American Odyssey Relay

Ever ran from Gettysburg to Washington DC? No? Well, I'm about to.

...Let me clarify, I'm about to run on a relay team that will cover the entire distance, there's no way I could do that much mileage by myself! I got recruited by a friend to join a relay team that will run from Gettysburg all the way down to D.C. It's called the American Odyssey Relay and it's taking place from April 27th to the 28th. The race will span roughly 200 miles, and our team will be responsible for covering all of them. Fortunately, someone else is the team captain, so they'll be in charge of the logistics, of who will run when, how many legs someone will do, etc. The race in non-stop though, so we'll be running right through the night as well [you can see parts of that in the video below.]

I've never done anything like this before so I'm very excited to give it a whirl and see how things go. I'm also curious how many miles I'll end up doing total, even if they're only in 5-6 mile stints at a time. My guess is that I'll cover another marathon distance, if not more. Fortunately I'll have a couple hours of rest in between each run....at least I hope I will!

Anyways, I will be sure to take as many pictures as possible and report back in another month with how the race goes! In the meantime, check out this great video below from last year's event. Enjoy!

[American Odyssey Relay, 2011]

My First Marathon

Oh look, I have a blog....that I totally ignored for the last 2 months. My bad :) Actually quite a lot has happened since I last wrote, but there's really one one story that deservs an update. Back in October I wrote a blog post about signing up for my frist marathon. Well my friends, that marathon happened. and here's what I've got to say about it.....

Sometime when I was a kid, I decided to add completing a full iron-man race to my list of life goals. I think it was just watching the pure emotion pour out of people as they crossed the finish line that got me, and I just knew from that point on it was something I had to do before I die.

I’m a swimmer, I swam competitively my whole life, I bike a lot too, but running (distance running), well running is by far my weakest of the three sports. I’m not the kind of person to do something just to finish it either, I get competitive with myself and make goals to go after, it’s not enough for me just to finish, I have to race the clock. I knew that if I had any hopes of not only completing an iron man, but in a respectable time, I’d have to really focus on my running. So last fall I signed up for my first running race of any kind, a marathon.

For lack of any better option or knowledge at the time, I decided to follow one of Hal Higdon’s free online marathon training plans. It was 18 weeks long, and would take me farther that I’ve ever ran before. I was nervous about the weekend distance runs, but had no other option other than to tackle them head on and learn from my experience.

You’ll be amazed at how fast your mind switches on you as to what is considered a distance run vs. a short, easy one. When I first got going I remember thinking to myself “okay, 9 miles, you can do this, you can do this!” – then about a month later after I had gone into the 15-16 mile range, I thought to myself, “only 9 (or 11) miles today? That’s easy!”

I battled a couple injuries, did research on them, talked other runners with more experience than myself, and got myself through it. About 3.5 weeks ago, I peaked with a 20.6 mile run, which was tough as hell. The last 4 miles of that run were incredibly painful (though I had no idea at the time what pain would actually feel like on race day) and it made me a little nervous about not being able to even come close to my goal of a 3:45.xx marathon. I kept with the plan though, and eventually tapered down and rested my legs accordingly.

Race day came and I was surprisingly calm. I kept expecting butterflies to fill my stomach in the days leading up to the race but they never came, which I was really thankful for. Also, the weather ended up being perfect last week and on race day, which helped a lot. Before I knew it, I was in my corral and the gun went off. The first few miles were a little tricky to find my pace because of all the people around, but I just focused on controlling my excitement and trying not to go out too too fast. The one thing I didn’t really enjoy was running alongside ½ marathoners at the same time. They were speeding up, slowing down, speeding up, stopping, etc. and then a lot blew by me at mile 12 as they were heading to their finish. I never really got used to it, but after I made my turn to start my second half of the race, it was a totally different race. There was very little crowd support for the full marathoners, and it became totally mental. I’m glad I trained without any music because not having headphones in let me settle into a rhythm amidst the (mostly) empty course.

Once I hit mile 21, I was encouraged, because I ran 21 miles much faster than I had ran my 20 mile training run, and I was still feeling alright. Mile 23 was a different story. I really started to struggle to keep my pace at this point, and while I never hit or found “the wall” I did begin to feel the pain. Miles 24-26 were probably the most pain I can remember feeling in a long, long time. I would keep closing my eyes so I wouldn’t see the road stretching out in front of me, and I’m pretty sure I went to some pretty dark places in my mind. But I didn’t stop. I knew I had to keep moving forward if I had any hopes of nearing my goal.

