Boston Registrant Number 16,325

According to my math the 113th running of the Boston Marathon has 16,324 athletes approved to run. I registered online and, as soon as they verify my CIM result from earlier this month, I hope to be 16,325th. My next post will have a list of things to do before getting to Boston...you know, silly things like train, get airline tickets, and find a place to stay. Piece of cake! 

Carlos and Joe, I don't see you guys on the registerd entrants list yet. 

Happy New Year...back to the wheel.

 

Back on the wheel...

Okay, the holidays got in the way of training...the dog ate my homework...I'm pms...whatever, I've been a couch barnacle for the last three weeks. I changed that over the weekend with a couple of brief, but hilly runs in Los Altos Hills (the town motto is "What goes up, must go up, and up, and up, and up...you get the idea). I was surprised to be stiff the morning after my first run. Would it be too much to hope we retain our fitness while taking a few weeks off?!?! Apparently.

Things to do this week:

• Run
• Sign up for Boston

 

The Marathon Distance 24.8...er...26.2 Miles

I can't tell you how many people have asked me why the marathon is 26.2 miles. After a wee bit o' research here's the best response I could come up with.

The 1896 Olympic marathon distance of 24.8 miles was based on the distance run, according to famous Greek legend, in which the Greek foot-soldier Pheidippides was sent from the plains of Marathon to Athens with the news of the astounding victory over a superior Persian army. Exhausted as he approached the leaders of the City of Athens, he staggered and gasped, "Rejoice! We Conquer!" and then collapsed.

The marathon distance was later changed as a result of the 1908 Olympic Games in London. That year, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandria wanted the marathon race to begin at Windsor Castle outside the city so that the Royal family could view the start. The distance between the castle and the Olympic Stadium in London proved to be 26 miles. Organizers added extra yards to the finish around a track, 385 to be exact, so the runners would finish in front of the king and queen's royal box. Every Olympic marathon run since the 1908 Games has been a distance of 26 miles, 385 yards. Thanks!

So, you might imagine that King Edward VII was an athlete, given his interest in the marathon...you would be incorrect. Edward usually smoked twenty cigarettes and twelve cigars a day. That's right, a chain-smoking monarch from England extended the marathon by a approximately 1.5 miles so he could have a better view of the start. Thanks!

The CIM

I have a busy work week ahead and may not get to post about the full CIM experience until later this week. In the meantime I wanted to post a quick synopsis. I qualified for Boston. Mission accomplished...though it was far from easy and far from a lock. I needed to finish with a 3:20:00 so I could go to Boston (thank you Mom for birthing me 40 years ago and two weeks before the start of the Boston Marathon!), and I finished 3:19:57. In other words I crashed and burned and redefined pain over the last three miles of the course. As you picture my sprint to the finish, imagine a plane riddled with bullets, its engine on fire, one landing gear down, and half a wing missing as it tries to land on a pitching carrier in the middle of the ocean...yeah, it was a lot like that. Hey, any landing you can walk away from, right?

Real quick:

• Thank you to Abby for supporting my three-day-a-week running habit at the expense of our time together. I love you.
• Thank you to everyone who ran any run with me whatsoever...running is SO much easier and higher quality with someone next to you. Rob Saint Evens, Carlos Jora, Cameron Yee, Strada Morris, Joe Cress, Sephanie Finelli, Mike Morris (not related to Strada), and Austin Weaver. Thank you

Job well done to:

• Mom and Abby running the first leg of the CIM relay for their teams...I really enjoyed the company before the run.
• Rob Saint Evens - 04:15:11 - One month off for a bad achilles (now healed). Not bad
• Carlos Jora - 03:18:58 - Carlos has sub 3:10 written all over him.
• Sephanie Finelli - 03:18:05 - On the heels of a 3:19 performance at the Cowtown. WOW.
  
• Cameron Yee - 03:53:05 - Yet another great finish. 

Full results: http://www.runcim.org/data/results/Results2008Indiv1.html

Back to the wheel...

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

Counting down the time to the start of the CIM. Only 18 hours to go. 

Chronology of CIM preparation:

• 6:00 PM last night: The Expo. Abby and I headed to the expo to pick up our packets. The Expo was very well organized and easy to negotiate. I managed to get out of there without any impulse purchases.
• 7:00 PM: Dinner at Mikuni's. Abby took me to Mikuni's on J street. The place was filled with marathoners from the Expo. I feel sorry for the food servers, no one was drinking and everyone was eating sensibly. It must have been a bad night for tips.
• Sleeeeeeep: I slept really well last night! It must have been the sushi.

Today's Plan: I planned to be a couch potato. Only time will tell if I was successful...enough. 

• I ran to Target to get some tube socks (cut of the ends and you have great disposable arm warmers for the run). 
• I prepped all of my materials for the CIM (another blog entry). 
• I have a quick errand at 2 with Abby. 
• Then I'll stop at the Chiropractor (Thank you Kamala Turko). 
• From 4 - 6 I'll be wrapping presents for a school thing and then picking up the girls. 
  
