entering the dog park, realizing that I didn't know which dog belonged to which owner, and not wanting to just pick up a stranger's dog without permission. So when a very large animal jumped up on me and his owner came over to help, I immediately knew who that dog's owner was - and jumped on the chance to ask for a picture. "It's a scavenger hunt... TO SUPPORT CANCER RESEARCH!"

I did in fact get made fun of quite a bit for choosing to hold a large dog when there is a teacup poodle directly behind me in the pic. However, I will note that this dog LOVED me and was thrilled to be picked up, even chasing after me on the way out because he was sad that I was running off in search of other things (we never did find a live bunny, like Jocelyn's team did). I pictured him finding my number and texting me with "Laura, come back and play!" (Why yes, I am utterly and completely obsessed with Text From Dog).

Unfortunately, our team did not win the hunt. However, we did win the coveted "Best Drinkers" award (which was noted on the certificate to be "one of the two challenges of the Scavenge for Life"), and the event raised over $1100 for the American Cancer Society. Success! And with that, I headed to dinner with Theodora and some other friends before finally calling it a night - and starting to try to catch up on all my missed sleep.

Next up, review of the Figure 4 class I hosted on Sunday! Stay tuned.

Race Report: New Jersey Marathon

2012-05-15T15:43:00.002-04:00

(This race was run on May 6 - and now I am finally caught up with back race reports!)

After doing everything right for last week's race and going into it feeling great (except for my crazy nerves at the start), I wanted to duplicate that this weekend. Having paced the New Jersey Marathon for the last two years, I knew the course well. I knew it was mostly flat, fairly easy, and not terribly mentally challenging (pretty scenery, lots of crowd support, no end of race hills, etc). But then I started striking out.

Strike 1 - Ashley and Gia arranged a free hot Figure 4 class for bloggers on Friday night. Having never done Figure 4 before, I didn't know too much about it, but figured I would take it easy on anything that worked the legs, and then kill it when it came to upper body work. Turns out, Figure 4 is basically all legs - we used dumbbells to work our arms for one song, and then did a few pushups during another song, but the rest was all lower body work. As a result, I ended up doing a few moves until my legs were shaking - which might not have been the best idea before my race. On the bright side, the class was amazing, and I wished I could have pushed myself to the max - I am really looking forward to giving it another try this Sunday.

Strike 2 - after killing my legs in Figure 4 and also sweating all the water out of my body thanks to the hot nature of the room, I headed out on a date. We had intended to get dinner and then part ways early, so that I could get a good night's sleep (I've always found that the sleep I get two nights before the race is way more important than the night before). Instead, I skipped dinner, got a little too into my 12% ABV Allagash Curieux, and stayed out sampling more beers till 3am. Since I hadn't planned anything on Saturday until late afternoon, I reasoned that I could just sleep in to make up for it... until my internal clock woke me at 8am and wouldn't let me go back to sleep. 5 hours of sleep when I was already in sleep debt from a busy week at work? Not good.

Strike 3 - On Saturday, instead of staying home to rest up and carb load, I inadvertently skipped both breakfast and dinner and enjoyed several delicious frozen sweet tea lemonades at Ashley's Diamond Derby party. (Aside from the drinks and desserts, there wasn't anything terribly carb-heavy on the menu, so I mostly just had a few crackers with pimento cheese dip, because that's obviously a good thing to eat the night before a marathon). Since I hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep Friday night and because I had to get up at 4am to get to the race Sunday, I planned to call it an early night on Saturday. However, I ended up having way too much fun at the party, and didn't get to bed until 11:30pm - giving me only 4.5 hours of sleep.

That's three strikes, so I should have been out - and I thought I was. My first thought on rousing myself Sunday morning was how much I just wanted to stay in bed and just sleep all day. Economics says that my race entry fee was a sunk cost and shouldn't be considered, right?? But I dutifully slathered myself with Body Glide, threw on my race outfit, and headed for Penn Station to meet my friends for the train to the race.

On the train, I was exhausted, and started to regret my decision to leave my pillow at home. Last year, I spent the train ride reading because I was perfectly rested and wide awake; this year, I tried to do that and kept nodding off. Finally, I stretched out on an empty row of seats and allowed myself to doze. Unfortunately, I never truly nodded off, so it ended up being kind of an unproductive train ride.

When we got to the end of the line and people started piling off, we were at a completely different station than the one that I'm used to. I had just heard a few days before a race that the course had changed, but getting off at a different station threw me for a loop. So we wouldn't be waiting for the start at the usual hotel, and the start and finish were in totally different places? This was news to me, and I started to get a little bit concerned about how different the course might be. However, my nerves were quickly quelled by all the aforementioned strikes against me. While I had originally decided to run this race thinking I'd aim for a sub-4 time, there was no way that was happening for me now, and I didn't have any other time goals I cared about reaching. It was going to be just a fun run day, so whether the course was hilly or not didn't matter.

Carla dashed off to the start of the half marathon as soon as we got off the train, since the organizers had moved the half marathon start up to 6:50am (vs 8am for the full marathoners). It was strange to me that the half marathon would start first, and I hoped that we wouldn't run into any congestion issues with the front-of-the-pack marathoners catching up with the back-of-the-pack half marathoners. However, it turned out that Carla needn't have worried - Jocelyn and I watched from the sidelines with amusement as half marathoners meandered over to the start more than 40 minutes after the official start time. While the announcer started out by saying it was the last call for half marathoners to start, he kept saying that for nearly an hour, at one point even changing his plea to "if you're a half marathoner and still haven't started, please raise your hand and we'll keep the timing mats going longer." It was very odd to see people starting the race in groups of 2 or 5 instead of all at once! It seemed like the extremely early start time didn't give people enough time to get there. For my selfish part, I wished that the half marathon had started later so that the train from Penn Station could have left later - granting me more sleep and less time hanging around and killing time waiting for the marathon to start.

Jocelyn and I were able to entertain ourselves fairly well though, catching up on gossip, people watching, and me belatedly carb loading with a bagel and cream cheese that were being sold at the start by a local charity (sidebar: bagel and cream cheese was $1.50; small cup of coffee was $4. Guess they knew what was hottest in demand!). Jocelyn's one rule was that we couldn't talk about anything race related, because she wanted to avoid thinking about it. Jocelyn had been training insanely hard and was going for her first sub-4 marathon, and she seemed to have done everything perfectly - even skipping the Derby party on Saturday night in favor of getting more rest. Thinking about how she was to achieve her goal of sub-4 and how I was going to be left in the dust thanks to my stupidity over the last few days was frustrating - I knew that I had a sub-4 marathon in me, if only I had done things right. Irresponsible!

We made a few friends in the line for bag check, and again in the porta potty lines. While the line for bag check was long (because this year the bags had to be loaded on trucks and brought to the finish line intsead of staying in one place), the lines for the portat potties were surprisingly short, and the porta potties also surprised me in being very fresh and clean - mine smelled strongly of air freshener and had extra rolls of toilet paper stocked just in case. Go, organizers! That's a small detail that makes a big difference at the start of a race.

By the time we headed to the corrals, my coffee had kicked in and I was giddy with excitement. I didn't care that I wasn't going to run fast - I was just glad to be out there on what was shaping up to be a perfect day for running (temps in the 60s, sky slightly overcast). Furthermore, I couldn't wait to cross the finish line and celebrate Jocelyn's major accomplishment when all of her hard weeks of training paid off.

Before long, the race had begun - and unlike Country Music Marathon, the field was small enough that we got to cross the start fairly quickly (about two minutes after the elites). As our starting song, the DJ had chosen "I'm Sexy and I Know It (I Work Out)", which got me totally pumped up and ready to go. We run marathons! We are sexy ! We work out! The song had a great beat and I quickly fell into step with the runners around me as we took off from the race track grounds and headed... well, I didn't know where we were going, but I knew we were still ending on the boardwalk, so I focused on the ocean views that I knew soon awaited me.

The first mile was fairly quiet, with everyone just getting into the zone trying to find their pace. For my part, I put on a great Jack's Mannequin album, Glass Passenger, and rocked out to "Crashing" and "Spinning," each of which had great beats for kicking off the race. Most people seemed to be pretty introspective, but in an attempt to break the ice, I called out "hooray, just 25 miles to go!" at the one mile marker. A few people laughed, and it broke the ice for us to chat. There were a few first timers but also a lot of veterans, many of whom were locals that run the New Jersey Marathon every year. It was great to have people who knew where we were and where we were going, and I soon learned that while we started in a completely different place from last year, the course would actually be pretty similar. It was nice not to have to deal with those awful potholes in the road that did me in last year!

I noticed that my pace was quicker that expected for the first few miles (8:40, 8:50, 8:54, 8:58, 8:56), but it felt completely comfortable, so I just went with it. I didn't mind at all if later miles ended up being slower as a result - I just wanted to do what felt comfortable. I found myself running right by the 3:55 pace group, so I chatted with the pace team leader there (who was awesome, calling out "right turn ahead!" so we'd know when to start cutting diagonally across the road in preparation) and some of the runners in the group.

But then, what really felt comfortable? Seeing a tailgate party up ahead, and taking the proffered mimosa. DELICIOUS. Over the next three miles, I found several tailgate parties and managed to pick up a mimosa and two beers along the way - earning the respect of many of the runners around me (particularly the guys whose shirts read "Sorry for Party Rocking"), who couldn't believe I was drinking as we ran. Except for a particularly foamy Bud Light, the drinks went down smoothly and served as a nice little pick-me-up, and my times didn't seem to be suffering as a result of sipping a few cold ones - miles 6-10 clocked in at 8:42, 8:54, 8:41, 8:31, and 8:46, respectively. Powered by alcohol? Yes indeed!

I hadn't seen Jocelyn since I started the race, because she said at the beginning she needed to be left to her own devices to focus, but at mile 10, I thought I got a glimpse of her up ahead. Was that her? I hurried to catch up and discovered that it wasn't - it was another blonde wearing hot pink compression socks. Those certainly are popular! I've never given compression gear a try, but one of these days will probably have to do so (though I don't think I'd want to wear them while racing, since that just looks like it would be too hot).

Between miles 10 and 11, we started to catch up with some of the half marathoners, and I tried to cheer on as many as I could when I passed. While I had initially been worried about congestion, there were fewer walkers than I expected still out there, and they all courteously positioned themselves along the side of the road so running marathoners could pass with no trouble. My pace stayed solid as the course split into two lanes - one for half marathoners headed to the finish and one for full marathoners heading out for an out-and-back before returning to the boardwalk.

As I neared the halfway point, I started thinking about my time and realizing that I was doing much better than expected. The sub-9 minute pace per mile was fairly comfortable for me to maintain, probably in large part due to the amazingly perfect weather, which was nice and cool, not sunny and hot like past years. Despite taking a slightly longer time with mile 13 thanks to a stubborn Sports Beans pack that I couldn't open, I crossed the halfway point in 1:56 - and was still feeling awesome. Did I want to try for a PR today?? I would have to run the second half just two minutes faster than the first, and given how strong I was feeling, that was a definite possibility if I decided to push it. On the other hand, I was having an absolute blast just running by feel and not concerning myself with time. After Tweeting some advice from friends, I decided to go not with the majority vote but with my mom's advice, who told me to just have fun. It may have been lazy, but I decided to stick with that - I hadn't gone into this expecting to run any kind of good time, let alone a PR, and I had been enjoying myself so much thus far that I didn't want to mess with it. Run easy, run happy! (Hey Brooks, want to make me your new spokesperson?)

And "run happy" I was. Though I don't think it will beat my first New York City Marathon, where I had such a perma-grin that my face hurt more than my legs when I was done, I was smiling the whole way and thanking all the volunteers and spectators that I could. As we hit the 7 mile out-and-back down the coast, I transferred my grin and energy to the runners on the other side, cheering "You go girl!" for the fast women I saw on their way to the finish (oh yes, I am totally dorky like that), and generally trying to catch the eye of and offer a "Great work! You can do it!" to anyone I saw struggling. I saw a few faster friends that I hadn't known were running the race - Lam leading the 3:10 pace group, and Dane right around the 3:00 group - and gave some extra cheers for them.

But when I reached the turnaround at mile 19, I still hadn't seen Jocelyn - and the sun was now coming out to turn the run into something a little more challenging. I wondered if possibly I had missed her on the small loop that was part of the turnaround? It would have been excellent if I had, because I was now right about on pace for a 3:55 finish, so as long as she was less than 1/2 mile behind me, she'd finish in her goal time of sub-4. But then I saw her just after mile 20 - which meant she was at 18.5 on the outbound leg. She was running with Meggie, who had come with us to help pace Jocelyn for the last 6 miles, and she did not look too happy - which I completely understood. I gave her the biggest cheer I possibly could as we passed each other, hoping that I could somehow magically transfer the energy from my body to hers, but then as soon as I passed, I felt awful. I knew how badly she wanted this sub-4, and unless she could pull a superhuman feat and drop a full minute off her pace for the remaining miles, she was going to miss that.

Knowing that there was nothing more I could do at the moment, I focused on my own race. While I had decided not to push the pace for a PR, I still wanted to finish strong and not wuss out in the last few miles. with the sun coming out, though, it was getting a bit tougher to run easy, and extending my water station walk breaks became more and more tempting. Mile 23 was my slowest of the race (at 9:02!!! Still super fast for me), in large part due to losing motivation and enjoying my Gatorade a little bit too much. But with only 3 miles to go, I did some calculations and realized I could come in under 3:55 - if I could average a 9 minute mile or better for these final miles. Game on!

Mile 24 was fine, netting me an 8:45 split, but mile 25 was a different story. Despite it being so close to the end of the race, this was an unshaded incline to get back up to boardwalk level; while it wasn't a bad hill by any measure (this course was flat, it was enough to get me tired. Knowing the course, I just kept reminding myself that at the top of the hill I'd get to do two quick turns to make it onto the boardwalk, and then would have just one final mile, right on the ocean front, with tons of cheering crowds to keep me going. I finished mile 25 in 9:01 - not at all a bad pace given how late in the game it was. Sometimes 9:01 is my fastest mile in a marathon, so I was thrilled to be doing so well and yet also feeling pretty good. I still had the perma-smile!

The final mile took us right along the boardwalk and eventually up onto it, with tons of spectators lining the course. I kept reminding myself that I only had one measly mile to go, and that it was not the time to stop pushing! Still, I felt like my pace wasn't necessarily agonizing; it was just more work than taking a walk break, which is what I wanted to do... especially when I saw a water station at 25.2 (really, race? Don't tempt us at that late point!). I skipped the water and kept going - I'd get all the water and rest that I wanted in less than 10 minutes.

I started to pick up steam as one of my favorite songs came on, a piano/cello mashup of Taylor Swift's Love Story and Coldplay's Viva La Vida, written by the amazing Jon Schmidt. With the instrumental cranked up and the breeze whipping through my hair, I felt fantastically in the zone and was excited to pick up the pace even more than before for a strong finish - I was beaming as I went through the crowds on the boardwalk.

