When I have Severe Pain in my Knee and the Marathon is 25 Days Away

It's Go Time.

We are fast approaching the One Month Until the Marathon mark.  This is no joke.  My Saturday runs are getting to the point where my run time is the same run time as the fifth Harry Potter movie.  Thus far, 16 miles is the farthest I've ever run, and it was DIFFICULT.  The end was a bit of a struggle, but once it was done I felt pretty good about myself.  This past weekend's 12 miler was comparatively easy.  Maybe because I spent the entire week prior resting my legs (and the rest of me) here:

Yes, Jay and I just returned for a 5 day 4 night vacation in the Dominican Republic, and it was awesome.  Beach/pool lounging, delicious beverages, and 85-90 degree sunny days.  Sadly though (and solely my fault) there was no running whatsoever.  So I was pretty surprised and happy with how my run went this past Saturday in 39 degree overcast New Jersey.  This upcoming Saturday is 18 miles.  EIGHTEEN MILES.  So I guess it's time to buckle down and start getting really serious about this.  T-40 days until I am officially a marathoner. 

Yikesville McGillicuddy,

CQ

PS:  There will be no real race review of the Turkey Trot I did on Thanksgiving Day, as I don't remember it very well.  Thanksgiving Eve was, as usual, abundant with libations.  Henceforth, I was still rocking a fairly high BAC when I crossed the starting line.  And the finish line.  Somehow managed to PR though!  29:19:00.  I'll call it a win.

The Trenton Half Marathon

Last Saturday Alison and I ran our second half marathon in a month (and second half marathon of our lives), The Innaugural Trenton Half Marathon in... where else... Trenton, NJ.  Our home town.  Now, Trenton gets a pretty bad rap from the media thanks in part a corrupt mayor and the History channel show Gangland, but aside from all that it really is a pretty cool place.  The history around there is awesome.  George Washington chilled in Trenton for a significant period of time during the Revolutionary War.  There are buildings still standing there that date back to the 18th century.  Loyalists and Patriots were shooting muskets at each other in three piece suits (cuz that's what soliders wore back then) in and around Trenton.  And it's pretty if you really take a second to stop and look at it. 

All that being said, despite living there for 23 of my 26 years of life, I never got a chance to look at it like I did last Saturday.  And armed with a running partner whose actual job title is "Historian" (so cool), I got my own private walking running tour. 

As for the actual race, it got off to a bit of a late start (around 45minutes late), but other than that it was really awesome.  They kept the course interesting.  It crossed two bridges, a few miles were in a completely different state, it went through a beautiful (albeit VERY hilly) park, down the cobblestone streets of the historic district, and the home stretch was literally that.  A home stretch from third base to home plate at a minor league baseball stadium.  So cool.  Granted, a majority of the race was running down highway 29, but even that runs along the Delaware River, so, hey, water views!  I must say though the best part of this race is that Alison and I absolutely KILLED it time-wise.  I beat my previous (and only) half marathon time by almost five whole minutes, clocking in at 2:03:48.  Somehow Alison (the jerk) beat my by two seconds even though we were running side by side the entire race, but oh well.  That time made me think it might be possible for me to finish a half sub-2 hours, but we'll have to wait a while to see for that one, as the Disney Marathon is now officially less than 2 months away and it's time to start lengthening my runs significantly.  In the meantime, I'll hang up my SUPER cool medal from Trenton on the awesome medal rack I got from my parents for my birthday yesterday.  That's another thing!  The SWAG from this race was incredible.  Awesome tech half zip pullover instead of just a plain tshirt, race packets were handed out in a reusable drawstring bag with the race logo on it, and the medals.  Oh my the medals.  No seriously, these medals are awesome:

Legit.

