Yesterday, leaving D.C., we thought we’d try Mapopolis (GPS navigation software) in generating a route home. It was WAY wrong. It led us south into Virginia, way too far. We had to make our way back, manually, per se, bringing us through W. Virginia. The bright-side was that we got to see some gorgeous Fall colors. However, the net result was an extra 65 miles!!!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention these other lessons:
HUMIDITY – this killed me. Can’t control this one, either.
OBESITY – I could’ve been 10 pounds lighter, or even more. This year, I never dieted. I ate whatever I wanted. I thought I was doing well, since many of my runs were in record time (for me). But, in the big picture, the less you weight, the smoother you glide through the air!
This was an e-mail written by my friend, Brian. He ran the Detroit Free Press Marathon last week, but had to pull out at mile 15 due to a knee injury.
His blog:
Here is my tracking blog for your Marine Corps Marathon
8:39 Logged onto computer and got to the Marine Corps Marathon Website. Enter
Filias name and brings up the tracking page. This map is the coolest thing.
You are at 1.5 milea and around 11:27 time. Your flying, hopefully this is not
to fast a start. Have to start breadfast for the wife. Be back later.
9:00 3.9 miles and 31 minutes, I guess starting fast wasn’t a worry…WOW you go
bro, is the cemetary nice? Be back, need to check on the bacon and start the
pancakes.
9:11 5.35 miles 42:58, Your a cowboy…I think I’m not running the last 2 weeks
before a marathon and maybe I’ll have times like this. Bacon looks good.
Gretchen is here and thinks this is cool that you can follow you along the map.
9:40 Umm, they changed the format, I need a minute to see where you are at. Its
weird, it says Mile - 54.70 Time running -7.0-17:0 what the hell does that
mean? I lost your dot on the map also, I’m going to reload it. By the way,
Breadfast was good.
9:43 Ok, it just changed formats back, you are at mile 6:20 and 6:14:42…that
doesn’t make any sense, it does say that its waiting for split 1 time, which is
your 10k. Oh, your dots back also. I’ll let you know in a minute.
10:08 What’s going on, your dot is still in the same place as last time, it just
moved ok. Now its ready. Mile 10.45 and time 1:38.24, nice…your 10k split
was 58:37. You da man…I wonder if you’ve seen Michelle yet?
10:45 Mile 13.1 Time 2:14:54 I had to take a shower and get myself beautiful.
So, you have just left the Potamac river, I bet that was nice to see. Although
your probably not noticing it too much. This map is alittle small to look at.
I checked your pace you are at 9:34 pace and a 4:10 finish. Go Peter…
11:50 Sorry I was watching tv and lost track of time. It says your at 13.1
miles and 3:20, so I know that’s not right.
12:38 I was on the phone with my brother and Lynn, they are on the Autoban
coming back to Brussels from Germany, they are traveling about 120 mph. Nice…
Ok it says your at mile 22.75 and 4:08:30…It was out for the last half hour,
It had you at 13.1 for the longest time. Your splits are Half split:
2:12:22…nice and 30k split is 3:38.20. Go Peter Oh yeah, your pace is
10:55, must be those damn hills and predicted finish is 4:46:13, and they also
have a ETA 1:16 pm, I didn’t notice that before…
12:48 23.6 Mile 4:17:52 Come on Pete, only 3 miles to go…Audrey and I are
here to watch you finish…
12:52 24.0 miles 4:22:17..Nice..Audrey is not finding this as entertaining as I
am…and its hard to type with one hand
1:16 I had a bunch of blogs in here but I just lost them for some reason..sorry.
anyway I have been watching you finish…It says 26.2 and you where at 4:45, but
its waiting for finish time.
I noticed that when you started it was 61 and now its 76, that’s pretty warm…
Surprisingly, they were pretty accurate on your finishing time, they said ETA
1:16, and that’s when your finished. Congradulations, you did, that’s a hard
marathon I don’t think I’ll be attempting that one anytime soon.
Well, I’m going to send this onto you and I’ll check back later when its updated
you finish time.
Congradulations and enjoy the rest of your day…
Brian Sanzone
Here is an update from him:
Its about 1:45 and I just checked back to the website and it said finish time
was 5:09:34, that makes no sense, I watched you cross at 4:45, I’d dispute it.
I don’t think he realizes that the projection was that I crossed at 4:45, but I crossed at 5:08:43.
I gotta try and look on the bright side. At least I finished. :D
What did I expect? I ran 11 of the last 59 scheduled miles. I hadn’t run a long run for 3 weeks, when I ran 20 miles in 3 hours, flat. After that, the running was pretty much thrown to the wayside.
Lessons Learned:
1. Wear socks you’ve worn and you know will work out well. The socks I wore, even though they were Wright Socks, weren’t as thick as their running socks I’ve worn. Shitty thing is that these socks didn’t feel like double layer. I think Wright Sock’s slogan is “Double Layer Sock”, but the ones I wore were “Cool Mesh”, so they were pretty damn thin. I think I had to compensate for them by tying my shoes too tight, which I realized at about mile 20, when I loosened them up. At that point, it was too late. I should have ran in their socks with extra cushion.
