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March 11 And I RanI've got a number of different endurance based events already set up throughout the year. I've done the Disney World Half Marathon in January, and I'm ready for more. So here's what's lined up so far.
Urban Dare
May 24 - Tampa, FL
I'm probably most excited about this one. Think Amazing Race on a smaller scale. The following is from their website.
The teams are on foot, but can take public transportation if they want. I forsee we'll still be doing a lot of running. It reminded me of when we did our own kind of thing like this back in '06. My friend that set up that race, Michael, is the other member of my team. Our team name is Taco vs. Grilled Cheese (if you're wondering where such a name comes from, watch this movie). Both of us are pretty competitive, we've already started to strategize and plan for the race, trying to cover as many bases as possible. I think we may have a good chance to actually win or place.
Also, they hold these all over the country, so there may be one in your area. If you're interested, check out the website.
ING Philadelphia Distance Run
September 21 - Philadelphia, PA
I haven't signed up for this yet, but if I ran another half marathon this year, it would be this one. The only thing is that it's only a week away from another race that I've already signed up for, which simply means it will take some careful planning to work it all out.
2008 Expedition Everest Challenge
September 27 - Disney's Animal Kingdom, Orlando, FL
This is a brand new race they've added to the Disney endurance challenges. It's a combination of a 5k run, obstacle course and scavenger hunt through Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park. Like the Urban Dare, this is for teams of two. The event is held in the evening, at 7pm. What's cool about this is that after the race, they have a private after-party in the park (from 10pm to midnight) with food and refreshments, and some of the rides will be open. You also get a one-day pass to either Animal Kingdom or EPCOT.
Race for the Taste 10K
October 21 - EPCOT, Orlando, FL
An easy 10K run through Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) and EPCOT, which finishes at EPCOT's International Food & Wine Festival. It's a great time to go to EPCOT (my favorite of the parks in Disney World), with special foods and drinks from around the world. I haven't been there in a while, so it'd be a nice chance to go with a group of friends...who I'm trying to recruit for the run.
So there it is. It should be an interesting year. January 21 13 miles and we're back where we started.It's nearing 6am and Mike (my brother) and I are walking up to our corral where we'll start the marathon from. We walk past thousands of people, some sitting down and stretching, some standing up and stretching, some peeing the woods. We're about right in the middle of the 12,000 participants of the 2008 Walt Disney World Half Marathon.
A couple minutes go by and the gun goes off and runners pour across the starting line. The entire line slowly moves forward; 18 minutes go by before we begin our run. Before I go any further, let's rewind 2 weeks. Aside from my regular running training, I'd been playing soccer every Saturday-- which I figured would also count for the amount of running involved during the games. Two weeks before the race, I sprained my ankle during a high-speed challenge for the ball. It felt OK the moment it happened, and I even finished the game, but later that night I wasn't able to put any weight on it.
I went to CVS the next day to pick up an ankle brace.
"Hey, man, are you OK?" says the guy at the counter.
No.
"Yeah, I'm alright...I just busted up my ankle playing soccer yesterday."
"Cause you don't look too good."
"Heh. It'll be OK." I say optimistically.
"Well, take it easy."
The brace and a little rest (had that Tues. off) had me walking with barely a limp by Thursday. I even played soccer again (cautiously) the next Saturday.
OK, so as I start the marathon, I'm thinking about my feet. Are these new shoes going to help prevent shin splints? Will I get blisters? How will my ankle hold up? Why did I bother asking that second question? Of course I'm going to get blisters. I had blisters by mile 3. I had set out to run 3, maybe 4 miles before I took a walking break for a few minutes, and getting the blisters just seemed to solidify that scenario. But beyond the blisters, I felt good, so I kept running. Mile 4, Mile 5, through the Magic Kingdom, through the enchanted castle, Mike and I are still running. We didn't actually slow our pace to a walk until after mile 7.
After we ran through the Magic Kingdom we started on the road back to EPCOT. Miles 9, 10 and 11 seemed to drag on, and by mile 12, my ankle started to go numb, so I walked until I got to the final mile at the entrance of EPCOT.
The track took us in the park and then back out, and as you round the corner and exit the park back onto the parking lot, you finish mile 13 and have only one tenth of a mile to the end. Seeing the Finish line felt so great. It makes you forget about everything else. My ankle was numb, my feet were cramping up, I felt like I stepped on a nail for each of the (about) 3000 steps I took during those last 10 miles. But you put all those aside and pick up the pace for the last stretch.
My goal (and Mike's) was 2 hours, 30 minutes. Mike finished in 2:28:13. I finished in 2:30:03.
One of the scariest moments of my run came at around mile 10, when I started to feel the onset of the dreaded "runner's nipple". It's painful to see and embarrassing to get. What happens is that as you run, the salt from your sweat can create friction with the fabric of your shirt. Enough of that friction leads to chafing and then bleeding. Thankfully, I didn't have any bleeding. I did see one poor guy that was bleeding pretty bad from his nipples. It was such a nasty sight to see, and I cringe in pain every time I think about it.