Next race on the agenda is the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot I'm doing.  Just a little 5k.  But I will DEFINITELY be back for more half marathons.  I love that distance.  Long enough to be a challenge, but not so long that you're completely out of commish for days following.  Lucky for me RunDisney puts on 5 half marathons per year, so I have all of those to look forward in the future to in addition to running the marathon in January.  That is, if the marathon doesn't kill me.

Good work, Trenton,

CQ

PS:  I realized the other day that on January 13th I will be EXACTLY 26 years and 2 months old to the day.  And I will be running 26.2 miles.  I didn't even plan that.  How fitting. 

Saaaaaaandy, Cantcha See? I'm in Miseryyyyy

Bonus points to whomever can name the musical my title is derived from.  But seriously, suck it, Hurricane Sandy.  You are such a piece of crap.  You destroyed my favorite shore town. You left me in the dark for a week.  I'm going on five days with no heat, hot water, or use of my stove/oven.  You totaled my friend's car.  Set fire to another friend's apartment building.  Gave me a three hour commute to work.  You killed a bunch of people.  Left a HUGE number of people homeless.  You cancelled the NYC Marathon.  You made Chris Christie use the word "hunker" more than I thought humanly possible.

YOU PUT A BOAT ON MY RUNNING ROUTE.

This past week and a half has been awful, and now I'm looking out my office window at snow.  SNOW.  Will it ever end?  This is getting seriously ridiculous. 

But, as the purpose of this blog is to talk about marathon training, I'm gonna talk about marathon training.  This hurricane has affected my marathon training.  Negatively.  If the boat in the above picture wasn't enough of an indicator, I will now tell you that although I WAS able to get 10 miles in last Saturday, I haven't done any of my weekday short runs in about two weeks.  Speaking of my last long run, I took both the boat picture and this picture along the way: 

I took this picture at around noon on Saturday.  On a beautiful Saturday on the waterfront in Hoboken.  This area is usually overrun with people on a day like that, and there was NO ONE.  THERE.  It was creepy, and this storm successfully derailed my attempt at gaining some normalcy by running, even after it was over.  So in conclusion, and to repeat my first point, Sandy:  YOU CAN GO F YOURSELF.  And as I run the Trenton Half Marathon on Saturday, I shall pretend that the pavement is your dumb whore face, and I'll stomp the crap out of it for 13.1 miles and approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Hate,

CQ

The Slowest 6 Miles I've Ever Run: Brace Yourselves, Pictures are Coming.

This past Saturday was a GLORIOUS fall day.  Perfect in every way weather-wise and topped off by one of the best weddings I've ever been to in my life.  Since this wedding took place in my hometown of Ewing, NJ, I was fortunate enough to run with Ewing resident, running partner, and FiveHundredandTwelvePointNine blog staple:  sister Alison.  We started out early-ish for a Saturday, about 7:45am, where Alison picked me up from the hotel I was staying at for the nuptuals.  We got approximately three tenths of a mile down the road when we saw this: 

This picture is from Google Maps, I did NOT think that this overcast

 disgustingness was a perfect fall day.

That picture depicts a 4 lane busy road, an off-ramp, a complete lack of sidewalk, and way in the distance is a very large and foreboding hill.  NOPE NOPE NOPE.  We turned right around, got in the car, and and drove off to greener (and redder, and yellower, and oranger... you'll see in a minute) pastures. 

Take 2 of this run started at about 8, and this time we kept going.  The point of this post is that being outside is awesome.  Being outside in the heart of fall when the temperature is right and the leaves are changing is phenomenal.  About a mile in, we saw this tree:

Looks like it's on fiya.

Had to stop and take a picutre of course.  Then we realized that the entire street was really pretty and we should probably get some action shots:

Goooooo Al!

We were only about a mile and a half in by this point, mind you, and it's like 8:20.  So we kept running to pick up some time.  We then turn onto the canal path, and somehow ended up in what seemed to be Narnia, Terabithia, Middle-Earth, or maybe it was a serial killer's dreamland, who knows.  But this is it:

The Instagram filter was just too good to pass up for this one.

