Watch me.

Looking for me at the marathon? I'll be wearing this.

At noon today (10/28), the NYC marathon people are releasing this year's runner tracking apps. So, today feels like a good day to write about all the ways you can watch and/or track me on race day!

First, the apps. Info about them can be found here. It looks like there's a free web-based tracking system, and and also an app that costs $2.99. The NY Times did a write-up about both options yesterday, which you can read here. To use these services, you need to know my bib number, which is 64582. Also, an important note about tracker apps/software: While they almost always work just fine, things can go wrong with the system. Just a couple weekends ago, the Baltimore Marathon experienced some kind of major malfunction with its tracking system and then got deluged with calls from panicked people who could not find their runners. So, if you can't find me on the trackers for some reason, please do not assume that I have dropped out or died. 

The apps will help you find me along the course, which you can view here. Take a look at the first 8 miles. I will be in the green wave, starting at 10:40am. So, at certain times in miles 1-8, I will be on a different side of the street from the other waves. Pay attention to the colors on the map so you know where to find me.

In terms of time, my wave starts at 10:40am and the race organizers expect us all to cross the start line by 10:50am. My goal for this race is to run a pace of 11:00-11:30 minute miles and come in under 5 hours. So, that would put me at the finish a little before 4pm. However, it is very hard to predict times for a long event like this, so don't rely too much on my projections. This is where the tracker apps can come in handy.

Where should you go to watch, and what should you do there? The marathon organizers offer some great advice here. I will add that you should yell my name very loudly if you see me, and please do not be offended if I still miss you. I am very easily distracted by the combination of sights, other people, and pain. Also, please do not feel like you need to bring me snacks (some spectators do that). I'm going to carry my own fluids and food. If you simply feel you must bring something, I am partial to lemon-lime Gatorade and pretzels.

Thank you so much for your interest in my race and I can't wait to see some of you along the course!

It was then that I carried you.

One of the many "Footprints" mementos I have acquired over the years.

In my last blog post, I told the story of how and why my friend Katie gave me a "Footprints" coin to carry as I ran the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon. If you know that story (or really, if you know Katie and I at all), you realize that this was a joke gift. At least is started out that way.

As you may recall, my training for MCM 2010 was full of challenges. Basically, anything that could have gone wrong, did. I got tendonitis. Then, I got appendicitis. Just as I was recovering from that, I came down with a bad cold. All in all, my training took some major hits and I was nowhere near where I needed to be, training-wise, when I stood at the MCM start line last October.

Any sane person would have postponed the race until the next year. I definitely thought about it. The thing that kept me from dropping out was all the people who had supported me throughout my training. I had dozens of donors to consider, as well as all the people who read this blog, and all of the people who had promised me their thoughts and prayers during the race. Heck, my pastor was dedicating that morning's Eucharist to me! I felt like I could not let those people down. So, I pushed ahead.

I have detailed my sufferings on that day here and here. Basically, my trouble started at mile 14. After doing pretty well for the first half of the race, my body just gave out on me. By mile 15, I was in major pain and I started using a run/walk system just to keep moving forward. "Run" and "walk" are strong words, though. Essentially, I was staggering. I started to get better around mile 20, but I hit some dark moments between 15 and 20. At that point, I really was not sure I could do it.

As I staggered forward, with tears in my eyes, I thought about the "Footprints" coin that Katie had given me. It was getting less and less ironic with every step I took. I said a little prayer, in which I basically told God "Look, you and I both know by now that I can't do this. If you want me to cross that finish line, I'm going to need your help." After that, I thought about all of the people supporting me again. I looked at my watch and realized that my church was in session at that precise moment. I thought about everyone at church praying for me and literally tried to feel them lifting me up. It didn't take all of the pain away, but it definitely helped.

