Running in Tennis Sneakers

Philadelphia Marathon 2010

2010-11-25T08:58:00.015-05:00

I ran the Philadelphia Marathon last Sunday. This is my second Philly Marathon and my third time participating in the race, since I ran the half marathon in 2008 (my current PR, I definitely need to race another half marathon). I love this race - I grew up a stone's throw from Philly (on the New Jersey side) so I feel a kinship for this course. Plus, since it's a local race, I know a lot of the local marathoners who run it.

I drove down to the expo on Friday with Flyers26 and ended up meeting up with him the morning of the race. Neither one of us were publicly committed to a time goal. He lined up closer to the 3:50 pacer and I backed off a bit not wanting to go out at his pace. I was, however, hoping to save up enough steam to catch up with him on the second half of the course.

The weather for this race was great. It was somewhere around mid to high 30's for the start and probably around 10-15 degrees warmer at the finish. The crowds in center city and Manayunk came out in full force, much more so than I remember in the past. A lot of people complain about the 2nd half of this course, since it is a quiet jaunt up Kelly Drive to Manayunk and back. I love this stretch - you get to see the leaders coming in going up Kelly Drive and then you get to settle in to your "zone" on the way back.

I saw Flyers26 in Manayunk and shouted out to him to "watch behind him". I think at that point he was probably about a mile ahead of me so I spent the last 6 miles trying to catch up to him. I came pretty damn close too, we met at the finish line and our chip times ended up being withing 2 seconds of each other - pretty crazy after running for 26 miles. Congratulations to Flyers for scoring Marathon Maniac status with two marathons in two weeks (NYC and Philly).

My splits below:

Mile 1 - 9:13

Mile 2 - 8:54

Mile 3 - 8:41

Mile 4 - 9:02

Mile 5 - 8:56

Mile 6 - 8:47

Mile 7 - 8:42

Mile 8 - 9:13

Mile 9 - 9:06

Mile 10 - 9:02

Mile 11 - 8:49

Mile 12 - 8:42

Mile 13 - 8:31

13.1 split = 1:58 hrs

Mile 14 - 8:45

Mile 15 - 8:53

Mile 16 - 8:51

Mile 17 - 9:07

Mile 18 - 9:31 (stupid turnaround over the Falls Bridge)

Mile 19 - 8:43

Mile 20 - 8:59

Mile 21 - 9:01

Mile 22 - 8:55

Mile 23 - 8:46

Mile 24 - 8:43

Mile 25 - 8:43

Mile 26 - 8:22

Mile .2 - 8:04

Distance	MAR
Clock Time	03:58:27
Chip Time	03:55:46
Overall Place	3430 / 8944
Gender Place	2461 / 5185
Division Place	379 / 771
Age Grade	55.2%
10K	0:56:13
Half	1:58:56
30K	2:48:53

With Flyers26 at the Finish

Rocking the Maniac Singlet

Family Services 5K Race Report

2010-10-25T16:07:00.005-04:00

I ran the Family Services 5k in Lumberton, NJ this past Saturday. This is the first 5k I've run since the Eastampton 5k, nearly 2 1/2 years ago. I knew I should have a solid 5k PR lurking in me since I am smack in the middle of a couple of marathon cycles. I typically hate the intense pain infusion of a 5k race but figured it would be good training stimulus for the upcoming Philadelphia Marathon.

I typically pace a 5k like crap and my splits are all over the place. I did much better this time, aided in part by the fact I spent most of the race on the heals of a pretty fast masters runner. My mile splits for the race ended up being:

Mile 1 - 6:44

Mile 2 - 6:45

Mile 3 - 6:42

Finish Time 20:51

Good enough for 2nd place in the Males 40-44 division. The guy who came in first in the M40-44 ran a 18:11, so I was a long way behind him. Oh well, a nice PR and hopefully a good sign for the Philly Marathon.

Twin Cities Marathon

2010-10-06T06:25:00.014-04:00

I ran the Twin Cities Marathon this past weekend. I originally signed up for this race back in January. At that time a lot of people I know were signing up to run the Chicago Marathon, which is next weekend. I almost pulled the trigger on Chicago, but didn't really want to deal with the logistics of being out there with 45,000 other people. I still kind of like the smaller marathons (if Twin Cities counts as smaller, with 8200+ finishers), and am SO glad I chose this race.

I flew in on Saturday and stayed at a hotel that was a couple of hundred yards from the finish line in St. Paul. The course is a point to point which starts at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The buses to the start line conveniently left from my hotel in the morning, so this race could not have been any easier to run. I stayed in the Metrodome (home of the Vikings) until about 10 minutes before the start, which was both a blessing and a curse. Blessing, since the near perfect temperature of 38 degrees made it a little cool to be hanging outside in a singlet and shorts. Curse, since by the time I got outside, it was very hard to get very far in the starting corrals.

I lined up somewhere behind the 5 hour pace groups and couldn't get any further. Since my goal was to come in under 4 hours, this was kind of a drag but I figured I would make it up pretty easily in the first couple of miles. The race was a lot more crowded than I thought it would be however. It was pretty congested for the first several miles, and it wasn't until around mile 8 that I was able to get past the 4:15 pace group and get into a more aggressive 4hr pace.

I can't say enough good things about this race. The weather was perfect for running - stayed around the 40's and not a cloud in the sky. There were people lining the entire course and they were loud and enthusiastic. Alan Page stands atop mile 3 playing his tuba. Somewhere around mile 24 I saw Senator and SNL alum Al Franken on the sidelines cheering people. The course passes many of the MN lakes and provides beautiful scenery, but in honesty I was so dead set on hitting my goal I know I didn't take advantage of the landscape enough.

I ended up finishing in 3:57:43 which is my first sub-4 after numerous attempts. This is the first marathon that I've been able to run negative splits (aided in a big part to being held up in the first half for sure). I heard a lot about this hills going into this race, but I thought it was gently rolling which I think actually helped me. I felt like I still had some left in the tank though and I'm thinking I can do a little better at the Philadelphia Marathon next month. My mile splits are below:

Mile 1 - 9:12

Mile 2 - 9:25

Mile 3 - 9:38 (slowest mile)

Mile 4 - 9:27

Mile 5 - 9:18

Mile 6 - 9:16

Mile 7 - 9:10

Mile 8 - 9:14 (ugh, finally a break in the crowd)

Mile 9 - 9:04

Mile 10 - 8:57

Mile 11 - 8:52

Mile 12 - 9:01

Mile 13 - 8:36 (trying to hit a decent half split)

13.1 split = 2:02 hrs

Mile 14 - 8:56

Mile 15 - 8:47

Mile 16 - 8:56

Mile 17 - 8:44

Mile 18 - 8:47

Mile 19 - 8:37 (lots of people starting to walk)

Mile 20 - 8:45

Mile 21 - 8:49

Mile 22 - 9:01 (the worst of the hills here)

Mile 23 - 8:53

Mile 24 - 8:47

Mile 25 - 8:28 (fastest mile, sweet)

Mile 26 - 8:37

Mile .2 - 7:29

Loving that Finish Line

Capital Complex outside the Finish Line

Cathedral of St. Paul (bad picture but it was beautiful to run by!)

Self Transcendence Marathon

2010-08-25T06:21:00.007-04:00

I ran the Self Transcendence Marathon yesterday. This is a small marathon usually held during the week in Nyack, NY. There is not a lot of info on the web about it so I figured I should do a blog posting. Hopefully anyone considering this race in the future will stumble across this race report - it is a cool, offbeat race which is worth running if you within easy striking distance.

The race is organized by the followers of Sri Chinmoy. The best way to describe the group is that they adopt the philosophies of Sri Chinmoy to unlock spiritual awareness that allows you to achieve tremendous physical accomplishments (hope that does them justice). The bulk of the runners were Europeans as I think that is where Sri Chinmoy hails from, so there was a very eclectic mix of languages on the course. They also turn out in full support, playing music and reading poetry on the course to inspire runners. A little different than any other race I've run before. In addition to Sri Chinmoy followers there was a nice contingent of Marathon Maniacs, which is always cool.

The course is a 2.96 mile loop around Rockland lake in NY, so it is a scenic ride. I did this as a training run for my Fall schedule so I was able to take it easy and take in the scenery (and poetry). Since it's a loop course and they had 3 aid stations out, you had constant access to food/water-sports drink. They do a great job supporting the runners. The entry fee is low, the cotton shirt is nice and the medal is unremarkable. Overall a thumbs up from me - I will probably put it on the calendar for next year as it is within semi reasonable driving distance the morning of the race!

Fargo Marathon 2010

2010-06-05T08:06:00.005-04:00

I ran the Fargo Marathon 2 weeks ago. I signed up for this race in the beginning of March, hoping to parlay any fitness I had left from my Fall marathons from last year. I ended up running a 4:18, which I was a little disappointed with, considering I was hoping to come in closer to 4:00. I think the condensed training cycle left me inadequately prepared. Traveling to North Dakota the day before didn't help me either - two planes, one of which was a missed connection, sucked a little life out of me. Lesson learned: next time plan a day of travel for each plane involved in getting to the destination.

Fargo was a nice race - the entire city gets behind this race. It starts and finishes at the Fargodome, which is a nice touch and provided nice cover, considering it was pouring rain at the start. I didn't realize until midway through the race that part of the course runs through Minnesota, which was cool and a nice prelude to the Twin Cities Marathon in October. I ended up sharing the last few miles with Janet (pictured below) who had previously run Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Mn. Thanks to Janet's husband for my only race photo.

So I have 16 weeks until the Twin Cities Marathon on Oct. 2nd. I will likely treat Twin Cities as a training run for the Philadelphia Marathon in November but am still a little on the fence. The only thing I know for sure is I am anxious to run a ton of miles over the summer and to dedicate the bulk of it to training by heart rate. Other than that, I am just looking forward to running a bunch of races in the Fall.

Going Far on May 22nd

2010-03-19T10:06:00.004-04:00

I signed up this week to run the Fargo Marathon on May 22nd. I have wanted to do this race for a while for some reason. Runner's World recently ranked it in it's reader's top 10 favorite marathons, so that helped sway my decision a little. I was originally thinking about running a marathon in March, April & May - I scrapped that idea in favor of putting forth a good training effort and trying to run a decent race in Fargo.

I think this training cycle will be my first foray into a Pfitzinger training plan. I have been wanting to follow a Pfitzinger plan for a while but have always opted for the "easier to follow" nature of a Higdon styled plan. By the time I signed up for Fargo, I had a solid base of 40-50 mpw weeks, so I jumped into the 10th week of his 12/55 plan. If things go well in this training cycle I will probably pick one of his 18 week plans for the Twin Cities Marathon in October.

Long Overdue Year in Review

2010-01-29T06:41:00.002-05:00

Once again life has gotten in the way of blogging. My year 2009 review numbers are as follows:

Races:

New Jersey Marathon
Turkey Swamp 25 k (PR)
Asbury Park Marathon
Philadelphia Marathon (PR)
Thunder Road Marathon

Total Miles Run = 1912

My two main goals for 2009 were to run 2009 miles and to run a sub-4 marathon, so I wound up with a big fat FAIL on both. So my two main goals for 2010? Yeah, at least 2010 miles and a sub-4. So far I am targeting a Fall marathon as my ultimate goal race, since I know I will be able to load up on miles over the summer. I still hope to run at least 2 in the spring though. I am getting ready to sign up for the Ocean Drive Marathon in March, just because it's so damn close and I've never done it before. As far as a Fall marathon I have reserved a room in Minnesota for the Twin Cities Marathon in October. Registration opens February 2nd so I have a few days to decide if I want to change my mind and do something else (it's supposed to be a great race though so I will probably stick with it). And I'll probably do the Philadelphia Marathon again, just because that is such a fun local race. So that's it for me - curious to hear what everyone else is thinking for races.

Holiday Miles Challenge

2009-12-24T09:21:00.002-05:00

Several of the marathoners on the Marathon Race Training forum of Runners World Online have started a Holiday Mileage Challenge. This is actually the 3rd annual Holiday Mileage Challenge, so there is already a loyal group of runners participating (most of whom will smoke me in miles). The challenge this year is from December 24th through January 3rd (last Sunday of the holiday weekend) so there is an 11 day window to try to max out your mileage. I decided to throw my hat in the ring. I should still probably be trying to recover from the Thunder Road Marathon, but I have been eating Christmas cookies like the world is going to end tomorrow, so the challenge sounded like a good idea. Between running in bitter cold weather, and pulling doubles on my treadmill, I'm pretty sure I can start the new year with an overuse injury - woohoo!

Marathon Maniac #2050

2009-12-19T13:24:00.005-05:00

The Thunder Road Marathon was my third marathon in 3 months which makes me Marathon Maniac eligible, so I am now officially Maniac #2050 (how's that for a nice round number?). I qualified for Bronze, their lowest level. Their are 8 levels above Bronze, topping out at the Titanium level. To qualify for Titanium are you have to do one of the following:

1. 52 marathons or more in 365 days

2. 30 marathons in 30 US states, countries or Canadian provinces in 365 days

3. 20 countries in 365 days

How's that for crazy? Don't think I am qualifying for Titanium any time soon. I may have a shot at Silver next year though, if I run 6 marathons in 6 consecutive months or do at least 8 within 365 days. I have already come to the conclusion that speed is not my thing, so I don't know if qualifying for Boston is in the cards any time soon. I think running a whole bunch of marathons is a whole lot more realistic of a goal for me, and will hopefully provide an eventual path to Boston.

I'm very curious to know what races other people are looking at for 2010. I've got a rough idea but would like to know what other people are thinking...

Thunder Road 2009

2009-12-13T14:54:00.011-05:00

I ran the Thunder Road Marathon in Charlotte, NC Saturday. I was on the fence about doing this marathon but jumped at the chance once the airfare dropped a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad I did - I thought it was a well done race and I had a great time. I flew down on Friday and got to met up with NJShoreRun (aka Steve) .

My main goal for this race was just to run it easy since I ran Philly 3 weeks ago. That's a little hard to do in a race that has roaring engines at the start when the guns go off. I ran the first half a little faster than I should have but still had a decent race. I managed to meet up with Steve a couple of times during the race which was cool. We actually ended up running it in together at the end.

I really liked this race. I stayed at a hotel that was six blocks from the expo and start/finish line so it was super easy to get in and out (and never saw the inside of a Charlotte porta pottie), plus the airport was only about 15 minutes away. I'm always amazed at some of the criticisms people write on MarathonGuide.com (too hilly, too cold, a waitress was mean to me, blah blah blah). I thought this was a great race and would definitely do it again.

Finish time = 4:13:36

At the expo

Start Line

Somewhere around mile 14? (thanks to P Kay)
with NJShoreRun at the Finish

Post & Pre Marathon Wrap Up

2009-12-04T06:33:00.005-05:00

The Philadelphia Marathon uses EnduraFit for their marathon shirts. EnduraFit apparently designs their shirts based on stick figures wearing them. I have a shirt from the half marathon last year and the marathon this year and both shirts are very tight in the shoulders & arms. I have seen this talked about on the Philly forum of RunnersWorld online so I know I am not alone with this complaint. So in a shameless act of capitalism I put both shirts on eBay this week. I will never wear either shirt since they fit so crappy so I figured I would use them to fund upcoming race registrations. So check out my booty from two race shirts:

Not bad considering I started the auction at $20. I checked the Marathon race results this year for the name of the person who won the auction and didn't see them on there. I thought that was interesting, not sure what it means, but I hope someone ends up being happy with these shirts. I really hope EnduraFit steers clear of any of my future marathons - it really sucks to get a shirt from a race that you can't even wear.

So what should I do with that hard earned thirty six bucks? Not sure if there are any good marathons coming up - surely it would be stupid for me to run one so close to running Philadelphia.

2009 Philadelphia Marathon

2009-11-22T21:07:00.009-05:00

Today broke the streak of crappy weather marathons for me. The weather couldn't have been better for this year's Philadelphia Marathon. Last year the weather was 22 degrees at the start. This year it was a balmy 44 degrees and would rise to at least 50+ by the end of the race.

This is a great race. I was signed up for the marathon last year but had to run the half marathon due to an injury, so I was already familiar with the center city portion of the race. The second half runs along the Schuylkill River and up to the town of Manayunk before it turns around to return to the art museum. I loved the second half - the crowds in Manayunk lived up to their reputation. Also being able to see the lead runners on their return leg was very cool.

