NYRR adidas Run for the Parks 4M - Marathon Qualifier 4/9

Sunday morning I did the NYRR's adidas Run for the Parks 4 Miler. This is my fourth NYRR race out of the nine required to qualify. It was in Central Park at the Bethesda Terrace. I didn't know what Bethesda Terrace was, so I googled it and found that it's like a big patio in Central Park with some sculpture, some interlocking stone, and a fountain. It's sorta in the center of the Park.

One cool thing about all these NYRR races is that I'm learning a lot about NYC. It's kinda sad that I've lived in Parsippany/Whippany all my life except for my time in college and I think I've been into the city maybe a total of 30 times. That includes the 15 or so weekends I followed my high school friends to Columbia University for a science program. I can probably name all the times I've been there, but I won't bore you with that. Most of the other times I've been into the city it was to go to a party at someone's apartment. I haven't done a whole lot in the city that was a result of my own planning. So, these races have been really cool for me. I'm learning a lot about how the city works and where everything is and I'm enjoying that.

I thought I was running a little late because the web site said registration ended at 9 am and I was just getting to around 71st Street at 8:55 am. I am the worst at finding parking and I didn't want to risk losing my registration fee, so I just bit the bullet and parked in a garage. Cost? $35. That's what always annoyed me about the city. Parking can be difficult. In the past I wouldn't really know where you were allowed to park, so I would always just find a garage. Lately I've been driving around a bit and I've been pretty lucky. I hate when you see a big gap between cars and you get all excited and then BAM, there's the hydrant. What a let-down. Anyway, the more I go into the city, the more I'm realizing there are usually roads in the vicinity of wherever you're going that have no meters and can have tons of parking. If I lived in NYC, I would ditch the car. It would be cool if there was a ZipCar at the Morristown train station.

It turned out they were doing registration up until the beginning of the race, so I was an hour early. It sucked to be so early because it was raining pretty hard. I was hoping that nobody would show up because of the rain, but that didn't happen. The race was a benefit for the parks and they had all sorts of sponsors like Clif Bar, Adidas, Sobe, Crunch Gym, and Commerce Bank. I walked around to all the sponsors and collected Clif Bars, frisbees, bags and what not. I was wearing my Burton Winter shell as a rain coat, which works pretty well, but I was getting soaked anyway. I brought all my stuff with me because I didn't want the garage attendant to walk off with it. Unfortunately, my bag wasn't water-tight, so a particular electronic device of mine got damaged. I got it replaced, but they must have given me a refurbished model because it has a few new problems that I almost think are worse than the problems the water caused. :-/

It was getting close to race time, so I took off my rain coat, stuffed it in my bag and checked it in the baggage area. By the way, baggage security at NYRR events is worthless. They have a guy at the entrance and the exit of the baggage area. They're only looking at the people who are leaving the baggage area. When you leave they look at your bib and make sure the number on the bib matches the number on the little baggage square you tore off the bib and pinned to the bag. So, if you want to steal a bag, you just walk into the baggage area and pin the square onto the bag you want and walk out with it. They shouldn't let anyone into the baggage area. You should have to hand them the bag with the square on it and they put the bag in the appropriate place. When you want your bag you show them your bib and they go find the bag. I guess they figure runners are a pretty honest bunch.

Anyway, race was pretty standard. 3,600 people running around the park. The rain was pretty miserable. As usual, I get hot pretty quick and have to start shedding things like my hat or sleeves. Nothing interesting to report. Just the familiar pain in my side. I think it would help if I hadn't gained some weight since November. I'm having a hard time motivating myself. I've been trying to figure out what's holding me back. I have a pretty busy schedule, but that hasn't changed much from the summer. I do have some back pain, and can post more on that later, but the weird thing is that my back always feels better after a run. It's usually just one thing that gets me going and I'm like train at full speed. You can just read my posts from the summer and you can see how loopy I am about cooking healthy and running. Just haven't found that trigger yet. I have a half marathon on this upcoming Sunday. Maybe finishing that will get me going.