2. Don’t experiment with Tylenol 8 hour. Take Motrin, like you’ve done in the past. I normally take 400-800 mg of Motrin. The Tylenol sucked. I hate Tylenol in this application.
3. Train. Do as many of the runs as possible. PERIOD! There is no substitution for running. You can’t come to race day having skipped almost 1/4 of the runs. At least not expecting to set a personal record.
4. Know the course. Perhaps it would have been more helpful to ask someone who’s run the race. The elevation chart was pure bullshit. It pretty much made it look like the only climb was at mile 2. BALONEY. That hill sucked, for sure, but there were other hills that sucked the life out of me.
5. Don’t run races when it’s hot. Well, this is one you can’t control. I think I’m going to enter races that are above the 45th parallel for now on, like the Twin Cities Marathon. :D
6. When trying to set personal bests, don’t do it at races that you know are harder. If the winners of the Chicago Marathon run 2:05 and some change, and the winners of the Marine Corps Marathon run it in 2:18, then it’s probably safe to assume that you aren’t going to do your best in D.C.!!!
Here are my splits:
10K (6.2 miles): 58:37
Halfway (13.1 miles): 2:11:30
20 Miles: 3:37:28
Finish: 5:08:43
My buddy, Dave Kempisty, did 3:36 and some change. My friend from childhood, Brad Fitzpatrick, did it in 4:29 and some change. Not bad for a first timer. The sad thing about Brad is that he did the firt half in 1:49, right on pace to do a 3:45 marathon. Poor kid.
Last year, I ran 4:50:28 in Detroit. The year before that, 4:40:38 in Chicago. At one point, I was at least thinking I’d beat my first race’s time, but that got thrown out pretty early. Every time I tried to get going again, it hurt. My feet hurt, my legs hurt, my fuel tank was low.
You know, this would have been the one race I’ve run so far that listening to music may have helped me out. The rules say you aren’t supposed to have music, but I saw tons and tons of people with music. Maybe they had a secret that I wish I had. THE MUSIC MUST HELP ON THIS HARD COURSE!!!
UPDATE:
Taken from the Washington Post:
Retta Feyissa, a 29-year who fled Ethiopia for Washington in 2001 and has since relocated to the Bronx, won the 29th Marine Corps Marathon today in 2 hours 25 minutes 35 seconds. It was the third-slowest winning time in the race’s history, not surprising given the unseasonably warm weather conditions and oppressive sun that emerged midway through the race.
Mary Kate Bailey, a 29-year-old Marine from Arlington, won the women’s race in 2:48.31. Kimberly Fagen was second, nearly three minutes behind.
Feyissa was in contention in the 2002 race until he left the course due to hamstring cramps near mile 20 and did not finish. This year, he maintained a steady pace and gradually reeled in two breakaway leaders, Carl Rundell of the Michigan-based Hansons-Brooks Distance Project and Salvador Miranda, a member of the Mexican Marines.
Feyissa and Terry Shea, a teammate of Rundell’s, finally caught the leaders just before the 24-mile mark, and Feyissa gradually pulled away from Shea in the final mile.
“My dream is to win the Marine Corps Marathon; my dream is coming true today,” Feyissa said. “That’s why I’m coming back, to try to win.”
Shea finished second, 22 seconds behind, and 2002 champion Christopher Juarez was third. Defending champion Peter Sherry of Great Falls was 16th.
Okay… that explains SOME OF MY CRAPPY RUN. :D Well, at least it gives me something to feel a LITTLE bit better about.
And Carl Rundell, of the Hanson’s Running program, who Michelle thought was going to win when she saw him WAY in the lead, was overcome by about 1 minute by the winner. Good for him, though!!!
Wish me luck!!! I’m so excited. I can’t wait to get to the starting line, and most importantly, I can’t wait to cross the finish line, victorious, to myself!!!
Talk about shitty weather!!! It rained almost the ENTIRE WAY… We had an uneventful, trip, though, which is good. Had to add a little air to the front driver’s side tire. :D
I can’t wait to see this place in the daylight!!!
Oh yeah, thanks to Bill at work, we listened to The Da Vinci Code the entire way here. We aren’t even halfway done with it yet, but now I know why the book was selling like hotcakes!!! We can’t wait to hear more of it on the way home, Tuesday!
I was wrong about the map tracking. You can only track via e-mail. I guess it’ll send you e-mail when I cross certain points.
http://www.doitsports.com/results/RUN-track.tcl?id=2941
Just go there, create an account (as required) and then search for Filias. There, you’ll be able to tell it to email you when I cross the finish line, midpoint, and any other point (3 checkboxes).
The Map Tracking feature is only for spectators of the race, I guess.
http://www.marinemarathon.com/thetechnology.php
This page deals with all the technology involved during this Sunday’s race.
Wish me luck!!!
First time in 86 years!!! I’m very happy for them!!!!