The gorilla in the room for me right now is a sub-4 hour marathon. I didn't feel 100% confident going in to this race that I had it me but I planned my race around it anway. I purposely took the first half of the race very easy and crossed the half at 2:03:17, hoping that would leave me enough gas in the tank to negative split the second half of the race. Today wasn't the day however; the hills in Manayunk took their toll and I had a hard time once I hit 21 miles. All things considered, I am still happy with the race I ran and will take the 2 minute PR. My chip time was 4:09:16.

Mrs. Progman came out with me for this race and was awesome in the role of crowd support. An added bonus to this race was being able to hang out with Mr & Mrs Flyers26 on race eve. Flyers ran a solid race and shaved close to 10 minutes off his PR. Some pics from Mrs. P:

Finish Line

Art Museum

Coming into the finish

The most awesome spectator on the course

Post race under the shade of the ugly yellow hat

With Flyers post race

NYC Marathon Lottery

2009-11-12T06:14:00.003-05:00

I entered the 2010 NYC Marathon Lottery this morning. This will be my third year in a row entering the lottery so if I get turned down I am guaranteed entry into the race for 2011. This year the NYRRC is drawing the lottery in March which is very cool. They used to do it in June which left everyone scrambling for a Fall marathon once they got turned down in the lottery. It will be interesting to see how fast Fall marathons like Philadelphia and Chicago fill up now that NYC will draw it's lottery in March. I always have mixed feelings about this lottery - I want to run the race, but I dread the fact that the logistics will be a nightmare. Oh well - I'm sure I won't have to worry about it until Nov. 2011.

Philadelphia Taper Time

2009-11-10T18:29:00.012-05:00

The Philadelphia Marathon is a mere 12 days away. I have been more or less indifferent to this marathon. Life has been really crazy for the last couple of months so I have not spent a lot of time obsessing about the usual marathon related things. HOWEVER, I have still been running like a crazed idiot, and that familiar excitement of an upcoming marathon is starting to creep up on me. It is time to catch up on some obsessive marathon related blah blah:

Tapering
I have always done the 3 week taper thing. Three weeks seems like such a long freaking time, and I am relatively injury free. I capped off my training with 18.5 miles on Sunday and am going for the 2 week taper.

Weather
This will be my 4th marathon and the first 3 all involved rain. I'm not obsessing too much about the weather this time, I am just assuming it will be raining.

Clothing
It was like 22 degrees at the start last year when I ran the half marathon at Philly - that was cold. I would really like to run this thing in shorts. As long as the temperature is above 30 degrees I am thinking shorts and running jacket. New Balance on both counts.

Weight
It's Tuesday, I just ran 18 miles on Sunday, and I still feel like I've gained 20 pounds in the last 15 minutes. That's the taper for you, it sucks. I am really going to try to focus on my diet during the taper. Enough about weight.

Hydration Strategy
I have resigned myself to running with a 12oz handheld and carrying some pretzels. That's it. No gels, no electrolyte pills, no shot blocks. Way too much to think about. I will refill the handheld at the occasional water station and go with the flow. Philly is too crowded to rely soley on the stations early on so the handheld should work fine.

Goal Setting
This is the tough one. I signed up for this race a week before starting a new job, so I originally figured I would be happy just to run across the finish line and pick up another medal. However, I have been feeling pretty good and logging a bunch of miles, including knocking off the Asbury Park Marathon three weeks ago, so logic would dictate I've got a PR in me. I'm not very logical though - I'll probably decide on a goal somewhere around the 5 mile mark.

Thats about it. I will probably end up posting a list of changes next week, but I think I am good to go. Go Philly!

Neon Brooks Boy

2009-11-03T06:27:00.007-05:00

So a couple of weeks ago I snagged a Brooks Nightlife hat on eBay to replace my ugly yellow RoadRunnerSports hat. In an instant twist of Karma, right after that I saw the Brooks Nightlife half zip on sale at RunningWarehouse.com so I pounced on it. In my elation I ended up bragging to BrooksRunning on Twitter who was kind enough to send me a complimentary pair of Nightlife gloves. So my early morning outfit is now pretty complete - if BrooksRunning is reading, I seriously think you guys should be making Nightlife themed shoes. The Adrenalines would rock in neon.

As it stands now, I think my shoe of choice for the Philadelphia Marathon will be the Brooks Ravenna. I have been sporting the Adrenalines pretty religiously but I think the Ravennas have a little more fore foot cushioning in them than the latest breed of the Adrenalines (although I have been trolling eBay hard for a pair of the older Adrenaline 8's). This is the pair I ran the Asbury Park Marathon in - I think they have another marathon in them.

Congrats to Meb Keflezighi, first American man to win the NYC Marathon since 1982. I got home from a 16 mile run on Sunday just in time to turn on the TV and watch him blow by Robert Cheruiyot coming into Central Park. Awesome race!

Asbury Park Race Photos

2009-10-24T09:36:00.010-04:00

Since this was an 8 loop course, the photographer had excellent opportunity to snap enough pictures of everyone, especially the dopes that were doing all eight loops. One of these days I am going to actually buy an official race photo. Considering the price of race photos usually rival the cost of race registrations, I have never come close to pulling the trigger on one. Here are some of the official race photos, including one I poached from a friends Facebook page:

At the Start

Mrs. P bringing in the first loop

Coming in the transition area

Flyers, Colleen,Sarah & I

Scott about to lose his hat

Sandy getting the transition

Somewhere around the 7th loop

Finish line

1st Annual Asbury Park Marathon Relay

2009-10-17T07:49:00.016-04:00

Today I ran the 1st Annual Asbury Park Marathon relay. This race is put on by the NJRRC, who also manages the NJ Marathon and which I happen to be a member of. The race director sent out emails months ago introducing this race to participants in the last NJ Marathon. The race is a relay which consists of teams of up to 8 people. There was also the option of registering as a "Team of One". Registering early and being a member of the NJRRC got me into the race as a Team of One for $30, so it was hard to pass up considering it is towards the end of my Philly Marathon training cycle. There was also the added bonus of Mrs. Progman registering a team consisting of several friends and family. And I was able to talk a couple of other marathoning nutjobs, including Flyers26, into running it, so it all but guaranteed a good time.

This race is an eight loop course which I knew would be a bear mentally so companionship was key in not going crazy. Luckily my buddy and experienced marathon pacer Colleen was also running today so I hitched onto her for most of the race. My approach to this race was just to run it as a slow training run. The weather forecast was for cold, rain & 20 mph winds, so I was not looking forward to it when I woke up Sunday morning. I had a great run though, ran comfortably through the entire thing and finished in 4:26:51.

Perfect weather forecast for Race Day (um, not)

Mr & Mrs Progman (first time we got to run together in a race!)

Me with Flyers26 post race showing off the hardware
Former college roommate and Mrs. P teammate Sandy

Colleen & Sarah, my pacing team for most the day
Mrs. P & her brother and teammate Scott
Mrs. P, sister in law Beth & Sandy
Joanne & Tara from Mrs. P's team
Coming into the convention center for the finish

Playing Catch Up

2009-10-11T09:47:00.008-04:00

Wow, no blog posts in September - I'm lame. Does't mean I've stopped running though. I logged 187 miles in September and have already run over 1500 miles in 2009, surpassing my 1401 total miles in 2008. I had a back pocket goal of 2009 miles in 2009 but that doesn't seem likely now unless I crank it up a couple of crazy notches (hmmm...). I've got the Asbury Park Marathon next weekend and then the Philadelphia Marathon in November, so if I can keep from getting injured, who knows.

So, my September recap, in pictures:

Mrs. Progman rocking the Susan Koman 5k at Great Adventure (#3082, so proud that she is not wearing a MP3 player):

My new Fall Marathon Hat - the Brooks Nightlife hat - It is far brighter than the much uglier RRS Sports Hat I retired this year, I love it:

Me running a 20 miler with ShoreTurtle last weeked (picture shamelessly poached from his site):

That's it. Hope to have some cool Asbury Park Marathon photos after next weekend.

Back from Vacation

2009-08-30T12:25:00.008-04:00

I've been on vacation for the past week in Ocean City, NJ. I managed to cram in about 51 miles in the six days we were down there. Something about running someplace new, along the ocean, when I don't have to be heading to work afterwards that just makes me want to lace them up and go (the fact that I was guilt ridden over eating like a pig helped also). I'm pretty sure I would have went well over 60 miles but I did take a day off due to my achilles squawking at me a little bit one day. Otherwise, I maintained a steady diet of 10 mile days. Now that I'm back I think I'll concentrate on adding in a strong midweek tempo run and stretching out my Sunday long runs in preparation for upcoming Fall marathons.

Mrs. Progman has also been hitting the road hard in preparation for the upcoming Asbury Park Marathon relay on October 18th. She is considering running the the Pier Village 5k this coming weekend. I have also been looking at races to run in the next month or so to gauge my current marathon fitness. The Jersey Shore Half Marathon is tantalizingly close but the desolate two loop course kind of turns me off. Two other interesting possiblities are the Brielle 10k Challenge on September 12th or the Newport Liberty Half Marathon on September 27th. Or I could just whimp out and run a bunch of easy miles sans race fees. We'll see.

Turkey Swamp 25k

2009-08-11T06:23:00.003-04:00

I ran the Turkey Swamp 25k this past Sunday. I credit ShoreTurtle - even though this race is only about 25 minutes from my house, it did not occur to me to sign up for it until I read about it on his blog, and it fit in perfectly for my marathon training. I ran most of the race with ShoreTurtle and Hurley, which was a huge boost and a nice change from the solo long run schedule I have been keeping lately. Turkey Swamp has events of 50k, 20 mile, 25k and 10 mile. This race is too close to not consider running the 50k at some point - maybe I'll think about taking a shot at it next year. My time for the 25k was 2:35:40.

What Are You Doing on November 22nd?

2009-07-31T10:36:00.003-04:00

Yeah, so much for my "wait and see what happens" approach. I just couldn't resist the temptation of registering for Philly. I got injured last year training for it and had to fall back to the half marathon. It just wasn't the same. Supposedly there is some town called Manayunk or something in the second half of the race that is cool to run through and has hills? And there's an unofficial water station up there where people serve beer? I don't know, but this marathon was just sitting there mocking me since I bailed on it last year so I had to register for it again. Plus I think I may know a few people who are running it. So shout out if you are in for Philly. Looking forward to kicking asphalt in November!

Change of (Life) Plans

2009-07-23T07:01:00.000-04:00

I am officially starting a new job in the beginning of August. My new gig is in New York City, which means I will be joining the throngs of New Jersey people heading into the city every day on NJ Transit. Not sure yet how this will effect marathon training - at the very least I will need to be getting up (ugh) a little bit earlier to fit in the morning stuff before hitting the train.

I have been going back and forth about whether to register for the Philadelphia Marathon or the Harrisburg Marathon. The new job thing kind of throws another wrench in the mix since I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to fit all of this stuff in. I have resigned myself to hold off on registering for Philly, since I don't want to register and then change plans since I did that last year because of an injury. Harrisburg is one of those rare marathons where you can actually still show up the morning of the race and register, so I am keeping that as my back pocket race after the Asbury Park Relay Marathon on October 18th.

Yikes, Asbury Park is less than 13 weeks away. I'm taking suggestions anybody has on a nice 12 week training plan. As it is, I have been holding steady on 40+ miles a week (give or take) with a speed workout or hill workouts sprinkled in. Any suggestions are welcome.

Long Time No Blog

2009-06-17T09:21:00.003-04:00

I know I'm lame - it's been over a month since I've put anything on here. I have seen a couple of other fellow runners retire themselves from the blog-o-sphere in the past couple of weeks so I think there is a bit of blogging malaise going around. In my case it is due mainly to:

(a) busy with little league (last game this weekend)
(b) busy with work related stuff
(c) running (yeah, still doing that)
(d) general lack of anything interesting to say

So little league is done after this week and school is over after next week - that means a big collective sigh of relief in the Progman house (Mrs. P is a teacher after all, end of school year = hectic hectic) and life will become a little more leisurely.

As far as running goes:

- I did not get into the NYC Marathon. Kind of glad about that one, part of me is actually dreading when I do get in and have to deal with the big registration fee, dealing with getting to the expo, race start, etc. I have become a running recluse, preferring smaller races or no races at all in favor of just running a bunch. NYC is definitely on my to do list though.

- I am working on getting my MPW back into the 40 mile range after officially recovering from the NJ Marathon. I would kind of like to then bump it into the occasional 50+ zone. I would prefer to do this by bumping the distance of my average weekly stuff as well as the occasional double thrown in, as opposed to relying on heavy weekend long runs. I think the 18 - 20 mile stuff is where my body starts to squawk a little at me. I am leaning towards limiting my max long run to 18 miles or less (during marathon training), in favor of greater weekly volume. I have seen a lot of knowledgeable folks plug this strategy and think it may be something worth trying.

- I have been registered for the Asbury Park Marathon Relay as a team of one for some time now (October 18th). I have planned all along to treat that as a long slow training run with the thought of a later Fall marathon (yeah, kind of contradicts my previous bullet). Still haven't decided if or what that later Fall marathon will be. Philadelphia seems to make the most sense. I would love to hear from other people committed to Philly or with any other marathon suggestions.

Oh, and I've been meaning to get back out and run with this group. It's been a while since I've twisted an ankle or taken a mud induced fall on my ass. They should be able to remedy that.

Race Results & Photos

2009-05-08T09:41:00.008-04:00

My official finish time for the NJ Marathon was 4:11:21. I wanted to come in under 4 hours but I am pleased with that. More than that, I am pleased that I stopped my Garmin at 4:11:25, so I was 4 seconds off of the chip time. I'm usually a bonehead when it comes to stopping my Garmin, even in the shortest of races. I think the fact that I was 4 seconds off in a marathon means I am maturing as a runner (it does, right?). Here are some of my race pics from Brightroom, the official race photographer (I think the last one is my favorite):

Am I the only one that got a porta potty shot or what? Way to go Brightroom, I will cherish that one forever. As a side note, this is pre-race. I cruised for 4:11 hours without having to make a pit stop, which is also a small success for me. I think I have my hydration strategy nailed for the next marathon.

13th Annual NJ Marathon

2009-05-03T17:48:00.008-04:00

Second marathon is done and in the books. It was a great morning - I headed over to Long Branch early and got to the host hotel before 6:00am. I thought I was early but immediately saw Joyrun and her husband who already had a spot staked out. I was hoping to meet up with some RunnersWorld online folks but once the crowds rolled in it did get a little crazy. I did manage to bump into RbbMoose from RWOL who finished in an impressive 4th place overall. I was hoping to catch some of his speedy karma (didn't happen). I also got a chance to meet with some of my pacing buds from last year, as well as fellow bloggers Flyers26, Shoreturtle, & Mr. & Mrs. Ted.

JoyRun & JoyHusband

Colleen & Dana (4:15 pacers)

My confidence took a hit this training cycle once a minor IT injury cropped up around week 14 of my training. I ended up changing up my race goals to:

(1) Sub 4 hours
(2) Sub 4:15 (can't let Colleen, Dana & Jack catch up to me)
(3) Sub 4:27 (last year)

I figured I would start off with the 4:00 hr pace group (9:09 pace) and then pick it up closer to a 3:50 (8:48) pace after the first 8 miles. That sounded like a great plan, but the 4:00 hour guys started off running closer to an 8:30 pace, something I was hoping to push in the second half of the race. I backed off of them after the first few miles because I realized they were going too fast, and waited until closer to the half to pick them off (they were definitely cruising too fast and wasted a lot of the 4 hour folks).

I ended up meeting up with T.Lee & RW_Strider from RWOL somewhere around mile 16. They recognized me by the trademark ugly yellow RoadRunner Sports hat (I was going to ditch it after this race, but that thing is key for races, I think I will hang on to it). They were looking great, and I felt the cramps coming on and knew a fade was imminent. Mrs. Progman and the kiddos came out and surprised me at mile 17 and snapped a couple of cool pictures.

T.Lee & RW_Strider (and me getting ready to high five my daughter)

Kiddos with signs of support

I knew I was crashing but made every effort to push it beyond where I had problems last year. I hate the 20 mile mark of the marathon - I'm starting to think I should just train to run the fastest 20 miles possible and then plan on limping in the last 6.2. It didn't help that the bulk of the rain fell in the last hour of the race which made it a little ugly. I ended up with a 4:11:25 Garmin time, still waiting on the official results.

