another NYRR rant?

History is repeating itself. When Fred Lebow bragged about how much money NYRR was making in his book (enough to buy that fancy brownstone they wk out of) the city decided they needed to pay up. With membership increases, races selling out and significant price increases (at the height of the recession no less) NYRR is making more money than ever and the city once again wants their cut.

If they had club revenues of $39. Million in 2008 think about how much more they are making now since price increase for races membership running classes and everything NYRR jumped up in January 2009. For those who don't know all races besides the NY Marathon and the NY half were $11.

The sad fact is that many runners I speak to are fine with this for what ever reason, this means you should expect prices to go up in a big way next year.

This post is a response to the link below from the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/sports/10running.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Crowding Out

The crowding out theory says that if you fill your body with healthy, nutrient-dense foods, it is only natural that cravings for unhealthy foods will diminish.

Think about it. It's hard to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day and still have room to binge on ice cream later that evening. The body can only consume so much. By eating and drinking nutritious foods earlier in the day, you will naturally leave less room for unhealthy foods later on.

This method is most evident when you increase your intake of water. Fill a water bottle or pitcher with clean, filtered water and sip it steadily throughout the day. As the day progresses, you will have less room for coffee, sugary juices, 'vitamin' waters (which is basically Kool Aid) and other soft drinks. It's really that simple!

Forget strict diets, there's no guilt or denial associated with the crowding out method. Start this week by increasing your intake of nutritious foods -- such as dark leafy greens and whole grains -- and you'll begin to notice that your body has less desire for processed, sugary, and nutrient-deficient foods.

NYC Marathon part 2

So here I am the morning of the marathon, alarm goes off I get get a taxi and off meet up with KK and we're off to catch the bus that takes us to the marathon start.

As we get off the bus we are welcomed by high school volunteers who are cheering us and wishing us well for the race, this is always a nice touch because it's so positive you can't helped but feel overwhelmed with gratitude.

My next sight I thought was photo worthy it's a few, men, um watering the grass.

I thought I'd share a couple of pictures here because not many people really get to see the marathon village and it is very different than most other marathons you might run considering the amount of runners (approx. 44,000)

Here is KK at the entrance of the marathon village bundled up for our long wait in the cold.

Most runners have to be here about 3 hrs before the start of the race so you most runners bring blankets and throw away clothes but there were a few out here with just running clothes.

The village is also set up with coffee and tea for the runners and some entertainment that was probably more fun for the out of towners than for me. I didn't really care to here some stale blues band before my run, but hey it added to the atmosphere, so why not?

Mary Wittenberg (below) head of New York Road Runners (http://www.nyrr.org/) being interviewed by NY 1 reporter, I'm guessing she may not be a runner.

Runners from all over the world come to NYC for this massive event which earns more than any other single sporting event in New York.

This group from Peru were smart enough to bring sleeping bags for their wait in the cold.

So I split up from KK and went to to my corral and waited alone for what seemed like forever, with 15 minutes to spare before the race I decided it might be a good idea to go to the porto potty and take care of some last minute, um, stuff. I came out less than a minute later and everyone in my corral had vanished and ran to catch up with them but it was too late they have moved up to the start and I was shut up even before they opened the corrals for the 2nd wave, ugh. Note to self: being in a corral does not mean you will not get shut out of your wave start. Ahh well such is life, whats another 20 minutes or so standing around in the cold.

So as heard Frank Sinatra's voice over the P.A. crooning 'New York, New York' and listened to other runners complain to race officials about missing their start I just stood around quietly frustrated that I was spending extra time on my injured foot but I also vowed to not let this get me down. When it was my turn to start Frank came on the loud speaker once again and I put a smile on my face, after all it's the New York City Marathon and it doesn't get much bigger than this.

As I took the bridge I watched other runners zoom pass me as if they were trying to catch the bus on the way to work, while others posed for pictures on the bridge with their friends, and still others wore costumes to gain some attention from the crowd. It was the start of a spectacle that would last 26.2 miles.

