Autumn Marathon
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The Endless Autumn!
This blog was originally supposed to be a record of my first marathon. Well, I did it! Finished the NYC Marathon in 5:20, my first 26.2 mile race. In preparing for the marathon, I put in many miles, met a lot of great people (who taught me how to prepare, train for and run a marathon), and got fitter in unexpected ways. I also learned how hard it is to keep a decent blog and to write regularly. Overall, it was a very satisfying experience and it helped me achieve a longstanding goal.
Notice, I did not name the blog “Autumn Marathons (pl.).” My intention was to do the 26.2 mile distance once, then go back to my running; testing myself with road, trail and cross country races at distances like 5 miles, 10k, or the occasional half-marathon. While very satisfied at the achievement of finishing the long race, I did not count on posting a time that left me feeling as though there was something extra left in the tank if only I knew how to find it.
And so: I notice that only two more NYRR races will give me the nine needed for the 9+1 NYC marathon qualification standard for 2012. The first of these qualifiers, a five-miler in Central Park, takes place tomorrow. No reason to miss that opportunity! Alternatively, it might make more sense to try for a better marathon time at a smaller, lower-key event (with less pre-dawn, pre-race waiting around and smaller crowds). Or…I could try both. The Autumn Marathon continues!
Nice!
Much to savor in nation’s oldest race
- Some 600 students, faculty, alums, and invitation-only guests will run for both pride and apple pie in the Northfield Mount Hermon School’s Bemis-Forslund Pie Race.
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Point of No Return
Six short days before the NYC Marathon, the predominant feelings in my heart are excitement and dread. Barring some sort of freak late injury, I should manage the full 26.2 miles; I’m not as ready as I wanted to be, nor will my time be as quick as some of my shorter races suggest, but I committed to running and to finishing my first marathon.
Ready:
- Trained consistently 5-6 days per week all year - either in the CrossFit box or on the roads/trails.
- Improved my technique both as a runner and CrossFitter (lifts, gymnastics, mobility, etc.) thanks to great coaches and a fantastic community of fellow athletes.
- Returned some excellent personal results at races ranging in distance from 5k to 13.1 miles - the reward for training and improving technique.
Not (so much):
- Have not done enough longer runs which would give me a confidence about the ability to cover the full 26.2 miles. My longest was 18 miles.
- Definitely am a little worn down between the training/racing, some work-related and personal stress, so am not as excited about my first full marathon as I would like to be at the end point of my training.
- I have gone a little off my optimal diet and have gained 5 lbs over the past few months. This may account for some of my energy loss.
Still, overall I have rarely been as fit as I am now. Remembering how it felt to run even three miles when I returned to regular distance running three years ago, it feels fantastic to have arrived at this moment!
My hope is always about myself…
Thank you, New York Times, for publishing this wonderful editorial yesterday about Rafael Nadal! Click here for the transcript of the actual interview - which is worth reading for tennis fans and for anyone struggling with the challenge of improving at, or accomplishing, something.
The Spirit of the Game
Gracious losers, and winners, are, sadly, rare in professional sports. Rafael Nadal’s performance Monday night, after losing this year’s United States Open, was the very essence of graciousness and a reminder of what good sportsmanship really means.
On court, Mr. Nadal plays a relentless, slashing game. Off court, he is nearly always polite and soft-spoken. He had to be deeply tired and frustrated after losing the championship to Novak Djokovic in four grueling sets — his sixth straight loss to his rival. But at the postmatch press conference, Mr. Nadal refused to make excuses or look to blame anyone but himself.
When reporters opened by asking about a medical timeout Mr. Djokovic had taken, Mr. Nadal said, “We are starting the press conference in a bad way, I think. It’s not the right moment to find excuses.” When he was asked whether Mr. Djokovic’s evident back pain gave Mr. Nadal hope during the match, he said, simply, “My hope is always about myself, not about the opponent.” As for any future Nadal-Djokovic matches, he said, “It’s going to be tough to change the situation, but the goal is easy to see.”