I love the NJ Marathon, but desperately need another marathon to run. I feel like I know every inch of this course by heart, and know the exact street corner where I'm going to start feeling it. That combined with the double loop and I need something new. At the very least I have the Asbury Park Marathon in October - I may try to fit another Fall marathon in there somewhere.

RW_Strider & T.Lee post race

T Minus 4 Days and Counting

2009-04-29T06:36:00.000-04:00

This is the last week of taper before the NJ Marathon. I have been battling some kind of ITBS thing over the last couple of weeks, which forced me to cut my last 20 mile run short, but am hoping that a couple days of rest this week will go a long way in healing it (gulp). It has caused me to shuffle my A, B, and C goals a little bit, though, with the C goal now being limping across the finish line with a smile if the leg acts up. My A goal remains the same however.

This past Sunday I took my kids to 7 Presidents park in Long Branch to hit the beach. This is also where I plan to park on marathon morning, so it was good to get out there and get a little positive mojo going. Surprisingly, it was 90 degrees inland on Sunday but I still froze my butt off on the beach. Not sure what that means as far as weather this weekend - I am guessing it will be somewhere between 35 degrees with wind gusts to 90 degrees with 95% humidity. Yet another mitigating factor for anyone who is chasing a goal.

I know there will be some other running bloggers out there on Sunday (JoyRun, Flyers26, ShoreTurtle and BommaMomma just to name a few), as well as a slew of non blogging running friends (what, some people don't blog?). Hopefully I will see some of you guys. Good luck to anyone racing this weekend!

7 Presidents Beach, Long Branch

DD being a drama queen on the beach

The "other" training in Progman's house

Where's Progman?

2009-04-08T12:01:00.004-04:00

I know I have been conspicuously absent from the blogging scene lately. Last week I made the difficult decision of voluntarily retiring my Blackberry. I think I was WAY too plugged in with that thing - Facebook, blogging, internet this internet that - Gah! It was a hard move to make but I think I needed a breather from the hard core social networking scene. My Blackberry was also my main source of blogging updates, so I know I need to catch up on some of the other blogs the "old fashion" way.

Training: It wouldn't be a Progman marathon training cycle without some kind of injury report. This past Sunday (which was the end of a "cut back" week) I was half way through a 13.5 mile run and had a blanket of pain descend on my right knee. It felt like what I have always heard described as ITBS pain, although I have never really had the pleasure of experiencing ITBS before. A trip to my physical therapist this week and he says he doesn't think it shows the classic signs of ITBS - just some angry muscle pains which should respond to heat and the foam roller. I have made an appointment with an Active Release Therapist just to be on the safe side, though. I have read some remarkable results from ART so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

This pain just happens to crop up right after my peak mileage week of 55 miles, which is a high for me. The good news is even if it is something awful I am 4 weeks away from the NJ Marathon, so I could just start my taper early and coast until May 3rd. I don't think it's that serious though, and may just need a little therapy along with some extra rest days. The bottom line is at this point I am running the marathon if I have to line up on crutches with the 7 hour pace group. Short of that, I think I just need to sit back and reevaulate my race goal (which I would have been doing anyway).

Hope everyone else's training is going well!

Asbury Park Relay Marathon

2009-03-23T19:52:00.004-04:00

I am officially registered for the Asbury Park Relay Marathon in October. The course is a U shaped loop with a Start/Finish/Transition area that is on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, NJ across from the famed Stone Pony. Teams can consist of 2-8 runners or you can run as a team of one (I chose the team of one option). I had a hard time turning this one down - it's $35 if you sign up by March 31st as a team of one, plus $5 off if you are a NJRRC member. So for $30 I get to run a marathon that is 20 miles from my house, get a long sleeve tech shirt, chip timing, and the bizarre Tilly finisher medal - I would have been crazy not to sign up. Plus I'm pretty sure I can get Mrs. Progman to get a team together with some of her running gal friends. I encourage any local runners to check this out. (Of course, if I get into the NYC Marathon which is two weeks later, this will be tricky, but what are the odds of that happening?).

A Trip to the Hills and a New Shoe Experiment

2009-03-15T21:28:00.011-04:00

Training: Sunday I headed out for 20 miles in the hills of Marlboro. I had mapped this out earlier in the week on MapMyRun. After mapping it I also drove it on my way home from work one night. I realized driving it that it had some nasty hills at the exact halfway point. I went back and forth with myself about whether I should run the hills in the middle of a 20 miler but ended up doing it, mainly because I was too lazy to map another alternate route. I'm glad I did, it was a great run, I will probably hit this route at least one more time before the marathon.

Shoes: I was looking at the tread wear on a pair of my oldest Brooks Adrenalines recently and decided to take them to my local running store. After looking at them the guy there confirmed that I am not a heel striker, I am landing mostly mid foot. On top of that my right foot is mostly neutral, with my left foot needing a little more stability. I had always assumed I was a heel striker (since most "experts" tout that as bad) and always leaned towards wearing high stability shoes. I trained for most of the Philadelphia Marathon in the high stability Brooks Trance (I am now wondering if maybe that played a part in my injury last season).

So I will probably be sticking with the lower stability Adrenalines for a while. However, on a whim I decided to try a pair of the Nike Free 3.0. Matt Fitzgerald is a fan of the Free in Brain Training for Runners, and I found a screaming deal on them at Running Warehouse so I figured I'd give them a try. Nike advertises the Free 3.0 as a minimalist shoe designed for neutral to mild overpronators for stengthening the feet. They are a far cry from the heavily cushioned running shoes on the market, and are supposed to be closer to the feel of barefoot running. Initially I will only wear them once a week for shorter distance running since most of my other shoes are nearing their life expectancy. If I hate running in them they are my new street shoes, since I think they look kind of cool.

Solo Sunday

2009-03-08T17:17:00.004-04:00

I had a great 19 mile run this morning in the hills of Marlboro and Colts Neck, NJ. This was a new route I ran on - I mapped it out well ahead of time but was still surprised at the amount of hills on the route. I was sorry to miss Ted, ShoreTurtle, Joy & Flyers26 on their Seaside Heights training excursion, but I was hoping to get out REALLY early since the family had some stuff planned later in the morning. And imagine my surprise when I got home and Mrs. Progman was stretching with the running duds on. Now that the temperature is rising her season has officially started (not a cold weather gal at all, can't say I blame her too much).

I am starting to embrace some of the recommendations made by Matt Fitzgerald in Performance Nutrition. I previously only worried about hydrating on the really long stuff - I am going to start making it a point to carry some type of sports drink on just about every run I do now. For the long stuff he is a fan of drinks that contain protein, so I have started carrying Accelerade on anything over an hour long. I know this stuff makes a lot of people gag but it is supposed to be huge as far as speeding recovery and minimizing muscle damage. So far I am digging it - I don't know what effect, if any, it had on my 19 miler but I know I felt like I coulda just kept on running this morning.

I don't know about the rest of the running community but I am desperately wanting to wash my cold weather gear and pack it away until next season. A couple of runs last week were cold enough that my eye lashes kept freezing together. I am normally a cold weather guy but enough's enough already, I am ready to wear shorts from this point forward.

My New Running Partner

2009-03-01T09:28:00.008-05:00

I finally broke down and bought a digital camera to run with. I opted for the Olympus 850SW, which is part of their shockproof (I fall down a lot) and waterproof (I sweat like a baboon) line of cameras. It's very cool and surprisingly small and light considering it can take pictures submerged in like 10 feet of water. I still need to get used to running with this thing, and more importantly snapping pictures on the run. I will need to ask ShoreTurtle for some tips, since he can manage to take pictures while also PR'ing in a race. So some pictures from running this weekend:

Saturday morning - 3 buzzards enjoying some roadkill. This is using the 3x digital zoom, so I suspect the quality is compromised a bit.

Sunday long run - hopping onto the Henry Hudson Trail in Freehold with the snow coming down.

Tons of tracks in the snow this morning - not really sure what this is, guessing rabbit.

Jersey Devil? Perhaps, if he wears a Brooks Adrenaline, size 14

Big Brook Preserve in Marlboro - very beautiful to run through, not sure why I don't come here more often

As I was returning on the Henry Hudson Trail I spotted a red fox. This guy was pretty big - The odd fox I spot around here is usual more along the size of a big cat but this guy was more the size of a small/medium size dog. By the time I pulled the camera out he spotted me and was gone in a flash. Very cool to see though. The bulk of my running for the last several months has been on the roads so it was cool to be one with nature in the snow on Sunday.

Performance Nutrition

2009-02-15T15:13:00.011-05:00

I bought Performance Nutrition for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald a couple of weeks ago. I have been chomping at the bit for something new to add to my running library but have gotten tired of reading about another coach's spin on tempo runs and intervals. I have had my eye on this book for a while and since I jumped into the Runners World online weight loss thread this book was the perfect candidate, not to mention it came highly recommended by some of the nutritionist types who hang out around RWOL.

Big thumbs up to Matt Fitzgerald. I was half fearing this was going to just be another guy who would tell me to eat plenty of fruits & vegetables, but this is a treasure trove of information on what your body needs in terms of racing and recovery. I thought my diet was spot on, but I am definitely rethinking some of the ways in which I eat (definitely think I was selling myself short on recovery nutrition for one, which goes a long way in the injury prevention department). I think I may also try the Western Australian carb loading strategy that he talks about (details of that can be found midway through this article).

I also came away from the book with a better appreciation of the complex role of carbohydrates in the body. It makes me want to take Dr. Atkins behind the garage and whip him within an inch of his life with my heart rate monitor strap. How irresponsible is this guy to recommend suppressing carbohydrates in the diet, whether he is addressing an athletic audience or not. Does anyone even follow that diet anymore (seems like 2 years ago you couldn't throw a bagel in any direction without hitting some idiot on the Atkins diet)?

I would definitely recommend this book - I liked it enough that I went out and procured a copy of Brain Training for Runners by Fitzgerald. A little bit of a different twist on training - hopefully all of this reading will glean something in terms of benefit.

Which is Which?

2009-02-15T10:00:00.001-05:00

Two copies of my drivers license - one from 4 years ago (pre-running), one from last Friday. If you can see past the translucent State of NJ emblem, try to pick which is which (the translucent emblem is not heavy enough to hide the double chin)?

Cutback Sunday

2009-02-08T09:25:00.007-05:00

This week was a cutback week, which meant 1o miles for the Sunday long run. I decided to head over to Bodman Park, the nexus of the Jersey Shore Running Club's marathon training universe. It was the first time I have been there in a couple of months - to my glee there was a 100 mile patch waiting there for me for the runs I logged at Bodman Park in 2008. Cool stuff, I am pretty sure I am going to pick up an Endurance Bag in the next month or two so maybe I'll stitch it on there.

Part of the decision of going to Bodman Park was I figured if I was only doing 10 miles, I might as well do some hill training as well. So I made it a point to hit Beacon Hill, which comes up around mile 7 of the route I took. Local runners would know this hill as the last downhill in the Indian Trails 15k. It is hard enough to run down this hill without killing yourself - I was running up it, so I was going much slower but working considerably harder. I've got the elevation chart below. The chart is a little deceiving I think. "Kick Ass hill" is at mile 3 and looks like the worst one here, but I think Beacon Hill is far worst - maybe it's just because of where it falls on the course, I don't know.

It was nice to run in shorts today - I have been getting a little tired of running in layers and finishing with frost all over me. I would be pretty happy if temperatures hovered between 30-40 degrees for a while, but I am sure I am not done with the frost just yet.

NJM Training Run

2009-02-01T19:36:00.007-05:00

Sunday I got to head out to the NJ Marathon course in Long Branch to get in on a New Jersey Road Runners Club training run (I joined the NJRRC a couple of weeks ago so I am now officially a member of the Jersey Shore Running Club and the NJRRC - it felt like the right thing to do). The best part of the run was some fellow blogger running with ShoreTurtle, Flyers26 and Joy. It was our first time meeting Joy - if she found us despicable she was very polite and didn't say so (I will have to cruise on over to her blog to get the real scoop).

Congratulations to Rafael Nadal winning the Australian Open. Rafa & Federer were in the middle of the third set when I left the house to go to Long Branch - made it a little hard to walk out the door.

Runners, Yeah We're Different

2009-01-24T08:08:00.007-05:00

I got an email from a member of the Jersey Shore Running Club this week about the Adidas "Runners, Yeah We're Different" Ad Campaign from 1999-2000. Anyone who runs (especially distance running) will appreciate these ads. I've only included a couple of them below - if you go to Charlie Hayden's website you can see a larger collection of them. Thanks to Charlie for a good laugh.

Devastated about the Eagles, happy for the Cardinals. First time to the big show for Cardinals franchise - I hope they can make their fans and the NFC proud on February 1st (sorry Ted).

6 at 7 in 2

2009-01-17T08:03:00.005-05:00

I hit the road this morning to do 6 miles. The plan was to run 6 miles at marathon pace, which by my estimation right now is about an 8:50 pace. The forecast last night was for temps around 7 degrees with a windchill around -2, so this was one of those few runs which I was really kind of dreading.

By the time I got ready to hit the road it was 6:45am and I figured I would scrap the marathon pace and be happy getting the miles in since it was so freaking cold. And it was cold. by far the coldest weather I've run in this year, maybe ever. Every part of my clothing that allows perspiration had iced - I had ice underneath my wind jacket on top of my technical fabric stuff, my fleece hat was covered in it, my new RoadID bracelet had ice on it - pretty wild stuff. It was worth going out just to watch the looks of bewilderment people give you as they are driving by all bundled up in their cars.

When I got home I checked Weather.com and Wunderground and they both reported the temperature in Freehold to be about 2 degrees with a -10 degree windchill. I didn't think it was windy, thank god. Wind would have been the straw that broke this camel's back. And I ended up averaging an 8:42 pace, mainly because I was cold and wanted to get the hell back inside. My heart rate was a little higher than normal, but I've come to accept that as a byproduct of running in really cold weather. Tomorrow it is supposed to be almost 25 degrees warmer - forecast calls for 26 degrees with snow showers - woohoo, tropical compared to this morning, I think I'll wear shorts.

It's going to be warm in Arizona though - Go Eagles!

Two Hundred Sit Ups

2009-01-12T09:04:00.007-05:00

I am currently in the beginning of week 4 of the One Hundred Push Up program (I have a feeling week four is where the men get separated from the boys). I wandered over to Marcy's blog last week and saw her mention that this guy now has a Two Hundred Sit Up program up. Following her lead, I checked it out and had a couple of questions for the author. I shot him an email from his "About the Program" page, and I swear my finger was barely off the Send button before I got a response back. Hats off to Steve - great programs dude! If you haven't given these a look yet you should check them out - and maybe offer me some advice on getting past week four of the Push Up program.

Gee, that's all I can think to write about, slow news weekend.

E - A - G - L -E - S

See you in Arizona Baby!!!

Saturday in the Park

2009-01-10T18:23:00.004-05:00

Mercer County Park that is. I ventured out to MCP to join in with Hamilton Area Trail Runs group. I've been meaning to get out with these guys - I lived in Lawrenceville and ran in Mercer County Park in college, so this was a nostalgic walk (run) down memory lane. Trail running is different than the road running I am used to - we did 6.5 miles of jumping roots and running hills which I know I will pay for tomorrow.

Since the weather men having been hyping up this storm that we are supposed to get in NJ Saturday night, I decided to make the trail run part of my long run since it sounded like running outside Sunday morning might not be an option. So once the group was done, Flyers26 and Shoreturtle were kind enough to join me for another 4.5 miles in the park. In return for their generosity, I treated them to the spectacle of watching me shine a portion of the ice laden path with my ass. The joke is on them though: they think I fell, but I was actually working on a top secret cross training move that I know will significantly lower my race times in 2009. Yeah, I'm sneaky like that.

Go Eagles!