However, as I began to approach the finish line, I realized that while I felt strong and good and like I could keep going, I didn't think I could push the pace any faster. I didn't think I'd be able to do my final sprint to the finish that I usually do in the last 200 yards. But with the finish looming in front of me and a huge smile plastered across my face, the crowds started cheering me on like crazy - and I managed to kick it up to a sprint to pass two more people before crossing the line. 3:54! I couldn't believe it, and especially that it had come so easily. Not gonna lie, my eyes welled up a little bit as I stood there catching my breath; I was so proud of the great race I had run!

I got my medal and a water bottle (props for having water so close to the finish line; SO many races overlook this), and then bumped into a few marathon friends I hadn't seen in quite some time. I spent about 5 minutes catching up, but then had to cut things short - I needed to get back to the finish line to cheer for Jocelyn. I tried to slip out through the gates next to me, but the police guarding the barrier told me I had to go all the way to the end of the line and wasn't able to exit sooner. Here is where New Jersey Marathon loses back the finish area points they got by having water at the beginning - there is nothing worse than being forced to go all the way to the end of a long chute just to get things you don't want anyway (Gatorade? AFTER a race? No, thank you). And yes, New York City Marathon, I'm talking to you on this one.

By the time I made it to the end of the chute, five more minutes had passed, and I started to worry that I was going to miss Jocelyn's finish. I ended up running through the crowd, holding my medal in one hand to keep it from painfully pounding on my chest as I ran (so that's why they give them out at the end and not the beginning! Ha). Passing the finish line, the crowds were two or three deep along the fence, so I just kept running until I finally saw an empty spot of fence about 100 yards further down. I kept wondering if I ought to keep running until I saw Jocelyn and then run with her to pace her in, but I was afraid it would make her feel worse that I had finished sub-4 (her goal) and was coming back to run more. Maybe it's stupid, but I was so conflicted that I ended up calling our friend Laura to try to figure out what to do. I had just run a fantastic race, but I was actually near tears for my friend, because I knew how hard she worked for this goal and how badly she wanted it. As the minutes ticked by, I started to wonder if I had missed her in the time it took me to get from the finish back to the course?

And then I saw her. Or rather, I saw Meggie (knowing she was already running with Jocelyn was a big part of why I decided just to stay put and cheer). Meggie was alone, but I correctly assumed she was just ahead of Jocelyn (later found out she sprinted ahead to take a pic of Jocelyn at the finish), and then a few seconds later, I saw Jocelyn's hot pink socks and started yelling for all I was worth. She looked fine - still strong, not doing the marathoner's shuffle, and with a great time of 4:24. And then all my anxiety cleared up when I discovered something I hadn't realized: she had PRed off her previous marathon time by FORTY MINUTES! Amazing, and I was so excited for her.

Post-race, I grabbed a small vanilla softserve cone from McDonalds on the way to the train - I was craving 16 Handles but couldn't wait to get back to the city! Once showered and presentable (except for my massive sunburn despite the cloudy day - oops!), I headed out to celebrate the race with a Mexican feast at Blockhead's - naked burrito and a margarita! (Because tequila was pretty much the one alcohol I hadn't yet had this weekend). And after that, hopefully a good night's sleep - I was in desperate need of it.

Race stats:
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 3:54:22
Pace: 8:56
Overall place: 768/2304
Gender place: 189/900
Age group place: 44/170

Race Report: Country Music Marathon

2012-05-14T16:49:00.000-04:00

(Note: I ran this race on April 28; have just been delayed in getting the race report up!)

Going into my first weekend of spring marathon season, for once, I actually did everything right. The race was on Saturday morning, so Thursday night, I got home from work at 9pm and skipped my workout in favor of a healthy dinner (salad) and an early bedtime. On Friday, I set my alarm later than usual and skipped my morning workout so I could get even more sleep.

When I got to the conference center, I treated myself to a cranberry-orange muffin instead of my usual nonfat Greek yogurt and berries - of course it was sugary, but when better to eat a carby breakfast than the day before a marathon? I'd been eyeing these muffins every since we started this month-long session of off-sites, and this was as good a time as any to have one. When I headed for the airport for my midday flight to Nashville, I opted for a lunch of foccacia bread with tomatoes and spinach - again, hardly healthy, but a good chance for me to enjoy my carbs and not have to feel too guilty! I'm not going to lie, though - I did all this more because I wanted an excuse to eat the kinds of foods I usually avoid than because I truly needed to do so to race.

But while I was sitting on the plane, listening to Sugarland's "We Run" and writing my More Half Marathon race report... I swore I got a runner's high thinking about running. In the More, I paced my mom and had the race of my life - I wouldn't trade that for anything. But now, buoyed by the upbeat music and lyrics ("You may never know how fast that you can go till someone lifts your feet up off the ground"), I couldn't wait to stretch my legs and fly. It occurred to me suddenly that perhaps I was primed for this race. I had gotten plenty of sleep, I was carbing up, and I had even lightened up on the workouts. Maybe I could do well the next day?

This may sound like everyday race stuff to you all, but to me it was a revelation. In all the races where I've run fast enough to set a new PR, I've gone into them with low or no expectations. In fact, I usually don't even decide if I'm going to try for a PR until I get to the halfway point. If I'm feeling good, I look at my watch; if the time is sub-2, I push it. If not, I enjoy a fun run and getting to meet people all along the course. People are always shocked by my lack of injuries (knock on wood), but I attribute it to this uncommonly laidback style of racing - don't go for it unless it truly is my day. So many injuries are caused by people setting their sights on one race per season - they wake up that morning feeling ill, or with a weird feeling in their knee, or to find that the weather is hotter than they want, but they push it anyway, because it's their one shot. I know that the elites don't have the luxury of choosing whether the stars are going to align on Boston Marathon day / Olympic Marathon day / pick your favorite Major here, but for regular people, deciding when to push it and when to just relax is something that I think can truly help you to achieve your best time.

I didn't sleep well on Friday night - perhaps it was that I'm not used to sleeping with other people in the room? God, I have been single far too long! - but I knew that how I slept the night before the race didn't matter, and it was all about my sleep two nights before. Regardless of whether having roommates contributed to my tossing and turning, I was also super excited to be in Nashville with friends. The last time I ran Nashville, my then-boyfriend was supposed to be with me, but missed his flight and couldn't get there in time, so I went by myself, cut the trip shorter than I had planned, and didn't get out to the bar and music scene or even the post-race concert. This time, I met up with Jocelyn and Emilia almost as soon as I arrived, and after perusing the expo for goodies, we hit the town for some live music and a few beers before heading to bed. It made me realize just how much I had missed by doing my 50 state marathons so quickly and often solo - this was so much more fun with friends!

We got ready and headed on the shuttle buses to the start (which were NOT free, despite being advertised that way on the RnR website), arriving super early. We headed over to the portapotty line... and waited. And waited. And waited. None of us knew exactly how many runners there were (we later found out it was about 4,000 for the full and 23,000 for the half), but it seemed that there were not nearly enough portapotties, because despite being on the first round of shuttle buses (which arrived at the start about 90 minutes before the race) and immediately getting in line, we only emerged from the bathrooms with about 5 minutes before the race start, and lines still stretching back as far as we could see. Meanwhile, I especially didn't like that RnR was selling VIP tickets to a limited number of portapotties that (obviously) had much shorter lines. Call me cynical, but I couldn't help but think they had intentionally shorted runners on portapotties to get them to trade up to VIP next time. Is this the future of marathons - having to pay in order to be able to use the bathroom at the start? I hope not.

(By the way, this pic cues the start of how all my race pics turned out with way more interesting people than me in the background. Check out the guy just over Jocelyn's right shoulder!)

I spent pretty much the entire time in the portapotty line complaining about how nervous I was, and probably annoying Jocelyn and Emilia have to death. I recognized this even at the time, but I just couldn't stop talking about it - I'm so not used to feeling nervous before a race! When we finally headed over to the start, I ended up splitting off from them in the corral, hoping that some alone time would help me calm down. No dice - when I heard the corral that was two ahead of mine get released to start, I literally started shaking. Seriously, wtf?! I knew that I wasn't trained enough (not trained at all is actually a much more accurate description) to set a PR, but I still wanted very badly to "do well" - whatever that meant. Ideally, I wanted to finish around 4:00, which I knew would be an accomplishment on this hilly course, particularly with the temperatures being a bit higher than usual. I didn't dare tell anyone this goal, but with all the rest and proper pre-race fuel, I felt I had it in me. Now the question was, could I do it?

You would think that once I had set a goal like that, I would do something like pace myself in an attempt to hit it. But if you thought that, you obviously haven't been reading this blog long enough to know that I don't race smart unless I'm pacing. Instead, I made my way to the front of the corral, knowing that if I started there, I could enjoy a few glorious seconds of "leading the race" (hey, I'm never fast enough to actually do that, so a girl's gotta take what she can get). Sure enough, when my corral was given the go, I took off - at a 6:13 pace, according to my Garmin. Oh, you mean 6:13 isn't the per mile split needed for a 4:00 marathon? My bad :)

I say this with a smile because I have absolutely no regrets about my decision to do that. The day before, I knew I wanted to stretch my legs and fly, and this sprint was exactly what I was craving. I knew the pace wasn't going to be sustainable for more than a minute or two (and maybe not even that long, depending when I caught up to the last runners in the corral ahead of mine and it got crowded), but I just wanted to feel the wind whipping through my hair, and feel strong and proud. For just a few amazing seconds, I felt like an elite, winning runner. As silly and childish as that is, I'd put it up there in some of my top moments of running, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

But then reality hit and I came back down to earth - I had caught up to the runners from the corral in front of me, and it was now time to actually run the marathon instead of just pretending. But despite my sprint start and the uphill we now faced, I felt pretty good. As is my preference, I ran by feel - slowing down slightly on the uphills, and taking off when we hit the downhills. I was so thrilled to be out there running - instead of dreading the next 25 miles, I was excited. You mean I get to run for four whole more hours? Crazy as that sounds, I was genuinely happy about the prospects.

Until a particularly long uphill in mile 3 made me really break a sweat - and I realized that today was going to be a lot tougher than I first anticipated. The sky was cloudless and blue - a gorgeously sunny day - and I'm sure a layperson would have said it was the perfect day for a race. But any runner can tell you that running with the sun beating down on you is tough, particularly when it's already warmer than what you're used to. I slowed my pace considerably as we went through an unshaded section. However, in doing so, I was passed by the 4:00 pace group, whom I realized had actually started about a minute ahead in the corral in front of me. I had gone out so fast for those first two miles that the slower pace in miles 3 and 4 was still putting me just in line with them!

While I didn't join the group or engage at all with the 4:00 pacer, I found it interesting to keep tabs on their progress compared to my own. I assumed the pacer was keeping a steady and even pace throughout, and if that was indeed the case, then I go a lot faster on the downhills than I do the uphills - more than most people. I don't know if that's good or bad, but since it's what feels comfortable for me, I'm fine with it. It is what it is!

The next few miles flew by - lots of uphills, but almost always followed by nice downhills. It was great to have so many spectators out there, and I was also really impressed by how many bands there were on the course. I know this is called the Country Music Marathon, but I wasn't very impressed with Rock N Roll USA on that front (they had fewer bands than when it was just National Marathon!), so I was pleasantly surprised. My only disappointment was that some of the bands were playing non-country music (I suppose for variety?) - but in a "Country Music Marathon", I think we all wanted to hear the same thing! (And if you don't like country, which I understand, maybe don't sign up for a country music race in Nashville?). That said, it didn't stop me from singing along to "Don't Stop Believin'!" at mile 8!

By the time we hit the straightaway at mile 10, it was legitimately hot out - and we were now in an industrial part of town with next to no shade. I eagerly guzzled Gatorade and water at the aid station, deciding it was more important to stay hydrated and with plenty of electrolytes than to worry about too many calories from the Gatorade (it is surprisingly easy to drink way more Gatorade than you need). Just after mile 11, we started seeing signs for the half marathon / full marathon split - while a little part of me wished I could be done right then and there, I was also proud that I was still going. That is, until the half marathoners turned off right at the base of a hill that the full marathoners were now going to have to scale. Argh... that is way too easy to lose motivation!

We found ourselves on a long stretch of highway as we came into mile 12 - not flat, but not major hills either. The tough part was just that the sun was baking us at this point, and there was really no relief except to keep going. When we turned off into a neighborhood around mile 12.5, I was thrilled for the shade - and the sprinkler that had been strategically positioned to help us cool down. I usually avoid the sprinklers in races for the prissy reason that I don't like to get wet (I also never dump cups of water on my head for the same reason), but today, I spread my arms out and soaked it in, Singing-In-The-Rain-style.

After going through the sprinkler, we hit a nice little downhill that cruised us into mile 13.1. Halfway done! I was psyched - though felt way more tired than I should have been at that point. It was just hot and sticky, and historically, I do not do well with hot and sticky. (Least favorite marathon ever, hands down, was the one I did in the Mojave Desert, Running With the Devil, which was 118 degrees (yes, Fahrenheit) and made me miserable. This was nowhere near as bad as that, but it was still not a fun temperature in which to do a marathon.

Fortunately, there was a band right around 13.7 to perk us up, and then we turned out of the neighborhood and back onto the main road. We had a short little out and back to the turnaround, but it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere! I realized we were all thinking the same thing when the guy behind me joked to his buddy, "We ran all the way out here for... what exactly?" I turned around and sarcastically was like, "What, you mean you've never heard of the historic battle that was fought here on this very spot?" Sometimes it's those little wisecracks that help me feel camaraderie and keep me going!

I needed all the energy I could get, because we now had a big long uphill that I found to be one of the toughest parts of the race. It seemed that no matter how far ahead I looked, the unshade road just kept looming upward - and I was getting tired. While I had been keeping a pretty steady pace thus far, I started taking walk breaks to get me up the hill. Of course, the problem is that once you start allowing yourself some walk breaks because it's tough (and not just because you're going through a water stop or something), it's too hard to resist doing it again and again. Mentally, I think the easiest strategy for a marathon is planning your walk breaks in advance and then not deviating from that plan; otherwise, it's too easy to get lax with yourself and end up walking far more than you really need.

The top of the hill finally came, I and i stopped by an aid tent to gratefully grab a handful of ice from a kiddie pool full of it. It felt amazing to just cup it in my hands, though I also alternated holding it to my face, back of my neck, and arms. Despite not usually liking to get wet during a race, I didn't even mind when a few cubes fell down my tank top - it was just so hot.

Finally, we were back at the point where the half marathoners had split off, and we took the turn to follow in their footsteps. Soon after, the course diverged again, we headed through a pretty park that had some sprinklers set up to go across the road. Hooray! And with that, we came ot mile 16 - just 10 more miles to go.

