~Philadelphia Marathon 11/23/08~

[Theta]

Sorry guys, another Aamp.

WHew, my hectic weekend is over and when I woke up this morning I thought I could leisurely have a cup of coffee to catch up , go to yoga and maybe get a few miles in, but nooo. I was called to substitute teach in my kids school, they don't call me very often because I am new on the list, so I said yes without asking questions. Well it was for 1st grade! I am exhausted and need to sleep for about 3 days...

I promise I will catch up tomorrow.

 

[jbucci]

Congrats to everyone for getting leaves up. I have plenty here if anyone needs to come and do more cross training I rationalized they were too wet to rake over the weekend, so am happily procrastinating.

Selfish post to complain about how long a LR takes when you jog slowly-- just finished 14 miles in just under 3 hours, now I must get some sleep but am a bit too awake after running so I am about to watch mindless tv until my body is willing to fall asleep.

Happy Tuesday everyone

 

[Optimator]

Greetings All!

Jen - WTG getting the big miles in. Guessing you did an evening TM run?

Lou - Very ingenious leaf blowing! Not only moved into position for pickup, but nice and clean too. I'm sure the city will appreciate that.

Sara - Great race! It's good that it served it's purpose and you are confident and ready to go.

Dave - Sorry to hear the hip is still hurting. Is dropping down to the half an option since registration is full? It might not be a bad idea to check.

ThetaVeggieBeta - Kathy taught first grade before her current kid hiatus. I used to go in to help her quite a bit and let me just say, there 'aint enough money printed to make that a career choice for me! And she had a good bunch of kids.

Howard - Sorry to hear you're still battling the PF. Be patient and be smart.


Jodi - How's your "It hurts if I sit with my left leg crossed over my right wrist and cough twice while doing the hokey-pokey" hip flexor deal?

Is Bruce going to be your rabbit for Philly? Take off and run fast for a few portions of the course to see if you can keep up?


Cindy - I didn't realize you still had a big LR on the schedule. Are you truly in taper mode now or do you still have some more double digits to do?

Chick Pea and Chester - You guys still out there?


Enough about you goofballs. As for me, whatever bug I had that was making my head pound finally went away over the weekend. I did get a 10 and a 6 miler in towards the end of the week and that was about it.

Then I knocked out 20 miles this morning. Everything went just fine but let me tell you, after running LR's of 20+ miles 3 out of the last 4 weekends (plus a day for today's Monday run), I'm about over it!

I don't even want to think about jumping into Goofy training after Philly.

 

[msblrobs]

Happy Veteran's Day Thanks to our servicemen and women

Speaking of Chick Pea, I'm a little worried about Steve being MIA for so long and Philly being NEXT weekend . However, I'm real glad that Jen is running the 1/2 as well so I won't feel all alone

Mike - Yeah on the 20 done . Kathy's previous occupation as a 1st grade teacher sheds so much light on where she developed her patience and tolerance .

Colleen - You ARE brave . I hope you've gotten some rest and regained some sense of sanity today . Just from the stories my 2nd grader tells me, you had your work cut out for you for sure .

Lou - You did have a great running week last week . Give the knees a break this week and wind down in the home stretch .

Dave - Glad you're taking it easy on the hip and it's not a bad idea to explore your options for the distance . Have you seen a doc ?

Howard - You have my deepest sympathies . Sorry the PF is still haunting you and causing mounting frustration about next weekend. No words of wisdom except do as little as possible and know your endurance is in the bag so your best bet for next weekend is staying off the foot .

Cindy - Hopefully you've shaken off the 16 iffy miles well before now. Go look at your running log and know that run was a fluke You're gonna rock Philly for sure

Jodi - How sweet of Bruce to run circles around you and use you as his point of reference . He's just overflowing with anticipation of seeing all of us next weekend so I'm sure he was just trying to burn off the excess energy from all of the excitement . Glad you had a training partner along for the ride and awesome job on the six miles

Nothing for me yesterday since I was a bit wiped - not too sore but just a generalized feeling like carp . I'm feeling motivated this morning, most likely inspired by my Skittles binge last night, so I'm going to jump on the TM in a moment for 5 miles.

Have a great day and if I haven't mentioned it lately, I'm looking forward to hanging with WISH'ers next weekend

 

[Jodi]

Hey Goobs! Happy Vet's Day

Mike - Congrats on the 10, 6, then 20 miler! . Now please rest up a bit, eh? It all makes sense to me now...Kathy's occupation & her husband's demeanor... . oooh, Goofy training, bet you can't wait!