Year in Review

2009-01-02T09:10:00.005-05:00

I am not an original poster, so I will admit I am copying ShoreTurtle's format for my 2008 end of year post. I like his no nonsense, cut to the chase style:

2008 Miles:
1401 miles

2008 Races:
5k - 1 race
10k - 1 race
15k - 1 race
10 mile - 1 race
13.1 - 3 races
26.2 - 1 race

Kind of funny, I would have guessed I raced a lot more than that in 2008 until I actually wrote it down. I don't think I will change too much in 2009. I am not the kind of guy that can go out and race every weekend, it ends up burning me out mentally after a while. I am more of a "set a goal a couple of months out" kind of guy. I like to have that carrot out there to keep me interested. I would like to score a PR in the 5k & 26.2 arena in 2009. More than that, I just want to stay off the injured list.

I would also like to meet up with some more local runners in 2009. Maybe we can pick a Spring/Summer race to meet at (although the competition has the potential to get quite ugly). At the very least maybe do some collaborative training runs together. Hope everyone had a good holiday!

PHOTO: My 2008 shoes, all from Brooks (picture taken on my Precor 956 treadmill).

Addiction (2 pairs)
Trance 7 (2 pairs)
Adrenaline GTS 7 (1 pair)
Adrenaline GTS 8 (1 pair)

The Addictions are being rotated out - I may add a pair of Trance 8 and another pair of Adrenaline GTS 7 in 2009 (defintely like those over the newer GTS 8). I am obviously partial to Brooks - I tried the Saucony Hurricane 10 and hated them, they are now my "walk on the treadmill" shoes. I would love to try Asics but they are so damn expensive - most of these shoes I scored in the $60 dollar range.

Hello Playoffs

2008-12-29T07:48:00.006-05:00

Bye bye, Cowboys, bye bye

My Early AM Running Ensemble

2008-12-23T12:58:00.008-05:00

It was 17 degrees this morning at 5:30am, with a 9 degree wind chill. Not bad for some parts of the country but pretty damn chilly for around here. The perfect weather to try out some of my latest cold weather running gear. I would upload this picture to Facebook, but most of those non running type people would assume I've gotten a job working for the local municipal road crew or something. I figured fellow running dweebs would appreciate the getup though:

A - Princeton Tec Quad headlamp - 4 LED's of regulated brightness

B - Fleece hat with pull down fleece gator thingy - picked up at the Philly Marathon expo for $10

C - Manzella convertible glove/mittens. Just picked these up from the hunting section at Dick's Sporting goods. It has to be REALLY cold out or these things are way too hot.

D - Reflective vest, won by Mrs. Progman at one of her running classes. Helpful to keep cars from bouncing off you in the darkness

E - New Balance Running jacket, given to me by my awesome sister in law. Much nicer than the Brooks Element jacket I shelled out $70 for. Fits me better - I think the guys over at New Balance must be tall.

I'm only wearing a long sleeve compression top along with Under Armor cold gear tights with this outfit, and I'm pretty sure I could have gotten by in this if the weather had gone down to zero. Usually for me the only thing I need to worry about are my ears and hands, and I think I've got that nailed. Merry Christmas to everyone - stay warm!

Before & After

2008-12-21T09:35:00.006-05:00

I recently got caught up in a 2009 weight loss goal thread on the Marathon Race Training forum at Runnersworld.com (one of my main internet haunts). I watched this thread grow from it's inception and was amazed at the amount of people who had weight loss goals, especially considering how many of these people are very fast marathoners. The thread evolved into "Before and After" pictures of people showing the effects of how marathoning had impacted their weight loss. I didn't think I had any good "Before" pictures, but I looked around anyway to see if I could contribute to the thread. I found a good one. Actually I found the perfect one. I don't know how many people here view the RunnersWorld forums, but I know there are people here with weight loss goals, so I figured I would post this. All I can say is yikes - avert your eyes if your stomach gets upset easily:

Progman - August 2006, @ 240 lbs

Progman - May 2008 (NJ Marathon) , @ 190 lbs

The funny thing is I never really considered myself as having weight issues, even when I was peaking around 240 lbs. I was playing tennis like crazy and going to the gym, so I considered myself perfectly healthy. It wasn't until I started sucking wind on the tennis court that I started to think about taking the running a little more seriously. Thank god - I can't imagine what it would have been like if I was completely sedentary, I guess I can see how things can quickly get out of hand if you're not careful.

So in the weight loss thread I originally committed to dropping another 6 pounds. Now I am starting to think about trying to shave another 6 - 10 lbs, primarily because I want to dramatically improve my marathon time in 2009. I am currently holding fast at 186 lbs, so that means I am shooting for "sub-180". Hopefully between increasing mileage and making some minor adjustments in the diet this is a doable goal.

I welcome anyone else to take the "Before & After" challenge and throw up some pics. It seems that with the New Year right around the corner this is the perfect time to do it (plus I don't want to be the only one with an ugly fatty picture up on the web).

Am I a Bad Person?

2008-12-15T09:17:00.002-05:00

Here's the scenario: It's about 7:00am Sunday morning. I'm about 5 miles into a 10 mile run. It's kinda cold, I'm still half asleep, and I am (gasp) wearing an mp3 player. I am running against the traffic approaching an intersection - the streets are virtually deserted. All of a sudden a Jeep Cherokee makes a right hand turn at the corner so that it is driving towards me. It approaches me, slows, and the window starts to go down. It takes a few minutes for me to process this. My first instinct is, this isn't cool, I have no idea what this person wants, maybe this is a mob hit, and I just keep on running. After I had a second or two to digest this I realize the person was probably just looking for directions, but at that point I am at the intersection and I just keep on trucking. Mrs. Progman thinks I was rude for not helping someone out. I still don't really know what they wanted (who is looking for directions at 7:00am on a Sunday morning?) and, to be honest, didn't want to stop in the middle of a run. What would you have done?

I am very pumped reading about everyone's race plans for 2009. I definitely have some things in mind for next year. I do plan to train for a Spring marathon. I will probably enter the NYC Marathon lottery again, and if that doesn't work out, there is a certain marathon I missed this year due to injury that I wouldn't mind taking a shot at again. I think all the other cool local races will fall into place once I get those events ironed out. The main thing for me in 2009 is to stay healthy. I wish the same for everyone else - injuries suck!

I'm Going to Say It: I Have No Desire to Run a 5k

2008-12-05T07:46:00.004-05:00

I feel like I should be signing up for one. For some reason they are huge this time of year - Turkey Trots, Jingle Bell Runs, blah blah blah. And it's after marathon season so everyone gets to cash in on their training fitness. I'm reading all the blogs and seeing people gearing up for them, and I know the PR's are going to start dropping like a Republican candidate. I've got two 5k's that are really close to me next weekend, I had kind of figured I would do one of them - so why haven't I signed up for one yet?

I thought long and hard about this today and realized it's simple - I don't want to run a 5k, I actually kind of hate them. I have not done any 5k specific training lately so I would probably screw up the pacing. They are usually really crowded races around here and parking is a hassle, which means it takes up half a day to run 3.1 miles. And they are expensive, considering how long you are out there. My recent 10k PR suggests I should be running a 22.x 5K - I don't know if I could, but if I did I know it would be 22.x minutes of pain and suffering that I am not particularly motivated to do right now. The only distance I am really interested in training for right now is of the 42K variety.

So I am bagging any thoughts of a 5k - I will be satisfied with my sucky 5K PR until I decide to break it. I am more focused on building a marathon base. I am falling back to fundamentals on the marathon front. I am going to focus more on heart rate, which means I will need to slow up my regular training pace during everyday running. I am going to concentrate on growing the midweek medium long run. I am going to gradually increase miles and probably include one tempo run or MP run a week, in addition to the Sunday long run. Lots of long slow miles, a little speed work, no 5k's.

I do wish everyone luck on there on the 5k front - I will be thinking of you speedsters while I am running my 9:30 p/m long run this weekend.

(I reserve the right to change my mind and run 3 5k's next weekend).

Born to Run 5 Mile Race

2008-11-28T12:25:00.008-05:00

What better way to follow up Thanksgiving than to run a road race? Today was my chance to play spectator and watch Mrs. Progman tear up the road in the Freehold Area Running Club's annual Born to Run 5 mile race. She ran an outstanding race, despite the fact that the training has been sporadic lately due to hectic work schedules. This race is a must do since it is about a mile from our house. I was up early this morning to do my running and ran part of the course, just to get myself fired to watch this race.

The kiddies getting ready for spectating action

The race leaders

My loving wife hurling her sweat jacket at me

Getting ready to high five the girl

The bizarre climbing grasshopper of Lake Topanemus

Philadelphia Half Marathon Race Report

2008-11-23T15:33:00.014-05:00

My event started Saturday when I got to drop my kids off at their cousins so Mrs. Progman and I could head into the city (shout out to my brother in law & his wife on that one). We got into Philly around 1:00 which meant we had a couple of hours to kill at the marathon expo before checking into the hotel. I got to meet Esined from the RunnersWorld discussion forums at the NJ Marathon booth and got some valuable running info from him (he is one fast dude). I also got to meet 4 time Boston Marathon winner Bill Rodgers and had him sign my race bib. The fact that my last name is Rogers led to a lengthy discussion, which ended with Bill suggesting we might be related (I told him it wasn't evident from my race times). He also had valuable advice on achilles injuries - thank you to Boston Billy.

Race Day: I hooked up with Freehold running bud John C. to walk from the hotels to the starting line, which was a cool way to relax and discuss our strategies as well as plan our '09 races (yikes). We ended up losing each other somewhere between the porta potties and baggage check, so I wouldn't see him again until the finish line. I thought the marathon was exceptionally well managed at the start - it seemed a lot less chaotic to me than the Philadelphia Distance Run, although maybe it's just that I'm more familiar with racing here now.

I totally forgot to check to see what corral I was officially placed in when I was at the expo, so I was one of those obnoxious people who just moved up to the front (pretty sure I ended up around corral #2 or #3). Judging by some of the people who were near me it didn't look like I was the only one that did that. I sucked down a gel about 5 minutes before the start and then waited in the cold for Mayor Nutter to do his "3-2-1" start (apparently is was too cold for the horn).

I wasn't expecting much from this race and figured I would coast for the first couple of miles and see how I felt. The one thing I had decided in advance is I wouldn't look at the Garmin (that worked well in my last race). I would let it log my splits but would otherwise run by feel (I'm still holding a grudge against the Garmin after the Philadelphia Distance Run).

So I felt pretty good at the beginning of the race. Somewhere in the first mile I had the brilliant idea "hmmm, I feel pretty good, let me pick a pace I don't think I can hold for 13.1 miles and go with that", which is more-or-less what I did. Since the half marathoners and full marathoners started on seperate sides of the street, and I started close to the front, I had the luxury of watching the 3:10 and 3:20 marathon pace groups go past me, and then kind of ran with the 3:30 group for a while which was cool.

My splits (from the Garmin):

Mile 1 - 8:41
Mile 2 - 8:04
Mile 3 - 7:59
Mile 4 - 8:06
Mile 5 - 8:07
Mile 6 - 7:57
Mile 7 - 8:01
Mile 8 - 8:26
Mile 9 - 8:02
Mile 10 - 8:26
Mile 11 - 8:00
Mile 12 - 7:58
Mile 13 - 7:59
.1 - 7:33

1:47:42 (chip time)

672 of 5184 finishers

For some reason the 5 mile mark in a half marathon is where I start to fade mentally and think about how nice it would be to stop and take a nap - once I fight through that I usually get a decent second wind though. I did manage to see ShoreTurtle at the 1 & 6 mile marks thanks to his cowbell, and even managed to high five him on the second sighting (thanks man). The nicest bonus was a surprise appearance by my awesome wife Mrs. Progman at the finish line. I tried to convince her the night before to stay at the hotel because I knew the freezing temps would likely kill her, but she ventured out like a trooper and suprised me. She even saw me somewhere around the 6 mile mark (she was close to you ShoreTurtle), but was not expecting me to be running the pace I was so wasn't prepared to try and get my attention. She did get some good pictures though.

Congrats to everyone who ran today - I am anxious to see the race reports!

The Philadelphia Art Museum is always impressive looking

Johnnie Sneakers and I at the finish

My ugly yellow hat coming into the finish

Some of the race leaders

Obviously pleased with the PR

Wow, I Am Getting Kind of Excited

2008-11-18T10:13:00.006-05:00

After dropping from the full marathon to the half marathon, I had just kind of forgotten about this race thing that is scheduled for this Sunday. It is brutal to deal with an injury that takes your goal race away from you, and running the shorter distance seemed bittersweet. But I just got my email confirmation yesterday from the Philadelphia Marathon and, I have to say, I am getting kind of pumped. Plus I am reading some of the local blogs and getting kind of fired up. The way Flyers26 has been running I think he may actually win the marathon. Ted's been banging out PR's all summer and now apparently wants to hang out by his fireplace. JoyRun and Laurel have both showed recent signs of taper madness. ShoreTurtle is spectating and has even posted the points on the course he will be with his new cowbell. Word has it Girl In Motion may also be spectating. This may be fun after all.

Still not sure what my goal is Sunday. I am not used to racing a half marathon without having the benefit of 18 & 20 mile runs in my legs. The achilles is better but still lets me know now and then that it's still hanging around. My better judgement says to treat the half like a spring marathon training run and enjoy running through the city. My bad judgement usually makes 90% of my decisions for me though. We'll see - good luck to everyone running on Sunday.

New Addition to the Family

2008-11-06T20:32:00.010-05:00

It was delivered at 11:45am on Tuesday, arriving at 82 inches long and weighing 400 pounds. It's my new (used) Precor C956 treadmill. It's a used commercial unit in great condition. I've already put some miles on it and it feels solid. I never thought I'd be excited about getting a treadmill, but this will go a long way towards getting in the miles during the ugliness of winter, not to mention other times when it's just convenient to jump on to bang out a few miles. Let the base building begin.

I purchased it from a local dealer in Philadelphia, if any local runners are interested I can pass the number along. It was pretty reasonably priced and delivered personally by the dealer, who also services his equipment. Don't let me be the only treadmill geek out here.

Voting and Race Pics

2008-11-04T06:46:00.004-05:00

My polling place is within easy striking distance of one of my morning running routes. So I hit the road this morning and wound up at the polling station at 6:05 am. There were only six other people in line ahead of me, but I was still the only one in shorts, a fluorescent vest, and headlamp (I got some looks).

The race photographer has their pictures up from the 10k on Sunday. I never considered buying a race photo before, but I kind of like the first one with the Philly skyline in the background. That's right around miles 5, so I look kinda good considering how wiped I was at that point. $15 if I want an electronic copy without the "proof" on it, I dunno...

Ben Franklin Bridge 10K

2008-11-02T18:15:00.009-05:00

What a beautiful day for a race! This is my 2nd year in a row running this race, a 10k which starts on the NJ side of the Ben Franklin bridge, runs to the Philly side and back to complete the first 5k of the race. The 2nd 5k runs through Camden and along the waterfront, passing the battleship New Jersey and ending on Campbell field. Very nice scenery considering you are running through, well, Camden, NJ.

I knew luck was on my side early today. I bumped into Flo (aka Girl in Motion) while I was running back to my car. I always struggle with what to wear for a race, especially when it's cold out and you will be hanging out for a while before the start. I was starting to have a neurotic pre-race clothing crisis and thought that I needed to put something warmer on. She talked some sense into me and made me realize I was fine (she's alot smarter than me). Thanks to Flo.

We got inside the stadium with plenty of time. I hit the baseball field for a couple of pre race laps while she waited to check her bag and warm clothing as late as possible (again, smart). While I was on the field I was surprised by an approaching ShoreTurtle who recognized me from my ugly yellow RoadRunnerSports hat. This is the first time I have ever met Flo or ShoreTurtle in person - pretty amazing I managed to bump into both of them considering we had made no formal plans and there were like 3,000+ people there. We ended up getting seperated but somehow regrouped at the mass of people at the starting line. It definitely made for some good pre-race karma.

I had pretty low expectations going into this race. I haven't hit the track since I got injured during marathon training some 7 weeks ago. I just recently started doing tempo runs again and have just been starting to get my post injury mileage up. I went in thinking I would be happy running 8 minute miles and trying to crack 50 minutes. So I was pleasantly surprise by my results:

From the Garmin
Mile 1 - 8:09
Mile 2 - 7:24
Mile 3 - 7:15
Mile 4 - 7:14
Mile 5 - 7:26
Mile 6 - 7:40
.2 - 7:20

Chip Time - 47:10
Age Group - 41 of 174

The one thing I did differently today was I made an effort to not look at my Garmin - I pretty much ran by feel and then evaluated my progress by the three clocks that were on the course. I think the one time I looked at my Garmin was around 5.5 miles. I was pretty tired at that point and was pretty sure the watch would tell me I finished already. A great race, thanks again to Flo & ShoreTurtle!