Note that some relative of Ridiculously Photogenic Guy was apparently checking me out as we turned the corner... how did I not notice him during the race??

Mile 17 took us alongside the half marathon course for a bit, and then they turned off to finish while we kept going. I was really grateful to the organizers for setting the finish line back from the main road - it can be so disheartening to see the finish line when you still have a long time to go in the race. We faced a mild incline as we headed back out of town again; luckily, it wasn't too terrible, and it was also comforting to know that we would get to run downhill on this to the finish. Downhill finishes are the best!

We hit some minor bumps and rolls as we headed through the neighborhoods around mile 19, and I thoroughly appreciated the many citizens who came out of their homes to sit on their lawns and cheer us on. I logged a pretty fast pace in this area, thanks in part to all the cheers, smiles, and waves from the spectators, and before I knew it, we were hitting mile 20. Just 10K to go!

Checking my watch, I was pretty pleased with my time. It wasn't one of my fastest marathons, but I was still keeping a very respectable pace given the heat and the hills - both of which really started killing me around mile 20. In addition, we were now heading out to an industrial section of town, which just doesn't provide great scenery. However, I was impressed that Rock N Roll managed to get a lot of bands out to this section, as well as some groups of local cheerleaders, who did a fabulous job raising our spirits. with less than an hour of running to go, I tried to just focus on counting down the miles instead of thinking about the heat or how tired I was.

These final miles were extremely tough, though. By looking at the mile markers on the opposite side of the street that applied to the runners making the return trip, I knew that the turnaround point was somewhere near 22.5; I used that as my "baby step" goal. If I could just get to 22.5, the last 3.5 should be a piece of cake, right? I've always found that breaking up a long race into smaller parts helps immensely with getting through it, and today was no exception. One mile at a time!

Around mile 21.5, we turned into another park (this one much bigger than the last). As I gratefully slurped water at the mile 22 aid station, I looked across the pond and saw that there were runners on the other side - but at a higher elevation than where I currently was. You mean I had to run uphill again? Nuts. I took advantage of the walking water break to text my friends with my location and approximate finish time, and also switch to my "Marathon Power Songs" playlist. Both of these things were a huge help - my friends texted that they'd be around mile 25.5 to cheer me on, and my power songs helped me to zone out, ignore my exhaustion, and stay motivated. I made it through the gentle uphills of 22, passed the turnaround, and then sailed downhill at 23, encouraging a few runners around me to pick up their pace as well. And then I was rewarded for my efforts with the aid station set up by the hashers of Nashville - ice cold bubbly beer has never tasted so good!

Buoyed by the beer and my playlist, I headed back out through the industrial park to knock out mile 24. Normally with only 2 miles to go, I'd be having a ball - however, today the finish line just seemed so far away. I knew rationally that it was less than 20 minutes of running to go, but the contrast in scenery between the industrial park and the stadium was so great that they just felt like different worlds. Are we there yet?? I tried to push those thoughts out of my head though, and tried to focus instead on the fact that in just one mile, at mile 25, I'd get to see my friends. Must. Make. It.
At mile 25, I started to get psyched about seeing my friends, and kept my eyes peeled to the sidelines - until I saw the big bitch of a hill coming up. Really, Nashville? Torture. I ended up walking parts of it, trying to catch my breath before getting to the top and taking off once again. So totally lame for me to walk in the last mile, but I was beat, so I really couldn't beat myself up over it. No sign of my friends yet, but at this point, I had less than 5 minutes of running left in the race - time to kill it.

We made the turn onto the main road and I loved the slight downhill as I picked up the pace - the finish line was approaching! Just after the 26 mile mark, I saw Jocelyn and Emilia lined up with the crowds on the side of the road, and I got super excited to see them. How awesome are they that they'd run an entire half marathon and then stand around to cheer me on and snap a pic instead of just going to rest and celebrate??

Seeing my friends out there made me so happy, and definitely helped me to finish with a smile on my face. In fact, when I saw the finish line and clock looming in front of me, I was grinning ear to ear. Despite the heat and the hills, I had managed to finish under 4:10 - a totally solid effort on my part and one I was very happy with. I had done it!

That night, we celebrated big - a beer flight for me, cocktails/wine for the girls, and fabulous front row spots at the country music concert that night with Gloriana and Rodney Atkins. More than anything, this race made me realize how much I love traveling / racing with friends - that something I often missed out on in my haste to get the 50 states done. But hey, there are always more marathons and chances to do it again, right? I had an amazing time in Music City, and now I'm looking forward to going back next year! Who's joining me??

Race stats:
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 4:09:19
Pace: 9:30
Overall place: 800/3942
Gender place: 255/1803
Age group place: 81/443

I am so, so tired

2012-05-11T17:25:00.000-04:00

This travel schedule is really wearing on me. On Monday mornings, I have to be up at 4am to head to the airport and catch my flight. I usually work on the flight, so there isn't really extra time to sleep after that, which means I try to go to bed by 8:30pm on Sunday nights - which kind of kills the afternoon/evening with packing and getting ready. On Thursdays, my flight typically lands at 11:30pm, and then I still have to get home from the airport. Lately, I've been trying to squeeze in late night meetups in an attempt to make the most of my meager time in New York City, but I think that's only killing me further. Must. Take. A. Break.

It's rather ironic that today my second Greatist post went live: How Much Is Too Much Sleep. It's an interesting question, I suppose... but lately I feel like it is actually one that I can't relate to at all. Who has time for too much sleep?? Certainly not me.

Despite not necessarily identifying with the problem, I learned a lot from the solution. In January, I downloaded a really great app for my phone called MySleepBot. It's a two-in-one alarm clock and sleep tracker, so you just hit the button when you go to sleep and then hit the button to turn off the alarm/stop the sleep cycle when you wake up - resulting in some pretty awesome graphs and charts of how much I sleep.

See that blue line? That's 8 hours of sleep. Now see the yellow line? Um, yeah - that's how much I've actually slept in the last month. Basically, 27 nights of sleep deprivation, and only three nights of catch up - none of which were more than 8.5 hours. (On the bright side, I came across some studies that found getting more than nine hours of sleep is associated with double the rate of Alzheimer's disease. So there's that.)

I did my own version of a "sleep vacation" when I was in Peru last November, going to bed whenever I felt tired and waking up whenever I naturally did so. That week, I learned there that 8 hours was basically the exact right amount of sleep I need - though to be fair, that was the amount of sleep I needed when I was doing the oh-so-taxing activity of lying by the pool most of the day. I suppose sitting at my desk working for 14 hours a day isn't that different, but on weekends, I pack my schedule with active activities, and that's where I really feel it. I think my biggest problem is that I'm an early riser - and yet, I find it a lot harder to catch up on sleep by going to bed super early. There is just so much fun stuff going on at night! I always try to tell myself that I'll just sleep late the next day, but the truth is, staying out late for me just results in missed sleep, because I'm pretty much always up by 7am or 8am. While there are lots of Google searches out there wanting to know how to turn themselves into a morning person, I think I need to learn to do the opposite.

Happy Friday! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

I'm a Greatist!

2012-05-09T16:03:00.001-04:00

I am very proud and very excited today to announce... my first Greatist article was published today! The topic I picked for my article should come as no surprise: Why Alcohol is Good For You. When I saw that appear on the "content list" of potential topics, I knew I couldn't resist - and I was shocked how much research I was able to find on the subject. (Then again, who doesn't like being forced to drink in the name of science? I definitely know at least one willing tester!)

Before researching this article, I have to admit, I've always felt a little bit guilty when I chose a mixed drink while I'm out at a bar. Wine has always been touted as the healthy choice, and I know many health-conscious people who will only drink if wine is an option. Of course, as I pointed out in the article, that doesn't mean there aren't extra benefits in the grapes... but I was especially surprised to learn that the hops in beer (assuming you choose a hoppy non-wheat style) can have bone-strengthening benefits that wine does not. And of course, if you opt for a mixed drink, you'll probably get a higher level of alcohol than either the wine or the beer. My conclusion: drink all three! :)

In all seriousness, I've been cutting back on the drinking a bit lately - not in any kind of dramatic "now I am not drinking" way, but just generally trying to pass on the alcohol unless I really need it. In my job, it's all too easy to go out with coworkers every night of the week (or at least hit up the hotel bar before bed). However, since I've gotten into a pretty dedicated workout routine, I've found that acts as a pretty good deterrent - it's just not fun to lift weights after drinking. (Now, running on the other hand... stay tuned for my New Jersey Marathon race report.) Using my workout as motivation not to drink is a double whammy: not only am I drinking a little less (despite the overall tenor of that article, the key is in the ending: alcohol is only good for you in moderation), but I'm also working out more. Win win!

Of course, I'm still hitting the town in NYC with my friends on weekends - but all things in moderation. (Except for the boozy charity scavenger hunt I'm doing this Saturday... that will probably not be a very "moderate" event.) I've found that while alcohol plays a big role in the evening social scene in New York, it's not nearly as important to my work dinners during the week, and I don't usually miss it if I skip the drinks here. Of course this is all project-specific - I've definitely been on projects where drinking was necessary to fit in with the team - but at least while I'm on this project in Dallas, it's working for me to (mostly) abstain.

Now, if only I could get scientific backup for an article on how giant portions and Tex-Mex food help you lose weight...

New workout: Chalene Johnson's "Push"

2012-05-08T22:52:00.003-04:00

Several years ago, I stumbled across Charlotte's blog, The Great Fitness Experiment, and I was totally hooked. A new workout every month? Tracking stats to see what was most effective? So cool, especially since I could just follow Charlotte and the Gym Buddies vicariously and learn from their mistakes. I fell in love with Rachel Cosgrove's Female Body Breakthrough, which first introduced me to the concept of lifting heavy, and it completely changed how I viewed workouts. This was the first time I really got into weight training vs my typical cardio, and I think it's really paid off in both how my muscles look and how amazingly strong they are compared to what they were like a few years ago. (If you told me even a year ago that I'd be able to run a sub-4 hour marathon and not have any soreness the next day, I'd call you insane - and yet, here we are!)

But while I never opted to "play along at home" and do the same challenges that Charlotte and her friends did, one of the major lessons I took away from GFE is that varying your routine is great. I've seen this in other ways too - when I first started running, I hit a major plateau where I couldn't seem to go faster (or slower, for that matter) than a 9:30 pace. No matter what distance I did, I defaulted to that pace. On the plus side, it's a totally respectable pace. On the minus side, I wanted to get faster than that - but I couldn't seem to break the rhythm. To solve that running dilemma, I continued to run, but tried changing up my stride - I used beat analysis software to identify songs that had a faster beat per minute than I normally run, and then tried making playlists of those songs and allowing my stride to match the beat. Voila - I moved out of that plateau, and was thrilled to finally get faster. (To this day, some of my running playlists are still titled things like "Running - Country - 79-90bpm.")

With consulting always moving me around from project to project (and city to city), I get a lot of variety in my daily routine as well. That is certainly hard to deal with when it comes to managing my health and weight, particularly with all the research about how naturally thin people tend to get into a routine and eat the same things every day - just not possible for me! However, one advantage of constantly having my routine disrupted is that I usually take the opportunity to reassess my diet/exercise habits and come up with a new plan to stay on top of them. while I'm staffed on a long term project now, I've gotten so in the habit of switching it up that I've now decided it's time for a change here too. My most recent routine was designed to last three weeks; I've been doing it for five so far, and loved what I'm seeing in terms of arm muscle. Check out my left arm in this pic from the final mile of the Country Music Marathon (race report still in progress, don't you worry):

I HAVE NEVER HAD ARM MUSCLES LIKE THAT IN A RACE PHOTO BEFORE. I am very proud. Now please ignore the fact that my tummy does not look very toned and ignore the weird squished up grin face I am making.

However, it's time that I moved on, and a new routine has caught my fancy. This time it's from a book I picked up on a whim after randomly seeing it at the library: Push, by Chalene Johnson. In addition to the fact that Chalene has an incredible body, I was drawn in by the fact that she's part of the Beachbody franchise - the makers of Insanity, which totally kicked my butt. Since her book seemed to be about productivity as well as workout habits, I was excited to check it out - and what I found was pleasantly surprising.

First of all, Chalene is insanely intelligent - I really enjoyed hearing everything she had to say. I know this is horribly biased, but I kind of assumed based on how gorgeous she is and that she's a fitness model that she might not be that smart. Instead, I discovered that she's incredibly business-savvy, and I found a whole slew of productivity tips that have actually changed how I work and how I organize things. For example, I now keep my to do list in an Excel workbook that has multiple tabs for things that must get done today, vs medium-term items to do this month, vs long-term items to eventually do, vs a list of goals that I should constantly be striving to achieve. I put down literally everything that crosses my mind - even silly stuff like calling my best friend to chat, which I'd never forget - and it's really helped me stay on task and prioritize things so nothing slips through the cracks.

On the health/fitness front, the diet that Chalene sets out doesn't really work for me with the travel lifestyle - but the exercise plan is exactly what I needed. It's a circuit of three routines, each of which combines compound lower/upper body movements alternated with rounds of pushups (which I love, since half of Insanity was pushups and that seemed to be very effective). My first workout was yesterday, and it only took 25 minutes... but I am feeling it today, and I'm thrilled. Call me crazy, but I really love post-workout soreness - it makes me feel like I'm really making progress as far as breaking down muscle to build it back stronger.

Today's workouts were simple: a quick 30 minutes on the elliptical in the morning, and a 25 minute ab routine (courtesy of DailyBurn, which I am still loving) in the evening. Tomorrow's agenda will be day 2 of Chalene's lifting routine (hoping it gets me as sore as day 1!) and then perhaps a 5K here in Dallas in the evening.

Any Dallas readers out there who want to come check out this 5K and/or introduce me to other area fitness activities? Now that I'm settling in for the long haul down here, it's time I found some fitness friends!

Monday Morning Travel Breakfast: Banana Wheatberry Pudding

2012-05-07T11:54:00.000-04:00

On Mondays, I have to be up and out of the apartment by 5am - which, if I want as much sleep as possible, doesn't allow for making breakfast at home. I could rely on getting food at the airport, but the options aren't that great at my terminal, and I sometimes cut it so close that I don't have time to stop anyway.

I've come to rely on making a banana breakfast pudding the night before. With the addition of a ton of chia seeds to thicken it, I can get it to a solid consistency that is allowed to go through security, and I've now established a morning ritual of enjoying it once we hit cruising altitude. It's great to start my day with such a healthy breakfast, and I like that it sets my tone for the travel week.

