Race Report: The 2014 TCS New York City Marathon - Part 1

I'm back! It's mostly been within the week so this counts. Last weekend, I ran my fifth NYC Marathon. It was as wonderful as it's been each of the last four times, with the added bonus of being my best NYC performance by a good margin.

This training season was unpredictable. It started out strong in terms of mileage, but I can't say it was predictably good in quality. I ran a few awful half marathons and an awful 18 miler and started losing confidence. At some point in the month prior to the race, I decided to make peace with it and not worry quite so much about what I anticipated would be a lousy marathon.

But, let's start at the beginning. I spent the week before the marathon refraining from doing too much running. My last run prior was a brisk 3 miler on Friday. On Saturday, I went to the expo and then attended a lovely pasta dinner hosted by Elana Sassypantsmagoo. It was a great pre-race meal and it was nice spending that time with so many friends who were also running the marathon.

As a quick aside, this marathon outstripped any other in friends I knew who were also running it. It was  a far cry from the first NYC Marathon I ran in 2009, in which I knew no one This time, I think I knew 10-12 other people also running! Many of the people I knew who were running were doing so for the very first time. I loved experiencing it with them and I can only hope they all enjoyed themselves as much as I did (and always do).

I got home at a reasonable hour and did manage to get to sleep around 12:30, which is not an awful pre-race bedtime for me. Plus, we all benefitted from the end of Daylight Savings Time. The marathon is one of two or three times in the year when living where I live is extremely convenient for purposes of running. I was able to wake up a little after 6:00am to catch the 6:41 bus and get to South Ferry at about 6:53. I was supposed to meet Jeremy, Nick and Amortya there to catch the 7am and we made sure to pick a specific meeting point, as Jeremy and Amortya had planned not to have their phones.

As 7 approached, Amortya had not yet arrived and we finally had to go inside to catch the ferry without him (he caught the next one) because Jeremy was in Wave 1, which was scheduled to start at 9:40am. Everything on the way to the race went very smoothly, although it did take quite some time to get from the bus to the start villages, presumably because of the increased security.

Once we arrived, we headed straight back into the Green village, since both Jeremy and Nick were assigned there. I was Orange, but much preferred their company to being lonely in the correct village. Jeremy didn't have much time there at all, as his corral closed at 8:55 and we arrived around 8:30. We had some coffee, Jeremy had a bathroom break, and then he was off. Nick's wave was up next, and his corral was set to close at 9:20. After some hanging out and another trip to the port-a-potty, Nick also departed. My corral was next, so I took my own trip to the bathroom (these things need to be appropriately timed) and started applying my anti-chafe spray and shedding the rest of the things I'd brought to the start. Well, except for my sweatshirt, which I wouldn't ditch until a little before mile 3.

Verrazano Selfie!

Once it was time for me to line up, I made my way to the corral and had the good fortune of finding two of the pace groups, which were exactly the ones I thought I might join. There was the 4:30 group and the 4:15 group. Anticipating running with the 4:15 group made me a little uncomfortable, so I decided to start with the 4:30 group. As the cannon went off and everyone in my wave began to cross the start line, Frank Sinatra's New York, New York played. It was enough to make anyone get a little emotional.

Well, this post is getting a little long so I think it calls for a two-parter. To be continued!

The NYC Marathon! 2014 Edition!

Hello! It's been so long! Life has really been at it since August. I don't have enough time for a full race report right now, but I wanted to check in because it's been far too long.

On Sunday, I ran my fifth New York City Marathon and for the first time was graced with the presence of many, many friends both racing AND watching! It was a far cry from 2009, when I knew no one else running. I'm happy to know so many people so enamored with the sport and with this city.

I will continue these thoughts in a proper race report. And I plan to write the race report sometime this week. We'll see, though. I'm never very good when I set myself blog deadlines. Congratulations to all NYC finishers and I'll catch you later this week.

The Oatmeal Is My Celebrity Crush - Part 2

In my last post, I talked about my unrequited love for this guy. He runs and makes comics and sometimes makes comics about running. About a year ago he wrote the one I already talked about. More recently, though, he released another one called "The DOs and DO NOTs of running your first marathon" which is also hilarious. Choice screenshots:

Not to brag, but I have pretty much mastered the sprint-choke

"OMG, no big deal. This is just one loop of Central Park, one Brooklyn Bridge and twice the distance to the 39th Street Ferry Terminal!"

So, yes. I've decided The Oatmeal is some sort of running prophet. He gets it and somehow conveys it in such a way that the rest of us can totally relate. In fact, he wrote a book about it which you can bet I plan on purchasing, like any good super fan/stalker. Please note that all images I've reproduced here have been created by The Oatmeal.

EDIT: I had a conversation with my friend Helen about how maybe not everyone loves The Oatmeal as much as I do. We can still be friends if you don't also have a celebrity crush on him.

The Oatmeal is My Celebrity Crush

Seriously, though. I love his story and his comics to death. Okay, fine, also I love him because he is funny and attractive. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I discovered a few years ago that he is also an ultramarathoner! A decent one, at that.

Anyway, I didn't intend for this post to be a stalkerish homage to The Oatmeal, even though that's what it's turning into. What I meant to talk about was a couple of comics he's drawn in the past. This is the first one. It's called "The terrible and wonderful reasons why I run long distances." It made the rounds on social media, but definitely read it if you haven't already. I found lots of things in there that I related to, including this:

Image courtesy of The Oatmeal

And this:

And some other stuff. But I don't want to screenshot the whole thing, so I leave it for you to check out. It's probably the most raw, honest and maybe even spiritual take on running that I've ever read. Matthew Inman gets me.

I guess I'll save talking about the other one for another day. That's what inspired this post in the first place.

Prize Purse Controversy in Triathlon

More specifically, long course triathlon. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon this article that was posted in r/triathlon.

Updated Upcoming Races!

I'm very excited that I've recently been able to register for some races, so my calendar is beginning to look delightfully full. I was hoping to sign up for a 70.3 late in the season, but there just isn't one close enough that accommodates my schedule so that will have to wait until next year.

But the rest of the fall is going to be a race frenzy and I couldn't be happier about it.

The Hills are Alive

With the sound of me, huffing and puffing. Actually, I exaggerate a little bit. Since Amortya had never done a hill workout before, he picked the easiest hill in Central Park and it was therefore not that big a deal. Don't get me wrong, it was a good workout, but it was no Harlem Hill.

We met up at Columbus Circle and began the trek to the chosen hill, which is just beyond the 72nd Street Transverse. In the future I guess it would probably be more productive to just meet at the hill but we hadn't made any firm decisions about the location going into it. We arrived at the bottom of the hill around 7:15 and saw a guy standing there, seemingly keeping guard over something.

He must have overheard our conversation about what format the workout should be and offered up some advice, saying the group he was watching was running up the hill and down, around and back to the bottom for recovery. This seemed like a reasonable plan to me and Morty seemed to agree so off we went.

We did 5 hill loops, took a short break and then did another five for a total of 4 miles. Mine were a little over 9 minutes per and I'm sure Amortya's were 8 minutes, at the most. It was very hot and humid and I was sweating a lot. It was a good thing the Jamba Juice credit card machine was working.