I kept hoping there would be a mental burst of energy that would kick in towards the end, but unfortunately that never happened. The last .75 miles were tough, but I was able to pick my pace back up closer to my race average. Eventually I turned the last corner and could physically see the finish line about 100 yards straight in front of me, and dug as deep as I could to try and finish strong. I’m pretty sure my form was way off and I looked like a total goober, but I finished. I came in at 3:46.17…..18 seconds off my goal. But you know what? I’ll take it! I came far closer than I thought I would, and despite 2 slow miles towards the end, I ran a pretty good and consistent race that went almost 100% according to plan.

Of course now I have my sights set on higher goals (will be shooting for roughly 3:35.xx next time around), which I think is absolutely obtainable with my new knowledge and experience of what it will feel like in those closing miles. I also now know that I need to focus a little more on running hills during my training. All in all the entire process was a fantastic experience and one I can’t wait to repeat, over and over again.

Iron man, here I come.

(Official timing chip)

(Click 'view details' for the mile by mile stats)

Snow & Ice Filled Outdoor Weekend

Ha Ha Haaaaa, I laugh in the face of inclement weather!

On Friday night this past weekend, the DC area got hit with a small snow and ice storm. This kind of weather isn't really new to us, and really we got a lot more ice than snow. That didn't deter or stop me from being outside all weekend training though!

On Saturday I got up and decided to get my long training run in despite the conditions, and braved the icy, snow covered paths for a 17 mile run. Also, I decided to use my trail shoes for the run to provide a bit more grip and traction than either of my road running shoes could provide. That turned out to be a very good choice, because running on the ice and snow in those shoes worked a lot better than I anticipated, and I only had one close call! I did however manage to land my right foot into a big icy puddle that was hidden by snow with 4 miles left in the run...that was not so fantastic.

On Sunday I got talked into going on a long ride with a friend of mine out in the Leesburg area. The ride covered 43 miles, and the terrain was 90% snow/ice and 10% muddy gravel, all on rolling country roads. Due to the surface conditions the pace was far slower than any other ride I've done, and by far the sketchiest ride I've ever done as well. It's pretty hard to steer and stay upright when your tires have little traction and you're sliding all over the place! I fell twice, but they were both pretty low speed. In fact almost everyone on the ride fell at least once, and it was more comical than anything else because we were going so slow, and then all of a sudden, someones rear tire would go sliding out from under them and down they went. We did get in some decent climbing though, and were also able to really test out our cold weather gear to see how it held up in the elements for 4-5 hours.

I'm pleased to say my gear and brand new jacket held up great, and I was perfectly fine the entire ride. Everyone else on the ride was shocked at how clean my bright red jacket was compared to how dirty everyone else's clothing got. I guess it does pretty well at shedding mud in addition to its waterproofing characteristics. My feet and legs got really muddy though, and my bike looked like a frozen brown popsicle when we were done. All in all though, I had a great time, met a lot of new people, and got to ride my bike for 4 hours! We followed the ride up with some pizza and beer at Fireworks Pizza in Leesburg, perfect end to quite an adventure! Here's a ton of pictures from yesterday's snow/ice ride, don't let inclement weather keep you indoors, enjoy! [Click the pictures to see the bigger versions]

Some of the group [and part of my glove] about 10 miles in.

Me, before I got all muddy.

The group cautiously heading down an icy hill.

[I'm in the red jacket]

Nice rolling snow covered terrain.

The snow-plow driver probably thought we were nuts!

Climbing a muddy section.

More climbing.

My dirty shoe covers afterwards.

But my jacket was clean! [Except for the zipper, I can't explain that]

My muddy, ice covered bike afterwards!

Again, muddy ice had formed all over the place!

And here's the ride summary [click 'view details' to view more]

Road ID

Watch this....

[Road ID News Story]

Between commuting over 100 miles a week by bike, and running close to 30 miles a week while training for my first marathon, I've no doubt dramatically increased my chances of being struck by a moving vehicle or having some sort of other injury happen to me while out on the trails and roads. So, I invested in a little piece of mind.