Howeird - How are ya hangin' in there? How's the foot? Leaves for CT...good idea, but I, like Jen, believe it's much too wet for me to get out there & do anything . Did the insert help @ all?

Dave - Sorry the hip sucks. Listen, there's no pressure in all this runnin' stuff, right? It's supposed to be enjoyable, please adopt my happy-go-lucky carefree attitude. I think I read somewhere on their site early on that you could drop to the 1/2 or up to the full, but there's be no refunds, blah,blah,blah. Check it out & let us know what you come up with!

Sara - Nice RACE! What a great time, you must be inspired for the 1/2!! See, a little money is enough to motivate anyone! . I hope chickpea doesn't bail out on this fun-Philly-frolic!

ChickPea - Are you bailing out on the fun-Philly-frolic? I'm callin' you out, boy! 'Cause I KNOW you're lurking! .

Chester - How're you feelin?

ThetaTeacher - UGH! First grade? Hope that little stint paid enough for the Philly AND Disney trip! That's all you, sistah!

Jen - WOW, nice mileage...what does that feel like? . Hope you were able to fall asleep quickly! Tapering now???

Lou-eeLou-I - Whooaaa! Nice job on that 12 miles! Wish I could say I did something like that recently . How are you feeling today?

AM I THE ONLY ONE IN SERIOUS TAPER-MODE?

I ran Sunday for a little while & took yesterday off to go to my torture guy. He "found" that issue & yes, it was my hip flexor thingie. He stuck 3 needles in there , and the muscle FREAKED. After about 5 seconds (which seemed like minutes) it settled down & just ached. It had been feeling better over the weekend, but I'm glad I went b/c clearly it wasn't resolved. I'll run a bit today after I leave work early...again & see how it goes. Still not ruling out doping myself up with ibuprofen & Tylenol b4 the marathon.

 

[Mouse Skywalker]

Hey everyone: Thanks for your support. Sorry about the AAMP (I like that abbreviation Colleen). No, I haven't seen a doctor about my hip yet. I figure I might as well wait until after the marathon at this point. I know it's too late to officially switch from the full to the half marathon (you needed to do that by Oct 31st). However, since the half and the full use the same course, I thought if I'm feeling bad at the halfway point that I could bail out and just finish the half. We'll see how it goes. It's probably not a good mental attitude to know that I can bail out on the full and just run the half.

 

[Jodi]

It's probably not a good mental attitude to know that I can bail out on the full and just run the half.

Listen, you know your body well enough to assess whether or not you'll be able to finish a full or not. Your approach to this is low-key, as it should be...none of us are getting paid to finish this marathon, right? I KNOW we all want to finish, and finish well, but sometimes I need to talk myself down & put the proper perspective on this stuff. It will be ok if I don't "do well". Come on all you scholars, help me out...what's the saying about true merit being tested not by how many times you succeed but how many times you are able to rise again after a fall, blah, blah, blah. It's all good, man! (Somebody remind me of this on race morning).

 

[rKyDeX]

Chester - How're you feelin?

Jodi
My two week break is over. I'm scheduled for 4 miles tonight, but today is my Mom's birthday and I'm taking her out to dinner. I may be sliding my run back a day.

I'm just planning on doing easy runs to freshen up my legs until the race. I'll have to see how things feel on race day as far as what time I plan on finishing in. Right now I'm thinking anywhere between 10-12 mpm is likely.

Chester

 

[msblrobs]

Listen, you know your body well enough to assess whether or not you'll be able to finish a full or not. Your approach to this is low-key, as it should be...none of us are getting paid to finish this marathon, right? I KNOW we all want to finish, and finish well, but sometimes I need to talk myself down & put the proper perspective on this stuff. It will be ok if I don't "do well". Come on all you scholars, help me out...what's the saying about true merit being tested not by how many times you succeed but how many times you are able to rise again after a fall, blah, blah, blah. It's all good, man! (Somebody remind me of this on race morning).

Love that Jodi's full of wisdom today and requesting we recite these same words of wisdom back to her on race morning . Dave, it IS all good and Jodi's completely right about this whole endeavor. No glory in possibly risking further injury by trying to go too long - believe me, I nearly DNF'd WDW because 26.2 is too long to run with an injury. Either bail out at 13.1 or hang with our resident walker Colleen for the final 1/2 of the marathon .

 

[CynthiaCindy]

Hi everyone – I feel very behind on the thread – I need to respond to posts from last Monday - I need to catch up!

Cindy~ I find it really hard to just go out for an easy run. I always want to push myself (to an extent) during my training to see what I am made of so that during a race, I know what my limits are. Make sense?