• Off to my parent's for dinner. The girls and I will be staying the night with my parents.
• My final errand will be dropping off a car at the first relay hand off for my mom and Abby.
• Sleeeeeeeep

Tomorrow's Plan:

• Get up at 4:00 am. Eat a bagel with peanut butter, a banana, a cup of tea, and a handful of Hammer supplements. Drag mom to the car (she's already informed me that this will be the case)
• Depart at 4:30 to get Abby (not a morning person...definitely NOT an o'dark thirty girl when it's foggy and freeeeeeeezing cold)
• Steal my favorite parking spot (less than 100 yards from the finish line). 
• Walk to the Sheraton to catch a bus up to Folsom with 6000 close friends. :-)
• Run fat boy, run.

We'll see how well it goes. Stay tuned,

The Gear

Starting in the top left and moving clockwise:

• Drop bag with my number on it
• The CIM shirt...it's the best yet! I won't wear it tomorrow, but I wanted to get it in the photo anyway.
• Garment Pile: Hat, short sleeve shirt, and compression underwear. No, Mike, they are NOT panties!
• Garment Pile 1: Socks with the big wheel and my Brooks running shorts.
• Tube Socks: I cut the bottom off tube socks and use them to keep my arm warm. Don't laugh. They work REALLY well.
• Body Glide: friction = bad.
• Vitamins: two capsules of hammer nutrition supplements (old man pills)
• Recoverite for after the run.
• Hammer Gel: two flasks of Raspberry Hammer Gel. I figure I'll need 8 ounces of gel for the run. So I split it into two flasks and added some water to thin it out. Gel in 40 degree weather takes on the consistency of Vaseline. 
• Electrolyte Pills for the run. I figure I'll need 3 per hour.
• Not Pictured: the Garmin 405 watch and my vomit green Brooks Defyance shoes.

The last run and a little hypochondria...

I posted this last night, but it didn't go. Forgive the tense.

Today was my last run. I plodded along for three miles around Land Park with Abby's friend Melissa. We ran into each other right when I hit the park and her pace was just what I needed.

 

My legs finally stopped hurting after I beat them up at the kddie trampoline party last Friday, but I certainly don't have the spring I was hoping for this week. Nice taper butthead. I still have a couple of days until the marathon and I'm hoping to have happy legs before I board the shuttle bus on Sunday morning.

 

Speaking of the shuttle bus, it's going to be a great ride. My mom is running the first leg of the relay for her team and, due to a last-minute change, Abby is doing the same. So all three of us will be heading over together.

 

Runner's hypochondria. Raise your hand if you've ever felt sick heading into the final week of the marathon...anyone. Okay, put your hands down. Without fail, most of the marathoners I know become hypochondraics the week of the marathon (think Melman the Giraffe in Madagascar). Every morning they wake with a headache (the onse of the flu), sniffle (sinus infection), or sneeze (head cold!!!!). Of course, sharing my life with four girls 10 and under doesn't help. Those lovely little petri dishes seem to have gone out of their way to sneeze on me this week. It's a conspiracy...I'm onto them!

 

I'm going to the expo tomorrow. Stay tuned...achoooooo! :-)

The week in review...

Last week I got in 6 on Monday, 6 on Thursday, and 13 (or so) on Saturday. 

Monday run was around Land Park. I stumbled across Melissa (a friend of Abby's) going the other way, so I made a u-turn and we shared a mile together before I peeled off for home. 

Thursday's run (Thanksgiving) found me on the bike trail with family and friends. We gave up battling with 27,000 other runnes at the Run To Feed The Hungry. It's a great run, but not one I want to do with the kids. I'm terrified I might lose one...which would be a bad thing. Right? :-) Mike (bro) was in town and looked really good on the run. I think he's on pace to do really well at the Phoenix Rock n Roll Marathon in January.

Friday...yes, I know I didn't run on Friday but it's here for a reason. Friday is posted to prove that I am an idiot. I took the girls to a birthday party at the Sky High trampoline complex. It's great fun. It's also a whole lot of work. Who knew jumping up and down on a trampoline for 90 minutes could be so exhausting? Who knew it would work muscle groups in my legs I didn't know I had? Yes, you guessed it, I was sore on Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday, and still a little bit this morning. Idiot! Of course, my lame ego couldn't let me be satisfied with a little jumping and then off the trampoline. No, in my quest to be the superhuman Daddy my girls think I am (note: I'm aware that this is only temporary...why do you think I'm getting the most out of it right now?), I jumped as high as I possibly could...pretty high. Was that enough? No. I also had to figure out how to do full standing front flips...as many as I could in a row. Which turned out to be three. I drew the line at back flips out of a fear that they'd need to call 911 and remove me on a backboard. Idiot. Without pulling a muscle, it was possibly the dumbest thing I could have done. My legs are completely flat right now.

I'm going to run three on Thursday, try to sneak in a massage on Friday, and remain velcroed to my couch until Sunday morning.