Campbell Field before the race

Me & Flo (I'm hoping some of her BQ pixie dust wore off on me)

Me & ShoreTurtle (his pictures and his race time are both better than mine)

Can't Believe I'm Going to Say This...

2008-10-24T09:32:00.003-04:00

I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a treadmill. I hate running on treadmills, it seems wicked tedious compared to the relaxed thrill of running on the open road. But I felt kind of guilty during winter training last year. Mrs. Progman is a teacher and I have a 6 & 8 year old. The entire winter they were waiting for the elusive snow day while I was silently praying for clear roads to run on. We didn't really get any decent snow in NJ last year, so I got lucky on the training but my kids got jipped. I want to have a fallback for the inclement weather this year, not to mention it's pretty convenient to have when you want to bang out 5 miles here and there.

I am leaning towards a used Precor or LifeFitness commercial machine. I am 6' 2" tall and tip the scale at about 185 so I need something that will take a beating. I'm pretty sure if I bought anything less than a gym quality machine I would ruin it in about a year if I was doing any kind of regular mileage on it. I've got a spot picked out in the 'ol garage right next to the racquet stringer, just need to add the machine.

If anyone has any good advice on Treadmills I would love to hear it. I haven't seen alot of mention of them in the running blog-o-sphere so I'm curious if anyone uses them or not.

Stick a Fork in Me

2008-10-16T11:03:00.010-04:00

I'm done - I'm still far from 100%, I lost 4 weeks of training due to an achilles/calf injury, and I know I'll have trouble at this point building back up to a 20 mile training run without risking further injury, never mind the marathon. I officially switched my entry from the Philadelphia Full to the Philadelphia Half Marathon. It's something I hate to do, but I don't want my 2nd marathon to be a limping jog to the finish and risk being sidelined indefinitely afterward. I knew I was taking a gamble when I picked an aggressive plan on a minimal base back in August. I had assumed I would have plenty of steam left from my May marathon training to carry into Fall training - bad planning on my part.

The good news is I can at least throw in a few races between now and the end of November that I would have otherwise missed. I'll probably do the Run the Bridge 10k, a cool race that crosses back and forth over the Ben Franklin Bridge, and happens to benefit the special education school that my sister in law is Principal of. There are not a lot of 10ks around here, and this will give me a chance to redeem my crappy time from last year (I would love to hear from any other local people looking at this race). And I may throw in the odd 5k, depending on how the leg is feeling.

So I will be running the Philadelphia Half Marathon on November 23rd. On the bright side I won't be completely wiped out afterward, and after recovering from that I can start winter base building. I really think I would like to make my target race a marathon in the fall next year, but I still may throw my hat in the ring for the NJ Marathon in May, just for kicks and to redeem myself mentally a little bit after bailing on Philly (not to mention I live like 20 minutes away). So good luck to the Philly Full people - I will be one of those obnoxious half marathoners hogging the early water stations and bailing out at 13.1 mark! Woohoo - I think I'll eat all of the food before you guys get finished too! See you on the 23rd!

I Broke Down and Ordered a Copy

2008-10-14T07:30:00.000-04:00

How could you not? I've heard mixed reviews, most say it's pretty good. I've got Fall marathon fever - I'm reading all the race reports going around from everyone's October races, I'm slogging up the road of recovery to make it to the starting line of my own race. I even just finished UltraMarathon Man, my second Dean Karnazes book in about a month thanks to Ted. So it seemed almost inevitable that I buy a copy of this movie, given that it was released last week (don't know why I waited this long).

Just curious to see if anyone else has seen it yet? It made the rounds in limited movie theater engagements at the beginning of the year. I heard that the few theaters that were showing it were packed with crazy marathoners. The closest theater to me was still close to an hour away. Anyone have the skinny on this movie?

Tag, You're It...

2008-10-12T08:47:00.010-04:00

Thank you Flyers26. The "rules" say I need to give up 6 things about myself (his was a hard act to follow, I don't have any brushes with greatness):

(1) I am related to Eli Whitney, inventor of the famed cotton gin, through the branches of my mother's family tree (pretty weak, I know, that's as close as I get to fame)

(2) I was ranked #9 in a senior high school class of @250. After getting accepted to my college of choice I experienced a free fall that took me to #16 (had a lot of fun though).

(3) I met my wife when we were both sophomores in college and lived on the same floor of our dormitory. The first time we met I had my 4 1/2 foot pet boa constrictor around my neck.

(4) I have one tattoo that I got when I was 19 years old. It's not likely anyone here would ever see it unless you pissed me off to the point where I mooned you (sorry mom).

(5) I hate reality TV. Really hate it. I don't watch House, Grey's Anatomy, CSI or any of the other pop shows on TV. If it's not on the Tennis Channel or ESPN I've likely never seen it.

(6) I do read the occasional Stephen King novel, although I'm careful never to read two in a row, because I'm pretty sure I would start to weird out a little.

and a little extra...

(7) I was pretty sure at the beginning of last week that I would need to bail on my November marathon because of injury issues. After a week of therapy and a pep talk from my physical therapist Wednesday that would rival anything Vince Lombardi could have said, I think I'm pretty close to 90%. I'm going to have to scrap any thoughts of a time goal because of the training I missed, but at this point I am planning on being at the starting line on November 23rd.

OK, on with the tagging:

BlyFinn (love that picture of your son, cracks me up every time)

SuperDave (towing the line in the Smokey Mountains)

joyRuN (fellow Philadelphia Marathon trainee, 'nuff said)

Wow, I Need to be in Therapy

2008-10-02T07:45:00.002-04:00

Physical therapy that is. I finally bit the bullet and paid a visit to my physical therapist this week. I haven't seen him since about 2 years ago when I was having some muscle imbalance issues. My Achilles was still bugging me on Monday so I broke down and made the call. After looking me over he determined my problem is actually being caused by a weakened right hip muscle (again with the muscle imbalances). So my right hip is out of whack, ultimately affecting my stride, and actually shortening my leg length which is causing more impact on my Achilles (all the googling in the world wouldn't have brought me to that conclusion). He thinks this is something that can be corrected with hip exercises and stretching in about two weeks. And the best part: I don't need to stop running.

I was fearing the worst - when you get to the point where you actually need to go to a doctor about a running pain all of the worst case scenarios in your head scream "no marathon for you". When I told my doc my race was at the end of November he shrugged it off with a "no problem". So I am cautiously, cautiously, cautiously optimistic. I am stretching and icing and doing hip exercises and continuing to marathon train like an idiot. I have taken a few days off over the last 2 weeks so it's time to crank it back up a notch. I'll take the old Achilles out for a test long run this weekend and see how it's responding so far.

Good luck to everybody tapering for early October races, a bunch of big ones go down next weekend - watch those hip muscles!

Slight Change of Plans...

2008-09-25T10:15:00.005-04:00

Well, I knew I was having Achilles issues before running the Philly Distance Run, so I took 3 days off before the race. However, I gave the race a decent effort so it should come as no surprise that I am a little beat up the week following the PDR. Under normal circumstances it usually takes me about a week to bounce back after racing a half marathon. Going into a half marathon with some injury issues apparently makes it a little worse (who would've thought?).

Luckily, since I am completely in the middle of a training cycle, it's actually an optimum time for me to take 5-7 days off to nurse what could otherwise grow into a bigger issue. So here's my plan: No running until Monday (best case) or Wednesday of next week. Continue cross training between now and then, along with a barrage of stretching, ibuprofen & ice on the offending leg. Taking the time off now will actually allow me to build the mileage back up so I can still fit in 2 more 20 mile runs before the marathon. One of the bigger bummers of this ordeal is I think I have narrowed down the track workouts as one of the possible culprits with my Achilles. After extolling my love for the track in a bygone blog post, I come to find out the track does not love me back. Oh well, time to swap out the track workouts for a weekly medium-long run once I'm back to normal. The track sucks by the way, I hate the track...

In the meantime, good luck to anyone running an early October marathon - we are less than 3 weeks away from some of the local favorites (Hmm, Steamtown, Mohawk Hudson, Baltimore immediately come to mind). This means right around now is when you'll start to see crazy, psycho, taper induced blog posting from some of the crazy locals, followed closely by a bunch of endorphin filled race reports. Good stuff man, thank god, something to take my mind off of the slumping economy and the ugliness of campaign season. Good luck everyone!

Philadelphia Distance Run

2008-09-22T09:15:00.004-04:00

The Expo: I hit the expo on Saturday to pick up my race number. I always go to these things with a wad of cash hoping to pick up some good running paraphernalia. I had three items of interest in mind I was looking for: an Endurance Bag, some Smartwool socks (keep hearing raves about these), and Cliff Shot Double Espresso gel (w/100mg of caffeine, yeah). Alas, with all of the vendors there, I couldn't find these three things or anything else I wanted to blow my money on. I did end up picking up a shirt for my running wife from One More Mile, though, so that was cool. And I did end up playing running groupie and getting an autograph from Catherine Ndereba (won the Boston Marathon 4 times? showoff!), so the expo wasn't a total waste.

The Race: I was dealing with an achilles tendonitis flareup mid week, so I hadn't run since Wednesday - 3 days of no running, which is an eternity during marathon training. So I approached the starting line thinking I would at least go out the first couple of miles at marathon pace, which for me is around 9:05 per mile. If the legs felt ok I would try to run negative splits. So that's exactly what I did - first couple of miles were conservative, just under 9:00 per mile. The leg felt ok so I started to gradually run negative. I ran a half marathon in March of last year (E. Murray Todd HM for those NJ people) where I averaged an 8:48 pace throughout the race. Once the legs felt ok, I figured I would try to run negative splits and just work on getting my average pace under 8:48 (does anyone actually sign up for a race shorter than a marathon and just run marathon pace?). I ended up more or less cruising negative throughtout the race - my final 4 mile splits were:

8:36
8:34
8:27
8:10

So I was feeling pretty good, the Garmin showed me averaging 8:42, well on target. However, my chip time at the finish was 1:55:34 - my race in March was 1:55:32 - Ack! I should have realized when my Garmin was recording splits 400 meters before the course mile markers at the end that I was a little off. I guess I did a bad job of running the tangents on the course which screwed me up distance wise. Oh well, another lesson learned about leaning too heavily on the GPS. It did help me run a clean negative split race, though, which is hard to do, especially in those early miles. My training schedule called for 13 miles @ 9:24 on Sunday, so I did 13.x @ 8:48x - not too shabby. I think I'll focus on a half marathon in the Spring for a goal race to PR in (probably the New Jersey HM, we'll see).

I was hoping to meet some fellow RWOL people who are training for the Philly Marathon but race morning was crazy and that never happened. I did get a chance to bump into Flyers26 for about 2 minutes, long enough to wish each other luck, while I was waiting in the porta pottie lines. He ran a great race and has a good race report on his blog, along with some quality pictures which I'm missing (http://flyers26.blogspot.com/). So now we get to sit back, relax, and bust our butts for the next 9 weeks prior to race day. I'm thinking it may be time to adjust my race goal, hmmm...

Sunday Sucky Sunday

2008-09-16T09:24:00.005-04:00

I was among the unfortunate population of northeastern Fall marathoners that had a 20 mile run scheduled for this past Sunday. My first 20 miler of this cycle was two weeks ago, and I felt like I could probably have run another six when I finished - this past Sunday, uh, not so much. According to my SportTracks software, the temperature got up into the mid 70's at least, although the real killer was the humidity. I don't quite have a handle on that number but a solid scientific guess puts it somewhere around 1000% (humidity, one of the few reasons I hate New Jersey).

I MappedMyRun to put me by a water fountain at 4.5 miles and 15.5 miles to replenish my handheld bottle, as well as dropping 20oz of gatorade at mile 11. This is a strategy that has been uber successful in the last couple of weeks but fell way short on Sunday. In addition to the hydration plan falling apart, I had changed up my route to add a little variety, which inadvertantly gave me a bunch of unexpected hills (funny how it all looks flat from the driver's seat of your car). I still managed to finish a little over 20 relatively strong, just a hair under my prescribed pace, but was definitely pretty dehydrated. If I had to do another 6.2 I would have been medical tent fodder for sure. That kind of gave me a whole new respect for anyone who was at Chicago 2007, be it a finisher or DNF'er. One good thing that came from Sunday was the successful maiden voyage of the SpiBelt I picked up to hold my BlackBerry (yeah, I had to do a sweaty 20 miles while on-call). Never even noticed this thing on me, pretty cool.

So this weekend is the Philadelphia Distance Run - a nice break from the increasing mileage and my only scheduled tune up race for the Philly Marathon. Still on the fence as to how to pace it - after this past weekend's debacle I may just cruise at marathon pace and enjoy the bands (one at every mile!), but we'll see, game day decision.

What a Fantastic Sunday

2008-09-07T09:49:00.011-04:00

Start it off with an 18 mile run - 6:00am, 66 beautiful degrees, thank you hurricane Hannah for breaking the heat and humidity streak that has been plaguing my runs as of late. It wasn't the endorphin fest that was my 20 miler last week, but it was a solid run to prepare me for another 20 next weekend.

The US Open - Murray vs. Nadal in the US Open Semifinals, wow. This match started on Saturday, but was halted mid-match because of rain (again, thank you Hannah). I have never been a fan of Andy Murray - he has always come off as kind of a brat on the tennis court. But, like a lot of tennis fans Saturday/Sunday, I am a newly indoctrinated fan. Raphael Nadal has lately become the Goliath of the tennis world - the guy is a beast and has been able to own the once indomitable Federer. I NEVER would have called for Murray to win against Rafa, it was looking like another Rafa-Roger final. Thank you Andy Murray for pulling off the upset and shocking the tennis world - good luck on Monday, dude - may the force be with you.

The Eagles - Eagles vs. Rams at Lincoln Financial Field - wow. You want the season opener to be a good one but this exceeded expectations (38 - 3). Everyone in Philly is trying not to over hype DeSean Jackson but he had a great game. I am not going to say anything more because I know it's a certain jinx.

The Beach - topped off the day with a quick jaunt to Avon. Great day to be at the beach - huge post hurricane waves, lots of surfers, not a cloud in the sky. The Jersey Shore rocks - Mrs. Progman below (wow).

Sunday 20 Miler

2008-09-03T07:30:00.001-04:00

Between all the wife's racing this weekend I was still actually training for a marathon. Sunday was the first of five 20 mile runs in my training program. So I set the alarm and hit the road around 5:30am Sunday morning. Really long runs, at least for me, are a completely different animal than the day to day BS runs that are just meant to maintain fitness. For me these runs progress through stages - it takes the first 5 miles just to shake off all the little aches and pains, loosen up and get past knowing you have a hard couple of hours ahead of you. Somewhere around 10-11 miles I cross over the hump and get a second wind. Everything after that is just maintaining on cruise control.

This was by far the best 20 mile run I've ever had. Everything just came together - I am trying to make a note of everything I did so I can try to recreate it during the next four 20 milers I have in the FIRST program. I had 1 gel pre-run and then 1 at 9 miles and 1 at 15.5. I stashed a 20 oz bottle of Gatorade around mile 11 which I used to replenish my hand held bottle (definitely going with that strategy in the future, I have been going all water up until now). And I used an mp3 player. I won't race with it but it's invaluable when you're out there for over 3 hours. And there's something to be said when you're at mile 19 and Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell" comes on - oh yeah.

So I finished with 20.24 miles on the Garmin - I felt so great at the end that I charged that last quarter mile at a 7:40 pace. Not sure if it was endorphins or what, but I hope I can sustain it on future long runs. Anyone interested can look at my course map and other notes I made here.

I've Created a Monster

2008-09-02T07:14:00.006-04:00

Yeah, that Mrs. Progman, 2 days after her racing debut, knocking 3 1/2 minutes off of her finish time. The determined look, the high finishing kick, the joy of smoking the dude in the blue behind her - I would say a sub-30 is definitely in the cards in the not too distant future, wouldn't you?

(BTW, I'm almost finished with the book - I think I will be able to officially cut it loose in the next post)

Saturday in the Park 5k!

