Channeling my inner grocery cashier.

A belated happy holidays, readers! I know that you are all eagerly anticipating my "2011: year in review" post. One of the bigger events of my 2011- starting a new job- has taken a major chunk of out my blogging time. Fear not, though- I promise to get it done before 2012!

In the meantime, I want to take a minute to tell you about a cool new app from Weight Watchers: the "WW Scanner" app. This app is free and available for Android and Iphone (and maybe some other smartphones too), but you have to be a WW online or E-tools subscriber in order to use it.  It turns your phone into a barcode scanner for grocery items. You pick up something in your grocery store or pantry, use your phone's camera to scan the barcode, and then the app calculates the WW points for that item. Then, you can save the item to a list of favorites, or zap the points total right into your daily tracker (on the website or the WW Mobile app). Amazing!

I downloaded this app a couple nights ago and then spent a good half-hour going through my refrigerator and pantry zapping things. The app did not recognize about 25% of the items I scanned, but I imagine that it will get better over time. Even with a 25% failure rate, this app still has the potential to save serious time. Calculating the Points for a new food can happen in a second, and the process of putting that food in your tracker is faster too. Just one or two clicks and you're done. (Of course, you still have to pay attention to the serving size of the food to avoid low-or-highballing the points.)

I am excited about this app because tracking has always been the key to my success or failure on Weight Watchers. When I track, I lose or maintain. When I don't track, I gain. Case in point: I tracked religiously last winter and lost close to 15 pounds. Then, over the summer, I stopped tracking and gained it all back. My reasons for not tracking are always the same: I'm busy and it feels like too much work. Fortunately, the combo of the old WW Mobile app and the new WW Scanner app elminate a lot of the effort involved in tracking. So long, excuses!

#20 of 2011!

Sometime between now and the end of the year, I will write up my 2011 running year in review. In the meantime, I offer a quick recap of my 20th and final race of this year: the Celtic Solstice 5-miler.

I'll admit, I ran this race for the shirt. Every winter, I see a ton of local runners in great running jackets or vests or half-zip shirts, all featuring a cool Celtic Solstice logo (see below), and I wish I had one.

The Celtic Solstice race is put on by Falls Road Running Store in Baltimore, which is known for great race premiums. They were the sponsors of the Dreaded Druid Hills 10K, which I ran in June. That race lived up to its name in terms of difficulty, but it was worth it for this awesome shirt that I wore for the rest of the summer:

In addition to the promise of the great shirt, I also heard from tons of local runners that Celtic Solstice is a great race and a nice way to end the running year. So, I had high hopes all around.

I'm sorry to say that I was a bit disappointed. For starters, this year's shirt is nothing special. The logo is cool, but (based on previous premiums) I was expecting a jacket or half-zip and got just a plain long-sleeve shirt. So, the premium was just okay, and I think I would say the same about the race itself. The atmosphere was fun and festive, but the course was nothing exciting. It was just a basic loop around the park. In several places, it was too narrow to accommodate the 3,000+ runners, leading to frustrating bottlenecks. As masochistic as it sounds, I preferred the Dreaded Druid Hills course. Those hills were intense, but at least they kept things interesting and took us through the most scenic areas of the park.

My final motivation for doing this race was the opportunity to attempt an official 5-mile PR. I ran this year's Down's Park 5-miler in 48:35, but I ran that race as a worker's run, so my time is unofficial. Prior to Saturday's race, my fastest official 5-mile time was about 52 minutes. I was sure I could beat that official time, and I hoped I might be able to beat the unofficial time too.

As it turned out, I underestimated the Baltimore hills, the crowded course, and the accumulated fatigue of 19 previous races. This was a tough race. I ran mile 1 in about 10:29, which was well off my goal of sub 10-minute miles. I made up a little time in mile 2, coming in about 10:15. So, an improvement, but still off my goal pace. At that point, I started to doubt that I could beat even my 52-minute time. In mile 3, I really picked up the pace and finished in about 9:30. Going into mile 4, I knew that I could not beat 48:35, but that I could come in under 50 minutes if I really pushed it. The last two miles were painful, but I ran them in just over 9 minutes each and finished the race in 49:28. So, not my fastest 5-miler ever, but still an official PR.