Apple’s at it again. They announced today, the release of their iPod Photo. Color screen (65,000 colors), album art, photo syncing. What else could you ask for? Perhaps a media card reader? Or at least a slimline media reader that you’d plug into the dock connector?
Information on iPod Photo at Apple
I think the album art is cooler than the photos. Who wants to view photos on a teeny, tiny screen? However, it comes with AV cables so you can display them on your television. iPod photo optimizes the photos to fit on either a 4:3 or 16:9 televison. I guess it’d be cool to fire up a slide show, playing music, all from your iPod.
I think it’s funny they have this hooked up to a Sony television, as Sony is directly competing with this product, with their VAIO Digital Music Player (VGF-AP1L).
I was poking around Gizmodo and saw this. Looks pretty slick, but it also reminds me of the Viking Gym that recently closed, on 8 Mile Road.
I love my silver iPod Mini. However, if I were to get a full-size iPod, I’d consider this one. Black is too cool to pass up!
Alex sent this along!!!
Here’s an example of what you’ll find on that site:
Ape Drape (What else can you call it?)
By definition, this is already a painfully bad haircut, but on mullet standards it is in a state of infancy. All hair is combed back into a drape much like that of a gorilla or a chimp- hence the name ‘ape drape’. Hair like this is unstylish to put it VERY gently, but it still shows a ‘self contained’ business man look. A mullet like this still allows the subject to ascend the corporate ladder. However, if this is allowed to go any further, it will lead to an immediate descent to very bottom with all the rest of the gutter trash.
My friend, Matt, sent me this. This is HILARIOUS!!!
I didn’t blog a single thing since talking about going to the Lions games that they lost, dagnabbit!!!
What’s new? Not much. Just have a darned migraine headache. I guess, while I’m up, I should get working on doing a dry run of a phpBB installation using Microsoft Access as the database and IIS as the webserver, rather than doing this on a Linux machine. Oh yeah, I also have to install PHP. Should be a good time. And the crazy thing about this? Julio found me on Google, searching for “phpbb consulting”. We were on the fifth page.
Okay, so last week I ran 0 of 29 miles. Not sure why, just lazy, I guess. I thought it was going to be a big issue, but I’m one of those people that likes to “test” things. Well, after taking last week off, this week I’ve been putting in a bit of overtime in terms of effort.
I broke my record for 6 miles yesterday by 1m11s. Last year, on Sep. 24, I ran 6 miles in 50:56. Yesterday, 49:45, an 8:18 pace. I was pretty happy for myself. 6 miles is much different than 26.2, but it raised my morale, nonetheless.
These are my best paces, life to date:
| Date | Miles | Time | Pace |
| 7/21/03 7/29/03 7/8/03 9/9/03 9/2/04 9/27/02 9/17/04 8/26/03 10/20/04 8/13/02 9/10/02 8/17/04 9/29/04 7/1/03 8/20/03 8/5/03 9/24/03 6/5/03 8/21/03 7/25/03 7/13/02 9/21/04 10/3/02 10/10/02 9/11/02 7/29/04 7/15/03 9/19/03 9/4/03 8/6/03 7/30/03 9/30/03 7/3/03 9/18/04 8/24/04 7/2/03 7/9/03 6/17/03 | 3 3 3 5 4 4 5 4 6 3 5 3 9 3 8 3 6 1.5 5 6 11 4 3 2 9 3 3 8 9 7 7 3 3 12 3 5 5 3 | 0:21:54 0:23:14 0:23:36 0:39:50 0:31:54 0:32:03 0:41:03 0:32:57 0:49:45 0:24:53 0:41:30 0:24:54 1:15:06 0:25:03 1:06:56 0:25:14 0:50:56 0:12:48 0:43:07 0:51:46 1:34:57 0:34:53 0:26:14 0:17:30 1:19:06 0:26:29 0:26:30 1:10:44 1:19:39 1:02:03 1:02:11 0:26:39 0:26:41 1:46:46 0:26:42 0:44:32 0:44:42 0:26:50 | 0:07:18 0:07:45 0:07:52 0:07:58 0:07:58 0:08:01 0:08:13 0:08:14 0:08:18 0:08:18 0:08:18 0:08:18 0:08:21 0:08:21 0:08:22 0:08:25 0:08:29 0:08:32 0:08:37 0:08:38 0:08:38 0:08:43 0:08:45 0:08:45 0:08:47 0:08:50 0:08:50 0:08:50 0:08:51 0:08:52 0:08:53 0:08:53 0:08:54 0:08:54 0:08:54 0:08:54 0:08:56 0:08:57 |
And here you can see the improvements I’ve made, as a runner, on 20 mile training runs:
| Date | Miles | Time | Pace |
| 10/10/04 9/13/03 9/21/02 | 20 20 20 | 3:02:58 3:28:02 3:52:08 | 0:09:09 0:10:24 0:11:36 |
Notice the area I highlighted in gray. Strange choice of words for an error!!! They could’ve used a word like “Ninja”, but then I’d have hoped they would have asked me, first!