NYRR adidas Run for the Parks 4M - Bib # 9234
Central Park
New York, NY
April 23, 2006, 10:00 am
Weather: 54 deg., 97% hum., rain

Net Time: 38:28
Overall Place: 2523/3647
Age Place: 671/784
Gender Place: 1636/2017
Pace: 9:37

Complete Results (Link to NYRR site)

I've got a half marathon this weekend. The furthest I've ever run is 9 miles, so this will be interesting. Don't forget to join Team Factory Interactive for the Army Ten Miler! Space is limited.

Next Three Races:

Sunday April 30 - 8am	Long Branch, NJ	The Gold's Gym 2-Person Marathon Relay (HM)
Sunday May 14 - 8am	Central Park	New York Junior League Mother’s Day Co-Ed 5K
Wednesday May 17 - 6:30pm	Financial District	American Heart Association Wall Street Run & Heart Walk (5K)

...and I'm Just Getting Started.

Free Business Ideas

Given the relative success of Dairy Queen, I present to you a couple of ideas for other businesses that may take off. I'm not really sure why these haven't been thought of sooner...

Vegetable King - A fast food type place where you can get cut up sticks of celery, baby carrots and other Crudités. Mmmm. Look out Burger King. By the way, why the hell have we as Americans agreed to use the word Crudités? It's really not necessary to dress up "raw vegetables." Veggies and Dip sounds cool and everyone knows what you're talking about. And in this post-9/11 world we live in, shouldn't we be calling them Freedom Veggies anyway?

...and my favorite:

Meat Jester - This could be something totally off the wall. Something you would expect from a Jester. Maybe home delivered salami. You'd wake up, go to the front door and as you bend over to pick up the newspaper, you'd get beamed in the head with a salami thrown from the Meat Jester himself. He'd be wearing a Jester's outfit and he would laugh, do a little dance, and point at you. You'd wave and yell "Thanks Meat Jester!"

Cherry Blossom 10K Run

I ran an NYRR race this morning, but before I give the briefing on that, I need to catch up a little.

On April 9, 2006, I ran the Cherry Blossom 10K Run. This is actually my first 10K. "What?!", you exclaim. "Jon, didn't you run a 10K in Virginia?", you might ask. No, very observant reader. I was supposed to run a 10K in Virginia, but the hillbillies down there aren't real big on math or time or distance or any of those fancy science terms. Instead, they just let us run some random course and then changed the name to the Leesburg Fun Run. It was actually 12.8K or something, but I digress.

The race was in Newark, NJ (where they know how to measure things like distance) at Branch Brook Park. It was part of the Essex County Cherry Blossom Festival. I guess I'm not mature enough to appreciate the wonder that is the Cherry Blossom. There seems to be all kinds of Cherry Blossom celebrations across the country. Is it the first tree to flower in the spring or something? I saw asian people with cameras (imagine that!) taking pictures of the flowers on the tree. They're pretty and all, but I don't get it. Where's the beer?

The race was my buddy, Yaniv's, idea. He lived in that area for a while I guess and this was one of his annual races. As I had never done a real 10K, I agreed to join him. My friend, Natalie, ran with us too.

Before the race I went into the bathroom and some old dude asked me if I could get the current scores for the Masters on my Garmin Forerunner. I guess he was talking about golf or something. I just laughed politely and did my business. Can I just take this moment to just comment on how backwards Virginians are? I think I had my Garmin down there and I was also using my iPod Nano. You wouldn't believe how many people came up to me to ask about the new fandangled technology. My goodness. You would think we were in West Virginia. I'm not too concerned about insulting anyone because it's clear none of them have even heard about the Web.

Anyway, back to Newark. It was really cold. Yaniv took off before the race to go find his lovely family and I didn't see him again until he was running back the other way on the course. Now, I know Yaniv is a fast MFer, but I'm a little suspicious that he might have started the course up a mile or two. Maybe he found his wife, Tamar and his son, Samuel and then a few minutes later he saw some of the fast runners coming up the path and rather than run back to the start, he just joined them. I know that probably didn't happen and I apologize in advance for even suggesting it, but I looked all over the starting line and I swear he was nowhere to be found. But then, strangely, I saw the guy running the other way at about 2.5 miles. Weird. This is one of those mysteries that may never be solved.