1 banana
1/2 cup cooked wheatberries (I cook these in bulk and freeze them in ziplock bags, which just require a quick minute in the microwave to defrost)
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 scoop protein powder (I use Optimum's Any Whey, which is flavorless)
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Thinly slice the banana. Heat a pot, and without using any oil/butter/etc, place the banana slices into the pot so that they're all flat on the base and not on top of each other. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until you can smell the caramelization (mmm, delicious) happening. Flip the bananas and cook the other side for another minute or so (may be difficult since the bananas will now be mushy).

Meanwhile to a mini food processor or blender, add the rest of the ingredients. When the banana is done caramelizing, scrape the (now mushy) banana into the food processor, and blend. I don't worry about crushing the wheatberries, since I love rice pudding and tapioca pudding, so leaving the wheatberries whole gives the pudding a similar chunkiness.

Note that after blending, the consistency will still be fairly liquid, and you'll wonder how you could ever get this through security. Fortunately, through the magic of chia seeds (you did add a whopping two tablespoons, right?), the pudding will thicken considerably overnight. It usually ends up almost like Jello - where I can cut into it with a spoon and it wobbles but still manages to retain its shape. TSA-approved!

One warning - this is not the prettiest pudding in the world, as the bananas will cause the pudding to darken to a light brown color overnight. However, it is delicious. Caramelizing the bananas brings out the flavor and makes the pudding super sweet (with no added sugar), like a healthy version of Bananas Foster. Meanwhile, this recipe is incredibly high in both fiber and protein, making it very filling while providing both quick energy (from the banana sugars) and slow burning carbs (from the wheatberries).

Nutrition stats:

Giveaway: SELF Magazine's Workout in the Park!

2012-05-01T15:17:00.000-04:00

Way back in 2008, I first heard about SELF Workout in the Park and decided to attend. What I originally thought would be a few hundred women showing up to yoga and pilates actually turned out to be a humongous and incredibly inspiring fitness festival, with several thousand women of all shapes and sizes showing up to share their love of fitness. As a bonus, I got meet Jillian Michaels and Biggest Loser contestant Jenn Widder, and Jillian gave me a personal lecture about my restaurant eating habits. (I could really use another one of those again...)

In 2011, I went back to Workout in the Park with a different group of friends. This time, we knew what to expect, and got there right on time. (Though I didn't learn my lesson about gearing up for an intense day, and still went out for Cinco de Mayo the night before). Fortunately, we did a lot of working out and I think I more than burned off the margaritas I had the night before - I was exhausted by the end! It was a gorgeous day to be out in the sun, and that year I spent a lot more time making use of the workouts (and collecting free samples) than meeting the celebs.

I just heard about this year's event and its headline trainer via Fit Bottomed Girls, and I have to admit, I may go back to the first year's model of celeb-stalking instead of really working out... because I just heard that hottie Dolvett Quince from The Biggest Loser is going to be the guest star! He seems too nice to give me nearly the ass-kicking Jillian did, but I have to admit I wouldn't mind just getting to stare at him for a while... those abs are all the motivation I need :) Given how much fun I had last year trying out all the workout classes (they do tons of 15 minute versions consecutively, so you get to try out a lot of different stuff and see what you like best), though, I'm torn... and will probably just have to rustle up a big group of friends to go so we can split duties between waiting in line and getting a good spot to workout. I am so excited to be out in Central Park, having a blast and burning calories on what's usually a gorgeous spring day!

As luck would have it, a few hours after I heard that the event was coming up, I got an email from Self asking me to help spread the word about the event (boo, more competition for Dolvett) - and offering up two tickets for readers! To share the love, I'm offering one ticket to two winners, and then you're welcome to either go with me or find a friend who's willing to pony up for a ticket (they're $20 normally, and include a year's subscription to Self, so between that and all the free samples, it's more than worth your while).

Here's the official spiel:

SELF Magazine’s wildly popular outdoor health, fitness and wellness festival, Workout in the Park is coming back to New York on Saturday, May 12, 2012 at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park from 11:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M. SELF Workout in the Park is a unique experience filled with a day of fun and invigorating classes from CRUNCH gym, beauty and fashion consultations, nutritional know-how, and tons of freebies and giveaways from SELF and our sponsors. The event, which sells out in New York each year, has been inspiring tens of thousands of women for 19 years to energize their lives.

Workout in the Park 2012 will unveil the hottest new exercise trends from CRUNCH including:
• Fly Girls— Stay super fly by counting down to your favorite 90s pop hits with easy-to-follow dance routines.
• POUND Rockout Workout— Fuse pilates-inspired movement with the art of making music at this trendy new class that uses Ripstix™, weighted drumsticks, to work the core, upper, and lower body.
• Hippie Yoga— i.e. yoga that focuses on opening up the hips! Leaves you feeling restored and renewed like no other.

WHAT: Self Magazine's Workout in the Park
WHERE: Central Park (Rumsey Playfield)
WHO: SELF Magazine and thousands of women seeking their best summer bodies
• Special Celebrity Host: Dolvett Quince, celebrity trainer and star of NBC’s The Biggest Loser: Dolvett will share his fitness and motivational tips on how to shape your body, improve self-esteem and create an overall desire for better health! Plus, Dolvett will give you some easy workout moves on the Main Stage, guaranteed to help tone up and slim down using only a chair!
• Special Guest Emcee: Danielle Monaro of Z100: Danielle will bring her amazing energy to the event, giving the scoop on what’s happening at WIP throughout the day.
• Special Instructor: Louis Van Amstel, dance coach on Dancing with the Stars: Louis will lead his LaBlast workout for all attendees to try
WHEN: Saturday, May 12th, 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM; Rain or Shine
COST: $20 in advance ONLY at www.SELFWorkoutinthePark.com

To enter the giveaway for a free ticket, just leave a comment telling me your favorite workout class that you'd love to see demoed in 15 minutes or less. This giveaway will be open until 11:59pm EST on Sunday May 6, and the winner will be announced Monday May 7.

PS - For a double round of free fitness fun, don't forget to let me know if you're able to come to my free Figure 4 class on Sunday, May 13.

Race Report: More Half Marathon

2012-04-30T19:43:00.001-04:00

My last race report was not at all fun to write - in addition to having a bad time out on the course, I found it really hard to be honest about how I was feeling while also being fair to my co-pacer. (That was why I made sure not to use his name and also didn't post any pics of the race that he was in). I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I also wanted to convey what I actually thought of the race and not pretend like everything was great. It seems like most of you got that, but a few negative comments made me want to clarify, just in case.

And now let's close out that chapter, because today's race report is a much happier one - I'd even go so far as to say it was my favorite race that I've ever paced. The race itself was not anything super crazy special, the distance (half marathon) is not my favorite, and I wasn't even an official pacer. But I got to run this race with my mom, who has cheered me on at countless races and supported me all along the way - and I have never been happier or more proud to cross a finish line with someone.

It started back when I got my Athleta sponsorship and was asked to select goals for the year. I was pretty stumped when I tried to pick them. At that point, I was in the middle of a long break from running, and while I was planning to get back into it, I didn't know how that would go. After running the 50 states in such a short time period, I ended up rather sick of running marathons (ha, you think?), and I still didn't know if that was a temporary thing that just required some time off before I got back to it, or if I had kind of ruined myself for running forever. I hoped it was the former, but just in case, I was scared to overcommit myself with running goals. I wanted to choose goals that were not just achievable, but that would still be important to me at the end of the year. I decided to throw a total mileage for the year out there because I felt it was expected of me, but I didn't want to have to focus on running on a daily basis to achieve that; instead, I preferred to set a marathon a month as my goal, with a few extra miles on top of that which could be achieved in a month or two if it came time to the end of the year and I was far from it. (As luck would have it, I'm loving running again and have already covered 380 miles this year, so I think that goal will be easy to beat!).

The one running goal that I was SURE I wanted to achieve, though, was to run a half marathon with my mother. She's run 5Ks before (though not for years), and I wanted to share with her the joy that I get from distance running. Since the More Half Marathon is aimed at attracting women over 40 doing their first half marathon, it seemed like the perfect race for us to run - so I put together the training plan, helped answer questions, and provided as much support as I could to get my mom ready.

The night before the race, my mom (and her best friend Pam, who was also running More as her first half marathon) were nervous and full of questions. I was giggling to myself as they read through the printed race instructions over and over ("Mom, I swear, NO ONE else reads those. You're fine.") and agonized over what to wear. Never mind that my mom and I had already picked out cute matching Athleta outfits for the race - we headed back to the store and browsed the racks to see if we ought to change to a different outfit instead. Our original outfit was a sleeveless tank, which made my mom a little bit uncomfortable, and we tried looking for t-shirts instead, or perhaps a jacket to go over the tank. Luckily, we decided to stick with our original plan - which I thought would be best with the warm weather forecast anyway. To get psyched up and keep everyone off their feet, we watched "Spirit of the Marathon" in the afternoon and then headed to a fabulous pre-race pasta dinner at Lidia Bastianich's theater district restaurant, Becco. We headed home, laid out everything for the race, and got to bed as early as we could. Big day tomorrow!

I'm lucky to live fairly close to the start at Central Park, so we were able to get a later start than most and didn't have to wake up until 6:30am. My mom immediately headed for the shower - while I explained to her that people don't typically shower before going to run a race (or am I just really dirty?), she insisted. Oh, mom :) Eventually we were all set to go, though, and after a quick stop at Starbucks for coffee, we headed to the park.

The start area was crazy crowded - despite getting to the race about 40 minutes ahead of time, people were already packed into the corrals. Meanwhile, we were searching for the Athleta tent, where I was supposed to meet some of my friends from the store. After a kind volunteer let us know that it was actually over by the finish (oops!), we hurried to cut around Sheep's Meadow, drop off our things, and hit the portapotties before heading back to the corrals. (One nice thing: the portapotties by the finish had much shorter lines than those we had seen at the start). But just as we started to head back to the start area to meet some of my friends and get into our corrals, it started to rain. Yikes! Not exactly perfect first long distance race weather.

We were almost right next to Le Pain Quotidien when the rain started, so we ducked under its awning to stay dry until it got closer to start time. While there, we took a quick picture. All smiles - no nerves! (At least, not visible on the outside).

We could tell when the race was about 10 minutes away from starting because a murmur went through the crowd at Le Pain and people started heading out. When we stepped out from under the awning, the rain was just a sprinkle, and within a few minutes, it stopped completely. Hooray! It was only a few minutes walk to the corrals, and we found ourselves right in line with corral 8, where my mom and Pam had been placed. We squeezed in and started getting excited :)

It was crazy how many people were doing this race - we couldn't hear any of the pre-race announcements (though I did get a chuckle out of the woman who sang the National Anthem messing up the words) because we were so far back. Even after the race started, it took us a good 10 minutes of slowly shuffling forward before we made it to the start. But then we were off!

The first bit was easy - heading south on the slight downhill from Tavern on the Green. It was pretty crowded, both with runners and cheering spectators, but from where we were, the pace was good. There weren't many walkers in our corral (since there was a corral specifically designated for walkers), and because we were on the slower side of those who were running, our placement in the last running corral was perfect. Everyone seemed to be going about the same speed and there was a lot less dodging/weaving than I was used to. I advised my mom to try to stay to the left, to make it easier to stay together rather than getting separated or drifting all over the course, and that worked great until things started thinning out around mile 2 or so.

On the way to mile 2, though, we hit the first of the three major hills in the race (well, six hills since we'd do each one twice). Cat Hill, here we are! Starting at the bottom of the hill, I first called my mom's attention to how it was probably a lot shorter and flatter than she was expecting when she heard about the race - it was pretty comparable to the hill at the end of the street we used to live on when I was growing up. I also pointed out that it was only about 90 seconds from the bottom to the top of the hill, which is not that long at all! I love giving people confidence by breaking the hills down into short intervals like that - thinking of it as a 90 second interval is a lot easier than looking up a seemingly endless hill. As we scaled the hill, I kept up a running commentary, and rediscovered how much fun it is to pace just one individual instead of a group. With a group, my attention is all over the place, and I usually try to keep up more general patter and conversation that everyone can relate to; with an individual, I can speak directly to them ("Come on, Mom, you've got this!") and really focus on their progress and form. My mom's form looked great - as I had taught her, she was taking smaller steps on the uphill and thinking about lifting her knees up as she went, which helped to propel her to the top. By the time we reached the top, we had other runners cheering her on too ("That's right, you go, Mom!") and she looked pretty darn proud of reaching the top. "That's right; 1 hill done, 5 more to go!" I exclaimed, thrilled with how well she had handled that one. "And then I get a medal!" my mom responded. I came to learn that while I get spurred on by promises of ice cream, beer, brunch, and mimosas, my mom just wanted the race bling. And we were going to get it for her!

We continued past the entrance to the Great Lawn and the Met, and I was loving how well I knew the course. I always make sure when I pace that I've studied the course map (or have run it before), so that I have a pretty good idea of what lies ahead, but the Central Park loop was as familiar to me as the layout of my own apartment. As a result, I knew not just the general ("there's another big hill in 1.5 miles), but the very very specific ("we're going to do some little bumps for another 1/4 mile and then we'll hit a straightaway that's dead flat and where there should be a lot of people out cheering"). There were a lot of out of towners at the race, and I noticed that telling my mom also helped the women around me too (a few thanked me for the info), so I tried to speak loudly enough that others could hear me if they wanted to listen, or ignore me if they didn't.

After passing the Engineer's Gate, we headed downhill to approach the 102nd Street Transverse. I knew that the Harlem Hills were coming up, but instead of dwelling on it, I played a game of distraction - pointing out that we had a long glorious downhill with a water station at the bottom. (No mention of the long brutal uphill we'd have right after the water station to get back to our former elevation). As we hit the turn that began our descent, I learned that my mom has the same running tendencies as me - to kill it on the downhills. Dang, she was fast! The 3 mile mark came and went, and soon we were grabbing water and Gatorade at the bottom of the hill.

And then we were at it - the biggest hill of the race. I warned my mom that it was a pretty long one, but would still be done in about 4 minutes. (I later realized this was a terrible estimate, since we were going at a slower pace than I usually did, but my mom later told me that just having a countdown helped, even if it wasn't the correct length of time). Before I knew it, we were at the top - and mom hadn't slowed to walk a step! I couldn't believe it. Many a runner has been felled by the Harlem Hills, but my mom had gritted it out and taken it like a champ! I was so excited and proud, and kept pointing out over and over, "see, that wasn't that bad, right? Once more and we're done!" She agreed that no, it wasn't nearly as bad as she had thought - and added that it was "once more and then I get the medal." Yes, Mom, and then you get a medal :) I loved it.

Of course, the loop was far from over. While running down the west side for me always goes quickly, since it just feels like a quick jaunt to get home from there, there are lots of little rolling hills making things tricky as you go. Furthermore, the day was starting to heat up - and I couldn't resist just a little bit of "I told you so" to my mom as she admitted that she was glad she hadn't worn a jacket over her sleeveless tank top. Now I just hoped it wouldn't heat up any more than it already had, or this race was going to turn very nasty very quickly.