In all fairness to the Celtic Solstice organizers, I should mention that the post-race food was excellent, including hot mulled wine and some delicious Christmas cookies. Those treats were made even sweeter when I thought over my race year and realized that I set official PRs in every race distance I ran in 2011!

I look forward to sharing my victorious year-end review soon!

The 3rd time for the 1st time.

Today was a first for me: I ran a race for the third time. I ran the Annapolis Striders' Anniversary 15K in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Going into this morning's race, my expectations were fairly low, as I'm still recovering from some pain in my upper right quad. Had this race not been part of the Champ Series, I probably would not have run at all. To my surprise though, it went pretty well.

My first stroke of good fortune was the weather. I expected it to be brutally cold, but the temps were a bit higher than the forecast predicted and there was a lot of sun to warm things up. My second stroke of good fortune was falling into pace with a very friendly fellow runner. She introduced herself early in the race and kept me entertained and on-pace for almost 6 miles.

My new friend and I separated in mile 6, when I had only 5K to go. My quad was hurting a little, but I remembered to bring some Advil, which kept most of the pain at bay. I definitely had to push myself for the final three miles (and especially for the hilly final mile), but I kept up the pace and finished in 1:37. That's 7 minutes faster than 2010 (1:44) and a full 16 minutes faster than 2009 (1:53)! Even better, I finished 218 of 277 runners. They doesn't sound all that great, until you consider that I finished 240/246 in 2009. So, 2009: 6 people behind me. 2011: 59 people behind me.

Speaking of improvements, I can now officially say that I improved in every single race of the Champ Series compared to 2010. I'll tally exactly how much after my last race of the year (next weekend) when I write my 2011 year in review. Today's race also earned me my second Ironman award!  At least when it comes to this race, the third time is the charm!

Its that time of year...

I am not great at sending Christmas cards. Much like the Olympics, it tends to happen once every four years. This year, though, I had a photo opportunity too good to pass up:

Happy Holidays!

Turkey trotting.

Hello and happy belated Thanksgiving! Today is the first day of my last week at my current job, and today also marks one week until I start my new job. So, this is a busy week, but I want to take a minute to post some promised updates:

The Annapolis Half-Marathon: On November 19th, I ran the inaugural Annapolis Half-Marathon. Much like the first iteration of a new electronic gadget, the first iteration of a race tends to be a bit bug-y. This race was no exception. The date had to change from September to November, and there were a number of other problems, most of which I won't list here.

For me, the most significant issue was a lack of mile markers. This was my first race after the NYC marathon, so I wasn't sure how it would go. Still, I felt good in the week or so leading up to the race and decided to try again for my goal of a 2:15 half. I started the race at what felt like a comfortable, slightly fast pace. After 9 or 10 minutes, I started looking for a mile marker to figure out my exact pace. I didn't see one, so I thought I might be going slower than I thought. After a few more minutes with no mile markers, I looked up and saw my boot camp instructor Kate about 100 yards ahead of me. That was a surprise. Kate had told me that she didn't train much for this race, but Kate is faster without training than I am with training. I should never see her during a race. Finally, I passed a volunteer who yelled, "You're almost at mile 3!," which confirmed two things: (1) There were indeed no mile markers, and (2) I had gone out way too fast.

For the next few miles, I worked on slowing down and adjusting to the lack of mile markers. In some ways, it was nice. I think it made the race pass faster. On the few occasions where a volunteer or runner with a GPS watch told me where we were, we were always further along than I thought. Still, for someone without a GPS watch (aka: me), it made pacing very difficult. When I look at the data gathered on my phone's GPS during the race (which I can't see while I run), it shows that I ran almost all of miles 1-10 faster than my goal pace, and then slowed WAY down in mile 10 when fatigue caught up with me. Those last 3 miles were agony. I was super-tired and experiencing my usual hip and knee pains, along with a brand-new pain in my upper right quad. I was SO happy to reach the finish line, even though I didn't get there until 2:19:25.

One thing that DID go well with this race was the medal- beautiful!

  
A Pain in the Neck: I experienced so much pain during the Annapolis half that I expected to wake up the next day in agony. Miraculously, that did not happen. I felt okay for the rest of the weekend and went to Group Power as usual on Monday. I was worried about the squat routine because of my legs. It turned out that my legs felt fine. The trouble happened when I took the weight off my back after the squats. I think I moved my neck while I was lifting up the weight, because I suddenly felt a little "snap," and then the neck pain started. By the time I got home after class, it was so intense that I took a few sick hours in order to ice it and lie down. So, that was the end of weightlifting for last week. I am happy to say that Advil, ice, and some massages from my lovely and patient boyfriend finally made that pain go away and I went back to GP this morning with no problems.