I started the race and everything was cool. Natalie had an injury with her ankle a little while back, so she told me to go on without her. (I never wait for anyone anyway.) I started running and when I got to the first water stop there were some local kids who obviously volunteered (or maybe they were paid?) to hand out water at the water station. One kid was wearing a sweatshirt that said "G-Unit" which is a hip-hop group founded by 50 Cent. I have diverse musical interests and have listened to "In Da Club" more than a few times, so I was familiar with G-Unit. At the end of "In Da Club" fitty says something like "Hahaha! Don't try to act like you don't where we be neither, ni**a. You in da club all the time, ni**a, so go on and pop off, ni**a. G-Unit!" The way he says "G-Unit" at the end sounds more like "Guh guh!" depending on what you play the song on. It sounds funny. For a month or two in 2003 or 2004 I was walking around and going "Guh Guh!" to random people. Fun stuff. Anyway, so I wanted to connect with the kid handing out the water so I said "Thanks. G-Unit!" when I grabbed the water. It made most of the water kids laugh. When I got to another water station, there was nobody wearing any G-Unit fashion, but, once again, I said "Thanks! G-Unit!", and they all appreciated it too.

And then at some point I saw Yaniv coming the other way and yelled our usual "Yeah!" to each other. This is sometimes proceeded by "18!", but that's a story for another time. And then not too far beyond the turnaround point I saw Natalie coming up the other way and I think I yelled something to her, but I forget what it was. It might have been "G-Unit!" or maybe "Hey Fat Tire!" (a reference to the duathlon category she was in). I don't recall.

Between 4 and 5 miles, some people started passing me and although I'd try to catch up with them, they'd quickly push on past me. Finally, at 5 miles, I put the pedal to the metal and picked up the pace pretty good. I passed all those people and a few more. As I was getting close to the finish line I could see the time was like 59:30 and I tried to crank it up another notch, but I didn't have the juice. I came in at just over 1 hour. In fact, it was 29 seconds past the hour.

Afterwards we ate stale bagels and oranges and drank water. We took pictures with the cherry trees and each other. Good times. When we got up to the parking lot, I decided to lie down on the tarmac. I was tired. Pretty soon, a Sheriff car came driving up and asked me if I was okay. ha ha!

Just a side note... while I was running, I noticed a sign for a restaurant called "Nanina's in the Park". My grandparents, on my dad's side, used to take us to a place called "Nanina's in the Park" when we were kids. As 8, 9, 10 year old kids, this place was horrible. I think it might have even been jacket-required. The waiters were all proper and I think they wore white gloves. It was no fun at all. I make fun of my friends, a lot, for being "fancy," but my brother and I were totally fancy growing up. I wonder if this is the same place. My grandparents lived in Newark when that was a cool thing, so it wouldn't surprise me. I wonder if I'd appreciate that place now that I'm older.

I'm not terribly impressed with my performance, but it's still cold out. I have some time to get myself back up to speed. I seem to be in a motivational slump, but I think that'll end soon. I'm working on ending that soon, anyway.

Essex County Cherry Blossom 10K Run
Branch Brook Park
Newark, NJ
April 9, 2006, 10:00 am

Time: 1:00:29
Pace: 9:44
Overall Place: 393/520
Age Place: 77/86
Gender Place: 265/323

Complete Results

...and I'm Just Getting Started.

Recent Brush With Greatness

I almost met Howard Dean at Famished Frog in November. It was a pep-rally of sorts for Jon Corzine.