2008-08-30T11:07:00.018-04:00

Wow, what a beautiful day for a race (sarcasm, it poured a couple of hours before the start which provided a muddy course and humid conditions). Mrs. Progman was fired up and not intimidated in the least by the elements. This race is run on one of the most popular & challenging cross country courses around, containing several hills including the infamous "Bowl". Michele's finish time was a remarkable 37:28 given the gnarly conditions. A great debut, a great finish time, and a great motivator to run a flat 5k to beat the 37:28.

With the Women's 101 Group

With the kiddos pre race

The start or the race

Check out the finishing kick in the home stretch

With friends at the finish

Then the kids races - Katie in white (speed & intensity)

Christopher finished strong despite running with only one shoe for 3/4 of the race

Some US Open Pictures

2008-08-29T21:30:00.014-04:00

I traveled light and didn't take a digital camera, although I did have the trusty Blackberry with me, so I snagged the below pictures, starting with Ilie Nastase. He was moving quickly through the crowd when I pounced on him.

With the trophy (there are so many people I want to thank...)

British phenom Andy Murray (oh wait, that's my brother in law Scott)

Fernando Gonzalez and Bobby Reynolds

Fernando Gonzalez

Nikolay Davydenko

Fernando Verdasco

Murphy Jenson broadcasting for USA Network

Off to Flushing Meadows

2008-08-29T05:24:00.001-04:00

Living close to NY City definitely has it's advantages - Broadway, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rockefeller Center at Christmas time, Broadway (yeah, I mentioned it twice, I love Broadway) and this time of year, the US Open. I'm taking today off and heading to Flushing Meadows - an awesome time for anyone even remotely interested in tennis, and I am a whole lot more interested than remotely. Some of the matches I hope to be seeing today:

Nikolay Davydenko [5] v. Agustin Calleri

Marin Cilic [30] v. Robby Ginepri

Carlos Moya v. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga[19]

Bobby Reynolds v. Fernando Gonzalez[11]

Elena Dementieva [5] v. Anne Keothavong

Tommy Robredo [15] v. Marat Safin

And the list goes on - sorry guys, no reading today.

And did I mention My wife is running her first 5k tomorrow.

********* WOOHOO GO MICHELE GO ***********

I Loooove The Track

2008-08-27T07:15:00.008-04:00

There it is, the local high school track. It's about a two mile bike ride from my house, which serves conveniently as the perfect 10 minute warm up and cool down in the morning. I love the track, and since it figures prominently in the Furman training plan, I get to experience my love for it once a week for 16 weeks. There's just something manly about running track intervals. There's always the odd running shoe or sweatshirt laying around, like the track swallowed up some runner and spit them out in little nasty pieces (last week there was a used condom, who's watching these kids?). So this morning it was 5 x 1000 meters with a 400 meter rest interval. Good stuff - when you're on that last interval and your heart is pumping at 94% of your maximum heart rate and the sweat is pouring off you, you appreciate your passion for running and the effects it has on your body - I love it.

- I love getting up at 5:00am to do this stuff
- I love that my VO2 Max is improving
- I love that my wife is talking about her pacing strategy for Saturday's race

Oh, and I love that I received the book in the mail yesterday (haven't gotten too far but Dean hasn't said anything so far about the track, what a wuss!)

The Anticipation is Killing Me

2008-08-26T07:09:00.006-04:00

That's the way I feel - like Ralphie on Christmas morning. Is today the day the book gets here? To anyone not in the know, I'm talking about Ted's brainchild, the Dean Karnazes book 50 blogger challenge. The anticipation is killing me, so much pressure, so many questions (Should I call out sick? What if it's not here today? What if there are a bunch of really big words in the book? If I get it do I bail on my wife's race Saturday to read it? What would Ted do?...)

Superfluous, Partially Running Related Dribble

2008-08-24T09:00:00.006-04:00

I've been living with a hole in my heart for the last couple of weeks. My old Nike Dri Fit running hat morphed in grossness to the point where it was getting up on it's own to run at 5:30am everyday. It ended up in the trash - it had to be done, although it was difficult nonetheless. So imagine my glee when I was leafing through the clearance pages of the latest Road Runner Sports catalog and happened upon the hat of my dreams. Hidden amongst other clearance gems like the Nike HatPhone and the Adidas Toiletry Kit was the IntelliSafe ID Ha t. It's bright, fluorescent, lime green, yellow, something or other with a spot for an id on the bottom of the bill and (wait for it) a blinking red light on the back. It's tacky, it's cheesy, the only thing it's missing is a little propeller on the top - I think I love it. And I was able to wrestle it away from Road Runner Sports for $4.98 + free shipping. I am pretty cheap - I would run with a dead chicken on my head if it was only $4.98 and had sweat wicking properties.

So last weekend I went to open the slider to our patio to hit the barbecue and was greeted by a 3 inch Praying Mantis on the glass part of the slider. Being the youngest of three boys, I grew up keeping a weird assortment of things as pets that most people would probably dispatch with a rolled up magazine. So my knee jerk reaction to the mantis? I quickly retreated to one of the cricket strongholds in our backyard and snagged it a meal (after rallying my kids to watch this marvel of nature). I must have opened and closed that glass slider a dozen times while barbecuing, and that damn mantis never blinked, he was so focused on devouring that cricket (probably a proverb in there somewhere, feel free to dig it up for me). Anyway, my wife was even weirder than me and managed to snag it on video - this youtube clip is not for the faint of heart:

The only Grand Slam tennis event to take place on North American soil starts this week. I am taking the day off on Friday and will be at Flushing Meadow in NY to take it all in. Hopefully we can see some American tennis players advance into the later rounds in the only American Grand Slam (no chance any US men get into the quarters based on recent events, I dare you guys to prove me wrong). So, next weekend's dream schedule looks something like this:

Fri - 6 mile tempo run in the AM
- US Open in the PM
Sat - Saturday in the Park 5K (wife's inaugural race event)
Sun - 1st 20 mile training run of the Philly Marathon training schedule
Mon - Labor Day - Pier Village 5k (not sure if either of us are running this, game day decision)

Go MICHELE (6 days and counting)

Whose That Wearing My Garmin?

2008-08-20T20:25:00.005-04:00

Paula Radcliffe? Joan Benoit Samuelson? No, ITS MRS. PROGMAN2000!!! In a rare moment of weakness, she made the mistake of saying out loud in front of me that she thought it would be cool to train for a 5k. Mind you, this was back in late March/early April when I was training hot and heavy for the NJ Marathon - I'm pretty sure she thought I was delirious enough from training that it would have gotten past me. But with a little snooping around the JSRC I found the Women's Running 101 program. These guys have been around for a while and have gotten rave reviews for their women's only running programs. The summer class started in June, meets once a week, and outlines a 3 day a week training program targeted towards a goal race at the end of August. And guess what baby - it's almost the end of August!

So next Saturday (8/30) is the Saturday in the Park 5k. It's hosted by my running club (JSRC) and advertised as the largest women's only race event in the state (a little sexist if you ask me). Proceeds go to three different charities that support women and families in need. But let's face it, it's not about the running club. It's not about the 3 months of training. It's not even about the women and families in need. This is all about my honey busting out her first race. She's an animal - she is already talking about running at the Manasquan Reservoir with other girls from the class (hey, wait a minute, that's one of my training places). She is already talking about the NEXT 5k (hmm..). I think she has even already marked off the Born to Run 5 Mile in November - yikes! But first she has to knock off the Saturday in the Park 5k. A challenging course by anyone's standards - the legendary "Bowl" there has been making high school cross country kids vomit for years. But the bowl has never met Mrs. Progman2000.

Woohoo Go Michele Go!

A Photographic Journal of My Sunday Long Run

2008-08-17T09:38:00.013-04:00

Being a programmer supporting a product which some clients deem mission critical, I find myself on a 5 week rotation where I am on call for 24 hour support. I typically HATE these weeks where I am shackled to my phone, especially when it is during marathon training. During the winter it is not so bad when you are running in a jacket with pockets. During the summer when you can get by on nothing other than shorts it stinks to have to carry a phone. However, I decided to make the most of it this morning - since I was lugging my blackberry, I was going to snap some pictures. I set my alarm for 4:45am (crazy? perhaps) and was able to get over to Bodman park to start running around 5:40. Here is my run:

Mile 1 - the receding of a Harvest Moon (didn't expect to snap a picture here until I saw this)

Mile 3.1 - At the top of Kick Ass Hill (yeah, it's called that for a reason)

Mile 5.5 - The famed Stone Church, as seen from a JSRC water stop

Mile 6.38 - Note to self, remember to watch for cars

Mile 7.22 - The last nice water view before another brutal hill climb into the woods

Mile 11.73 - The view of New York across the water from the top of Beacon Hill

I ended up doing a little over 15 miles. At least 1/4 of that is through the wooded trails of Harthshorne & Huber Woods. Photos of the woods rarely translate well and end up looking like a bore (especially from a camera phone) . However, those sections of running the woods are far more intoxicating than even the most riveting stretch of urban scenery. This will probably be the last time I hit up Bodman for a while - my Sunday mileage is going to creep higher and I will have to start running it from my front door in the interest of conserving time. But I'll be back, Bodman, bet on it!

Have Some Lemonade!

2008-08-16T16:14:00.006-04:00

What's this? A blog entry not related to running or tennis? My philanthropic wife and children hosted a lemonade stand/toy sale Saturday to benefit the Monmouth County Child Advocacy Center. For anyone interested doing this type of thing, the Sunkist Company is currently hosting a program for children ages 7 - 12 who want to run a lemonade stand for charity. My kids have been wanting to do a lemonade stand since summer began, so it turned into the perfect opportunity to raise money for a good cause. We ended up netting $185 which our kids will be able to present to the Child Advocacy Center during a live radio fund raising event in September. Pretty cool stuff.

Goodbye Old Friend

2008-08-11T07:10:00.000-04:00

It looks like roadkill, but that's my Nike Dri Fit running hat. It feels like it's been around since Bill Bowerman founded Nike, but I think I've probably had it for about 3 years. It started it's life with me on the tennis court. After a year or so of that it hit the road racing circuit. It was with me through my training for the NJ Marathon and than accompanied me for 26.2 miles on race day. I've been trying to revive it to make another run at Philadelphia but I think it's time to call it quits. This sucker is going in the trash this week I think. I am looking for suggestions on where or what to buy for the next one. Some prerequisites:

- Dri Fit, Clima Cool, or otherwise sweat friendly (duh)
- Obnoxious color, something that can easily be seen amongst a crowd of runners
- Reflective accents would be nice, you know, keep me from getting hit by a car on those early morning runs

Besides my hat biting the dust, this was a good week of running. I found an unknown to me, deer infested preserve in Marlboro that I was able to run through on my long run Sunday. And there's just something about training during the summer Olympics that puts an extra spring in your step. How about Michael Phelps? Good god, the cross training in my current plan makes me really appreciate this guy. I can barely swim two decent laps back to back - he is super human. I think Mark Spitz's 7 medal record is about to be toast - Go Michael!

It Starts Today

2008-08-04T16:00:00.005-04:00

Today is the first day of a 16 week training plan targeting the Philadelphia Marathon on November 23rd. Ironically, as is often the case, it is technically a rest day, since most training plans are usually based on a long run happening Sunday. With that thought in mind, Sunday morning I hit Bodman Park in Middletown, the holy land of the Jersey Shore Running Club marathoning community. I was optimistically shooting for a 5:30am start Sunday, which means getting out of bed around 4:45 - 4:50am. Actual starting time was closer to 5:45am - not too bad, a little more realistic, although it probably kept me from running a couple of extra miles. I was the first runner out of the clubhouse Sunday, although there were a few people starting to show up to do 20 miles at 6:00am (obviously the people doing the September and October marathons).

I ended up knocking out 11 miles before I had to bail out. Weather was almost perfect Sunday morning for running - I show 68 degrees on my computer but it felt cooler than that and the humidity was bearable for a change. I gave Stephen King's audio book "NightShift" a try - nothing better than Stephen King when running through the woods by yourself in the early morning dimness. Some of his stuff leaves me cold though, and this was one of them - I suppose I should have given it a pre-screening. I was 3 1/2 miles in before I even got past his long winded prologue, so that kind of killed it for me.

Local non-runners look at me in bewilderment when I say that the JSRC does it's long runs out of Bodman Park. If you didn't know any better, Bodman Park is nothing more than a baseball field in a little recreational area bordering Middletown and Red Bank. However, it sits on the edge of the Navesink river and is adjacent to Hartshorne & Huber woods. Besides providing ample wooded trails to run on and scenic ocean views, it also provides hills - lots of hills. Excellent stimulus for the hills of the Philadelphia marathon. Below is the elevation chart for what I did on Sunday (that hill at 2.5 miles is by far one of the ugliest).

So I felt great Sunday morning and was anxious to bang out a couple more miles, but I had to double time it down to the Sea Girt 5k. We had a couple of friends running the race, and we were planning on having our kids run the kid's races afterwards. I ran the 5k last year and it was nice but way too crowded for me. I had no desire to do it again this year but the organizers do a good job of providing stuff for the kids to do, including the races. This is the first 5k I have ever gone to where I actually watched the leaders come in (very cool, the winner logged a 15:43). The 5k started at 8:30am, so by the time people were finishing it had warmed up quite a bit (certainly a lot hotter than it was when I was suffering through "NightShift"). Our kids ended up running closer to 10:30am - a little annoying when the temperature is climbing and the race advertised a 10:00am start for the kids, but they made up for it by providing ice cream cones at the finish line. A nice way to kick off a marathon training cycle.

Could I Beat Donovan McNabb in a 5K?

2008-07-24T09:25:00.002-04:00

Crazy right? These are the things I think about when I'm not thinking about what tension to string my racquets at or where to run my long runs. At first glance, it sounds pretty ridiculous - I mean, he's a professional athlete. But so is guard Shawn Andrews (left, 335lbs) and I'm pretty sure I could beat him. So what about Donovan?

I recently watched one of the videos of Donovan's Offseason workout in Arizona which is what got me thinking. The workout in the video consists of a lot of footwork, lateral movement, etc. The coach says this is supplemented by weight training, then throwing the football in the evenings - no mention of any running in there. Donovan looks big too - I know he's done a lot of lifting in the past couple of years and has bulked up, which explains how he can make it look so easy to shake off linebackers. The Philadelphia Eagles list him at 6' 2" tall, 240 lbs - he's a big guy. This is not the usual body type of someone winning their age division at your local 5k. So let's have a look at the stats:

So while I'm 8 years older than him, he's over 50 lbs heavier than I am. I know that 50 lbs is all muscle (hopefully), but it's not all leg muscle (I searched but could not find any mention of miles ran per week). While he is still decent at scrambling out of the pocket, he trains to take a hit and to throw touchdowns. My 5k times are by no means stellar, but they are improving, and the bulk of my training is focused on running endurance & speed. I think I would have had a tougher time racing Donovan when he was still playing at Syracuse. After several years in the Pros and a couple of leg injuries, I'm making this prediction: I would beat him. I wouldn't want to arm wrestle him and I wouldn't even want to even try to catch one of his zip passes, but I think I would win in a 5000 meter race.

If he's reading this and wants to take the challenge, there's a list of local race applications here (the one on Aug. 3oth is women only, but you could still probably volunteer). There's still plenty of time to kick one out before the season opener Sept. 7th. And seriously, I would trade the 5k race victory and all the glory that comes with it for a guaranteed ticket into the playoffs this year. I will even run the Philadelphia Marathon wearing a #5 jersey if that would help the cause.

[In the interest of journalistic integrity, I posted a question over at Donovan's blog asking if anyone knows what kind of miles he runs - doubt I'll get an answer, all those guys want to talk about is Football, sheesh].

Go Eagles - bring one home for the fans this year, please!

Real Runners Cross Train

2008-07-19T07:00:00.006-04:00

My venerable Trek 950 mountain bike. Purchased used in 1992 for $250, which was a king's ransom in that day and age. This bike has served me well, going on cross state excursions to visit my soon to be bride, as well as biking down the mountains of Killington in August. The last of a breed of steel bikes manufactured at Trek's facility in Wisconsin, it is a true classic. When I took it to an authorized Trek dealer last year to have the shifters and brakes replaced, the store owner suggested the repairs would be priced similar to the purchase of a new, lighter Trek model. Needless to say, I left the store with my steel frame 950 sporting new shifters and brakes.