Howard – I do know what you mean and that used to be my plan too, but I really like the training philosophy that I’ve been following this time around – run really easy on easy days so that you don’t wear yourself out and are able to give full effort on hard days. (Ok, maybe part of me likes it because it gives me an excuse to run 11+ minute miles). I’m really sorry the PF is still proving to be a PITA. I’m going to second the advice that Sara gave you earlier today.

Cindy - My unsolicited race pace opinion: Finishing strong is great and all for you mentally, but I think most of us non-elites have to face the fact that we're not going to run significantly negative splits in a marathon.

You've trained your booty off for the purpose of getting a good time. Establish a quick, but doable pace right away (nothing crazy fast, mind you) and hang on as long as you can. Conversely, if you start out conservatively then decide at mile 16 you still feel good, how much can you realistically pick up the pace at that point? It's too late to get back those lost minutes.

If I'm shooting for a PR, I'd much rather run a strong 20 or 21 miles and fight last few miles than to finish decently and be slower overall. And all your training should ensure that those strong 20 or 21 may very well be 23 or 24.

Mike – Thanks, your advice is always welcome! To clarify, I don’t really care about finishing strong. I don’t care if I fade in the last few miles, I just want to prevent completely falling apart so that I am doing so much walking at the end that it completely destroys my time.

Cindy The only way I will run with my peeps is if it is mutually agreed upon that should one of us (you, et al) feel better than the other (me), they'll just keep going. None of this martyr-like "no way man, we're in this together" BS . That's good for like, mountaineering or something, but not running!

Jodi – Of course - you know that’s how I roll (seeing as I did pass my obviously not feeling so great husband in both of the marathons we’ve run with nothing more than a “see you at the finish!” ) I hope getting poked with needles made your hip thingy problem better.

Cindy - I didn't realize you still had a big LR on the schedule. Are you truly in taper mode now or do you still have some more double digits to do?

I've got 12 this weekend.

Then I knocked out 20 miles this morning. Everything went just fine but let me tell you, after running LR's of 20+ miles 3 out of the last 4 weekends (plus a day for today's Monday run), I'm about over it!

I don't even want to think about jumping into Goofy training after Philly.

Nice job on the 20
I'm really feeling like I'm kinda over this whole running thing too. I really don't know how I'm going to motivate myself to train for the Goofy

Dave - I don't think anyone would think you were bailing if you finished at the half. The most important thing is to not cause any permanent injury.

Colleen – Have you recovered from yesterday? I hope you were able to have a calmer day today.

Sara – Awesome job on the 15K!

Lou – Love the image of you power washing the leaves!

Jen – I love the Halloween costumes you made – great job!

Chester – I hope your first run back tomorrow goes well!

Krista – Hi! I'm guessing you are still lurking.

It’s almost time for me to start obsessing about the weather. I've already started obsessing about not getting sick. I take the Metro into work and, although I'm not normally one of those germaphobe people, being cramped in the crowded car this morning with all the people sniffling, sneezing, and coughing about did me in.

12 more days!

 

[CynthiaCindy]

If you click on entry confirmation on the Philly Marathon Website, it will tell you your bib number. Since there are no corrals (Am I right, Lou?), not sure if anyone really cares what their bib number is, but I thought I'd pass the info along . . .

 

[Theta]

If you click on entry confirmation on the Philly Marathon Website, it will tell you your bib number. Since there are no corrals (Am I right, Lou?), not sure if anyone really cares what their bib number is, but I thought I'd pass the info along . . .

Thanks for info Cindy.

Lou, tell us about the marathon course. I need to get hyped about this race, I memorized the entire Chicago Marathon course when I ran it, but I know nothing about Philadelphia. What will we see? Is it pretty flat? Will we run by/through parks or just a concrete jungle for 26 miles?

Oh and what about the weather? I should go and start following that.

 

[Theta]

Saturday Night, Nov 22
Low: 26 °F RealFeel®: 14 °F

 

[CynthiaCindy]

Saturday Night, Nov 22
Low: 26 °F RealFeel®: 14 °F

Um, that is unacceptable. Lou we need it a little warmer.

 

[Optimator]

Thanks for info Cindy.

Lou, tell us about the marathon course. I need to get hyped about this race, I memorized the entire Chicago Marathon course when I ran it, but I know nothing about Philadelphia. What will we see? Is it pretty flat? Will we run by/through parks or just a concrete jungle for 26 miles?

Oh and what about the weather? I should go and start following that.

Am I the only one a little underwhelmed by the official website? A halfway decent course map would be a nice thing.