Goooooo CQ!

By this point we're REALLY losing time, so we put our camera phones away and make it a good three more miles before we pass this beauty:

Gate to the Marie H. Katzenbach School for the Deaf.  Would be a real shame

if it was a school for the blind, cuz that scene is gorgeous.

Picked me up a nice phone background, too.

Soon after leaving this lovely scene, we were running along, phones away, chatting it up, when suddenly Alison screamed, jumped, and made a horrifying face.  She nearly curb stomped a dead deer with her Mizuno.  (If you don't know what a "curb stomp" is, I do not suggest you look it up, horrifying images may be found).  Anywayyyy, since we were rapidly approaching 9am and NOT so rapidly approaching 6 miles, we took one last picture of a pretty awesome tree against the sky, picked up speed for the last mile, and finished at about 10 after 9 in the morning.  Said tree:



Glorious.

When all was said and done, it took us an hour and 25 minutes to complete a run that should've taken roughly 55 minutes.  But these pics are pretty sweet, and considering we ran 13.1 relatively fast miles last weekend, I'd say we still did good.

Please never leave us, fall,

CQ

The NJ Side is Pretty Too

I ran 4 miles after work yesterday along my usual path, the Hoboken/Weehawken Waterfront Walkway.  It was a REALLY nice fall night (the kind that makes you want to sniff burning leaves and beat a chainsaw-wielding actor wearing a mask in the face with your purse on a haunted hayride).  The sun was just setting and let me tell ya, it was definitely picture taking time.  Considering I live on the banks of the Hudson River, my camera lens is usually pointed due East toward the Manhattan skyline.  But yesterday I swung it around and pointed West at the state I've lived in my entire life.  The view wasn't too shabby.

Taken with an iPhone, no less.

This morning I showed my coworker/bestworkfriend (heyyyy KimboSlice) the pictures I took last night.  She said she was jealous that I get to see the sun after work, as she works 9-6, and I work 7:30-4:30.  Made me realize that training this winter is gonna be brutal.  I wake up, it's dark, I leave work, it's dark.  I had best invest in some reflective gear and/or a headlamp.  Boooooo.

Winter, you're a jerk,

CQ

PS:  Admittedly, the NYC side got some documentation as well:

First Half Marathon: Check.

Well, I did it (we did it, actually, as Alison ran with me)!  And it went better than I thought it would.  Yesterday morning was the Seaside Half Marathon.  It was a very flat out and back along the ocean in Seaside Park, NJ with a little over 1000 participants.  Apart from a fairly boring ~7 mile stretch along a tree/dune lined road in Island Beach State Park, it was pretty enjoyable.  I felt good the whole way and only slowed a little at about the 7 or 8 mile mark, but never walked or stopped.  I call that a win.  I also call finishing under my goal time of 2:10 at 2:08:35 a win.  So yayy for my first half completed.  Boo for the fact that my watch has been off distance-wise this whole time I've been training.  When I finished it had the mileage at 13.97, not 13.1, so that sucks.  But at least I know now to tack on an extra bit to be sure I make the required mileage for training runs.  Oh well.  Happy to have finished.  Ecstatic to have beaten my goal.  Petrified to run twice that distance in January.  I leave you with this Instagrammed-up picture of my bib from yesterday.

Trenton Half Marathon is next!  26 Days until then, 89 days until Disney!  Oh, also registering for a little Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving morning.  Chances of running hungover and/or still a a few sheets to the wind from the night before:  high.

Races=Fun,

CQ

The Fear has Arrived

So the other day I ran a super crappy 5 miles for my last "long" (but seriously, 5 miles isn't even close to long anymore) run before the Seaside Half Marathon.  It did NOT go well.  It was the exact opposite of my run the previous Saturday when I ran 13.1 miles and didn't even look at my watch until I had already gone 7.  This time I set out from my apartment and made it an entire 1.73 miles before I started staring into the face of my Garmin like it was the friggen aurora borealis.  I might be in trouble.  I mean, I'm GOING to run this full race this weekend regardless of how I'm feeling, but my less than ideal run this past weekend makes me wonder my attempt on Sunday will look something like this:

"Ok.. here I go!  Nope."