What I got is a bracelet called a Road ID that I now wear whenever I head out riding or running. Truthfully it's something I should've gotten a long time ago, but I kept forgetting to order. Fortunately I've escaped any incidents thus far, and haven't been in a situation where emergency medical and contact information may be needed. However, you never know what can happen out there, and at least I'm now more prepared to get the right info to any emergency medical responders if something were to happen. Hopefully my Road ID won't ever have to be used, but just in case, I now have one and would certainly recommend anyone else who runs/walks/bikes/rollerblades/somersaults/etc on the trails and roads to get one as well.

You can choose from a number of different colors, and get up to 6 engraved lines to convey the info you need someone else to know. When ordering, the website helps make recommendations about what info you should put on each line. The blurred out area has where I live, my date of birth, and then two different contacts' phone numbers. My blood type is then listed, along with the fact that I don't have any known allergies, or drug allergies. The last line is a lyric from a Coheed And Cambria song that I used to sing to myself while swimming in college to get me through the really hard workouts. The full line is "Pain is only a pulse, if you just stop feeling it", but I didn't have room for the second half of the line. When my legs are on fire from climbing a hill, or pounding the pavement and I dont have any energy left, all I have to do is look down to get that simple reminder that pain, is indeed only a pulse if you just stop feeling it, and then I press onwards.

Road ID

You're welcome friends and loves ones!

Full Marathon, It's A Go

A full marathon has been on my list of races to complete for quite some time now, and I've never gotten around to researching it some more until lately. I have 3 race goals for next year, 1) a full marathon, 2) complete a half iron-man, and 3) complete the Shenandoah Mountain 100 [100 mile mountain bike race], of course these are all stepping stones to my real race goal of completing a full iron-man the following summer. For those unaware, an Iron Man is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run. Yea.

It's very true that it if you have you eye on an event or race, the best thing you can do is to just sign up for it, because otherwise you'll keep putting off the training and then flake out and never sign up. By signing up first you force yourself to develop some sort of training schedule or regimen, so that you can put it a solid effort on race day. Welp, I'm officially signed up for my first marathon. It's going to be on Saturday March 17th, 2012, here in DC, and it's called the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon USA. I've heard of the Rock 'n' Roll marathon series before, but this is the first time it's coming to DC. I'm very excited and curious at the same time. Excited because I know I'll have to keep my butt in excellent shape all throughout the winter and excited to cross this one off the list, but nervous because I still don't know how it's going to feel when you're searching for strength as you pass mile marker 20, and realize you still have 6 more to go. But there's only one way to find out!

I've found a decent training schedule that lasts 18 weeks leading up to race day. That means that my training schedule starts in just over 2 weeks from now. The details of the schedule can be found here, and there's a screenshot of the mileage and corresponding week pictured below. I'm not going to be starting my training from scratch though, since I've remained fairly active and in shape this whole summer and fall. In fact yesterday I strapped on my trail shoes and got in two nice laps around Burke Lake totaling 9 miles, and a pace much faster than I anticipated on being able to run, encouraging! One day and run at a time though, and hopefully come March 18th, I'll have some excellent news to report!

Rough outline of training schedule. [Click to enlarge]

Yesterday's 9 mile trail run.

Trail Running & European Workouts

I'm still trying to improve my running game, but unfortunately there's not a ton you can do to help with the boredom of running on the road....except to go off road! Trail running is a good bit more adventurous and fun, and I find that my time on the trails goes by much much faster than it does pounding the pavement. There's really not a whole lot to think about while on the road except for how much farther you have to go. This is not the case while on the dirt and gravel trails. 

When trail running, your brain is so active looking at the ground in front of you, looking out for roots, sticks, rocks, holes, horse crap...yea, and so on and so forth. With your brain constantly looking out for things for you to avoid stepping on [or in,] the time seems to fly by and you're wondering how you got to the end of your run so quickly. It may not be quick in the actual sense, but it feels like it. I went ahead and ordered some snazzy new kicks for trail running, and they arrived last week, and I got a chance to take 'em for a spin the following day. Below are my new trail shoes from Pearl Izumi, and my Garmin Connect summary of the quick trail run. 

New kicks.

Bull Run.