RealFeel = 14 degrees?? Whose silly idea was it to run a race above the Mason-Dixon line in late November? Oh wait...

I'd rather do a later fall marathon (Philly, Richmond?) to get some quality training in the cooler weather.

...idiot!

 

[msblrobs]

Saturday Night, Nov 22
Low: 26 °F RealFeel®: 14 °F

Cold, snow & rain are a definite deal breaker! I don't want to see men in tights!!

 

[lourodrigis]

Wow...lots of hype building on the thread. Nice. I was very jammed up with work the last 2 days. I actually passed out around 8PM last night and didn't wake up until now.

Corrals - There were none last year. Last year you lined up based on your "estimated" completion time. Most people over estimate so expect to have lots of slow people in front of you for the first few miles.

Course - It's basically a warped figure 8. The first half is through various parts of Center City and the second half is mostly in Fairmount Park.

You start at the Art Museum and head down the Parkway towards City Hall. You work your way past various historic tourist attractions until you hit the Delaware River (aka Penns Landing). It's a couple of miles along the river and then you head back towards Center City. You hit lots of screaming/cheering people along South Street and Walnut Street from miles 5-7.

You then cross over a bridge (Schuykill River) and now you are in University City (Drexel, Penn, etc.). Lots of screaming/drunk college kids to cheer you on until Mile 8.5. After that you enter the western side of Fairmount Park and will pass such sites as the Phila Zoo and Memorial Hall, home of the 1876 World's Fair and now home of the Please Touch Museum. This one section of the course that will challenge you with terrain (winding with hills).

At Mile 11 you run downhill and hit the west side of the Schuylkill River (beautiful place to run and row). You'll run along the river for 2 miles as you head back towards the Art Museum. At 13.1 you are at the Art Museum and the 1/2 people bail and the rest of us sulk and realize we have 13.1 more to go.

Miles 13.1 to 19 are along the east side of the Schuykill River. You'll see the Kenyans passing by on the left as they are finishing the race.

At Mile 19, just when you are hitting the wall, you get off the river and enter Main Street in Manayunk. Thousands of screaming/drunk people will be waiting for you. Last year there was a Yuengling beer stand as you enter. Lots of restaurants and bake shops will be handing out food. The brownies at LeBus bakery saved me last year. You loop down main street. Up to Mile 20 and then run back down the other side of the street until Mile 22.

At Mile 22 you are back on the east side of the Schuylkill River. It's 4 miles along the river...mostly by yourself and with other tired runners. When you hit the Art Museum at Mile 26 you'll see the crowds. You run around the museum and just as you come to the steps you are at the FINISH LINE.

It's actually a nice course. Not as much mind-draining dead spots as WDW but you don't run threw a castle either.

Weather - Lets not complain about the cold. I ran Disney races on both coasts in the last year and both were warm/hot and humid. I wanted to puke the last 6 miles at WDW due to humidity. I'll never complain about cold. Just throw on layers and take them off if you get hot. I'm planning to run the entire race in warm up pants (1 to stay warm and 2 to block the wind).

No running Monday or yesterday. I think I'll wing it for 4 miles right now. See ya...

Lou

 

[lourodrigis]

Listen, you know your body well enough to assess whether or not you'll be able to finish a full or not. Your approach to this is low-key, as it should be...none of us are getting paid to finish this marathon, right? I KNOW we all want to finish, and finish well, but sometimes I need to talk myself down & put the proper perspective on this stuff. It will be ok if I don't "do well". Come on all you scholars, help me out...what's the saying about true merit being tested not by how many times you succeed but how many times you are able to rise again after a fall, blah, blah, blah. It's all good, man! (Somebody remind me of this on race morning).

If you are in need of last minute motivation watch this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30vaiubhf3c

 

[Optimator]

Thanks Lou! Now that's the type of info I'm looking for. Knowing about people passing out brownies and a beer stand is crucial information!

Maybe you could hire yourself out to the race organizers to jazz up the website a bit.


Sara - The tights are a distinct possibility. And I may not even wear shorts over them.

 

[lourodrigis]

Thanks Lou! Now that's the type of info I'm looking for. Knowing about people passing out brownies and a beer stand is crucial information!

Maybe you could hire yourself out to the race organizers to jazz up the website a bit.

Mike - I must say that I skipped the beer but the brownies were incredible. I get bagels from LeBus bakery all the time so when I saw this woman handing out brownies on Main St with a Lebus shirt I had to stop. They were so good I caught her again on the way back and grabbed a couple. I honestly believe they got me through the last 4 miles. I think I forgot to mention that the kids at Drexel usually pass out beer as well.