After everyone in our group (there were 6 of us in total) finished, we slowly walked back to our cars and headed back to our respective villas to clean up, and then headed back out for some wings and beer. We stopped by Downtown Disney for a bit, and then came back to our place to watch the Patriots beat the Jaguars. Top it all off with a few minutes in the hot tub and a good night's rest, and I'm good to go for the next marathon...which probably won't be until September...so I suppose I had plenty of time to rest up.
Here's the rest of my marathon numbers:
January 17 Blisters vs. Shin splintsGASP! What's this? An update?
Yes. It's been a while. I've been diverting all of my allocated blogging/online free time effort into figuring out Wordpress and trying to make my own design from scratch (which is proving to be a little difficult to implement as I'm new to php). But I've had much going on elsewhere as well, so I figure I'd take a break from coding and troubleshooting and actually do something that shows I've done something.
Now that we've got that introductory tangent out of the way, let's get to the subject at hand -- addressed in the theme: blisters vs. shin splints
Those were the contenders in my mind on Friday night. Last Saturday (Jan 12) was the half marathon. I had a pair of shoes that I use for running, but they weren't the greatest running shoes. I had been getting shin splints from running in them (as well as from soccer...but we'll get to that in another post). So I was thinking about picking up a pair of running shoes with proper support. I leaned toward not getting them and going with the ones I already had, and so I left for Orlando ready to take on my shin splints.
 We got up to Orlando (Lake Buena Vista, actually...but it's easier to just go with Orlando) by the afternoon, and headed to the Wide World of Sports complex to register for the marathon. There were about 12,000 people registering for the 1/2 marathon, and most of them seemed to be in the line I was supposed to be in at the time I was there. Meanwhile, my brother's line had about 6 people and his wife's had fewer than that. Instantly impatient, I asked my sister-in-law to see if they could take my registration at one of the less busy registration booths. I got a thumbs up (as vocal confirmation at that distance is hardly possible), and I immediately spared my life from another hour or so of waiting in line. After we were all registered, we went to the expo going on in the same building. There were a decent amount of vendors there, and I did a quick lap around to get whatever free stuff I could get. Right in the middle of everything were several vendors selling running gear and, more importantly, shoes. So the battle raged on as blisters (new shoes!) arose from the grave with renewed vigor and excitement. I tried on a pair of Brooks that felt immediately good on my shins. The expo pricing was cheaper than normal, and so with that I chose blisters as my racing partner for the next day.I'll save the details of the marathon for another post. Maybe later on today or tomorrow (Fri). November 11 Pace. And sore legs.Throughout the month, as I think of things to write about, I add them to a list of topics that I keep on my computer. Otherwise, there's a good chance I'll forget and be left scrambling for ideas of what to write about. It's all about preparedness and pace. Fittingly, this post has to do with those very things: preparedness and pace.
Marathon - Yellow Lion (Hunk)
A few months back, I signed up for the 2008 Disney World Half Marathon. This will be my second marathon (you can read about my first one, in 2006, here and here). In October I started focusing more on training for the marathon. Last time I finished in a little under 3 hours (13min./mile), and I hope to make some improvement on that.
I'm excited about this one because the marathon takes you through Disney World (Map - PDF). We'll start at Epcot, and then it's 5 miles to the Magic Kingdom. We'll run for a mile through the park and then the run back to Epcot is 6 miles, and our last mile is through Epcot.
The marathon is Saturday, January 12, 2008, so I've got 2 months of training ahead of me. I'll definitely post the results/aftermath, and maybe a few updates in between.
 POOP. - May 18 Pop goes the sternumAbout a year ago I was up in Georgia with some friends. While there, I volunteered multiple times to lay stomach-down on a tube as I was pulled behind a boat. Each session ended with me losing an argument with a tube who had suddenly decided to want to whip through the air as it let the water worry about slowing me down to a stop.
Apparently bouncing on your chest over and over again and abrubtly stopping in a most "Kick the Football, Charlie Brown" kinda way is not the most agreeable with ribs.
Even though I didn't feel anything alarming, about a month later I heard a most disconcerting sound in my chest: "POP!" Think of a knuckle cracking...or more like if you've ever cracked your toe like a knuckle (the actual phonetics of a crack are too hard to write out), but in my sternum. It was never accompanied by any pain, just an occasional pop.
Skip ahead a few months to a week ago...the second week in May. I'm sitting on my couch and there's a pop. This time, though, I feel it. I tried to move to a more comfortable position, but with little result. I went to bed optimistic that a good night's sleep would help somewhat. When I woke up feeling no better than I had when I went to sleep, I called a chiropractor.
After the initial visit, I knew that there wasn't anything broken or cracked. The chiropractor said that something was most likely out of place. After 2 more visits, I do feel better. I still get an occasional pop, but it's considerably less often...and less....poppy, I guess. I'm thankful that the chiropractor I got wasn't one of those that just wants you to continue coming back over and over. He was honest and candid. He said that three visits should be sufficient, and no more.
The moral of this story? I need to get some health insurance, because it looks like my never-get-sick, never-get-hurt record ends at 25. Well, it was a good run.
Here's a picture I made. I thought it would be nice to photoshop somebody's face over my own...why I chose Nelson Mandela ("oh, I thought it was Morgan Freeman...") I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's because we both have mole-eyes.
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