Enter the Philadelphia Marathon. I am straying from conventional marathon plans by following the Furman Institute training plan. The FIRST training plans advocate a schedule of 3 very specific training runs a week plus at least 2 days of cross training (optimal cross training being cycling & swimming). I will probably be modifying it to include a 4th day of running, at least on weeks where I'm not totally shot. Most running coaches advocate some form of cross training to supplement a running program. However, the idea of actually replacing what would ordinarily be a day of "easy" running with a day of cross training seems crazy to the hard core, 7 day a week high mileage purists. In my case I am hoping to avoid injury by cross training, as well as prevent the burnout that I was starting to feel training for the NJ Marathon. It should be a lot easier to maintain a tennis schedule with a plan like this too.

It remains to be seen whether a training plan like this will get me closer to the 4 hour mark on race day. The plan is definitely more aggressive than my previous plan in that it has five 20 mile runs in it, not to mention the aggressive speed work. So we will see what happens when I tow the line on November 23rd. If nothing else all the speed work should at least allow me to knock off some PR's in the 5k, 10k and half marathon in the process. Not to mention I will hopefully be a more accomplished swimmer & cyclist when it's all over (triathlon anyone?).

Time to get the running shoes back on

2008-07-15T07:41:00.004-04:00

The Henry Hudson Trail, my old friend & nemesis. I forgot how much I missed it while I was traipsing all over the Magic Kingdom for the past week. It's great to get back on the HH this time of year - it's close enough to home to ride my bike to once school is over and I have the luxury of time in the morning. By the time the Philly Marathon gets here I will hate every rock, twig & squirrel that comprises the trail, but I will be a stronger runner in spite of it.

Happy 8th Birthday Christopher R. Yeah, those are Mario & Luigi hats and mustaches on those kids. If you don't know who Mario & Luigi are, then you are far removed from the 8 year old gaming genre, and I am jealous of you for it.

Congratulations Rafa!

2008-07-08T06:56:00.006-04:00

It figures - what is starting to be called the greatest Wimbledon final in history, and I was in transit home from Disney World. Between watching the first set before departing, airport televisions, and keeping track on my blackberry I was able to stay current with the match until we were airborne and Fed & Rafa were tied at 2-2 in the fifth set. What a great match! I feel both sorry for Roger and happy for Rafa. I think this match will create a lot of buzz among casual tennis fans for the US Open. I know I plan on being at Flushing Meadows in August.

No Marathon training this week...

2008-06-30T20:56:00.004-04:00

This is the first trip to Disney for these two, and the first time I've been here in 20 years (wow I'm old). So training this week will be limited to walking the expanse of the Disney empire. I will be back in running shoes on July 8th, with the formal start of training for the Philadelphia Marathon starting on August 4th.

Jango Fett in the Disney Star Wars parade

2008-06-30T20:36:00.002-04:00

I don't know, I thought he looked kinda cool

Guess which marathon I'm running in the Fall?

2008-06-15T08:50:00.005-04:00

It makes perfect sense, I don't know why it took so long for me to see it. I was raised in Collingswoood, NJ, which according to Google maps is 8.3 miles away from the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. I grew up listening to news accounts of marathoners tackling the Manayunk wall, back before marathons were popular and people who ran them were supermen. I first watched Rocky when HBO premiered it at 12:00am on New Years Eve - I don't remember the year but our cable box was a push button thing which sat on top of our television. I am a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, and I know the proper pronunciation of the Schuylkill River. It should have been obvious to me all along, I need to run the Philadelphia Marathon on November 23rd.

The Eastampton 5k!

2008-06-14T21:22:00.007-04:00

Eastampton, NJ - a town I had never heard of before this race. My sister-in-law & I agreed at the beginning of the year to run a 5k together this spring. I tried to find a race conveniently located between her house and my house. Enter the Eastampton 5k. Eastampton makes Freehold, NJ look like midtown Manhattan on a Saturday night (no offense to the fine people of Eastampton). A nice little town though, with a nice recreation area which hosted the event.

This was by far the smallest race I have ever run in. I am used to the road races of the jersey shore, which usually number at least several hundred. I am guessing the Eastampton 5k had about a hundred runners, although I can't say for sure since I never saw the complete results. The course itself was pretty wacky. A certified USATF course, it started and finished on 1/4 mile of uneven, rocky grass turf. The remainder of the course was a combination of roads and wooded trails, which included a steep uphill with wooden steps. It was definitely not a flat, fast road 5k, but more of a cross country course (I am guessing anyway, since I never ran cross country).

Having said all that, I still set a PR of one full minute from my 5k time last year. I finished at 23:19, beating my 24:19 from the Pier Village 5k last year. I still have a lot to learn about pacing myself; my miles splits were:

1 mile - 6:48
2 mile - 7:52
3 mile - 7:56

So I made the dreaded mistake of going out too fast and fading at the end. Still a decent showing for the first 5k of the season. Now I have a new time to beat by the end of the summer. Best of all I was able to witness the triumphant return of my sister-in-law Beth to the road racing world. She is already gearing up for the next one (who doesn't get hooked after that first finish?). It was kind of cool to run a small race in a little town on a whim like that - not sure if I will go back to the Eastampton 5k but I will definitely look for the little "Eastamptons" around me in the future.

It won't be NY this year

2008-06-09T05:47:00.004-04:00

The results of the New York City Marathon lottery came out this week. For those not familiar with the process, to run the marathon you either qualify with a crazy fast time (3.10 for men which is faster than what I would need to run to qualify for the Boston Marathon), join the NYRRC and run 9 races in NY during a calendar year, or enter the lottery. I was one of the estimated 50,000 - 60,000 people who paid $11 to enter the lottery and find out I came up snake eyes. So the NYC marathon made a cool half million to turn the rest of us down - no problem, I will be back next year with my $11 in hand. So now I need to decide what to do in the Fall.

In other news, Raphael Nadal quite rudely dismissed arguably the best tennis player of all time from the courts of Roland Garros on Sunday in the French Open final. The win ties Bjorn Borg's record with 4 straight French Open titles, and Nadal is only 22 years old. Some people are already calling for him to make a run at Wimbledon in two weeks. I wouldn't have thought so before the tournament, but he tore through everyone without even dropping a set (including destroying my pick Novak Djokovic). So we'll see if he can translate that clay court magic to the grass...

It's Official....

2008-06-03T20:40:00.000-04:00

Saturday June 14th marks the return to the racing world of former running elite Beth R. at the Eastampton 5k. A competitive runner who's running career was interrupted by a trip to the alter with my brother James some 20+ years ago, it will be my privilege to be there to witness the comeback. Runners of Eastampton be afraid, be very afraid...

Êtes-vous prêt pour du tennis ?

2008-05-26T09:24:00.005-04:00

Are you ready for some tennis? The French Open started this weekend, much to the dismay of the other three people in my house who will be forced to watch battles on the clay for the next two weeks. Our house was one of the first homes in our area to switch to Verizon Fios since, among other things, they offered a sports package which included The Tennis Channel. Tennis is a sport which doesn't get any love from the broadcasting community. Even ESPN relegates tennis events to their ESPN2 network, and will then put it behind bowling or fishing tournaments for some reason (are either one of those even a sport?). Last weekend a Cablevision salesman showed up at our door making a pitch to get us to switch back from Verizon Fios. My first question was "Did you guys pick up The Tennis Channel yet?". I'm not sure what the sales pitch was after he answered "No". No charge cable service for a lifetime? Free Cadillac Coupe Deville? Free gasoline for a year? Don't know, don't care - he was quickly dismissed after admitting Cablevision still doesn't respect the true gentlemen's sport.

So who will win this year? One thing is certain - American men have not been dominant in tennis for a long time and they certainly suck on clay. Raphael Nadal has never lost a match at Roland Garros but is physically a little beaten up this year. Federer wants the French title to give himself the coveted career grand slam. With the retirement of Justine Henin a couple of weeks ago the ladies side is wide open. Serena Williams is far and away the American favorite, and the Serbs have two more hopefuls in Ana Ivanovic (#2 seed) and Jelena Jankovic (#3 seed). So it should be a fun tournament to watch (for me anyway).

My favorite on the men's side is the young Serbian Novak Djokovic. Not only does he have phenomenal talent on the court (knocking off the Australian Open this year as his first grand slam), the guy is a crack up off the court. The below youtube video is from the 2007 U.S. Open, starting with his impersonation of Maria Sharapova (gotta love this guy):

On the Road Again...

2008-05-19T09:42:00.008-04:00

The rule of thumb I have read over and over is you should take one day of rest for every one mile you've raced, which means that I should be resting for close to a month. As anyone who has trained for a marathon will tell you, that's pretty tough medicine to swallow, especially when you have the bug for a Fall marathon. I optimistically thought I would be able to start running the second week after the race - um, not quite. I'm feeling a little better this week, which is the beginning of the third week after the race. My next scheduled race is a 5k in June, so at the very least I want to build up the miles a little and start some speed work.

The good news with the speed work is that this is a great time of year to hit the old bike trail with the kiddies. I thought I would try some intervals last week while introducing my kids to the Henry Hudson Trail (perfect timing as my five year old is just getting acquainted to life without training wheels). On the way to the trail my seven year old son started hypothesizing about how he would be much faster on his bike than I would be running. I was certain after watching him ride last summer that this would not be the case, so a little trash talking ensued. Once we got comfortable on the trail and warmed up a little, the racing went down. I definitely had him in the early meters but once he stepped on it he was able to get past me, although we were both going "all out". We repeated this several times (I admit I tried to get the jump on him a few times when he wasn't expecting it to even the field a little). The next day my quads were SCREAMING at me for that, a sign in my mind that it was a good workout. So that will not be the last time he and I have a showdown on the trail. I am sure I can get closer to beating him and certainly will be able to lower my race times a little in the process.

Good timing for him too - he just had his grade school "Field Day", so his competitive fires were still pretty stoked. I am thankful that his school still promotes fitness enough to sponsor a field day. Gym is something that has been cut down to two days a week but that's a rant for another day. Below is a video of the hula hoop relay at field day (his form looks pretty good considering the hula hoop!).

After the Marathon...

2008-05-09T06:31:00.008-04:00

You hear a lot of things about what to expect from your body the week after running a marathon. It's a very individual thing so you never really know for sure until you've been through it yourself. Luckily for me it wasn't completely debilitating. Lots of aches and pains, sure, but I don't think it was anything worse than what I put up with during my 18 week training cycle. The worst is a self diagnosed case of Plantar Fasciitis (it's amazing how all runners end up being physicians too). A ligament on the sole of my left foot became aggravated & inflamed. It was definitely painful for a couple of days, causing a little limping around (when no one was looking, to avoid the "Aha - so running IS bad for you" from pessimistic bystanders). This was something I noticed during training but was never too much of an issue. I guess slapping your foot on the ground a couple of thousand times in a row has a tendency to bring those little problems to the surface. Stupid Plantar Fasciitis - no big deal though. I took a break from running & tennis this week and the old PF seems to be settling down.

The bigger injury is the time injury to my ego. Everyone tells you not to have a time expectation when running your first marathon and just to enjoy the experience. That's tough advice to follow when you are psychotically adhering to a training schedule and constantly crunching numbers. I am a obsessive compulsive programmer working with databases all day after all, so having access to all that training data from my Garmin is a dangerous thing. My chip time from the marathon was 4:27:26. I "conservatively" was hoping to come in around 4:15 but would have been happy to be within a couple of minutes of that. 4:27 - those twelve extra minutes seem like HOURS on paper - Ugh.

The good news (if you can call it that) is that I think the 20 mile "wall" was mostly mental for me. I'm pretty sure my legs were trained enough and ready to go further, but I was not prepared for how exhausted I would be mentally. All the obsessive reading I did prior to the race emphasized the physiological demands of the distance, I didn't listen to the advice of veterans who emphasized mental preparation. So now I know - I think my next goal is 4 hours - I know I can do it, Plantar Fasciitis be damned.

The 12th Annual New Jersey Marathon

2008-05-04T21:05:00.019-04:00

Saturday at the marathon expo was COLD and WINDY and RAINY - which did not bode well for race day. My kids still ran like champs at the kid's races, but every weather report from every media outlet called for thunderstorms and showers throughout the morning of race day. My wife, never ceasing to amaze me with her support through 18 weeks of training while being a "training widow" surprised me again on Saturday with the above sign (purchased from an actual sign store because she knew it had to be waterproof).

So I got up 4:45am race day morning to get ready and hopped a ride to Long Branch with training partner John C (aka Johnnie Sneakers). As it turned out, the weather guys were once again way off the mark. By the start of the race temperatures were around 50 degrees and skies were cloudy - that's as bad as it would get. We never saw any rain, and by the end of the race the sun was out and things were starting to warm up.

They say you should start out with 3 goals in a marathon. Mine were:

(1) Finish with the 4:15 pace group
(2) Finish before 4:30
(3) Finish

So with these goals in mind I started out with the 4:15 group, although it took me a mile just to get to them because the start was so mobbed with people. The New Jersey Marathon also has a Half
Marathon that starts at the same time and runs on the same course, so the course was filled with people and made it a little difficult to run. The 4:15 was a great group to run with - led by 4 pace leaders who had just returned from the Boston Marathon and who happen to share my taste in comedy movies. In addition I was able to meet some fellow posters from the Runner's World forum, including Colleen (aka Coll76) pictured above (thanks to Colleen's husband for the picture).

So after completing the first half, I had to make a pit stop at the mile 14 porta potties. Unfortunately I had to wait a couple of minutes until one was
available, while the 4:15 pace group was slipping further and further away. I made the rookie mistake of trying to make up all of the time and catch up with the 4:15 group in the next mile. I ran an 8:30 mile to catch my pace group, which was over a minute faster than the pace we were averaging in the first half. Although I caught the pacers sometime after mile 15 that was a move that would cost me dearly.

Despite my sister in law and nephew coming out at mile 17 and my wife and kids coming out at mile 18 for support (and I needed it), somewhere between mile 19 and the infamous mile 20 "the wheels came off". I finished the last 6 miles in an ugly run/walk, with cramps eating me alive from the knees down. The good news is you're never alone in this condition in the last 6 miles of a marathon. I had plenty of company and made plenty of friends in that last painful six miles. Everyone's trying to help each other out during that collective agony of the last 10k of the race. I crossed the finish line with a clock time of 4:29:xx (not sure exactly what the seconds were but I know I beat 4:30). I'm still waiting for my chip time which will hopefully be kinder. In any event I made my final 2 goals, although I really wanted that 4:15.

So I had a great experience for a first marathon. Met a lot of cool people, all of whom "get it" and understand what it means to go through months of training to run one of these things. I was reminded of how supportive and selfless my family is which is humbling in itself. And I learned a lot for the next time (like not waiting for a porta potty and using the bushes immediately comes to mind). I'd really like to shoot for a sub 4 hour marathon next time, so I've obviously got a lot of work to do for the next one (NYC Marathon? Philly Marathon? Baltimore Marathon? I dunno....).

Katie & Christopher R.

John (7 marathons) & Paul (1 marathon)

Katie R.

Paul, Jake & Beth

The 2008 NJM Finishers Medal

Taper Madness

2008-05-01T07:44:00.010-04:00

I'm not sleeping well... new aches and pains cropping up all over... high level of nervousness and agitation (more so than usual). I'm not battling drug addiction or dealing with mental illness (more so than usual) - It's taper madness. It's a phenomenon marathoners all across the country are dealing with right now. This weekend is a huge weekend for marathons, including, just to name a few:

- Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, OH
- Providence Marathon in Rhode Island
- Eugene Marathon in Oregon
- Vancouver Marathon in British Columbia
- Pocono Mountain Marathon in Pennsylvania
- Lincoln Marathon in Nebraska
- Colorado Marathon in, um, Colorado

My training peaked at 47 miles in week #11. This week I've run less than 8 miles and have started focusing on eating more carbs. So I already feel like I've gained 150lbs and lost all my fitness. The expo at the NJ Marathon includes family day the day before the race. My 5 & 7 yr old are eagerly waiting to run the kid's races at the expo - it will take all my willpower just to keep from jumping out on the 100 yard 7yr old course just to run. But I know there are runners all over the country right now who should be working, or doing the laundry, or scrubbing before surgery, and they are secretly thinking about stupid things like "How many gels should I bring", "Should I run with a pace group", "Do I walk the water stops", "Where else might I chafe", "Arrrrgggggggg".....