So as awesome as the Garmin Connect website is, it's had a few glitches recently, and I just have to share this next bit. While uploading one of my bike rides last week, I noticed two new activities in my account which I didn't recognize, so I clicked on them to try and figure out what they were. Turns out, apparently I've done some slowwww bike riding right on the Switzerland/Germany boarder, and another ride in Germany kinda close to where we used to live in Bonn. I have no idea where these workouts came from but my guess is two seperate people over in Europe are missing their workout summaries, and probably wondering where the heck all their data went! Check em out below!

Fitness Weekend

This weekend started out on Friday night with a 5k race held in Crystal City. It was the second of the 5 scheduled races that are part of the the Pacers 'Crystal Run 5k Fridays'. My friend Danielle works the races helping promote Muscle Milk, but decided to run this Friday as well. So myself and Danielle's roommate also signed up to run. It was pretty chilly Friday evening with temperatures only in the mid 40's and an on and off again rain. Fortunately after getting our bib numbers, we were able to wait inside the lobby of a business building until just before lining up for the race. Right after the gun went off, I immediately lost Danielle and Katy in the sea of black, white, and a red running attire, so I just ran the race by myself. All was good until about the 2.5 mile mark and the rain really started coming down again. By this time though, my body was well heated up from the running, so the rain actually felt pretty nice, at the finish we were all soaking wet from both sweat and the rain. It was quite the experience.


I finished in just under 25 minutes, not too shabby I guess considering I've never done anything like this before. Haven't decided yet either if I'll participate in any of the remaining 3 races. But here's a screen shot of my time, and a photo of me crossing the finish line....with a perplexed look on my face.

I had plans do get a mountain bike ride in at Fountainhead park on Saturday morning, but that was foiled by the rain that decided to fall on Friday night. I was still made it out to Fountainhead though to cheer on my friend Andy [whose blog is now linked over there on the right] who ran in the Bull Run 50 miler. It's a 50 mile trail running race, yea running! Andy ran 50 miles on some of our area's trails, almost a double marathon, insane. He finished in 8 hours and 49 minutes, and this was the longest he had ever ran in a race. A group of us gathered at Fountainhead to cheer him on at a checkpoint that was both at mile 28 and at 38, then his brother and I drove over to Hemlock park to see Andy cross the finish line. I have a hard time comprehending running a marathon, much less a double! Here's a picture of the group at Fountainhead, and some pictures I grabbed of Andy at the finish line.

Support Group

Pete, Greg, [a different] Andy, Kayla, myself, and [runner] Andy's kids, Luke, and Noah

Race director greeting Andy at the finish line

50 miles in 8 hours 49 minutes

Yesterday I was able to get in another long road bike ride in preparation for my 100 mile ride coming up in June. This week I rode 60 miles, up 10 from last week's 50 mile ride. At the end of last week's ride, I was really hurting, the last 5 miles were pretty hard. This week though, I felt great throughout the whole ride, and really started trucking it the last 5 miles and finished pretty strong, instead of limping it in dead tired. This was very encouraging for me, because it feels like my body in finally starting to get used to being in the saddle for extended amounts of time.

This week I rode from Vienna, along the W&OD and Curtis Trails into DC, then picked up the Mt Vernon trail, and rode all the way down to Mt Vernon, then turned around rode all the way back. On my return trip I stopped at Gravelly Point briefly and took the video below of a plane landing at Reagan National Airport. I had always heard of Gravelly Point but had never been there, so it was kinda cool to see it firsthand. Overall it was a pretty fun ride, with lots of change in scenery. Also, the route into DC is the same route that I'd take to ride into work, and now that I know how to do that, I'll probably start commuting to work via bike in another month or so once the weather is a tad more stable and the sunlight comes out a little earlier. Anyway, here's the workout summary from this week's ride, and a video from when I stopped at Gravelly Point. Enjoy!

Vienna - Mt. Vernon Ride

[click View Details to expand]

[Gravelly Point Plane Landing]

Upping The Distance

Since I've been trying to run more frequently [thanks to my cool little running watch], I decided it was time to start upping the distance of my runs little by little. Previously, I was running just over 4 miles per run, nothing huge, so yesterday I had planned on running roughly 5 miles. I was coming to the end of my run and realized I was about 1/10 mile short, so I did one extra lap around the block to get over the 5 mile mark, and ended up just a hair short of 5.5 miles. I know it's not a long run by a lot of people's standards, but it did feel good to run a little farther than normal. I'll probably stick at this distance for a little while, until I feel comfortable upping the distance once more. 