Rush Holt, a congressman from the Princeton area (12th Congressional District), was there and gave a good speech. He's a decent politician. He's a strong proponent of verfied voting which is necessary, in my opinion. It's hard to believe that 6 years after the 2000 election debacle that we still have a voting system that is considered less fair than the systems used in countries like Peru and Indonesia. I think the voting machines should print your voting selections on a piece of paper that you can review, without handling, before it drops into a locked container. The ballot would have a sequential number on it so nobody could insert extra ballots into the box. Using cryptography, they could hand the voter a slip that would validate the ballot that dropped into the container. However, the voter receipt would not indicate how you voted. This would prevent the "sale" of votes. In case of an election challenge, the voter could come forward with their receipt. The "signature" on the receipt could be used to validate that the ballot being recounted was legitimate. If the original ballot was replaced, the receipt would have a different encrypted signature and then the officials could declare "Shenanigans!"

Anyway, the main act was Howard Dean, who really knows how to work a crowd. That dude should be president. I think we'd be a whole lot better off now with that dude. I don't really remember a lot about what Rush or Howard said, but I remember them being pretty cool. Here's a picture of Howard Dean walking by as he headed to the back door of the bar to get out.



This is actually the second time I almost met Howard Dean. He also walked by me at a Move On event in NYC in November of 2004. At that same event, I was squeezed against the wall by Edie Falco and another actress. I don't have a picture of that.

Upcoming Races

I've registered for 5 more NYRR races bringing the number of NYRR races I've completed or have registered for to 8. That's one short of the 9 I need to qualify. When another race opens for registration, I'll sign up for that. In addition to the 5 NYRR races, I'm also signed up for a half-marathon, a race in DC I'm doing with Dave, and the Army Ten-Miler. Here's my calendar. You're welcome to join me for any of these:

Sunday April 23 - 10am	Central Park	adidas Run for the Parks 4M
Sunday April 30 - 8am	Long Branch, NJ	The Gold's Gym 2-Person Marathon Relay (HM)
Sunday May 14 - 8am	Central Park	New York Junior League Mother’s Day Co-Ed 5K
Wednesday May 17 - 6:30pm	Financial District	American Heart Association Wall Street Run & Heart Walk (5K)
Sunday May 21 - 8:30am	Capitol Hill (DC)	Capitol Hill Classic 10K
Sunday June 4 - 9am	Central Park	NYRR Anniversary Run (4.8K)
Sunday June 18 - 8am	Central Park	WABC Father's Day Fight Against Prostate Cancer (5M)
Sunday October 8 - 8am	Pentagon (DC)	Army Ten-Miler (Link to join Team Factory Interactive)

Daily Dose

I ran 9.1 miles last night. This is the furthest I've ever run. It wasn't bad. I wanted to run 13 miles, but at about 6 miles, I decided I could probably only do about 10 and then at around 9.1 miles I ran out of Gatorade and I was just completely wiped out. I had to walk the rest of the way home. I was so wiped out that I considered hitchhiking the last mile. I just wanted to be done. In total I went about 10.3 miles on foot. The hydration was important. It might just be in my head, but it really seems to make a difference in how far I can go. I'm starting to think I'll need more capacity for the half marathon.



Today my knees are a little sore. That's a new feeling for me. I also feel a little more dopey than usual. In fact when I was running, at around 7 miles, I went to grab a bottle and I pulled out an empty one. I knew it was empty, but I grabbed it anyway. When I realized it was empty I put it back and then I didn't immediately go for the full bottle. It was kinda like when you go upstairs in your house to get something and when you get up there you forget why you were going up there in the first place, so you go back downstairs. After a few minutes you remember why you went upstairs and try again. I feel sorta spacey like that right now. Forming sentences is a bit tricky too.

I also seem to have a problem with my nipples. This is kinda weird, but certain types of fabric wear away at my nipples and cause them to bleed. I had purchased something called NipGuards for this problem, but I don't know where they are. Here's a picture (only click if you can handle these things) of the inside of my shirt after my run. Pretty gross.

Anyway, I'm proud of myself. I'm more confident I'll be able to finish the half marathon in a week and a half.

Daily Dose

Ok, so it's not very daily. I think I only posted one other "Daily Dose"...