I taught my mom how to figure out where in the park you were by reading the numbers on the lampposts, "in case you're ever visiting and want to come running here without me." The streets ticked by quickly, and we also enjoyed spotting the two lead runners lapping us around mile 4.5. I was especially excited to see that the woman currently in the lead (who I later found out came in second) had on a Sparkly Soul headband! (Michelle, is the one who sells those.) Besides, it was super cute too :)

We passed Strawberry Fields and the 72nd Street transverse, hitting a slew of people as we did so, and I reminded my mom that we were almost back at the start. One more loop to go! We passed the now-empty corrals, picking up water as we did so, and enjoyed the pump-you-up music blasting through the speakers. "Halfway done! Halfway done!" I chanted, getting more and more excited by how well we were doing so far. First loop done in only 1:10! At this rate, I thought we could finish around 2:40 or so, allowing for the extra 1.1 miles and a slight slowdown on the second loop. I got a dance in my step, and found myself singing along to "Girls Run the World." I must have made a pretty ridiculous sight, bopping along with a huge grin on my face, but it got extra smiles and applause from the spectators for all the runners, so I was fine with it. (And then the announcer at the start called me out with, "Here comes what is quite possibly the happiest person in this race." YES I AM!)

We looped around the bottom of the park and I took stock with my mom. Her form looked good, and she said she was doing fine, but it was definitely getting a lot hotter out and I knew the second loop would not be so easy. Fortunately, before we had time time to think about it, we got distracted by some spectators from UAlbany - where my mom went to school and two blocks from where I grew up. They had giant signs and were screaming their heads off, so I decided to use their energy to get my mom even more pumped up by telling them, "We're from Albany! And it's her first half marathon!" They went nuts, and I was thrilled.

We came around the corner and headed up to the 72nd Street Transverse, and this time, I pointed out the finish line to my mom. Just one more loop around, and that's where we would be! (And she would get her medal). Most notably, I pointed out that there was a downhill as you approached the 72nd Street Transverse, which would make for a nice final push. (I ignored the fact that there was an uphill to get from the loop to the actual finish line... but it was pretty short anyway, and uphills are a lot easier to handle when the finish line is looming right in front of you). Next stop, our final trip up Cat Hill!

This time was a bit tougher than the last time around, but we made friends as we went. It was neat to get to help other runners even as I focused on helping my mom! We introduced ourselves to some of the women around us, and it felt great to make it to the top. "Only two hills still to go!" But the day was heating up - this loop was not going to be nearly as easy as the last. I tried to comfort my mom with the fact that this side of Central Park was probably going to be a lot sunnier/hotter than the other side, since I thought the trees on the West Side would provide more coverage based on the sun's location in the sky... but that turned to be incorrect on this gorgeous sunny day. Oops! I felt guilty for that mistake, but my mom told me that it was still nice that she had something to look forward to, which I supposed was true. In the meantime, the stretch between Engineer's Gate and the 102nd Street Transverse was particularly hot and sticky, and we saw one ambulance go by to pick up a downed runner. Not good at all!

As we hit the big downhill at mile 9, my mom once again took off, and I tagged along behind. "Go Mom!" I was so impressed. We got to the water stop at the bottom of the hill, and as I had done at the last few water stops, I told her to stick to the right and keep going, and I'd jump into the fray on the left to get drinks and bring them to her. (Nice to have a personal water fetcher, huh?) This time, though, as I caught back up to mom and handed her the cup of Gatorade, another runner grabbed the one in my other hand (that I had taken for myself) as she said, "oh, great, I'll take that!" I realized that she thought I was a volunteer, which I found hysterical - but her friends immediately recognized that I was running too, and berated their friend! Laughing, I told them all that it was absolutely fine, insisted that she keep the drink, and offered to get more for anyone else when I went back for mine (they all declined). Too funny!

But the laughter stopped when we hit the West Side - it was time for our final trip up the massive Harlem Hill. This time around was much tougher than the last, due to both fatigue setting in and also how hot we all were. To try to boost my mom's energy, I offered to play one of my power songs for her, but I ended up turning it off after a little while because it didn't seem to be helping that much and I didn't want to annoy other runners (usually I've only done this around mile 20 in marathons I'm pacing where no one but my pace team is around anyway; here, there were a ton of people and I felt awkward). Instead, I focused on calling out how long we had left in the hill, and providing as much positive encouragement as I could. While we weren't going fast, I was really impressed that my mom was still running up the hill and not taking a walk break - she's got guts!

As we neared the top, I started cheering even more than before - pointing out the traffic light that marked the top of the hill and also signaled the start of a nice recovery downhill. Just as we got to the top, I also saw Alisa from Athleta, so I said hello and cheered her on too. Five out of the six big hills in the race were now done (including the two biggest); now it was just a matter of hanging in there for the final 3 miles.

Unfortunately, hanging in there is not all that easy when you're coming down the West Side. True, there are no more major hills once you're out of Harlem, but there are tons of little rollers. These are fine when you're on fresh legs and feeling good; when you're hot and tired, they can be just as bad as Cat Hill. Over the course of the next mile, we took a few walk breaks, but always with an endpoint in mind ("we'll run again when we get to that tree up ahead"). I find that the mind does better readjusting to running (from walking) when it's a set point instead of just "maybe I'll run when I feel a little better." If you follow the latter strategy, you'll never feel better, and you'll end up walking the whole rest of the race - you have to force yourself to push it for a little while until you get back in the groove.

As we headed past the Delacorte Theater, I tried calling my best friend to see if he had made it out to Columbus Circle to cheer with the signs I had made for my mom. No dice... but I did reach my friend Laura, who had finished the race (her first half marathon!) in an insanely fast 1:46, and was heading over to brunch with her parents. We circled down past the pond and came toward the transverse, and there they were, cheering their hearts out for us! I had never met Laura's parents before, so I thought it was especially great that they were cheering my mom and I on. (After I met them at brunch and discovered how wonderful and amazing they are, I understood though!).

We headed on the slight incline up to Tavern on the Green, and then it was downhill to the end of the park and around the corner. One mile to go! However, my mom was really feeling it now, and I knew this was where she needed me the most. We took a few walk breaks here and there, but I kept reminding her that we had less than 10 minutes to go, and encouraging her to keep the pace up. I wanted to make sure she gave it everything she had - but at the same time, on a hot day like this one (and on her very first half marathon!), I didn't want to push her to the point where something bad happened. (That's always the trouble with pacing - you have to figure out where someone's breaking point is and push them just to that but not any further.)

We rounded the southeast corner of the loop and headed for home - seeing all the other finishers walking around with their medals reminded us just how close we were, since you always know that finishers don't want to walk any further than they have to :) We finally hit the top of the baby hill on the west side of the park, and then headed downhill toward the 72nd Street Transverse. Finish line right ahead! We took the left turn, and then there was a slight uphill to the finish (ugh), but I was so excited to be finishing side by side with my mom that I didn't care. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it for support as we took those final steps, and as we came to the finish line, I thrust it in the air in a big V for Victory. I had tears in my eyes and was definitely getting a major case of runner's high - we had done it!

Had you told me five years ago that I would run a half marathon (let alone a marathon), I never would have believed you. Had you told my mom even two years ago that she would run a half marathon, she never would have believed you. And yet, there we were, crossing the finish line together!

I later found out that the women from my running group had finished strong too - which made me so proud. I remember so vividly one of our first training runs, where we ran 2 miles and many of the women took long walk breaks for the small hills we encountered on that run. Now, they had covered 13.1 miles and climbed much bigger hills - and at a faster average pace than they had done that first run! Similarly, I remember going running with my mom when she was in town for Christmas and we first hatched this plan - she had come so far since that day too.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Race stats:
Distance: 13.1 miles
Time: 2:40:49
Pace: 12:17
Overall place: 5484/7125
Age group place: 1107/1250

Race Report: RnR USA Marathon

2012-04-19T23:55:00.003-04:00

This race report has been a few weeks coming - but this time, for a different reason than just not having the time to write it. Even during the race, I was wondering how I was going to write about it later (ugh, I sound like such a blogger cliche), because it was really a not-very-fun pacing experience for me (as you'll soon see). Then I got so far behind, that I personal-paced another race in between, and that one was pretty much the best pacing experience of my life! It made it a lot easier to write this one knowing that I can follow it with an amazingly awesome pacing report tomorrow. Life is all about balance and taking the bad with the good; today we'll start with the bad, and tomorrow I'll end it on a sweeter note with the good :)

The weekend started out great - I headed down to DC on a Megabus on Friday afternoon, doing work all along the way thanks to the free wifi on the bus. When I arrived at Union Station, I hung out for a little while to take care of a conference call, and then met up with my friend Leticia when her Amtrak got in. We took the Metro to the Armory, where the expo was, and I was surprised how quickly the city came back to me. New readers may not know that I worked in DC for about 8 months in 2010/2011, and I really loved the city - gorgeous sites, convenient layout and public transportation, and great food and drink. I wished I could stay longer than just one night in town!

Having done this race for the past two years when it was sponsored by SunTrust, I was curious to see what changes had been made now that Rock N Roll owned the race. I knew from friends that the price had gone up, so I hoped the high entry fee would at least provide some benefit to runners. Immediately upon entering the expo, I could tell there was a change - it was definitely bigger than usual. I split off from Leticia to find the pace team booth, and on the way, snagged a sample of hot mac & cheese. Whoever got the idea to put mac & cheese out the night before a marathon was a genius! I am surprised there was still any left by the time I got there. Note to friends: next year, we find a way to do a race after the mac & cheese cookoff. What a great way to carb load! So far, I was liking the changes.

Because I was pacing, I didn't need to pick up my packet; however, I had all the documentation necessary to pick up packets for Theodora, Ashley, and Caitlin, who were doing the half marathon but getting into DC too late to go to the expo. However, when I looked at the website to figure out exactly what I would need to pick up their packets, I couldn't believe what I read. Runners were allowed to pick up a packet for one other person; any more than that, and you would have to pay $20 per person for the privilege of picking up their packet. WTF?! I puzzled over this online with my friend Adam, since you would think that allowing people to pick up more packets would reduce overcrowding. But then I realized the rationale: RnR was charging quite a hefty fee to vendors to get space at the expo, and I bet they guaranteed them some kind of minimum amount of foot traffic/business. So if you weren't going to go to the expo yourself (and presumably buy tons of stuff), they needed to make money off you somehow! Ugh. I was disgusted when I figured this out. On the bright side, when I went to pick up the extra packets, I discovered that no one checked my ID or cared how many I got - and even had I wanted to pay to pick up extras, I didn't see a place to do so. Lesson learned for next year!

I hung out at the expo for an hour or so, fulfilling my pacer duties by staffing the pace team booth and saying hi to runners who stopped by wanting pace bands, pace bibs, and to sign up for a group. I was excited to meet several runners who would be in my pace group! Meeting people/making new friends is one of my favorite things about running marathons, and my favorite part of pacing is getting to cheer people on and encourage them. The night before a marathon, a lot of runners are very nervous, so it was nice to see them then and encourage them to just relax, eat a carbalicious dinner, and perhaps drink a ~~bottle~~ glass of wine to calm their nerves and help them go to bed early :)

Speaking of going to bed early, my dining companions had decided to push our dinner time up - which I was pretty happy about. However, the new time meant that I had to hightail it out of the expo so I could hop on the Metro to Dupont Circle in time for our reservation. On the way, I worried about being late - but I actually ended up being the first one there, which is always my preference! Theodora, Ashley, Caitlin and I were also joined by Sam and Beth, and we spent the delicious Italian dinner discussing all things related to blogging. I learned a lot about some of the big blog conferences that go on throughout the country - they sound like a really fun way to make more new friends with similar healthy interests! Definitely could be fun to try to attend...

After dinner, Caitlin, Theodora, Ashley and I headed down to our hotel in Foggy Bottom. Slumber party! I was teased for how different I look with my glasses (apparently I do not make it clear enough on the blog what a nerd I am at heart), and it was fun to have friends to chat with as we all prepared for our upcoming races the next day. Of course, the downside of that is how late we stayed up talking - oops! I didn't stress though - I've learned over the years that the sleep you get the night before a race really doesn't matter as much as the sleep you get two nights beforehand, and I had at least gotten a decent 7 hours that night. Good enough for me!

Instead of the morning coming way too soon, I actually felt pretty good when our alarms (yes, multiple) started going off - however, it also felt a tiny bit surreal to me that I was going to be running a marathon that day. Maybe it was because I haven't been doing them as often as I once was, and maybe it was because all my roommates were doing the half, but I didn't quite feel prepared to take on 26.2 miles. But ready or not, here I come! At least I had paced this race twice in the past, so I knew exactly what to expect.

We planned to take the Metro to the start, but when we found out how cheap cabs were when shared amongst four, we decided to just do that. Luckily, we had left plenty early and didn't have to worry about too much traffic! We made it to the start in record time, and I was pleased to see that we were still able to hang out in the warm and well-lit Armory before the start.

Upon meeting up with Nate, who organizes the pace teams, I discovered that he was very much in the St. Patrick's Day spirit - as he passed me a beer mug hat to wear for the race. Done and done! My pace team shirt was bright yellow and my skirt was neon green anyway, so the hat was a perfect match to my outfit. (Okay so it was also totally tacky, but whatever, it was festive!)

I met up with my co-pacer and headed for the start right on time... but this was where things started to go a little bit downhill. While chatting on the way to the start, I discovered that my co-pacer and I didn't exactly see eye to eye on pacing strategy. My co-pacer was used to pacing much faster groups (3:45/3:55), whereas we were going to be pacing the 4:40group today. For me it was no problem - I usually pace anywhere from 4:10 to 4:40, so I'm pretty comfortable with that pace. However, my co-pacer told me that it was going to be "interesting" pacing the 4:40 group vs "a group that had really trained for the race." At the time, I kind of let that comment slide... but it turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg.

As I expected, I had a lot of first timers who joined us at the start to be in our pace group, and I was so excited about that! While I find it rewarding to help someone meet a time goal, my favorite pace groups are those where I can help someone to complete the distance for the first time - it's just so much fun!!! (See my upcoming More Half Marathon race report for my favorite pacing experience ever). My co-pacer and I introduced ourselves and let the group know our plan - steady pace except for walking through water stations, and a heck of a lot of fun all along the way!

The plan was for each corral to get released 2 minutes apart, to ease congestion at the start; however, by the time we got to the front (I think about 20 minutes from when the first start happened), it seemed like they were just letting people go whenever, without a lot of fanfare. Not a huge deal, but not what I was expecting given all the hoopla about each corral getting their own special starting gun. But with that, we were off!