Turkey Trotting: Thursday morning (aka: Thanksgiving), I attempted my first run since the Annapolis half: the Fleet Feet Sports Turkey Trot. This wasn't a race- just a group run in downtown Annapolis with 3 and 5-mile options. It was a beautiful day, and I was looking forward to running the 5-miler with some friends.
Almost as soon as we set out, the pain from the Annapolis Half- the one in my upper quad- came back with a vengeance. By the 1.5-mile turnaround, I knew that the wise course of action would be to take the 3-mile loop instead of pushing through to 5 miles. But what did I do? I pushed through.

Miles 4 and 5 were absolute misery, as was the walk home. By the time I got there, I knew I needed to lay off running for a little while. So, my current plan is to take it easy for the next couple weeks and hope that I can finish out my last two races of the year (which are on 12/11 and 12/17) without agony.

Ironman!: Finally, I have to give a HUGE shout-out to my friend Scott, who completed his first Ironman yesterday. For those who don't know, an Ironman triathlon is a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a full marathon (26.2-mile run). Even attemping an Ironman takes incredible fitness and determination. I looked at some IM training plans when I was reading up on triathlons, and most involved 30-40 hours per week of training. Its like a second job! I, along with many of Scott's friends and admirers, tracked him online yesterday as he raced for an awesome total of 12 hours and 5 minutes. It was so exciting! When he finally posted video of himself crossing the finish line, I think he had at least a dozen people crying into our laptops. Way to go, Scott! You are an inspiration!    

Marathon photos and quick updates.

Hello, readers! Apologies for my lengthy absence. In the weeks after NYC, I had volumes of writing to produce for various projects and I had nothing left for anything else. Fortunately, almost everything is done now and I can get back to important things like blogging!

This past Saturday, I ran the Inagural Annapolis Half Marathon. I will give that race its own entry later this week. For now, I'll just note that my post-marathon recovery remains smooth, as evidenced by the fact that I could run a half less than two weeks later!

In other news, I finally have a start date for my new job: December 5th! Unfortunately, I also have a final date for my current job: December 2nd. That's right- I am quitting one job on Friday and starting the next one on Monday. I really hoped I would be able to take some time off in between, but things simply didn't work out that way. Oh well. I'm trying to think of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday as my between-jobs break.

Finally, as promised in the title, I have a few more NYC marathon photos to share. These are the professional ones:

I'm not sure where this is, but obviously its fairly close to the North Pole. Note Santa in the background.

Not sure about location here, either, though the leaves in the background make me suspect Central Park.

I'm pretty sure this is on the Queensboro Bridge.

Victory! I was so happy at this moment!

That's all for now! Stay tuned for my report on last weekend's race.

NYC Marathon weekend part two: milestones.

Striking a Superman pose with my space blanket and medal.

In my last post, I told the story of my NYC Marathon Eve 5-mile race. In the post before that, I gave a quick rundown of the marathon itself. Now, I offer a little more about the marathon and about what happened afterward.

I was fortunate enough to spend Saturday night with two veteran NYC runners: Lara and Jen. Lara was running on Sunday and Jen was spectating. So, Saturday night, Jen helped Andrew map out his spectator route. Then, Sunday morning, Lara helped me find my way to the start. I was grateful for the help, because it was a bit complicated: subway to Staten Island ferry, the ferry to a (packed) bus, and then the bus to the race start. Even the start itself was intimidating: with 47,000 runners to organize, it was massive and crowded.

Despite the big crowd, I managed to check my baggage, grab some breakfast, and meet up with my friend Kim.

Kim and I. The sun was intense!

A few minutes before we entered the corrals, I grabbed a second bagel. I was nervous about getting hungry during the race (this can be a major problem for me), but I was also just stress-eating at that point. I wonder if bagel #2 was the culprit in the intesinal distress I experienced later.

