The Marathon

I wrote this post ages ago, but couldn't get up the courage and strength to post it. But now that some time has passed, I am ready and I think you should know what really fueled my marathon.



An strong sense of self empowerment develops when training for a marathon. I am strong enough to persevere; I have run a thousand miles this year; I am running a marathon. I did this. I am strong enough to do this. I am awesome.

It’s a very selfish, decidedly narcissistic journey.

Indeed, through much of my marathon training I have thought little but of myself. Too many people in my life, have heard some variation of an excuse on why I am tired, particular about plans or just plain old missing in action.

Armed with that singular sense of determination and confidence in my training, I packed my bags and headed off to Philadelphia to run my very first marathon.

But the thing that you can never know about running a marathon until you actually do, is what running a marathon is like. It’s a curious thing. But aren’t all the great moments like that? Weddings, child birth, tests, death, LIFE. You just don’t know until you do and then it’s really too late, because you are already two hours and thirteen miles away from home and the only way to dig yourself out of the mess is to just keep on going.

The marathon was hard. There is no other way to describe it. At mile nine, I thought to myself, this is it, I am running the marathon, but inside I didn’t feel like I thought I would. I didn’t feel excited nor did I hurt in any sort of serious way. I just felt like I was running and running and running and running….with no end in sight.



Around that ninth mile, I started asking myself what I was doing. Self-doubt settled in, and I thought about the impending holidays when I would have to go home and explain why I ran a marathon so slowly. The 5:30 pace group passed me and I tried to keep up with them for a minute but my legs, no my heart, was not in it, and so I fell behind.

Still I kept on going because after all via Facebook and this blog, I had told the whole world that I was running a marathon and goshdarnit, if I was going to quit, I sure as hell wasn’t going to quit the race when I wasn’t even half way done. Who does that? I had just run a half marathon in October, surely single digit miles weren’t going to break me now.

So I just kept on going, because I could. My feet were still moving. But secretly, I was hoping that I would faint or throw-up or strain a hamstring. Yes, I was wishing for my own demise. While I felt a little tired, what I really felt was disheartened about how much more was left to go and I was embarrassed about how slow I was running.

I wanted to be able to stamp on this race and its dismal showing an awesome excuse. I wanted to quit and then come home and regal everyone with stories of how I tried to run a marathon but then ended up convulsing and heaving at mile twelve and was forced to quit by the race regulators. Or I wanted a severe limp for a few weeks, that would grant me bragging rights and office chatter about my valiant attempts to run a marathon, and the vain excuse to tell the whole world, “oh yeah, I tried to run a marathon and look how hard I tried. I injured myself in the process.”



Yet, my dreams of self sabotage were not to be. After all, I did train for this thing. And for my body to give out before the half way mark, nothing short of a Christmas miracle would have had to occur. I don’t want to brag, but at this point, running thirteen miles isn’t that hard anymore.

There I go again. I’m letting my ego take over.

At mile thirteen there is a point in the race where the half marathoners and full marathoners split off. I thought seriously about splitting off to the left and taking the short way home. But I knew that my friends ,who were in Philadelphia for the sole reason to cheer me on, were waiting for me just beyond mile thirteen and when I reached the literal and figurative fork in the road I took the long road because I couldn’t make their trip to Philadelphia for nothing. If nothing else, I was going to cross that finish line because they had crossed state lines, rearranged work schedules and made the best posters ever…FOR ME.

And so I kept on running.

And running.

And walking and running and walking and running and walking and running.

Because in the craziest twist of fate ever, finishing a marathon had nothing to do with how much I had trained or how determined I was.

When I passed my friends at the halfway mark, I still struggled. I almost broke down and had a good cry. In my head, I rehearsed a speech I would give to my family at Thanksgiving about how despite my snail pace, I had still managed to achieve my goal and that there was pride in that.

As the miles crept towards twenty and the fast runners passed me (after the 13th mile mark in the Philadelphia marathon it’s an out and back course where you run 6.5 miles out and run around a orange cone and come back the way you came), I questioned my will to run the marathon. It was especially tempting to just fake a stretch and then cut across to the other side and pretend that I had run the whole distance.

So why didn’t I quit? Or why didn’t I cheat? Because, I wasn’t running the marathon alone. Far from it. My friends had travelled to another city to visit me, my family stalked the website, and for every person who has ever read a post of my blog EVER, you were all with me, powering my legs, lungs, and will.