I think about all of this when I talk to my friend Emily about St. Lydia's. Emily and Rachel started St. Lydia's as an experiment in a friend's home. At that point, and for many months to come, they both had full-time day jobs. St. Lydia's was their passion, but it was also a hobby. Then, over time, St. Lydia's grew enough that Emily and Rachel were able to cut back their day jobs and allow St. Lydia's to be their work.

I remember talking to Emily right before she made this transition. The same weekend, I also talked to a writer friend who was in the process of quitting her day job and devoting herself full-time to her passion. I was in awe of the courage of both of these friends- the sheer nerve and confidence it took them to say "This is what I want to do and I believe it can be my living." In the course of our conversation, Emily told me that she and Rachel had established a "prayer team" for St. Lydia's: a group of non-members who simply agreed to pray for their ministry. Emily said that, whenever she started to worry about St. Lydia's and her future, her awareness of this prayer team gave her courage and comfort.

At the moment, St. Lydia's is facing a new challenge. Shortly after moving into a new worship space, they have been forced to move out due to structural problems with the building (you can read about it here). Just as they were making a big step forward in their life together as a congregation, they find themselves essentially homeless. Emily, Rachel, and the St. Lydia's congregation are very resilient, and they are finding creative ways around these challenges. Nonetheless, it is a blow to their community.

Given what St. Lydia's is going through, I am happier than ever that I can support them in my own small way, by dedicating my NYC marathon to them. My first marathon taught me that the thoughts and prayers of people who care about you can lift you up at your lowest moments. This time, I hope that my prayer- in the form of thousands of tiny steps- can lift up St. Lydia's.

Footprints.

For the past few days, I've been working on a blog post about my upcoming NYC run and how it connects with my friends' fledgling church, St. Lydia's. I hope to have that post up later today. First, though, I need to offer a little background information, in the form of this story:

Regular readers of this blog have heard plenty about my friend Katie:

Katie and I after the VA Wine Country Half-Marathon, June 2011.

Katie was my classmate in the Pastoral Counseling department at Loyola and my partner in the "Marathon for Murray" fundraiser. Katie is also the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. Like me, she grew up heavily involved in the Christian church. Thus, over the course of our lives, we have both become very familiar with the following "poem":

According to Wikipedia, the true origins and authorship of "Footprints" is unclear, but it may date back as far as the 1870's. Since then, enterprising Christians have found ways to slap this text on just about every kind of  product imaginable: framed plaques, quilts, pillows, jewelry, tote bags, mouse pads, mugs- the list goes on and on. I'm sure I've received at least 5 "Footprints"-themed gifts in my life, and I would wager that the majority of Christians (and plenty of non-Christians) can say the same thing. Whether they liked it or not, pretty much all of my Pastoral Counseling classmates knew this poem by heart.

Case in point:

Last Fall, a few weeks before our marathon, Katie and I were sitting in adjacent seats in Psychological Testing class. The topic of class that day was intelligence tests, and our professor was showing us sample items from a number of different tests. One of the tests featured a series of "spot the difference" puzzles. For example:

Got it? Look at the legs.

The whole class was having a great time studying the pictures and calling out the answers. The puzzles got progressively harder, until we got to one that stumped us all for a minute or two. Both sides of the picture showed two people- a man and a woman- walking along a beach. When none of us could spot the difference, the professor gave us a hint: "Look at the footprints." We looked. Sure enough, in the second picture, the man's footprints had disappeared. As soon as I got the answer, I yelled out "It was then that He carried her!" Immediately, the class split between people laughing hysterically and people who looked angry because I got to the joke first.

The week before the marathon, Katie and I exchanged little gifts as good luck charms. What did she get me? See below:

Look closely at the coin on the bottom left: On one side, it has a picture of footprints; on the other, it says "It was then that I carried you."

Nothing like a good "Footprints" joke to carry you through a hard class or a hard race!

We meet again, Baltimore.