4-27-08 (Week 17)

2008-04-26T13:55:00.001-04:00

This is it - the hay is in the barn as they say. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I have seen runners say it in online forums. I'm pretty sure it means that the training is over and the wait is on. This week was considerably lighter in volume, the coming week will be really light until Sunday (race day). To get in the racing frame of mind I volunteered at the Lake Como 5k on Saturday with future elite Christopher R.

Weather forecasts called for scattered rain but the race organizers lucked out and the weather was perfect (for runners anyway, a little chilly by the lake). Here is a picture of CR with the race leaders in the forefront (the winner clocked a 15:55 - nice). About 300 people turned out, most of them wanted water so we were pretty busy. A nice way to spend the day with your kids and fellow runners when you have a marathon pending.

As an added bonus, I got to see the first 5k effort of my long time tennis partner Andrew K. The good news is he had great weather and a nice race for a first effort. The bad news is now I need to focus on speed work after the marathon so I can beat a 20:36 (a 20:36?, come on man - I need to get some USATF guys out here to measure this course - bring the doping equipment too because I suspect illegal human growth hormones). My next 5k will be on June 14th in Eastampton, NJ. Until then, no tennis, bring on the taper madness, we are running 26.2 in 7 days baby!!!

Tues 4 m
Wed 5 m
Thurs 4 m
Sat 3.5 m
Sun 8 m
Total 24.5 m

4-20-08 (Week 16)

2008-04-20T20:41:00.001-04:00

2 weeks to go - Sunday marked the last double digit mileage day until we do 26.2. We ran one of the toughest hills in Bodman Sunday which I felt like I was gliding up, so thats a good sign for race day. This coming week the taper really begins, which means a gradual progressive decline in training until race day. Less running, hopefully less pain, more healing and more tennis. My son and I will be volunteering at the JSRC Lake Como 5k next Saturday which will be a nice break and provide some pre race inspiration.

Tues 5 m
Wed 6 m
Thu 5 m
Sat 4 m
Sun 12 m
Total 32 m

Bodman Park 4-20

04-13-08 (Week 15)

2008-04-13T14:45:00.001-04:00

Last big mileage week of the training plan - Wednesday marked my last mid-week 8 mile run, Sunday marked the last 20 mile run. The benevolent New Jersey Road Runners Club, sponsor of the New Jersey Marathon, sponsored a training run on Sunday on the NJM course. This means we got to go out at 7:00am and run the same course we will be running in 3 weeks. A lot of marathoners came out for this one - the weather was great and it ended up being a great run and an excellent confidence builder. So the below GPS map, courtesy of my venerable Garmin 305, is the exact route of the marathon. The course is a double 13.1 loop course, which starts and ends right in front of the ocean - a beautiful course, hopefully the weather will be the same in 3 weeks.

Tues 5 m
Wed 8 m
Thu 3.5
Sat 5 m
Sun 20 m
Total 41.5 m

NJRRC Training Run 04-13-08

04-06-08 (Week 14)

2008-04-06T12:35:00.000-04:00

Another week of pain after running 20 miles last Sunday. I cut back a little on miles this week to try to recover from some of the new aches and pains that cropped up (I think some of these are here to stay). I also encountered another skunk on the Henry Hudson Trail on Wednesday that ran with me briefly - I guess since this is the second time that's happened that it's not as uncommon as I thought to have a skunk join you for the early AM run. I took the day off on Saturday and went into NYC to see the greatest Shakespearean actor of the modern era, my cousin Rick Fay, in The Winter's Tale (review & photos here). The play was great, although it meant getting home at 2:00am Saturday night. Ordinarily this would not be a problem, but I was scheduled to run the Indian Trails 15k Sunday morning. So with about 4 1/2 hours of sleep under my belt I hit the starting line of the race. Luckily this was more of a light training run than an all out racing effort, but it is still a course that runs through the hills of Navesink and Bodman Park, so it is an effort at any pace. Another 20 mile run coming up next Sunday - 4 weeks to go from today until the NJM.

Tues 5 m
Wed 5 m
Fri 5 m
Sun 1.5 m
9.3 m
Total 25.8 m

Indian Trails 15k 4/06/2008

The Things That Make Your Morning Run...

2008-04-04T09:57:00.000-04:00

Friday morning was a rough one - I played tennis late Thursday night, and probably got about 5 hours of actual sleep (very low for me) before dragging myself out of bed at 5:30am. So I put on the headlamp and headed out onto the Henry Hudson trail in the pouring rain. I really kind of like running in the rain, always have, but it doesn't make the conditions any less adverse. As I was crossing a street on one part of the trail in the downpour, I looked up and saw another guy running, on the street, decked out in all the reflective running gear paraphernalia. He shouted over to me "So I'm not the only one crazy enough to be out here". We exchanged pleasantries about running in the rain (as much as you can when crossing paths like that) and we were both on our way. Very cool, I'm used to only seeing creatures of the four legged variety at that hour - something like that really picks you up when you are dragging.

03/30/08 (Week 13)

2008-03-30T20:29:00.000-04:00

This week was a buildup to the second 20 mile run in the plan, topping off the week at 43 1/2 miles. Sunday was a combination 10 mile training run at the Manasquan Reservoir followed by the Freehold Area Running Club's St. Paddy's 10 Mile race at Michael Tigue Park. The double 10 mile runs also marked the 12 year anniversary of me marrying the most patient woman on the planet (yes, it sucks being married to someone training for a marathon). So we enjoyed a dinner out Sunday night and will take a trip into NYC next Saturday to celebrate a little more. 5 more weeks to go to NJM.

Tues 5 m
Wed 8 m
Thur 5 m
Sat 5.5 m
Sun 10 m
10 m
Total 43.5 m

St. Paddy's 10 Mile Run 3/30/2008

Mr. & Mrs. Progman2000 3/30/1996

Easter Candy and the Runner's Dilemma....

2008-03-28T07:27:00.003-04:00

My wife is a chocolate connoisseur, so Easter in our house doesn't typically mean Russell Stover. We have a chocolatier in town who makes top notch stuff, which usually finds it's way into our house on Easter. I love chocolate as much as the next person. Currently, however, my chocolate fix has been reduced to the protein shake I drink once a week after my long run (chocolate flavored whey protein powder mixed with chocolate soy milk, unsightly but delicious). So while my kids are riding a nightly sugar high on Easter candy I am reduced to watching while munching on the leftover hard boiled eggs. I have seen reports of crazy wine and chocolate diets, but I give these the same amount of credibility I give to wacky Dr. Atkins (No Carbs? DUDE!). However, this year my wife bought me a 5" chocolate tennis racquet from the chocolatier (yeah, they actually make that), so it is just a matter of time before I fall off the wagon. At least I'll have another excuse for poor race performance.

03-23-08 (Week 12)

2008-03-23T10:27:00.001-04:00

This was a cut back week, which was more than welcome after running 20 miles last Sunday which brought on some more aches & pains. The highlight of the week was volunteering at Sgt. Pat's 5k on Saturday, a race held in honor of a Long Branch policeman who was killed in the line of duty in 1997. The Jersey Shore Running Club sponsors the event, which usually brings out about 600 - 700 runners. The Long Branch Police are out in force for the race, leading the runners on three Harley Davidsons (very cool). I volunteered and worked at the two water stops of the event, along with future elite runner Katie R. A great time, and nice inspiration building up to another 20 mile run next weekend.

Tues 2 m
Wed 5 m
Fri 6 m
Sat 5 m
Sun 11 m
Total 29 m

3/22 Sgt. Pat's 5K - Katie on a Long Branch PD Harley

03-16-08 (Week 11)

2008-03-16T16:50:00.000-04:00

This is the highest mileage week so far in the schedule, topping out after Sunday at 47 miles. Sunday was a little rough - was out late Saturday night, was missing a training partner due to illness, and had some crummy weather to deal with which resulted in fewer JSRC people out to run with Sunday morning. The result was I ended up grinding out 20 miles by myself, which isn't bad considering the conditions and the fact that it's my first 20 mile run. Thank God for mp3 players, I don't know how people ran long before them. The good news is the coming week is a bit of a cut back week, which means a little less running and a little more tennis.

Mon 5.5 m
Wed 8 m
Thu 5.5 m
Sat 8 m
Sun 20 m
Total 47 m

3/16 Bodman Park

03-09-08 (Week 10)

2008-03-09T20:30:00.001-04:00

Pain is part of the deal with marathon training. Ideally it appears in subtle doses, like when you're going down stairs during the day or briefly during a mile or two of a run. I got hit a little harder when I was out running Tuesday morning this week, however. That was my first day of running after racing the E. Murray Todd Half marathon on Sunday and apparently it was harder on my body then I realized. So I traded off a day of running for some more cycling this week to help recover. We ended up being out late Saturday night in NYC for a party Saturday (happy birthday Carolyn), and with the time change I ended up postponing my 7:00am 20 miler Sunday morning with JSRC for a better rested 9:30am 15 miler by myself. Grinding out 15 miles by yourself can be a real drag when you are used to doing the long ones with a group - looking forward to being back with the club next weekend.

Tues 4 m
Fri 5 m
Sat 8 m
Sun 15 m
Total 32 m

3/9 Manasquan Reservoir

2008-03-06T13:32:00.001-05:00

3-02-08 (Week 9)

This was a cut back week, which means slightly less weekly mileage and cutting back the long run Sunday. The generic schedule called for 12 miles Sunday, we ran the E. Murray Todd Half Marathon instead. Beautiful day - sunny, around 32 degrees and windy. I made the mistake of pacing the first couple of miles with my training mentor John C., who is much faster so that hurt me in the end (along with some side stiches around mile 7). Still managed a 1:55:32, which is an 8:50 pace and is about 8 minutes faster than my Jersey Shore Half Marathon debut this past September, giving me a PR. I had read several race reviews people had written on the web prior to this race about "all the hills". These people clearly don't train at Bodman Park in Middletown - it is not a flat course by any stretch but the "hills" are mole hills in comparison. Definitely makes me appreciate training with JSRC. Back to Bodman next Sunday - 20 miles on the schedule.

Tues 4 m
Wed 5 m
Thur 4 m
Sat 7 m
Sun 13.1 m
Total 33.1 m

Sunday (3/2) E. Murray Todd Half Marathon - Lincroft, NJ

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2-24-08 (Week 8)

Got a new Garmin Forerunner 305 as a gift this week, which means I can retire my ailing Forerunner 201, which served me well until getting water in it. Now I can monitor my heart rate too when I run and really geek out. Had to bite the bullet again this week and do 7 miles on the treadmill on Saturday morning, which was unfortunately the day after getting the new Garmin, so I had to break it in during the 18 mile run on Sunday. So far so good, the 305 looks cool. Looking forward to "stepping back" next week and only doing 13.1 miles on Sunday, which will mean running the E. Murray Todd Half Marathon in Lincroft. It will be nice to take a break from the hills of Bodman Park for a change, especially since the schedule calls for 20 miles the week after the half marathon.

Tues 4 m
Wed 7 m
Thur 4 m
Sat 7 m
Sun 18 m
Total 40 m

Sunday (2/24) Bodman Park

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2-17-08 (Week 7)

Had to bite the bullet this week and jump on the dreaded treadmill due to icy conditions Wednesday (I'm a little gun shy since taking that spill). My Wednesday schedule called for 7 miles - I suffered through 5 on the treadmill and couldn't take another second. The treadmill was an integral part of my training a year or so ago, but since I have gotten used to running outdoors I can't bear to be on the treadmill for very long. Something about running on it also seems to bring out aches and pains that I don't get from running twice as far outdoors. I respect anyone who can train on those things without going batty. Wrapped up the week with a 7 mile boardwalk run on Saturday and over 16 miles at Bodman on Sunday. That was a great run - I'm pretty sure I was flying high on endorphins by the end of that. Hope I can hold on to that feeling for next week.

Tues 4 m
Wed 5 m
Fri 4.5 m
Sat 7 m
Sun 16 m
Total 36.5 m

Sunday (2/17) Bodman Park

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2-10-08 (Week 6)

Didn't run with any skunks this week but I played a lot of tennis. This is another cut back week in preparation to build up miles next week, so I took it kind of easy and even traded a day of running for a day of cycling. The ironic thing about marathon training is I constantly feel like I am walking a fine line between being the fittest I've ever been and coming up with an injury that puts me out indefinitely. I think the day of crosstraining on the bike helped though, I may do that periodically when my legs feel shot. Looking forward to upping the long run to 16 next week.

Tues 3.5 m
Wed 6.5 m
Sat 6.5 m
Sun 11 m
Total 27.5 m

Sunday (2/10) Bodman Park

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2-03-08 (Week 5)

Another notable run on the Henry Hudson trail. Less than five minutes into my run Thursday morning at 5:30 am I spooked a skunk that was apparently hanging out on the side of the trail. It wasn't very big, about the size of a medium cat. It jumped out on the trail and in a state of confusion started running the same direction I was. I swear it must have run about 15 feet in front of me for 200 meters. The blinding headlamp clearly had it confused and it didn't know what to do, and I didn't want to stop or to try to pass it (for the record, skunks are very slow). It eventually bailed out into the woods, and I was able to finish without getting sprayed

Tues 3.5 m
Wed 6 m
Fri 3.5 m
Sat 6 m
Sun 14 m
Total 33 m

Thursday (1/31) Henry Hudson Sunday (2/3) Bodman Park

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1-27-08 (Week 4)

I run most weekly miles on the historic Henry Hudson trail which is conveniently about 1 mile from my house. This is an old rail line which the state of NJ graciously pulled up and replaced with an asphalt walking/biking/running trail. It's a great place to run - I do it at 5:00am with the use of a headlamp and NO ONE is out there except for deer, skunks, and rabbits. This week I bought the farm hard, though. The ol' HH was a bit icy and I had what skiers call a "yard sale" at mile 2.8 of a 6 mile run while making a turn. Bummer, banged up knee, lots of blood, but I finished my run and at a pace below 9 minutes per mile. Suprisingly I managed to keep from tearing my UnderArmor pants and somehow avoided serious injury (yahoo - treadmills suck)

Tues 3.5 m
Wed 6 m
Fri 3.5 m
Sat 6 m
Sun 15 m
Total 34 m

Wednesday (1/23) Henry Hudson Trail (wipeout)

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1-20-08 (Week 3)

This is the last really "light" week in the program. Good thing, because I had a retirement party Friday night and my company Christmas party Saturday night. The social activities really kill the schedule of an early morning runner - never realized I had a social life until doing marathon training. Anyway, wrapped up the week with 10 miles at the beautiful Manasquan Reservoir, haven to local runners & cyclists in training. Freakin cold though, somewhere around 15 degrees, give or take with the windchill, so I was glad it was a short run.

Tues 3.25 m
Wed 5.25 m
Fri 3.5 m
Sat 5 m
Sun 10.5 m
Total 27.5 m

Sunday (1/20) at Manasquan Reservoir

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1-13-08 (Week 2)

Had a good week of running - my Garmin has been acting a little wacky since I got water in it last week. I think I am going to have to retire this bad boy and move on to a nicer unit. Finished the week running 12 miles at Bodman Park in Middletown. This is the premier marathon training location for JSRC - trails through the woods, alot of scenic water views along the Navesink river, breath taking views of NYC. Oh, and one more thing - HILLS, lotsa hills. Anyone who complains of hills in marathons should train here - you will conquer the hills or die trying.

Tues 4.25 m
Wed 5.25 m
Fri 3 m
Sat 5.25 m
Sun 12 m
Total 29.75 m

Sunday (1/13) Bodman Park

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1-6-08 (Week 1)

First week of the program, which officially started for me New Years day morning. Since we did a "stay at home with the family" thing New Year's Eve getting up New Years Day was not the hardship it has been in years past. Crummy weather, though - ended up getting water in my Garmin 201. Non-runners won't appreciate that, runners will feel my pain though. Wound up the week running 10 miles on the Belmar Boardwalk - running at the Jersey Shore is awesome.

Tues 5.5 m
Wed 5 m
Fri 4 m
Sat 5.25 m
Sun 10 m
Total 29.75 m

Sunday on the Belmar Boardwalk

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