The first few miles were fairly easy... but while our pace was supposed to be 10:40 splits (or perhaps a teensy bit faster - I typically like to average around 10:30 for the first half and 10:50 for the second half, to build in some buffer), we were all over the map. 10:25 for mile 1, 10:05 for mile 2, 9:49 for mile 3, 10:28 for mile 4, and 10:19 for mile 5. Even when pacing in pairs, I'm used to being the more gregarious pacer, and the one that runners cluster around (while my co-pacer is usually along for the ride); however, my co-pacer in this case was just as much of a chatterbox as I was. On the one hand, I was thrilled to not have to "carry the team," especially since it was going to be a hot day and I knew I'd be getting tired near the end. On the other hand, our pace was way too fast, and since I wasn't in the lead, it was hard to pull the group back. I kept saying that we needed to slow down, but since the first few miles were mostly flat/downhill, my co-pacer kept telling me that we were doing even effort and would make it up when we hit the hills.

But when miles 6, 7, and 8 came along (some of the hilliest in the race), we were still going 10:37, 10:44, and 10:46, respectably - nowhere near slow enough to call our pacing "even effort." I was really uncomfortable with how our pace was all over the place. Part of why I like pacing is it forces you to adopt a steady rhythm right from the beginning, which I think actually makes it easier to stay strong. When you get your legs into an even cadence, it starts to feel natural after 3-5 miles - and I like that no matter how tired I get, that internal rhythm has been drummed into my head and it's easier to keep up. As a result of being so erratic, I found it hard to get the "feel" of a 10:52 pace, and so I had to keep checking my watch every few seconds to monitor our pace. It really took a lot of the enjoyment out of the race to have to stay so focused on my watch! People often ask me how I can enjoy pacing a race when I need to be such a Clock Nazi, but usually, I'm able to internalize the rhythm and then chat - not so today. I made some small talk with my group, but I spent a ton of time just checking my watch and trying to quietly tell my co-pacer that we really needed to slow down (I didn't want to shout it out and scare my group).

By mile 10, we had finished the worst of the hills... but we had also lost a lot of our group. However, with only 5K left till the halfway point, I decided to turn my attention to the half marathoners. After all, they were almost done with their race! I mentioned to my co-pacer that perhaps we should cheer them on, but he told me (none too quietly) that he was there to support the "real" marathoners. I kind of understood the dilemma - it can be hard to pep the half marathoners up by pointing out that they're almost done without scaring the full marathoners with how much is left - but I was shocked by the way he said it, and that he used the term "real marathoners." From then on, I tried to keep my distance from him (well, as much as I could given that we were supposed to be running together), and quit being quite so chummy and chatty.

There were a few small hills heading up to the big straightaway at mile 12, and I decided that if my co-pacer was going to focus on the full marathoners, I would spend the next few miles cheering on the half marathoners. I "picked up" as many half marathoners as I could find that seemed to be struggling, asked their names, and then cheered them on by name, warning them things like "come on, Derek, stay with me! You can do this!" This is one of my favorite parts of a race - helping people to push through the last mile or two and find strength to pick up the pace and go faster than they thought possible. I love finding a walker who thinks they don't have it in them and turning them into a runner who's done the impossible!

This year, though, the course was a little bit different. I usually find it easy to shout some last minute cheers for the half marathoners as they come to the half quarter mile or so, because the course used to be a downhill on which the half marathoners split off for the last quarter mile. Since all the marathoners are feeling relaxed and easy on the downhill (not hurting), I don't feel bad at all cheering on the half marathoners, and I usually get some people in my group to join me with the congratulatory shouts. Furthermore, it's a nice long downhill on which to get people to push themselves harder - it may be 13 miles in, but it's not that hard to sprint when you're on a downhill! Unfortunately, the course split long before we got to that downhill (and in fact, I don't think the downhill was even on the course this year), so I said goodbye to the half marathoners a lot sooner than I expected.

The road got very quiet as we listened to our own pounding feet and sized up who was left. While there are usually a lot more half marathoners in this race than full marathoners, it seemed like this year the balance was skewed even more (maybe because it turned into a Rock N Roll?). As I reflecte don that, it also made me think about how Rock n Roll had changed the race - oddly enough, there seemed to be fewer bands and spectators than in prior years, and we hadn't really seen any Gu handed out on the course either (yikes, not good). In addition, the water stations didn't seem any better organized than in years past (at one point, my group had to rely on spectators who handed out water because the planned water stop was totally out). Made me wish it was still the Suntrust National Marathon!

But before I could lament the disappearance of bands too much, we found our own entertainment - some fratty-looking guys tailgating on the side of the road. They were definitely very drunk, and I got the impression they were cheering on a friend of theirs, but their signs said things like "GO SLUT!" and other somewhat derogatory remarks. Um, what? We were all pretty confused, but at least their drunkenness gave us a bit of energy as they cheered our group on. (This is part of why I love carrying a pace sign in races - extra cheers because people stop to read it!)

We continued back through the downtown area, with the crowds much lighter than before - but our pace still faster than it should be. UGH. It was also starting to really heat up, and I knew we were in for a doozy. I reminded people to drink water and Gatorade at the aid stations, because the warm temps were going to be plenty dehydrating, especially when we got out on the unshaded river path. For now, though, we enjoyed the cool tunnel under the river - and an RnR-sponsored car blasting music in the middle. Okay, so that's one thing the race didn't have last year!

Soon after crossing the river, we hit the 16 mile mark - "only 10 miles to go!" Shortly after this point, there were some spectators offering something multicolored to eat. I grabbed what I thought from afar were going to be M&Ms... and they were multicolored Goldfish! (Wow, is my vision really that bad?) They were delicious, though a little hard to swallow until we got to the next water station. Definitely a sign that I needed to drink more!

As the miles ticked by, we started losing more and more of our group - which was extremely frustrating to me. By now, we were running right on pace (and had run a few slow miles, so we were actually more or less on track). However, I had never before paced a group where so few people had stuck with it, and I felt strongly that it was because we hadn't set the pace accurately in the early miles. Again, I think it's so important for your legs to get into a rhythm - I knew that even for me these later miles were taking their toll, and without the internal cadence and rhythm, it was even harder to keep it going. Honestly, I wanted to just quit pacing and finish the race whenever I darn well pleased, especially now that it was getting so hot out. But I knew I had a job to do, so I kept pushing on... though my thoughts toward my co-pacer were definitely not charitable ones.

The course again changed from what it had been in previous years - now, before hitting the bridge to get to the river path, we had to do a boring and seemingly pointless out-and-back on the street - with the turnaround point positioned just after an underpass. This meant we went down th the underpass, up the other side, turned around after we had been at the top for a few steps, and then went down and up again. What a pointless hill! I was frustrated by how the race organizers structured this - not to mention that running on the unshaded asphalt in the middle of a not-so-nice area was not very pleasant. When we eventually crossed the bridge and got to the river path, we found that they had lengthened the course on that side as well, having us loop all the way around a park before the usual turn that would begin the journey back to the start/finish area. The park was pretty, so I didn't mind that part, but again, just seemed like poor planning to have us do so many miles on that weird stretch of road beforehand.

And it was in that stretch of road that we lost our final pace group members: by the time we hit the riverpath, my co-pacer and I were alone. In the past, I've thoroughly enjoyed the river path - running by water has always been peaceful to me, and having only 6 miles to go revs me up and gets me to my peppiest. Today, though, I was feeling a lot less than peppy. I was miserable to have lost our group, and said so to my co-pacer. In an attempt to cheer me up, he told me that people who run 4:40 marathons probably didn't really train, and were just guessing about what time they wanted to finish in; therefore, we shouldn't expect them to stick with us, since they had probably picked the 4:40 pace group at random. I was appalled by this statement - but for lack of anything to say other than a complete tongue-lashing, I opted to keep my mouth shut, and mostly gave him the silent treatment for the rest of the race. I could not believe the things that were coming out of his mouth, and in retrospect, I wish I had been a bit more aggressive in pointing out just how wrong he was.

I wish that I had stuck to my guns sooner, taking the pace that I wanted to take, and helping my group to stay with me instead of to fall behind. Technically, the job of a pacer is just to finish "on time" (meaning, within 60 seconds of your assigned time); however, I consider a pacing job to be a failure if I haven't managed to keep a group with me and helped them to finish stron as well. There will always be a few who drop out and can't keep up, but I believe that my job is to carry as much of the group as possible to the finish line, so that they finish with or ahead of me. I was mortified to be pacing without a pace group - this was not the National Marathon experience I've had for the last two years, and I was miserable.

Meanwhile, the sun was out in full force, and it was now far hotter than anyone had anticipated. The riverpath area is completely unshaded, and the heat had caused many people to slow from their anticipated pace. As we circled the park that was part of the new lollipop course, we kept passing people who had slowed to walk - and as we approached, they would turn around, see my sign, and groan. "4:40??? Are you kidding me???" was the welcome I got from most people, which only made my mood even worse. I tried to get people amped to pick up the pace and stick with us, but even I'll admit that my attempt was halfhearted at best. All I wanted was to be done with this terrible pacing job and on a bus home.

As we covered the last few miles, I remembered the terrain from years past. I thought of how last year, when at mile 23 I had to tell my group that I could no longer keep the pace (because I was running while recovering from a flu), they told me that they wanted to stick with me and finish late instead of going on ahead. With that memory in my mind, I felt terrible about not having a group - even while sick I had managed to encourage people last year, so why not this year? And with that thought in my mind, I rallied.

We ran past a gas station and then hit a slight uphill, and instead of silently passing the runners ahead of me who had slowed to a walk, I slowed to their pace to ask their names. Once I found that out, I pointed out that we only had 3 miles to go, and encouraged them to keep up the pace for just a little while longer. And they did! The next mile or two passed fairly quickly, with me alternately introducing myself to people and then using their name to spur them on. The final hills of this race can be tough, with no apparent end in sight, so I was glad to have finally gotten my groove back in order to help runners with tackling them.

Before I knew it, it was down and around the exit ramp and onto the highway, where we hit the final mile of the race. This stretch has always been where I take the most pride in being a pacer - where I go drill sergeant on everyone I meet, all about forcing them to pick up the pace and finish strong. This year was no exception, and my mind became jumbled with all the names of runners that I was shouting out whenever one fell even the slightest bit behind. Some were first timers, some were veterans, but everyone was struggling on the hot and sunny day, and while RnR had changed some of the course, they had not changed this final uphill to the finish line. Fortunately, I had paced it enough times to know exactly how long it was and exactly what lay ahead: "There are crowds just a tenth of a mile in front of you! Run for just ONE MINUTE and they'll cheer you on and bring you home!

I had not counted on the finish line being moved back further from where it used to be, so the 26 mile mark was not exactly where I expected either - but I was right about where the crowds started. And on the plus side, they were pretty decent! When I saw one of my newfound "group members" struggling, I yelled their name to the crowd and asked them to cheer for so-and-so... and the crowd was happy to oblige. When I finally crossed the finish line, I was thrilled that many of the runners I met in that last mile had finished in front of me - so that was at least something to be proud of. I ended up finishing with a big dopey grin on my face, same as always!

It may have been a pretty unhappy pacing experience, but I did finish right on time, and I took solace in the fact that I had helped at least a few runners to do better than they otherwise would have. And to cheer me up after the race, I bumped into one of my blog readers, Melissa, who ran with her boyfriend and finished just after I did!

Melissa was incredibly sweet, and it was exactly what I needed to hear that she enjoyed reading my race reports and had used them for inspiration! Sometimes you don't know what an impact you're making until someone comes right out and tells you, and I hoped that while I hadn't kept my pace group together till the end, I had at least helped the original group to go part of the way, and that I had maybe helped some other runners along the way. No one is perfect - least of all me - and I can really beat myself up when I fall short of a goal. This time, I was definitely not happy with my performance - but no matter what else, I had run another marathon, and I had finished right on time.

Race stats:
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 4:39:43
Pace: 10:40
Overall place: 1999/3129
Gender place: 797/1414

Who AM I?

2012-04-16T22:35:00.003-04:00

Today, I am almost unrecognizable to myself... because I am a woman on a mission. I've decided it's finally time to stop giving into peer pressure, and time to start doing what is right for me. I've been frustrated with my weight gain over the last year or so, and I've come to realize that I exercise plenty... but eat incredibly poorly. I've been trying to fix this gradually, without making too many cutbacks, but that hasn't worked so far. Time for me to buckle down and get her done!

Last night, I went to bed at 8:30pm. Sounds totally lame, but it's something I should be doing every Sunday night, given that I have to wake up by 4:15am to shower and get to the airport for my flight to Dallas. So last night, I got a blissful 7.5 hours of sleep. Unheard of for me on a Sunday night, but it made my day so much better. I wasn't nearly as tired when I got on my flight, and instead of wishing I could ditch work on the plane and just sleep instead, I got a lot done. Two gorgeous slides, coming right up!

When I landed at DFW, I had to wait about 30 minutes for my coworker to land, so I headed to the lounge. I was starving, but while the snack mix was tempting, I opted for some oatmeal with a small spoon of Nutella stirred in. This is why I love Delta - their lounge food is so fantastic! (Although the white chocolate caramel corn and Biscoff can be my downfalls). This morning, though, none of that - the oatmeal plus a cup of decaf made the perfect light "second breakfast" (5.5 hours after my first breakfast at 4:30am). By 9:30am Central Time, I was headed to the office and feeling pretty great.

So many dieters talk about being on track and then wanting to splurge as a reward, but for me, it's the opposite - the more on track I am, the more I want to stay on track and keep the healthy habits going. (It's the reason I crave things like salads after I run a marathon). Fortunately, the off-site conferences with their crazy amounts of food don't start until Wednesday this week, so I have two days to get on a good path before being tempted. For lunch, I chose a grilled chicken breast wrap with spicy mustard - I was so excited to have that option instead of barbecue / fried chicken / nachos / all the other stuff we've had lately! Eating well is so much easier without all those temptations in front of me, not to mention when I'm following my own work schedule instead of sitting in meetings taking notes from 8am-6pm straight and only then getting to start my work for the day.

But at 3pm, temptation struck: birthday cupcakes. These were pretty large, elaborate affairs - massive chocolate cupcakes with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup baked into the center, and peanut butter/butter cream frosting on top, plus crushed Reese's PB Cups on top. While they looked decadent and delicious, though, I had a secret weapon - I'm not really a huge chocolate or peanut butter fan (though had they been chocolate Nutella, that would have been another story). Instead of the cupcake, I had a small square of dark chocolate that I keep in my laptop bag, so I still got to enjoy a treat without totally blowing it.