When you get on to 4th avenue you'll hear the non stop cheering the last through the race. When people ask what it's like to run this thing I often like to say that "it's like driving a Toyota Corolla in the Indi. 500" you don't really belong there with these elite athletes and you certainly don't deserve all that fan fare, but there it is and it's pretty amazing at that.

By mile 6 I did a little check in with myself and was surprised I was holding up as well as I was doing, considering last year I was starting to feel achy. It's been said that you'll know how well you'll do in a marathon by mile 6 and so far I find that to be true.

I suppose the real trick for me so far was ignoring the time and how fast I wanted to go and just took in the race one mile at a time, and even more important I made sure I enjoyed it. How? every time I caught myself worrying about my pace or if my injuries were going to act up I focused on my surroundings and thought how lucky I was and added a touch of gratitude and carried on. This wasn't a race for me, I was doing this for the love of running and the marathon and NY in particular. Funny thing how the stress just melts away when you remember why you do these things in the first place.

After passing my old neighborhood (Park Slope) we passed another marathon staple the High School band the plays the theme from Rocky non stop through out the race. It may seem like a silly thing but it's really a great moment and feels really random when you first hear it.

By this point I always run into a fellow runner on the course and friend Lynn Bradley, Lynn and I met while taking speed classes at NYRR. In the speed classes I always managed to be a pace group ahead of her and I often was faster than her in the short distance races in the NY marathon I would see her on a regular basis and we'd run together for a couple of miles or close enough that we'd keep seeing each other. At some point I would burn out (mile 20 or so) and Lynn would keep going and has run a 3:33-3:35 marathon consistently and I would kick myself at the end for not training for this properly and falling short of that by 10 minutes or worse.

More importantly ,the thing I notice about Lynn during these marathons is that she never seems stressed she's always smiling and is actually enjoying the whole process of running. I remember seeing her 2 yrs ago at mile 18 or 20 pulling over to the side to hug some friends and I thought she was crazy wasting valuable PR time but she didn't because she came though the same as always. The point is she doesn't take this too seriously, sure she trains hard but instead of dreading it she keeps embraces it and instead of worrying about her time she enjoys the race and always seemed to be in the moment. I didn't see Lynn this year (probably because of the wave start mix up) but I did think of her often and every time I worried not finishing I remembered Lynn and I remembered to be in the moment and just enjoy myself.

By mile 11 I was close to home in Willamsburg where I knew to expect some familiar faces, or at least some people with NBR t-shirts on cheering on their team. I saw a few members at the hydration stations (NBR volunteers at mile 12 for the past 2 years to support the team and local runners) Sure enough by mile 12 I was able to get a few high fives and one of the runners even ran after me to offer me bananas, which I gladly took.

Here are a couple of friends waiting on me on to show up on Manhattan Ave. (in Greenpoint) but they didn't see me, probably because they were busy posing for these pictures.

Before I knew it I was at the halfway point remembering the previous year and where my I.T. band started to give out. Today though I was strangely o.k.
In Queens I saw friends holding up signs for KK (they didn't see her again fro the 3rd year in a row) I ran over to them and gave them a hug and ran off.

The dreaded Queensboro bridge, many runner have a hard time with this or start to feel achy at this point as I checked in with myself I knew that if I could run the bridge without taking a break I would finish the whole marathon. My goal as I said in the previous post was to have fun but really I would have been o.k. just making over the bridge and then dropping out if I had to.

So what happened? I made it over the bridge onto the roaring crowd of first avenue (my favorite part) I saw KK's parents gave her mom a hug and went off, and unlike last year I felt great it was almost too good to be true, with 10 miles to go I knew I was going to finish this thing.

At mile 20 in the Bronx I ran into Fernando from NBR and we ran for a little as he took off he encouraged me to pick it up and at that point I looked at my watch and realized if I did pick up the pace even just a little I would easily break four hrs. But I remembered I wasn't in this to do any certain time and if I break four hrs or not is no big deal anyway and more important if I start to pick it up and race I would risk my foot, so I just waved him on and was kind of proud of myself for keeping my ego in check.