Yes, I am admitting that if I had run this marathon and told no one, I would have quit.

But I finished.

And I finished because you were there, even if you weren’t. You were, in my head and in my heart.

Maybe you have already learned this lesson, but I hadn’t. I always thought that I was smart or strong or creative enough to work my way out of any situation. But what I didn’t know was that, when times get rough, when you want to quit, when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, that we pull ourselves up from the end of earth because of someone else. I didn’t finish that marathon because I had trained so hard or because I wanted to, but because of my readers, cheerleaders, and family.

So thank you for reading my blog and most importantly, thank you for believing in me. I know you might not think that your good wishes matter but even if you didn’t say it, even if you didn’t think it, even if you didn’t come to Philly to cheer me on, I felt the weight of announcing to the whole world (ok, my whole world) that I was running a marathon, and so I ran a marathon.

And that’s all that matters. Thank you for thinking, reading, watching, hoping, wishing, and wanting for me.



Because I only ran for you.

Thanks to Lisa Torrieri for the great pictures!

Training Plan the Week of March 21st

Last week something momentous happened: I ran outside in shorts. Yes, it was a bit chilly, but wow, did it feel good. I'm looking forward to more runs in shorts.

Here's the training workout for this week:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 3/4 mile at 5K pace with each 1/4 mile in between each, then 4 1/4 miles at 5K pace with 1/10th of a mile between easy, then repeat one 3/4 mile at 5K pace, strength workout
Wednesday: 3 miles at race pace
Thursday: 7 miles, easy, strength workout
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 10 miles
Sunday: 4 miles, rest, spinning, etc.

Training Tip: I often train at my 5K and 10K pace intervals. How do I know what these are? If you haven't raced at these distances before or your last race at these distances was too long ago or your fitness level was dramatically different, then you are going to need to "guess" your pace. I use the Running World pace converter. I plug in my half-marathon goal time to get a projected pace I should run for a 5K or 10K. Of course, nothing is ever perfect and I might not actually run a 10K at that pace, but it's a goal to shoot for anyway.

Music on Repeat the Week of March 14th

I couldn't run without my music. It's that simple. Here's what moved me this week:

Loyalty (Featuring Lil Wayne and Tyga) by Birdman

Turn Around (5,4,3,2,1) (DJ Bam Bam Bam radio mix) by Flo Rida

All of the Lights by Kanye West

Till the World Ends by Britney Spears

Valerie by Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse

Stop Me (Kissy Sell Out Remix) by Mark Ronson and Daniel Merriweather

Got Your Number (Featuring Space Cowboy) by Nadia Oh

Hypercaine (Nero dubstep mix)by DJ Fresh

Reading List

Long before I can remember, when I was too little to know my letters from my numbers, my mom and dad would crawl into bed with me and read me a story.
To this day, I can't fall asleep unless I read something. Even now, I still read at least one page or scroll through Facebook status updates (YES! that counts as reading) on my Blackberry before finally, finally, shutting my eyes.

To that end, I thought that I would share what I've really enjoyed reading over the past few days.

Book: 'Too Big to Fail' by Andrew Ross Sorkin - trust me, it's awesome, though I might be biased since I work in this industry. But I think it is actually a great read even if you don't work in the industry because it's not really about the technical details and more about the people - which is always interesting.



Magazine: Right now, an old Newsweek and the latest Elle magazine.

News website: Always, nymag.com and nytimes.com - between these two babies I get my dose of gossip, research and current events. But this week, I spent some time on the NY Observer as well.

Blogs: See my blog roll (the right side bar on my page) for the list of blogs I read daily. I like to follow the comments and find new blogs to read too. The blogs I read everyday are:

ChoosingRaw: If you have ever struggled with eating healthy, this is your blog. Yes, it's about a raw diet, but peppered in between articles on raw walnut cheese and collard greens wraps, are articles on encouragement and inspiration for those *trying* to live a healthier live - vegan, raw, or not.

Loves Veggies & Yoga: Averie is also a raw foodist, but she has a lot of great cooked recipes too. In fact, every single post is littered with links to recipes, all of which are pretty simple and irresistable looking.

No Meat Athlete: Again a vegetarian site about running, he has a lot of well researched articles on training and eating. I highly recommend this site for runners (or endurance athletes) and/or vegetarians.

Some of the best things I've read on the web lately:



The Pioneer Woman's Sisters Photography Contest

Gena from ChoosingRaw.com's post for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. The comments are as powerful as the post.