It was moving to watch a man who had played with so much heart also speak with so much heart. His praise for Mr. Djokovic, who is having one of the greatest seasons ever, was generous and accurate. But the thing of beauty — and the very ethic behind his game — was the self-recognition in Mr. Nadal’s words, the sense of his personal responsibility for what happens to him on the court. It can be summed up in one of his own phrases, uttered with a terse eloquence: “Accept the challenge, and work.”
9/11/01
On Friday, September 7, 2001, I flew from NY to Boston for business meetings and flew back the same day. What I remember about that trip was how unusually clear and blue the skies were. Approaching NYC, you could see the whole expanse of the LI shore, the city skyline including the WTC, and all the way up to CT. The weather on 9/11 was almost identical.
My 9/11 memories have a lot in common with those of fellow New Yorkers of that time. I narrowly missed being present in my Twin Towers office because our young children had just started school, so my wife and I lingered with them in the schoolyard. Arrived at Chambers Street in time to see the gaping holes in the buildings and the ghastly, tragic site of the jumpers. Saw the south tower, including my office, fall while walking homeward on the Brooklyn Bridge. The ash cloud went directly through our downtown Brooklyn neighborhood: for days, we picked up singed papers that had blown across NY harbor from the towers. The flyers for missing people (almost of whom had died) on every street corner. The constant drone of helicopters and military flights for several months afterward; the constricted chest and feelings of grief every time we passed the debris pile (which continued to smolder for months) at Ground Zero.
We think of 9/11 now and again, especially on occasions like this 10th anniversary, but not very often. Life has moved on: our kids are nearly grown, the city is a different place. But when I do think of it, my mind sometimes reaches back to that Friday before 9/11 and what strikes me is, what a very different, nearly unimaginable world we lived in that day.
Carroll Gardens Green Market 9/11/11
“Let’s remember one of the cardinal rules of social media. Out of 100 people, 1% will create the content, 10% will curate the content, and the other 90% will simply consume it. That plays out on this blog, that plays out in Twitter, and that plays out in most of the services we are invested in.”
Jose Reyes, Brooklyn Cyclones by AshMarshall on Flickr.
Great evening for NYC sports yesterday with the Jets, Giants, Mets and US Open all in action on a beautiful, cool late-summer evening. Opening Day at US Open was the headline event with Federer and Venus Williams leading off. The NFL is so big that even a preseason matchup between the two area teams attracted a giant share of local attention. But for my money, the best event of the evening was the Mets sweeping a DH from the Florida Marlins. The first game included a sparkling performance by R.A. Dickey, the Mets’ folksy knuckleballer. He has pitched well all-season, but has received terrible run support. That didn’t change yesterday, but even a 9th inning home-run given up by the bullpen couldn’t obliterate the 2-0 lead he left. The second game brought the return of Jose Reyes from his latest stint on the DL. There’s a lot of angst among Met fans about whether he will remain a Met; and whether or not the team should offer him the kind of money the MLB free agent system will dictate. Indisputably, he is one of the most charismatic athletes around and his team is much more entertaining with him on the field.
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You can maintain your cardiovascular capacity by cross-training, but it is extremely difficult to maintain your performance when you rely on cross-training,” Dr. Tanaka said. “This is because you are violating the principle of the specificity of training.”
Anyone who has been injured and forced to do an alternate sport knows this already. If you cannot run and end up substituting workouts on a bicycle for running, almost invariably you will end up losing running speed and endurance.
But if an alternate sport doesn’t help endurance athletes, resistance training might. It’s a bit counterintuitive — if you are training for an endurance sport like running, your workouts increase your ability to perform the same motion over and over again but do not markedly increase your muscle strength. Lifting weights is just the opposite — you do a few repetitions with the goal of increasing muscle strength and size. Yet in a review of published studies, Dr. Tanaka found that resistance training improved endurance in running and cycling. The effect occurred both in experienced athletes and in novices.
A more recent study of experienced runners by a group of Norwegian researchers confirmed that weight lifting could increase performance. One group did half squats with heavy weights three times a week while continuing a running program. The other group just ran. Those who did the squats improved their running efficiency and improved the length of time they could run before exhaustion set in.
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