The past two weeks have not been great in terms of training (or blogging). After the Metric Marathon on October 2, I came down with a pretty bad cold that made it hard to run or get to the gym. Then, while still dealing with the cold, I took a trip to CT for my seminary reunion and RI for work. I am usually good about exercising while travelling, but between the cold and a packed schedule, I did not work out at all. I got back to MD in the wee hours of last Thursday morning having not worked out in 7 days or run in 11. By that point, I was in starting to panic about my upcoming races: the Baltimore Half-Marathon on 10/15 and NYC on 11/6.

Thursday evening, I decided to ease back into working out by going to yoga. That felt great and reminded me that I love going to the gym. Still when I finished, I thought "I am running a half-marathon in 2 days and a full marathon in 3 weeks. Just doing yoga will not get me there." Fortunately, my gym buddy (and recent marathon survivor!) Jen was available for an easy Friday morning run to help me get further back into my routine. After that, I went to my first Group Power class in over a week. Knowing I had a race the next morning, I took it semi-easy on the weights. I would have been fine, had the instructor not swapped out our regular squat routine for a different (and much harder) one. The weight I had on my bar was light for our normal routine, but way too heavy for the new one. I should have paused and scaled back, but I chose to push through... and paid for it the next day.

I woke up Saturday morning (aka: race day) to serious soreness in my quads and glutes. I felt like I had run a half-marathon before I ever got to the starting line! I took some Tylenol and hoped that I would feel better once I got moving. My ambitious goal for the race was a 2:15 finish. I had doubts about achieving that, as Baltimore is a hard and hilly race. Even if I couldn't achieve 2:15, I felt fairly confident that I could beat my previous half-marathon PR of 2:17.

Fortunately, my legs did feel better once I got going, though the soreness never went away entirely. Baltimore was both as fun and as hard as I remembered from 2010. I knew quite a few people running the race, but nobody running my pace, so I was on my own most of the morning. I found it challenging to keep pushing myself without any motivation or distraction from a running buddy. Thankfully, the crowds were great and I ran into two different sets of friends at two particularly difficult moments. In mile 8, I had a brief but pleasantly distracting chat with two friends from the Striders' marathon training. Then, just before mile 10, I spotted my good friends Nancy and Jessie in the crowd of spectators. I didn't have time to stop and chat, but they were kind enough to accept my sweaty hugs.

I hit mile 10, which is where the hills finally relent, at almost exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes. Thus, I knew I would need to speed up from 10:15-10:30 minute miles to 10-minute miles or less in order to hit 2:15. I had my doubts, but I knew I would regret it if I didn't try. According to Nike+, I ran mile 11 in 9:35, but then slowed back to 10:39 for mile 12. I remember that being a tough moment. Thankfully, the last mile of Baltimore goes downhill through a crowd of cheering spectators. I don't care how tired you are, its hard to slow down when you have a 3-deep throng of people yelling "Almost there!" and "Do it for Baltimore!" I ran the last mile in 9:15 and crossed the finish line with an official time of 2:16:31. Not the 2:15 I hoped for, but still a PR and a full 10:01 faster than last year's time of 2:26:32. I was very pleased.

Not pictured: my huge smile. 

Pretty much the second I stopped running, the soreness came back with a vengeance. Within an hour, walking was a challenge and doing things like standing up and taking stairs was excruciating. For the remainder of Saturday and all of Sunday, Advil and stretching were my new best friends. Today, though, I feel almost back to normal. By taking it easy on the weights, I was able to get back to my Monday morning Group Power and I'm looking forward to my Tuesday morning run with Jen tomorrow. 20 days to NYC!

Special deliveries.

I am currently run-down with a cold and an intense job hunt, which are hampering both my training and my blogging. I have been trying to calm my anxiety by reminding myself that I still have nearly a month (29 days, to be precise) before the marathon- plenty of time to bounce back! My mail, however, is not cooperating with this anxiety reduction plan.

Yesterday, I came home and found this in my mail pile:

That's the official NYC marathon runner's handbook, complete with this terror-inducing map:

See what that is? Its all of NYC. I probably wouldn't try to drive that in one day, but apparently I am going to run it.