A sad and funny story from dooce.com. This is her best one that I've read to date.

The Diet Book Junkie's post "Facebook: is it making up happier or making us feel like crap?"

Grub Street's theory on why people will wait for not-so-great food.

Now that Jersey Shore is the top five shows on TV, everyone can get understand why Manhattan might want to set traps for the B&T crowd.

No Meat Athlete's post on why failure might be a good thing.

What are you reading these days? Do you have a favorite blog or website that you have to check every day?

Running Shoes That You Will LOOOOOOOVE

Today, I’m going to tell you a love story. Nope, not the bodice ripping, jaw-dropping, heart pounding love fest you were hoping for (keep your mind out of the gutter.) This story is about feet.


Do I have your attention now?

Once upon a time, there were two feet who decided that after trying tap dancing, pointe ballet and high heels, they were going to start running.



The running started modestly with short two or three mile jaunts in a trusty old pair of sneakers that the feet had relied upon for several years. You know the type of shoes I’m talking about: They were flashy, and really cool and even the high heels were a little jealous of them. But the shoes were not very supportive and they squished the toes too.

Yep, they were that kind of shoe.

However, the feet were a tolerant bunch and so they figured that these problems were the normal sort that every couple experiences and they would work themselves out in time.

Spring turned into summer, and the feet started running longer and faster distances. But by midsummer, the honeymoon glow had dulled, and a nagging pain started up in the knees and soon spread to the bottom of the feet – before too long even walking was unbearable.



The feet, pretty sure that they were out of the running business forever, went to the doctor’s for an official confirmation.

But the doctor wasn’t ready to relegate the feet to a life of walking. The prescription: new shoes and orthotics.

Skeptical that the shoe was the source of the problems, the feet decided to take a trial break with the fancy shoes and try something else. After a nerve racking session at the running store, the feet found themselves toe to toe with the polar opposite of the old shoes.

These new shoes were sturdy and practical, and their insoles came out so that orthotics could be placed inside the. The feet were skeptical. After all the shoes were boring white, completely off-trend and not very cool.

After a few weeks of rest, the feet finally got up the courage to take a run in the new shoes. Surprisingly, the run was effortless and painless. Before long, the feet and shoes were running all over the big city, miles and miles of pain free running. The feet knew that they had found the one.



Some months later, the feet and shoes took the big plunge and ran a marathon together. And they lived happily ever after.

The End

Ok, but seriously so you want to know about how to find the perfect running shoe?

Well, I am going to give you the simplest, best advice ever. It’s the only thing you really need to know about shoes: Go to a running store and ask the sales people to pick one out for you.

Here’s what they’ll do: When you get to the store, they’ll assess your foot pronation. A good store will ask you to run to assess your gait (some might ask you to simply walk around, but you should really run in sneakers to get the right assessment).

Foot pronation refers to the way that the body weight is distributed during a step. There are three types:

Normal pronation: The distribution of weight is even throughout the entire step.

Over pronation: The foot rolls inward after making contact with the ground.

Under pronation: The foot rolls outward after making contact with the ground.

Check out this article and the videos for more information. The videos really help.

Then, the running store will do an arch test. You can assess your own by doing a test on a paper bag. (The running store clerks are usually pretty good as sizing up an arch by sight.) Get a paper bag that you aren’t going to use anymore, dip your feet in some water and then step on the paper bags. Don’t get your feet too wet, because you want to be able to see your foot prints.

Flat feet: The entire shape of your foot is imprinted on the paper.

Low arch: There is a small dry area on the inside middle portion of your foot.

Average arch: The dry area extends to the middle of the foot, to two-thirds of the way.

High arch: The dry area extends almost across the foot. A thin line connecting the ball and heel may or may not be visible.

The running clerk will recommend a shoe based upon your pronation. I wear a nuetral shoe from Brooks called Ghost 3. I have stuck with the Brooks neutral line for the last five years, only changing up the shoes to get lighter models. The running store will be able to help you find a shoe that fits your arch type and gait, but beware of these things:



(1) Pronation may change over time. I was once a severe under pronater, and now have a very neutral gait. The shoes changed my running style.

(2) Custom arch supports are necessary for every runner. You might not need orthotics like me, but do expect that you will have to buy separate insoles.

(3) Good running shoes always have removable insoles.