You'd think that would be the end, but there was one more test in my day: post-work drinks at a beer bar. Having been so good all day, and desperately wanting to lift weights when I got home, the choice was surprisingly easy: seltzer with lime (I know, as I said at the beginning of this post, who am I drinking seltzer at a beer bar???). I knew I wouldn't be able to lift if I was tipsy, and for once, the thought of beer was just not appealing at all. When it came to food, I found a colleague to get a ride back to the hotel with (instead of having bar food for dinner), and then got a yummy grilled shrimp salad when I got back to the hotel (after my workout, of course). All this healthy eating seemed to pay off, too - I don't know if it was my attitude or what, but my weight lifting workout tonight was pretty darn awesome. I did three sets of 10 single leg deadlifts with a 50lb dumbbell! Not to mention upping the weight for my lat pulldowns, cable rows, bicep curls, and shoulder presses. RED LETTER DAY.

Now, can I keep it up tomorrow? Unfortunately, one day of clean eating isn't going to make a difference in the extra pounds I'd like to lose, so I need to make sure this turns into a habit instead of an anomaly to be proud of. One more day of freedom, and then I'm back to the all-day conferences, where I have a lot less control about my food choices. Do we think a habit can be built in two days? I suppose I'll find out.

Grateful and Proud

2012-04-12T19:04:00.005-04:00

Grateful, grateful, truly grateful I am
Grateful, grateful, truly blessed and duly grateful.

(Okay, if you're not a total musical theater geek and don't know John Bucchino, those lyrics will mean nothing to you, but trust me, it is an incredibly sweet and moving song - take a listen.)

Today I read a post that made me really sad - though I don't think that was what Lauren intended when she wrote it. Please, go read. After reading Lauren's post, I realize just how lucky I am that my family and friends have been supportive of my marathons. There were many races that I did all by myself, in a state where I didn't know a soul... but there were also plenty when I had friends and family cheering me on along the way. My mom, in particular, was an absolute champ about cheering me on. I occasionally got frustrated with her when she'd be too busy talking to all the spectators around her and she'd miss seeing me, but this puts it in perspective. How lucky am I that she would travel to come to some of my races? That she would stand out on the course for hours waiting to see me and cheer her heart out? That she makes awesome signs like this and brings them to my races, so I can spot her in the crowd?

This weekend, I cannot wait to cheer her on in her own quest - to finish her first half marathon. But unlike my incredibly patient mother, I won't be doing it from the sidelines, where I have to wait an hour to see her on each loop (I can see how that gets old, but I would absolutely do it to support her if that's what she wanted). For this race, though, I get to run it at her side, cheering her on every single step of the way. The hills in Central Park will seem like nothing when I do my usual "45 seconds to the top, you can do it!" and have peppy sayings all along the way!

My mom used to run 5Ks many years ago - in fact, as a little kid, I remember her often wearing a gray t-shirt from the Freihofer's 5K in Albany, NY, when she was gardening. But aside from the 5K she ran in Hartford a few years ago, she hasn't really run much since, and I am so excited that we now share a common interest as she tries out her first long distance race. I am incredibly proud of my mom for all the hard work she's put in training for this race. She went from struggling to do a few loops around the track to tackling an 11 mile long run all by herself!!! I know she is going to rock this.

Mom, I am SO proud of you - now go get 'em this weekend!

Superfood Frozen Drinks

2012-04-11T12:41:00.003-04:00

Last night, a bunch of my New York running blogger/Twitter friends had a happy hour. Not only was it a ton of my favorite people, but it was also being held at one of my favorite beer bars - double bummer! I was incredibly jealous, especially as people started texting me telling me they missed me... meanwhile, I was still stuck in a conference room in Dallas in the midst of a particularly long meeting. No. Fun. Consulting/traveling leads to massive FOMO, no matter how I try to avoid it.

In the spirit of daydreaming about being home, here are two drink recipes that I think are perfect for fitness friend meetups like this. They combine superfoods with dangerfoods (yes, as much as I enjoy a glass of beer/wine/other alcohol, I do know it's bad for me), resulting in drinks that are tasty and indulgent but still not as awful as a sugar-loaded frozen margarita. Not that I don't have margaritas from time to time as well, but sometimes it's nice to be able to enjoy a drink and not have to feel as guilty about it. One warning: these are definitely not drinks to ask for at a bar, since there's no way they'll have these ingredients on hand! My preference is to make them at home, say, to celebrate a good friend's birthday? Get on it, Greatist team!

Tropical Protein Daiquiri
(For when I didn't have a chance to eat dinner before drinks and wanted to at least get some protein in before a night out)
1 frozen banana
1 scoop protein powder (I like Any Whey brand because it's flavorless)
2 oz banana rum (I picked this up in St. Maarten, but if you don't have any, you could use regular rum and a dash of banana extract. Coconut rum would probably also be good!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Couple drops of coconut extract
1 cup unsweetened almond milk

Put all ingredients in blender and add more almond milk as needed. Process, pour into glass, and sprinkle with dash of cinnamon.

Cherry-Berry-Almond Spiked Smoothie
1 cup frozen berries (cherries, raspberries, strawberries... whatever you have on hand!)
2 oz cherry vodka
1 scoop Trader Joe's Super Red Drink Powder
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 tsp almond extract

Again, put all ingredients in blender and add more almond milk as needed. Process, pour into glass, and enjoy.

Obviously, neither "recipe" is anything too fancy... but they are definitely pretty tasty, and a heck of a lot better for you than a regular frozen drink :) Cheers!

Homesickness and a Free Figure 4 Class!

2012-04-10T13:57:00.002-04:00

Sometimes it can be really tough for me to be away from home all the time. I get jealous of my friends at home who are able to to do the little things, like cook dinner or meet up on a weeknight. Last night, it hit me particularly hard - I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before (was up stressing about a bunch of things), and when we wrapped up work around 7:30pm, all I wanted to do was go back to the hotel, have a protein bar or two as a quick dinner, and immediately go to bed. Instead, I was at the mercy of my coworkers with whom I share a rental car - which meant a sit down dinner out.

I did a decent job making healthy choices at dinner (this project is turning out to be the kind of thing where I need to actively focus on that), and got home around 9pm. As I headed up the elevator, I debated - should I work out? I knew that what I should do was go right to sleep. After all, many studies have shown that missing out on sleep can be far more detrimental to your body than missing a workout. And yet... I was wide awake. Fearing another night like Sunday (tossing and turning for hours with my mind racing a million miles a minute about all the stressors on my mind), I decided to hit the gym for my planned pullup routine. To save time, I skipped the deadlifts and split squats I normally tack on to the Monday workout - I'll do those on Wednesday instead - and focused only on my arms. I'm really lucky right now to be at a hotel with a pretty awesome gym, with free weights and cable pulleys and even pullup bars, so the workout was pretty easy to do without adaptations. As a bonus, my 25 minutes at the gym did a perfect job of getting me tired enough to go to bed as soon as I got back up to my room.

Today I feel a lot more rested than I did yesterday (though still requiring caffeinated coffee instead of my usual decaf), and my back-to-back meetings are so far going pretty well. But when my mind starts to wander, I find it drifting back to New York City, and wishing that I didn't have to be away quite so much. To alleviate the "what-if" thinking, I usually throw myself into planning what I'm going to do on the weekend (which is how I end up with those crazy weekend schedules I often write about). This time, my weekend is already totally full - so I'm scheduling out future weekends. (Hey, whatever keeps me sane, right?) And I have a cool opportunity for any of you living in New York!

A while ago, I won a free Figure 4 class at Pure Yoga, from Well and Good. Between my crazy schedule and the studio's popularity, it took a long time to coordinate - but I've finally set a date. On Sunday May 13, you're invited to join me for a free workout at 3:30pm... and perhaps a trip to 16 Handles after (since what fitness blogger event would be complete without treats?). Please RSVP to me at laura at 50by25 dot com if you think you might be able to come - the more, the merrier!

Nuun Hood to Coast Application 2012

2012-04-09T10:33:00.002-04:00

As you all probably know, I've been strengthening my running friend relationships lately. My fitness friends are so totally awesome - even if some of them are sometimes not the best influence on me.

Me: "I'm doing two marathons in May... it's going to be busy."
Jocelyn: "You should come pace me in the New Jersey Marathon on May 6!"
Me: "Hmm... okay."
Jocelyn: "And I'm doing the Country Music Half Marathon on April 28... you should come run the full so that I have someone to cheer for when I finish!"
Me: "Great! Sign me up!"

Four marathons in five weeks is not quite what I originally had in mind for my year... but it took little convincing. Ladies and gentlemen, I am back.

After I finished my 50 states, I got a little tired of marathons. I took a break (well, a "Laura break", meaning I "only" ran nine marathons the next year instead of 25 like I had been used to doing). And after that, 7 months went by with no marathons at all. I had just about adjusted back to "normal" life when the Athleta opportunity came along... and I jumped on it. I was ready to get back to running, albeit a bit cautiously. I put forth a goal of running one marathon a month - but in my very first month, I did the Bermuda Marathon and remembered how much I loved running marathons. And then I did the HMRRC Winter Marathon and remembered that running easy and feeling strong is the most fun thing ever. Except for maybe pacing, which I did in March (yes, yes, race report still to come). And just like that, I'm back in the swing of things. Marathon season, here I come!

But then I heard about something very different - the chance to run on Nuun's blogger relay team for Hood to Coast. As a group, we'll be running much further than any of us could do on our own, and given how much I love pacing and coaching, it sounds right up my alley. I'm really excited about the chance to run my fastest for the team (which I can't do when I pace), but still cheer my teammates on and help them do their best.

So without further ado, here is my application video for my next goal. The winners will be announced April 24 - cross your fingers for me!

Working out to work my energy up

2012-04-06T16:51:00.003-04:00

I have been yawning all day. I'm starting to realize that this travel schedule is wreaking habit on my sleep schedule (yes, even despite second sleep, which doesn't work now that I've switched to nonstop flights and need to spend the single flight preparing for the workday). On Mondays, I have to be up at 4:30am to get to Dallas by 9:30am (for the record, that does not include a workout), and then on Thursdays I get home at 12:30am (technically, that's Friday) on my return flight... assuming it's not delayed. Yikes!

But this weekend, most of my friends are heading home for Easter - which gives me a little bit of a break. I love my friends, especially some of the new ones I've made in the last 6 months or so, but in wanting to see them as much as possible on the weekends, I'm constantly running around trying to see everyone - and I don't get a chance to catch up on sleep. Generally, I get home on Thursdays after a long week of work, and I think, "yay, now I have the weekend to catch up." But the past two weekends, I've been going nonstop that I end up boarding the plane on Monday gulping and realizing I now have four more intense days of work to get through before I can even start to catch up. Not good!

For Easter, my mom usually comes to visit - we go to church, go to brunch, and enjoy each other's company. This year, though, she's coming next weekend for the More Half Marathon. In case you missed it, she has been following my beginner's half marathon training plan in order to run the More as her very first half marathon! I can't believe how well she's done and I can't wait to finish the race side by side with her. However, with that race set for next weekend, we decided it didn't make sense for her to come to NYC two weekends in a row. Instead, I'm on my own - and I am trying my best to keep tomorrow as open as possible! Sleeping till 10am? Yes, please!

In the meantime, though, I have a date tonight - so I needed to find a way to get pumped up (and not yawning). I did have a cafe au lait this morning (I don't drink regular coffee every day, so that should have provided the boost I needed... but sadly, it did not do the trick. As the day dragged on and I continued to want to just crawl into bed and close my eyes, I realized the one thing I hadn't yet done today: work out. (I usually work out first thing in the morning on Fridays, but today I had skipped it in favor of extra sleep).

I know this is old news, but many studies have shown that exercise boosts energy levels. In that particular study, people who exercised regularly had more energy than those who didn't, but there is also plenty of evidence to show that lifting weights / doing cardio will get your heart pumping and your blood flowing - making you feel awake than if you had just sat around and kept your eyes open. (Of course, a nap / getting more sleep is the best cure of all, but sometimes you just don't have time for that).

So I hit up the gym for my "C" day of my pullup routine. "C" day is still kicking my grip's ass (apparently my hands are really weak even though my arms are strong!), which is why I'm finding it a bit hard to type right now. But lo and behold, I feel a thousand times more awake than I did before I went to the gym! Presto, change - I'm ready for my date! Well, after I shower and change out of my sweaty gym clothes...

TGIF!

Credit: Someecards

PSA: The Car Crash

2012-04-04T22:56:00.005-04:00

On Saturday, I saw something I've heard about, and been warned about, but never wanted to experience. I was taking the subway to Brooklyn for brunch at my friend Susan's, and was pretty excited. Susan is an amazing cook (she's won several local cooking competitions and also writes a great food blog), and she had a pretty fantastic menu planned - check it out:

I was walking from the subway to Susan's apartment, not listening to music or anything but also not paying terribly close attention to everything around me.... until I heard brakes squealing, and I focused on the car that was coming to a stop about 1/2 block in front of me. Why was he slamming the brakes on? And then I saw a young woman fly up in the air and land with a huge crash on the windshield, completely shattering it.

Despite there being blood seemingly everywhere, she actually got up off the car by herself before the many people closer than me reached her and helped her walk over to the sidewalk, where they laid her on the ground. Seeing that she had managed to walk a bit (albeit with help), I thought the best thing to do was for me to stay out of the way - it seemed that despite the severity, others had it under control. However, I needed to walk in that direction anyway, so as I passed by, I double checked: "Did someone call 911?" Silence all around as people looked at each other with "oops" looks on their faces... so I stopped in my tracks and pulled out my phone.

I have to say, 911 was surprisingly inefficient. Despite my careful enunciation and detailing of the cross streets where I was, they asked me to repeat the street names multiple times, and then asked for the names of some of the businesses around so they could look those up instead. (Unfortunately, that was easier said than done - I was in a kind of rundown area with no-name bodegas and hair salons). It probably took two full minutes for them to figure out where I was and agree to send an ambulance.

In the meantime, they asked for my cell phone number just in case the ambulance couldn't find us, and for me to find out the victim's age. I made my way through the small crowd that had formed around her to ask - and saw that I was looking at a runner not very different than any of my friends. She didn't seem to have any headphones, but had on cute Lululemon gear and a Garmin (which was still running... and I'm really embarrassed to admit that for a split second I wondered if I should offer to stop it). And when I asked her age, she answered that she was 24 years old - just a few years younger than me.

As I was conveying that to the 911 operator, a fire truck pulled up - the firemen had been passing by on their way back to the station and jumped out to help. I was immensely relieved as they got out their neck stabilizer/backboard/etc and took charge of the situation. However, since the 911 operator had taken my cell phone number, I felt like I still needed to stay until the ambulance got there. While the firefighters moved in, I pulled back and tried to stay on the outskirts.

With nothing further to do on my part except wait for the ambulance, I just stood back and watched the firefighters do their thing. Now that I knew the girl was safe, I had a chance to actually process what had happened - and it terrified me. She was a runner just like me or any of my friends, and she was just out doing her thing when she found herself smashing through a windshield. I got tears in my eyes as I thought about it, and seeing them, one of the firefighters asked if she was a friend of mine. I replied that no, I was just a bystander and waiting for the ambulance... and then the ambulance pulled up and I could leave.