Then there's this guy, who obviously doesn't care about his time, he's dressed as a snail and he ran beside me almost the entire race.

At mile 24 I was greeted by Cara, Dave, and Michael so I stopped for a few to say hello and take a picture.

I think KK (in Blue) was a little less enthusiastic about running at this point than I was.


Oddly enough I didn't feel any pain till after mile 25 when I started to limp because my foot had swelled up and the injury I was dreading was finally kicking in. I realize now it probably happened because I stopped to say hello and started to run again. at this point all I could do was loosen my shoe laces and just tough it out. Luckily that was the worst of it. I crossed the finish in 4:11 and change (chip time) as the clock read 4:38 and I was just happy to finish and not have to use any of that cab money I brought with me that I thought I'd be using.





So yes, much to my surprise I did actually finish this year. The lesson of the day? 'be in the moment and enjoy every bit of it'

This may not have been my fastest but it was the most fun, and isn't that really the point? I guess it only took 16 or so marathons to figure that out. :)

New York City Marathon 2010 pt. 1.

What another race report? Booooooring. Well what do expect this is mostly a running blog, remember about my exploits of running and life on the run and so on? Oh what is a runner to do?

So where do start? I know, how about with my last long run leading up to the marathon?

So this is my last 20 miler leading up to the NY marathon and seeing how I'm from NY I might as well make the best of it and run the last 18 and do another 2 in Central Park.

So I get up one day with my special someone, we travel out to my old hood Park Slope to mile 8 and proceed to do a run I've done many a time before except this time yours truly is a bit on the gimpy side.

I've whined about before about an inflamed metatarsal on my right foot which showed up sometime in June as a result of wearing light weight neutral light weight shoes and trying to improve my running form. Now I have pain and symptoms of neuroma that really threw my form out of whack and effected my left I.T. band making running literally a pain in the ass as well as my leg .

So my training has been only 3 days a week with very mild bike riding in between and barely any walking because I learned that to walk is to say ouch.

So I run this last 20 mile thing and quickly notice that this beast of a marathon is all up hill and to make it worse it's like running on the side of a hill (AKA uneven surfaces), which is a popular way to get I.T. band syndrome according to Runners World. But most of this is only noticeable when you are under trained or injured, and in my case I was under trained because of my injury. Hmmm.

So to say the least that last 20 was hell and I kept thinking am I going to finish a whole 26 miles? this last 20 took just about everything out of me.

Well with my lame leg and f'n foot I needed to do something in the way of cross training I chose doing yoga daily, I mean every fracking day for the last for 2 months (that was for any Battlestar Galactica fans out there.)

But was yoga helping any? yes, and to a point, I feel much looser in my leg, which is so tight I can feel my I.T. pulling it as I cross my legs.

It also helped more with my confidence and being OK with the idea of not racing or maybe even bailing out halfway through if need be.

Anyway my next longish run after that is 13 miles, and guess what? 13 miles is still hell.

And what of my next tapered long run of 8 miles? out of breath and no speed. Mmm, not good.

After that I just went with a last minute plan, run this bitch as slow as I can till the pain becomes unbearable then take the cab home.

So my next few runs were not too encouraging either. my last run 3 days before the marathon was 3 miles and after 2 messages, ibuprofen, ice baths, foam roller, and a couple of visits to the foot doctor guess what?? I was still in pain!

3 miles, only 3 miles I'd have to run another 23 on top of that. It would take a miracle for me to finish this thing. I was so mad at myself for trying to fix what wasn't broke in the first place and hurting myself, I didn't even want to run this anymore and I couldn't wait for November 7th to come and go.

So what happens? I get my friend to do a little acupuncture on my foot and head out to the marathon expo to pick up my race number oggle the running merch or as I like to think of it 'porn for runners.' This years theme 'compression.'