As I mentioned in my first race post, I made a last-minute decision to move back two start corrals in order to start with Kim. I thought it would help me avoid going out too fast, I wanted to support Kim in her first marathon, and, most importantly, I just wanted to share the experience with someone. I am so glad I did! The start was both exciting and surreal. Kim and I just kept looking at each other and saying "I can't believe this is happening." It would not have been the same on my own.

Kim and I separated after mile 2, just as we entered Brooklyn. During the third mile, the race turned onto 4th Avenue and I got my first taste of the amazing NYC crowds. They were like nothing I have experienced in any other race: huge crowds of people (3 and 4 deep in places) lining both sides of the streets, screaming and waving signs. Amazing. Plenty of people noticed my shirt and yelled "Dinner Church!" at me, to which I eagerly responded "St. Lydia's! Right here in Brooklyn!"

It was in Brooklyn that my stomach trouble started. Its hard to describe what was going on without giving too much information, so I'll just say that I developed a very painful cramp somewhere below my stomach. The longer I ran, the worse it got. As much as I did not want to lose the time, I realized that I had to make a bathroom stop to try to ease the pain and to prevent anything worse from happening. (When you run marathons, you hear plenty of horror stories about what happens when you try to run through stomach issues!)

After passing long restroom lines for several miles, I finally gave up on finding a shorter line and made my first stop in mile 7. I naively thought this might be my only stop. Instead, my mile 7 stop was the first of 7 stops. I lost count during the race itself, but based on my GPS data, I think I stopped in miles 7, 9, 12, 15, 20, and 22. My goal for the race was a sub 5-hour finish, which would have required a pace of just under 11:30/mile. Based on the GPS data, I ran at that pace or below- when I was runnning. Once you factor in the stops, though, my pace drops down to 12:38/mile. Oh well. At least I know I can run a marathon at my goal pace, even if I didn't get credit for it this time.

The good news is that neither the pain nor the frustration of needing so many stops kept me from enjoying the race. The crowd support continued to be amazing for the entire 26.2 miles. Also, this was my first race where I had friends meeting me at multiple points along the course. When things got harder, I pushed myself by thinking "I'll see Andrew and Matt in 40 blocks... 35 blocks... 30 blocks..."

My YDS friend Matt, who met me twice in Manhattan.

The other good news is that the intestinal distress I suffered during this race was the only distress I suffered during this race. Normally, when I race over about 10 miles, I struggle with pain my left hip and stiffness in my right knee. These were the pains that did me in during MCM 2010. For some reason, my usual pains decided not to accompany me to NYC. Maybe it was the frequent stops. Maybe it was the crowd support. Maybe it was the Advil I took at mile 16. Whatever it was, I was grateful! Starting around mile 13, I greeted every mile marker amazed at how strong I was feeling. I can honestly say that this was not the hardest race I ran this year- both the Baltimore Half and the Metric Marathon felt harder.

Sprinting across the finish line was a milestone in several ways. I had finished my second marathon and knocked almost 40 minutes off my previous time (from 6:10:03 to 5:31:05). More importantly, I really felt like a marathoner this time. I was truly unprepared for my first marathon and finished it feeling like some kind of imposter. When I crossed the NYC finish line, having run the entire race and still feeling strong, I proved to myself that I really can do this. I'm actually excited for the next one!

After the finish and the mayhem of exiting Central Park, I ate a quick meal with Andrew and Matt before heading over to St. Lydia's. I arrived a bit late, but just in time to witness a St. Lydia's milestone: their first baptism! The baptismal candidate was none other than my YDS classmate and Emily's partner in ministry, Rachel. I felt so privileged to witness this event, and even more to hear the testimony Rachel offered over dinner. You can (and should!) read it for yourself here. I was only with the St. Lydia's congregation for a couple of hours, but even that brief visit affirmed why I dedicated my marathon to them. They are building something truly special together and they deserve to know that people believe in them and support them- even runners from several states away!

When I left St. Lydia's, I rode the subway for a few stops with a member of the congregation, who shared  her excitement about the baptism.  She said "This feels really important. It just makes St. Lydia's feel more..."
"Official?," I suggested. She agreed. Having their first baptism felt like a big step in the growth of St. Lydia's as a church. After she left the train, I thought about how St. Lydia's celebrated their milestone as a church on the same day I celebrated mine as a runner. I can't think of better people to celebrate with!

Everyone at St. Lydia's signed my shirt!