Also, I ran this one at a slightly slower pace, to try and keep my heart rate a little more in check with where it ideally should be. Throughout my whole life and during strenuous exercise, my heart rate has always been slightly above average. Even when I was in peak swimming shape in college, after a hard EN2 set, my heart rate would be somewhere around 205-210bpm [and this was when I was in the best aerobic shape of my life], I don't know why, but it's always been like that. During some of my previous runs and rides, I'll feel pretty good and move at a decent pace, but my heart rate goes right back into that 'too much above my max' zone. Let's see what happens when I run at this slightly longer distance, but at a slightly slower pace for a little while. 

At any rate, the weather yesterday [and today] have been a God-send, so I'm taking full advantage of it. Run yesterday, and another long ride planned for the morning. Here's a snapshot of yesterday's run. Happy Friday folks!

Yesterday's run, [click to enlarge.]

66 Run

I went for another run this afternoon out to 66 and back from my house, it was a little bit longer than the previous runs (not by much though) but considerably faster than my last run of 4+ miles. I'm getting better! If I'm able to keep up 3 to 4 runs a week, and as my legs start to adjust to the increase workload, I'm going to start upping the mileage of the runs little by little. Here's a quick comparison of the 3 recorded runs thus far [click to enlarge.] 

Oh, and at the time of this run, it was about 28 degrees outside. :)

Garmin Watch, Lorton Run

I went for another run this afternoon, this time just some roads down in the Lorton area. I didn't go quite as far, but I definitely ran faster and much harder this time around. Let's see if I can keep this up!

Just for fun, here's a side by side comparison of the two runs. I'm really really digging the Garmin Connect website as I discover more and more features. [Click to enlarge picture]

New Fitness Gadget: Garmin Forerunner 405CX

As much as I've always loved swimming, and biking [both road and mountain], I've always has a distaste for running. It's just.....boring. Unlike swimming, and cycling, I have to run with music, something that I probably shouldn't be in the habit of doing, but it's just not as much fun as the other two for me, and thus I need something to distract me. This is the way it's been for years. I know a lot of people out there really love running, but for whatever reason it just never really caught on for me.

However, last night I was over at a friends house for small group, and one of the guys in our group who is an avid runner was showing us his new running watch that he had to get as a replacement for his old one. My friend Joe then said something along the lines of "Hey, I think I have that same one." So Joe dug around in a drawer for a minute and pulled out a plastic bag with the watch and all of it's pieces. He promptly held it up and said "know of anyone who would want to buy it?" I said I had a friend who might be interested in it, so Joe tossed me the watch and I started taking a look at it. After a minute of inspection, I looked up and said "you know what, I think I might want to buy it instead." So Joe told me I could take it home, use it, and let him know. 

The watch was completely dead since it hadn't been used in quite some time, so I came home last night and started charging it up, while hopping online to look at all the brief training videos Garmin has for it. I fiddled with the settings all morning long, trying to learn my around the features and menus. [It has A LOT, probably more than I need at this time.]  So fast forward to this afternoon, I came home, put on the heart rate monitor [never used one of those before], and headed out for a little run, a loop that I like to do when the mood for a run strikes. I let the watch acquire its location with the satellites, and I was off. The run was a regular old run, nothing different than I normally do. It's what came after the run that was cool.

The watch will automatically and wirelessly sync with your computer when you get a couple feet away. So as soon as I got back home and into my room, the watch lit up and started transferring the run data to my computer. I set up an account on the Garmin Connect website to keep track of all my activities. And it was automatically uploaded to the website. Pretty cool...and easy! Anyways, getting to the point of this whole post...it will also allow you to share and embed a brief summary of your workout. You can see some of the basic information below, or you can click on 'view details' and it should show you a more in depth analysis of my run including heart rates, lap times, pace, etc, etc.

Having the watch and website automatically do all this work for me is pretty cool. It's a really simple way to have everything tracked and recorded for you. I know I've only scratched the surface of what this thing is capable of, but so far I really like it. Also, it can work for your bike as well, so I'll need to pick up the bike mounts and accessories soon. Hopefully this new little toy will help keep me motivated to run more often, farther, and faster. I'll make sure to post updates on how things are going, or if I happen to complete some crazy workout. Wish me luck!