November 2008 Archives
Cold - Very cold. Ran slowly - very slowly. Still had fun - very much fun.
Yesterday I and several friends ran the Philadelphia Marathon. For Jeff & Allan's impressions you can listen to their Running with the Pack podcast. Stevie, Anita, & I all stayed together throughout the entire race. Out time was slow but we enjoyed ourselves. During the race,Stevie kept sending updates to twitter and photos to Flickr. I also sent a few texts and even had two phone conversations while on route. Obviously, experience was our focus and not time.
I'd like to take a moment to thank the spouses, Anita's in-laws, and my aunt & uncle for being along the route to support us. We had folks we knew cheering us in person at the start, mile 6, mile 9 1/2, mile 13, mile 20 and the finish. AND we had virtual cheerleaders in our pockets. Seriously, the twitter community was terrific, they kept sending tweets all throughout the race to encourage us.
Lastly, I'd like to share my favorite story of the day, and tell Anita & Stevie that we set PW's yesterday. (What's a PW, read on...). Jeff and Allan both set Personal Records yesterday, meaning their best race time ever and known as PR's in the running world. When the text messages came in from Allan and Jeff with this news, we were at about mile 22 or 23. And as Stevie and I were talking about how happy we were for our friend's PR, the man next to me who was definitely over 60, possibly over 70, said: "I won't get a PR today, but I'm going for a PW. That's NOT a personal worst -- it's a personal WORTH!"
Yesterday I and several friends ran the Philadelphia Marathon. For Jeff & Allan's impressions you can listen to their Running with the Pack podcast. Stevie, Anita, & I all stayed together throughout the entire race. Out time was slow but we enjoyed ourselves. During the race,Stevie kept sending updates to twitter and photos to Flickr. I also sent a few texts and even had two phone conversations while on route. Obviously, experience was our focus and not time.
I'd like to take a moment to thank the spouses, Anita's in-laws, and my aunt & uncle for being along the route to support us. We had folks we knew cheering us in person at the start, mile 6, mile 9 1/2, mile 13, mile 20 and the finish. AND we had virtual cheerleaders in our pockets. Seriously, the twitter community was terrific, they kept sending tweets all throughout the race to encourage us.
Lastly, I'd like to share my favorite story of the day, and tell Anita & Stevie that we set PW's yesterday. (What's a PW, read on...). Jeff and Allan both set Personal Records yesterday, meaning their best race time ever and known as PR's in the running world. When the text messages came in from Allan and Jeff with this news, we were at about mile 22 or 23. And as Stevie and I were talking about how happy we were for our friend's PR, the man next to me who was definitely over 60, possibly over 70, said: "I won't get a PR today, but I'm going for a PW. That's NOT a personal worst -- it's a personal WORTH!"
I've got a hobby that I'm passionate about - making scrapbooks. Brian once told at a friend of mine (whom I tried unsuccessfully to talk into starting a scrapbook) that I "really drank the Kool-Aid in that cult." It's been the family joke ever since. Over the weekend on our trip to New York, I handed my daughter my phone and asked her to phone her aunt. While scrolling through my contacts, she found a name she recognized and asked, "Is that Jill's mom?" "Yes", I replied. Since this is a girl she'd only met as a result of high-school this year, she wondered how I knew Jill's mom and why I knew her well enough to have her number programmed into my phone. My response was "She's a Creative Memories consultant. That's like being Mom's crack dealer." "Yeah", she said, "I'm surprised she's not on speed-dial."
And no, I'm not singing the song from Evita. I'm talking about how I adored flying trapeze lessons. Over the weekend Gretchen and I went into New York City and took lessons at the Trapeze School of New York. While you can't really consider lessons a competition, Gretchen will be the first to point out that she "won." Of course, she did. The gymnast had good form, she could do all the skills nearly perfectly the first time, and she did the catch at the end. I, on the other hand, had great difficulty - hurt my ribs, banged my shins, and wrenched my back. Damn, it sucks, getting older! I used to be able to do this stuff! I remember swinging fly-away dismounts off the swingset trapeze as a kid. Anyway, I managed the back tuck dismounts but was never able to set up for a catch. At least the swinging from on high and the back tucks were a lot of fun.It was a nice mother-daughter day that turned into an all mothers-daughters day when I met up with my aunts and cousins later in the day. We all shopped a bit, had dinner in the city and then everyone had to head back home.
Yes, running has consumed my free time lately. Training for a marathon takes WAY TOO MUCH time. Last week I ran the Nittany Valley Half-marathon. And since 13.1 miles isn't enough for my current full marathon training schedule. I had to keep going for another 7 miles after that!
I've been preparing my friend Jen to run her first Half. She was ready and did nicely on Sunday. She was slightly disappointed that she had to walk just a bit at the end. For anyone who doesn't know the NV course, the entire last 1.3 miles are uphill, and a steep one at that! So, in short, Jen did just fine. I think our training runs up Port Matilda mountain really helped.
I was pleased with my run for the day. It was good running weather being in the 40's all day. I did about a mile and a half before the race, then ran the whole race (no walking at all), and then finished up my day with another 6 miles after the race. My pace was about 11:00/mile. That's all I can hope to do for the marathon. My 2004 marathon was a 10:48 pace, but I just don't think I'll be up to that this year. Sunday was the last really long distance I'll do before the Philadelphia Marathon on the 23rd.
I've been preparing my friend Jen to run her first Half. She was ready and did nicely on Sunday. She was slightly disappointed that she had to walk just a bit at the end. For anyone who doesn't know the NV course, the entire last 1.3 miles are uphill, and a steep one at that! So, in short, Jen did just fine. I think our training runs up Port Matilda mountain really helped.
I was pleased with my run for the day. It was good running weather being in the 40's all day. I did about a mile and a half before the race, then ran the whole race (no walking at all), and then finished up my day with another 6 miles after the race. My pace was about 11:00/mile. That's all I can hope to do for the marathon. My 2004 marathon was a 10:48 pace, but I just don't think I'll be up to that this year. Sunday was the last really long distance I'll do before the Philadelphia Marathon on the 23rd.