T - 5 days,

CQ

Documentation of a Long Run

Long runs are so great.  Nothing like going outside on a Saturday morning, running for a couple of hours while seeing sights, listening to some great jams (Mumford & Son's new album Babel is on repeat on this clown's iPod), people watching, and burning enough calories to shovel copious amounts of the abdominal region of your favorite porcine beast into your maw upon your return to start your weekend.  But lateley I've picked up a new habit of taking pictures while running.  Usually only 1 or 2 per run, but it's kind cool to go back through my photos and realize that I wouldn't have some really cool pictures if I wasn't out stomping on the sidewalk's grill.  The following is a collection of some of these snapshots:

Running the Party with Purpose 5k.  I think Sam and Drew might be in this one somewhere, but it's like Where's Waldo.

Early morning run in Seaside Heights.

Instagram-filtered pre-work 8 miles. 

 Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges on what was supposed to be a 10, but turned out to be a 12 mile run with Emily.  We ran to brunch.

 

This past weekend's 13.1 miles.  Running Level = Half Marathoner (finally).  Bring on the races.

(Note:  please ignore the litter/pollution.  I didn't do that)



I'm now officially "tapering" for the Seaside Half Marathon, which is in 11 days (excitement level = high), so I only have short runs from now until then.  But I will definitely be taking a picture or two during the race.  Although last night I had a dream that I was running this race. I tripped over some loose planks on the boardwalk, slammed my face into the ground, and crossed the finish line looking like this chick.  Here's hoping that dream does not become a reality.

I'm a crappy photographer,

CQ

The Must Sees

The Disney Marathon is by no means the Boston Marathon.  From what I've heard, there's very little chance that seasoned runners are getting a personal record on this course.  It's a great "beginner's" marathon since the pace requirement is a snail's pace 16 minute mile.  You can essentially take 7 hours to "run" this race and not get picked up by the sweeper vans.  That said, I still have a goal.  I'd like to finish this race in under 5 hours, ideally at or under 4:45.  The challenge comes here:  the characters.  As I've mentioned before, Disney positions their characters at fairly regular intervals along the course to entertain the runners in the dull sections and provide a some pretty unique photo ops.  Being a HUGE Disney fan, I love seeing the characters, and getting pictures with them is awesome.  But, seeing as how I have a time goal in mind, I'm gonna have to be INCREDIBLY picky about who I'll stop and take a photo with.  I will be stopping for (and ONLY for) the following characters if I see them on my journey:

The Beast

And I will not be stopping for the frou-frou human version of the beast.  That's lame. 

Donald Duck

He's a total jerk, who doesn't love that??

Phineas and Ferb



This one is for my nephew, Grant.  He's a huge P&F fan, and I feel I'd be doing him a disservice if I didn't stop and say hi to these guys.  (Doctor Doofenshmirtz would be a very welcome added bonus)

Launchpad McQuack

Admittedly, this one is mostly just for obscurity's sake.  I mean, I'm pretty sure the Launchpad costume collects a lot of dust behind the scenes at WDW.  But I do genuinely love him as a character.  When I was little, I used to think his name was Lunchpail, so, there's that.

THAT'S.  IT.  Nobody else.  I got a time to beat, and lucky (or maybe unlucky) for me the chances of me meeting any of these characters aside form Donald are slim.  Bring on that 4:45. 

**Note:  when I come back from my trip with a stack of 30 race day pictues of me and a bunch of princesses I will neither be sorry nor ashamed. 

Not Ponytails or Cottontails but DUCKTALES (ah wooo-ooo),

CQ