(4) Expect to buy running shoes 1 to 2 sizes larger than other shoes. They should be really loose when you try them on unless you have just run for several hours. Your feet swell during running so you need to have room for them to swell. (Sometimes after long, hot runs in the summer, my feet don’t fit into many of my high heels –eek!)

(5) Make sure the running store assesses your gait while running. It could be completely different than when walking.

(6) While you’re at it, get running socks, as they will help prevent blisters. A lot of blisters from running are just caused by sweaty cotton socks that are rubbing at the skin. (In fact, cotton is pretty much the enemy when running. The only mostly cotton thing I wear are men’s undershirts.)

(7) Replace shoes every 300-400 miles. You don’t need to be super diligent about this. I can usually tell when I need new ones because a whole host of aches will suddenly spring up during a run. You can just estimate your total mileage on the shoes.

(8) Run around in the store on the shoes. I don’t care if you feel dumb doing it. You will feel dumber if you take the shoes home and find out you can’t stand to run for one minute in them.

(9) Go to a running store, if at all possible. Most running stores will let you try out the shoes and actually run in them, with a full exchange policy. If you don't have a running store close by, try a sporting goods store. Try to avoid going to a department store or shoe warehouse. If you really don't have access to these places, try using this site to help you find a good shoe. (It's not the best site but should help you narrow down some models, which you can then make a list of and try on at the store. Also, note that Asics, Brooks, Mizuno or Nike are the most popular running shoe brands.)

The cardinal rule of a good running shoe is that it should feel good to run the moment you put them on. There is no break in period where you suffer through blisters or have to stretch out the shoe. They need to fit right and feel 100% awesome immediately.

So before you start whining about how running hurts all your joints in the your legs and maybe a few in your arms, make sure you’ve got the right shoes on your feet and that they still have some miles in them.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire...and Training Plan the Week of March 14th

I must confess. I've been lying to you. For the past few weeks, I've been posting my workouts on the blog for my half-marathon. They are one-hundred-percent, mile-for-mile the workouts I plan to do that week.

However...

It's much more of an aspirational plan. Because, you know, things like life, get in the way. And I really just don't have time to work out every day of the week. But I try. I really do. Don't you?

But I've been going about all of this wrong. Not one week of workouts have passed where I have followed the workout plan exactly. Something has always coming up, whether it's rain or a late night or just a lack of motivation, I have cut my workouts short or skipped some of them. It's true.



Some myths that I've been perpetuating:

* You don't have to do every single workout. Heck, you can skip a lot of workouts. It's about an 80% effort and mostly, those long runs. If you run 10 miles in your training...you will complete a half marathon.

* You don't need to do speed workouts. Sure, if you have a time goal in mind and have run some races before, by all means, please work on your pace. But otherwise, just get out there and get the blood flowing four days a week, and most importantly listen to some good music and think about things.

* I don't love to run all the time. Sometimes, I want nothing more than to sit on my butt all day long and eat my own pizza pie. Or I just want to sleep in. But unless I am sick or in severe pain (walking and running) then I run.

* I don't feel great during every run. Runs are like brushing your teeth. Most days you just do it because....well, who wants to have the dentist put that drill anywhere near them? But you know how once in a while, your teeth get that fuzzy feeling and your mouth just feels really dirty? And brushing your teeth then is like the best thing ever? Well, running is like that.



* I don't run fast. Actually, I'm really slow. My long run pace is 11:30 to 12 minutes per mile. On the treadmill, easy is 4.8, decent pace is 5.2, hard is 6.0 and really hard is 6.3. If I get past that, I'm running for my life. (Literally...do you want to know what it's like to fly off the treadmill because you can't keep up? Me neither.)

I am sorry that I lied to you.

I wasn't trying to lead you on. I just want the best for you. But I can't expect more from you than myself.

So give yourself a break. If you want to run a half marathon, don't pay attention to what I'm doing.

All you got to do is run a few times a week, and get in those long runs no matter how slow they are.



Now here's my workout plan for the week - which I have every intention of doing in it's exact specifications - but will probably make a few tweaks to along the way.

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 4 miles & Pilates
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: 4 miles at race pace
Friday: Spinning
Saturday: 14 miles
Sunday: Rest & Pilates

Now go and enjoy the rest of the week.

Warning: This Might Make You Want to Dance

Somethings are better the second time around. Here's a flashback to junior high: "Drop It Like It's Hot" by Neon Hitch, plus the download.

And here's another goodie: Favorite Colour (Punches Remix) by Tokyo Police Club.

Now I'm off to run twelve miles.