It seemed like there was compression gear everywhere, arm warmers and compression socks and more all different colors with funky styles to make you feel like the dorky super hero you always wanted to be.

That aside there are great deals to be had at these expos, I bought a box of 24 power gels for $15., that's half off. HALF OFF!!! How can you not buy it?

The day before my marathon I set up all my stuff. KT tape to tape up my leg (www.kttape.com) my I.T. band strap, my compression gear including a pair of arm warmers I made from a pair of socks (hey why pay for something you can make at home with 2 snips of a scissor?) I also was wearing extra padding for my forefoot, and decided to leave my garmin at home and not worry about my time or splits . After that I set my alarm for 4:30 am. got in bed and began reading Russel Simmons book 'Do You.'

I got to an very interesting part of the book that had to do with 'being in the moment', and it was like a bell went off in my head. Yes be in the moment because when you're in the future you're worried about the outcome of something that may not even happen, when you're in the past you're dwelling on what could have been all the while never being in the moment the right now.

It also helped me to sleep, sleeping the night before a marathon is the worst for me, hell the whole week before sucks. I just have problems sleeping. But that's because I was always focusing on not sleeping and what if I wake up, and if I don't get enough sleep I won't be able to do well. And worse now because I'm injured. But this time I focused on the moment, the breath the quiet around me and soon I was able to remove the chatter from my brain and sleep. And I did it again when I woke up in the middle of the night, instead of thinking OMG it happened again and I'm only getting 2 hrs sleep before the big event I was able to put myself in moment and forget about what would happen if I didn't get sleep and so on.

To some of you this may be no big deal for for me it was huge, I've run many a race and marathon on fumes and let me tell you it's no fun. So waking up at 4:30 and about 5 hrs sleep under my belt I felt great.

I got up and told myself it was going to be a great day and I was going to have fun and that was it, along with finish injury free that was my goal.

So what happens next? aaah, that my friends is to be continued...

CHRISTOPHER MCDOUGALL is at it again

Chris McDougall has a blog in the NY Times which is well worth a read but I need to correct him here. He goes on about barefoot running and now is considered some kind of spokes person for the latest running craze. So before you throw out your running shoes you might want to read my post.

"Hang on — if running is bad for humans, why isn’t it bad for every animal?” Dogs run on sidewalks, elephants trot for miles across baked African savannas, reindeer bound across solid ice on rock-hard hoofs, yet they don’t get shinsplints and Achilles tendinitis. How come every other creature gets along just fine on its own limbs except us?"

Quoted from his blog http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/born-to-run-the-marathon/

Well think about this. When was the last time you saw a dog run 26.2 miles? are these elephants doing speed work around the track bi-weekly? and just how many legs do reindeer run on? Or better yet any monkeys or apes running 26.2 miles? Thats what I thought.

Kenyans run barefoot right? until they get free shoes donated to them and they jump right into them.
What about the story of animal hunters wearing down other animals? Are they running on a track doing? doing tempo runs? or racing every weekend? chances are they are more likely to do stop and go running and something they were raised doing. And lets not forget there lives are filled with physical hard work and heavy lifting, when was the last time you dragged a dead carcase back home from where you killed it?

And what of the tribe in Mexico? they are running sandals that are one inch thick, hardly barefoot. If we're getting injured a lot it's because we're over doing it. Do you treat track work and tempo runs like a race? are you pushing yourself too hard too soon? are you getting enough rest? do you run on an injury?

I'm just dropping this here because many of us (including myself ) are injured runners. Looking for a quick and easy answer isn't the way to go.

And by the way Mr. Mcdougall says he weighed about 240 Lbs. That is roughly 100 more Lbs than I am. Anyone carrying that much weight around is sure to have problems running.

He could have easily had the same results by stronger and losing weight with lifting.

I'm not saying barefoot running is not good for short runs to get your feet stronger but running races barefoot is smartest thing to do. And by the way many of those barefoot runners I do see at road races are the slower runners.
you want to be a faster and better runner? follow Mebs or Paulas training plan not some guy who's selling his book.