Today, I got more marathon-related mail:

This is my one-of-a-kind, extra-special marathon shirt, designed by the lovely and talented Rachel Pollack of St. Lydia's. The front is awesome, but the back is even better:

How great is that? I hope and expect that any runner who sees that after about mile 15 will think "These St. Lydia's people know exactly what I need right now!"

While these special deliveries are a little scary, they are also very exciting. Once I kick this cold, I hope they will give me the boost I need to finish my training strong. This is going to be an amazing experience, and I want to be able to enjoy it!

Remember to visit St. Lydia's at http://www.stlydias.org/ and offer your support through a visit, a prayer, and/or a donation!

1 bad race + 1 great race= 1 big improvement: the 2011 Metric Marathon

The 2010 Annapolis Striders Ironmen and women (I'm in the back, wearing green). Photo by Jon Valentine.

This past Sunday, I did my second running of the Annapolis Striders Metric Marathon (26.2K or 16.3 miles). The Metric Marathon is leg 6 of the 8-leg Champ Series. These races are spread out throughout the year and feature a wide range of distances: 5K, 10 miles, 10K, 1 mile, XC 8K, 26.2K, 5 miles, and 15K. If you run all of them in a given year, you win the Striders' Ironman award.

I picked up my first Ironman award in 2010. This was a big accomplishment for me, but it paled in comparison to the accomplishments of some of the other recipients. At the Striders' awards banquet, I was amazed to see a handful of people pick up awards for their 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and even 25th consectuive years of running the whole champ series. Its remarkable that these people have stayed in shape to run everything from 1 to 16.3 miles for that many years. Even more amazing is the pure logistics. In 25 years, there is no way that these people were never sick for a race, or injured, or juggling other commitments. The reality is that they ran races while sick or injured, and they have moved heaven and earth to get to their races every year. I think that's the real challenge of the Champ Series- just getting yourself to the start line eight times every year.

The 2010 Metric Marathon was the race that almost cost me my first IronMan award. I woke up that morning with a horrible cold, and it was only the prospect of losing the IronMan award that got me to the start line. I had one of my most miserable races to date, battling waves of nausea in the first half and major hip pain in the second half. Not fun.

This year, I was fortunate to be healthy on race day. I was less fortunate in terms of weather: I woke on Sunday morning to a 45-degree drizzle that did not make me feel like getting up and going outside. Once again, it was the IronMan award that got me to the start. One of the later Champ Series races is happening the day before the NYC marathon and the organizer is doing me a HUGE favor so I won't have to miss it (more about that later). With that in mind, I couldn't let a little cold and rain keep me from this race.

Once again, this proved to be a tough race, but it was so much better than my TheraFlu- powered shuffle of 2010. Early on, I found myself in a small pack with some friends from the Striders' marathon training group. Talking to them definitely made the time pass, but it also made me go out a bit too fast. I didn't notice how fast we were going until mile 4, when I looked at my watch and saw that less than 40 minutes had elapsed since the start. A sub 10-minute pace is what I do in a 10K on a good day, not in a longer race. Still, I felt good, so I stayed with my friends until the turnaround a little past mile 8.

At that point, I started to fall behind and I really started to feel the accumulated fatigue from the previous weekend's trail run. Everything that had been sore from the trail race- especially my hip and my shins- started to hurt. To make matters worse, I left the house in a hurry and forgot the Advil I usually bring for late-in-race aches and pains. By mile 10, I was really struggling. At that point, I started a near-constant mental mantra of "The faster you run, the sooner you'll be done." I definitely slowed a bit, but I kept moving. 

My goal for the race had been to finish in under 3 hours. When I crossed the finish line at 2:55, I was pleased, but I didn't realize just how well I had done until I went back and checked last year's time: 3:10. A 15-minute improvement! I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure this is my biggest improvement in a year of improvements.

Now, I am 6/8 of the way to my 2nd and much faster IronMan!