But as I walked away, I was completely shaken up. Again, when I think how easily that could happen to anyone... to any of us. It only takes a second for something horrible to happen, and I literally started shaking with fear at the thought of it. I called my mom crying for the rest of the walk to Susan's brunch, and even after arriving, I didn't feel quite right for a little while (thank you, blueberry mimosas, for making me forget about it and start to relax). I briefly Tweeted about how shocked I was, but then I just didn't know how to put into words everything that was going through my head about it. I'm doing my best with this post.

Seeing a runner just like me fly up in the air and land on the windshield of a car was one of the scariest things I've ever seen. Please, please, please - if you are out running in an area where there are cars, BE CAREFUL. Wear a Road ID with all your emergency contact info on it. Don't wear headphones, unless they are Airdrives or another kind specifically designed to let you hear ambient sound with your music. Keep your music turned down, even if you are already doing as you should and wearing Airdrives. (DO NOT wear earbuds or DJ-style earmuffs). As elementary as it sounds, make sure that every time you cross the street, you look both ways - even if the "walk" sign is blinking and you technically have the right of way. I am guilty of all this too, and I know that cars are equally responsible. But, God forbid, if you get hit, is it really any consolation to be able to say that it's the other guy's fault? Do everything in your power to make sure it doesn't happen in the first place.

Q1 New Year's Resolution Progress Report

2012-03-29T23:14:00.004-04:00

I can't believe we're already coming up on the month of April. The year is a quarter of the way over already! (And despite paying for a TurboTax software package back in January that I split with some friends, I still haven't filed my taxes. So much for getting them done early!)

With time flying by so quickly, I thought it would be prudent to check in on my New Year's Resolutions for the year, and see how I'm doing. If I haven't made any progress, that's fine - there are still three more quarters in which to do so - but I want to figure out why that is. Have I not set myself up for success? Or should I reevaluate the goals I have chosen? As I've mentioned many times on the blog, one of my favorite quotes is this: "If it is important, you will find a way; if not, you will find an excuse." When I made these goals, I thought they were very important - but if I haven't started them, it's time to evaluate whether I "found an excuse" or just need to work harder on finding a way.

1. Blog daily
Ha! This one is kind of funny, in its simplified form. (I think what I wrote on the blog was something about blogging more often, but I shortened all my goals so that they would easily fit into a sticky note on my computer desktop and therefore stare me in the face at all times, and this is how #1 netted out). I actually did not intend to blog daily, but I intended to get into more of a routine. And so far, so good! I don't think I've let the blog go more than a week without posting, and most days I at least have it on my to do list and have some kind of idea in my head for a post. In truth, I don't think I ever want to be someone who blogs daily - that just means you're writing your blog posts based on timing instead of based on when you actually have something to say - so I'm going to call myself right on track here.

2. Reconnect with old friends
My original idea for this one was that I'd spend a bit of time every day reconnecting with someone from my past with whom I've lost touch. And that lasted... about a week. Oops! I think this is one that I haven't tried hard enough to achieve. It is really not that hard to reach out to someone, especially with the advent of Facebook and other social media! With 277 days left in the year, that's 277 old friends I can still reconnect with, which is a heck of a lot better than zero if I just give up. Time to get on it!

3. Get back into dancing
Hmm, to be honest, I kind of forgot about this one. I have taken a lot of new and different fitness classes, but I've been slacking a bit on the dance. I did a zumba series for a month or so (thanks to a great Groupon deal for < a href="http://www.zclubny.com">Zclub), but haven't been back since, despite loving it. I'm going to put this one as a toss up - I'd like to try to take dance classes a bit more, but I'm also getting into some new and different classes that are vying for my attention too (Kickboxing! Refine!). I'll reevaluate whether to even keep this on the list at some point.

4. Run a marathon a month
Check, check, check! January, February, and March have all gone smoothly, and I think I'm starting to get bitten by the marathon fever again. I was starting to worry that I didn't have a marathon in April, and wondering if the fact that I had two lined up for May (Colfax in Colorado and my annual tradition of Vermont City, where I'll also be doing a seminar at the expo) could count since then I would still average one a month. But then I got suckered in by Jocelyn, who recently PRed at the half marathon distance on two consecutive weekends, and is a wonderful/terrible influence when we get together (like when I have 8 miles planned and she spontaneously gets me to do 16 instead). After just a few Gchats with her, I'm pretty sure I'm going to also be doing the Country Music Marathon and New Jersey Marathon, for a total of four marathons in five weeks. But hey, when I get to run and travel with friends, I really could care less how many miles I have to put in for the experience. Did you say you're doing a 100K but that you'll buy me all the beer I can drink at the finish? Of course I'll pace you! Speaking of which...

5. Log 400 unique beers
It is probably evident by how much I'm working out and how little my waistline is shrinking that this goal is one of the ones that is most on track. I hit 200 unique beers right at the beginning of the year... and yet I'm already now at 307. Gulp - 107 unique beers in just 3 months? I may need to slow the pace of my drinking a bit, or set a new goal. 500? ;)

6. Read 100 books
This one is fairly close on track (20 books where I should be at 25, and I've been reading some long ones). Not much to say here except that I'm reading some good stuff lately. If you liked the Hunger Games (aaah I haven't seen the movie yet - too busy!), check out another cool fiction book I recently read, Divergent by Veronica Roth. I also couldn't get through The Sorcerer's Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adrian's elBulli fast enough, and am currently enjoying Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Butter, and Bones in preparation for my foodie book club at her restaurant, Prune, tomorrow night. (BTW, foodie book club is pretty much the best idea ever. Read a great book and then discuss it at the author's own restaurant? So cool!)

7. Keep a stable weight
I am shocked that this one is so far so good, but it is. Hard to believe when you consider that I sucked down about a cup and a half of M&Ms during a particularly long meeting today! Fortunately, binges like that seem to be more the exception than the norm lately, and I'm pretty happy with how my eating has been. Of course, I just got staffed on a yearlong assignment in Dallas, a city which is not exactly known for its healthy cuisine, but I'm going to try to take a weekly quiet night to myself where I get a salad at the hotel restaurant and also hit up the gym in a big way. After all, the key is not cutting everything out or going all out with the calorie counting (despite my love of numbers, I learned a few years ago that calorie counting just makes me go crazy and obsessive), but about finding balance. I'm sure trying!

8. Make more fitness friends
This, this goal is what has made me so happy over the past few months. If I achieve nothing else this year, I am so happy with how this one goal has gone. I started trying to achieve this by reaching out to New York running/fitness bloggers, and in doing so, I found a group of girls that I just adore. We plan friend dates to watch the Bachelor and eat cookie dough hummus, we all run to a preplanned meeting point at 16 Handles, or we go for a 10 mile run to a mac & cheese cookoff. I love having Gchat buddies to get me through a boring day, and I love that when I'm traveling for work, they're emailing/tweeting me to come home ASAP. All in all, I can't believe how much we just "get" each other on so many levels - and I think I owe them a toast with rum-spiked protein shakes this weekend :)

How are your New Year's resolutions going? Are there any that have become less important to you over time? I say, if it's not working, change it up! Focus on what's most important to you and the rest will come in time.

By the Numbers

2012-03-27T20:31:00.002-04:00

On Sunday, I attended my very first Soulcycle class. For those of you not in the NYC/LA area, Soulcycle is the see-and-be-seen spinning studio that features nightclub lighting, thumping bass, and candles for atmosphere. In New York, it definitely has a cult following among both regular people and celebrities, but it's something I've always been a bit reluctant to try. For starters, at $32 a class, one class is 1/2 the price of a month's regular gym membership!

But when they announced that they were doing a very special "Broadway" class, featuring showtunes throughout the ride, I decided it was good a time as any to try a class. ONE class. (Or at least I hoped I wouldn't get sucked in and that it would only be one class, or I'd go broke pretty soon). I sent an email out to a lot of NYC blogging friends who go to Soulcycle a bit more regularly, and soon a plan was devised: Broadway Soulcycle, then 16 Handles frozen yogurt to eat back all the calories we burned. Two cult favorites in one afternoon - genius!

While the company (Jocelyn, Sam, Ali, Lindsay, and Susan) was awesome, the class wasn't really my favorite. I totally rocked out to the Broadway songs, belting away at the top of my lungs, and was psyched that the playlist basically matched my own "Showtunes Power Songs" playlist (aside from "Finishing The Hat" - seriously, I just don't think Sunday in the Park with George lends itself to rocking out and pushing through a workout, with the possible exception of "Move On"). But while I got really sweaty, I feel like it was only partially due to the workout... and partially due to the overly hot room. It kind of bugged me, as it seemed pretty obvious that they do that on purpose to make you sweat more and feel like you got a better workout in than you really did. But my main issue with Soul Cycle was just the lack of numbers.

I know that quant people aren't supposed to be bloggers, but here I am. Hello, my name is Laura, and I am an Excel addict. I get excited when I figure out a new array formula, and I double tally all of my workout numbers in both a spreadsheet and an Android app (yes, separately). Part of the reason I've gotten so into weight lifting in the past year or so is that I love seeing how much more weight I can lift than when I first started, and also measure the incremental progress from session to session.

And of course, it's not all about improvement. Sometimes I go backwards and lift less than I did the previous time, but I like knowing that too. If I pick up the same dumbbells that I used in my previous session and I am having trouble, it makes me stop and think: am I sick? Tired? Underfed? (HA to that last one, which is pretty much never the case). Or is it that I am not pushing myself as much as the last time, and that I just need to try a little harder? That measuring stick helps me get a better gauge on my health and well being, for better or for worse, and I really like using it.

Of course, the numbers do lie. Last night on the elliptical, I somehow covered 4.26 miles in just 30 minutes - or a 7:02 pace. Sure, I was sweating like crazy and really exerting myself, but if you had put me outside, there is no way I would have run 4.26 miles in 30 minutes. However, this morning when I got on the same machine and was only able to do 1.46 miles in 20 minutes, I knew that I was tired. Sure enough, all day I have felt a little dizzy and out of it, and so I've been eating a bit more and planning for an early bedtime tonight. The actual distance covered does not matter; what does matter is how I was able to use it to get a better idea of how I was doing.

I miss that at Soulcycle. Call me totally self-centered, but part of why I like going to classes is because I like comparing myself to others and seeing how I'm doing. When other people are going harder than I am, it makes me push myself more to try to get to their level - if not that time, then in a future session since I now see what's possible. If I am going harder than other people, it makes me really proud to be in such great shape - and, oddly enough, it still makes me push myself harder to try to stay in that super-fit top spot. All in all, group classes and the idea that everyone else is watching me (okay, not that they are, but that they could be) makes me push myself harder and not give up. I take a lot fewer "stretch breaks" in a in-person class than I do while doing a Daily Burn video at home!

At Soulcycle, it's too dark to really see what anyone else is doing. Plus, by nature, spinning is very individually-focused. You turn the resistance know left or right, but no one except you knows how much you're turning it (and of course, every bike is different). Where is my chance to crank it all the way up and show off my legs' prowess? I DEMAND THE SPOTLIGHT! (Kidding, sort of).

What do you think? Am I overly competitive and the only one who feels this way? If you live in NYC, would you like to join me at Flywheel, where they have the ultra-competitive leader board to pit you against your fellow riders?

Healthy Meal: Homemade Veggie Ramen Noodle Soup

2012-03-25T13:53:00.002-04:00

This morning, our Athleta running group was teed up for our first double digit run: 10 miles! The More Half Marathon is just 3 weeks away, and everyone is doing an awesome job with the training plan. Only two long runs left!

Last night I went to Katie's housewarming party and had a great time, but still made it to bed 11:30pm. 8.5 hours of sleep = bliss! Laura stayed at my apartment so that she'd be closer to the start of the run, and it was fun to have a mini-slumber party (chocolate chip cookies before we went to bed? Yes, indeed!). But when I woke up this morning, I just wasn't feeling it.

However, that's the nice thing about training plans and running groups - whether you want to or not, you have to get out there, and once you're out there, you might have a surprisingly nice time! Today's group was a bit smaller than usual (probably because I warned everyone about the impending rain and suggested that people might want to do their run on Saturday instead), but the rain held off and we had a peaceful and "loopy" run - covering the lower loop, then the upper loop (and Harlem Hills), and with a reservoir loop and a Great Lawn loop thrown in for good measure. I arrived back at the store feeling great - my only regret was not having some extra sweats to throw on for what turned out to be a cold walk home.

When I did get home, I desperately wanted something hot... and also found that my body was craving salt (not surprising after sweating for nearly two hours). All I could think about was something that would be tasty and fit the bill of both salty and hot, but would also be pretty terrible for me: ramen soup. As a kid, my mom let me get ramen soup as a treat. I loved the saltiness of it, I loved that I could make it by myself, and something about it just seemed snacky and fun.

But after doing my body good with such a nice long run, I didn't want to then have crap like ramen. So I decided to make my own! After checking out a bunch of different recipes on the web, I came up with my own adaptation that fit the bill. (No picture for mine, but I think we all know what ramen soup looks like!) I stuffed mine with tons of extra veggies for fiber and substance, and it really hit the spot.

1. Spray a soup pot with olive oil (hooray for my Misto!) and heat it up.
2. Add 1/4 large white onion (diced), 1 carrot (peeled and diced), and 2 stalks celery (diced). Saute until softened and starting to brown.
3. Add about 2 cups of water (so the veggies don't scorch and to form the base of your broth), and also add 1/2 cup frozen green beans, 1/4 cup frozen corn, and 1/2 cup snow peas. Stir and bring to a boil.
4. Lower the heat so the soup is just below boiling, and then add a sheet of kombu, making sure it's completely submerged. Simmer for 10 minutes.
5. In a second pot, heat 1 tsp sesame oil. Add 2 cloves of crushed garlic and 1/2 tsp of ground ginger. Heat for about 2 minutes, until the garlic is popping.
6. Add 1 bag of tofu shirataki noodles (drained) to the pot with the sesame oil and spices. Stir to combine, and heat for another minute or so.
7. Turn the heat off on the veggie pot, remove the kombu sheet, and add 2 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce. Stir thoroughly, then add the noodles from the other pot. Stir again and adjust seasonings (I added ground garlic and a bit more ginger - I like my soup extra pungent). Let cool, and serve!

This soup totally filled me up, warmed me up, and replenished my salt stores and water balance (though it is definitely high in sodium - I think even worse than the packaged kind). Bonus: you get a HUMONGOUS bowl of soup that is probably big enough for two people, but the entire thing is only 240 calories! Tons of fiber and good-for-you veggies, but in a seemingly indulgent package. Awesome. The only thing that would make it better is the addition of some protein (shrimp? Tofu?), but I was lazy and hungry and ate it as-is :)