Anyway, I ran 3.5 miles this morning. Not a big distance, but I actually intended to run 7 miles. I wore my Fuel Belt, and I think it helped a lot. I put Gatorade in two of the bottles and left two bottles at home. I took about a one ounce sip every half mile or so. I used up the first bottle and I was at about 2.5 miles and I was still thinking I would run another 5 miles, so I decided I would hold off on drinking any more until I got to 3.5 miles. At around 3 miles, I felt a feeling in my head that I normally get around 1.5 miles when I'm not hydrating. It feels sorta like your brain is shrinking and it's starting to bobble around inside your skull. I'm sure theres a normal word for this feeling like "cloudy" or something, but I'm not sure what it is. Anyway, I drank some Gatorade from the second bottle and it almost instantly went away.



It started to rain a little and I started to think about all the work I have to do, so I called it a day at 3.5 miles. I don't feel tired at all and I think if I had less on my mind I would have done 7 miles no problem. That's still a 10K short of the half marathon I need to do in just over two weeks. I want to really kick it up a notch and get back in gear here.

As I've said before, I'm a heavy sweater and I'm impressed with the difference having the Gatorade made. Now I'm thinking 4 bottles might not be enough for me.

I went to the "Gatorade Sports Science Institute" web site and punched my info into their "Fluid Loss Calculator." I pretty much max out their parameters. I guess someone in my shape isn't supposed to be running. Anyway, they claim I need 6 oz of fluid every 15 minutes. For my 10K last Sunday (didn't post about that yet), They suggest I drink 24 oz of Gatorade. AND, they recommend that I drink another 20oz about 2 hours before my run. Obviously they want to sell as much Gatorade as possible, but maybe they're not far off. Maybe I need the bigger Fuel Belt?



So, Hydration = Good. I like the Fuel Belt except that with my gut in the shape it is, the tight belt around my waist makes my belly stick out more than civilized bellies should. Hey, whatchya gonna do? Fogettaboutit!

20th Annual March Madness Biathlon

I did my second duathlon on Sunday, April 2nd. Check-in time started at 6:15am, but since we had to spring ahead on the clocks, I really needed to be at the Central Park boathouse at what felt like 5:15am. Driving to NYC takes about a half hour. I needed about a half hour to shower and about 15 minutes to load my bicycle onto the car. So I got up at 4:30am. I tried to get to bed by 8pm, but I was still getting my stuff together at 9:00pm. I got to bed around 9:30pm and about 20 minutes later my mom decides to call me to tell me about a Geico commercial. :-) A really old Geico commercial. I don't get much sleep normally anyway.

You ever wake up really early and for some reason, you GI system is awake yet? You go shower and everything and then when you're all nice and fresh, then you've gotta go. What's up with that? So I got up real early and headed into the city. I had to go real bad, so I stopped at a Starbucks and sullied their facilities.

My friend, Natalie, was doing the race with her Fat Tire bike (I was racing Narrow Tire) and she had overslept. I don't know why I was getting nervous about her not making it, but it was giving me a stomach ache.

Anyway, I decided to park on the west side of the park and ride my bicycle to the boathouse. (a trick Yaniv taught me) I found a nice spot around 72nd Street and Central Park West in front of an apartment building. I'm not the best parallel parker, so the doorman came out to direct me. Put my bike rack and my pricey bike into the equation and I'm basically inept. He kept telling me I had like 3 feet and then a second later he'd yell STOP! Finally, I decided to take my bike off the rack and collapse the rack so I'd be less distracted. I got parked, put on my bicycle shoes and rode through the park. I didn't really know where I was going, but I saw some other dudes with aerobars on their bikes riding from behind me so I turned around and they're like "Uh Oh! We were following you." We rode a little more and found a mass of bicycles and people in tights, so we knew we were in the right spot.

I should probably back up and mention that I got clipless pedals for my bike. I'm pretty comfortable with them now, but I was unsure of them at first. I was warned that I would probably wipe out with them, but I was pretty determined not to let that happen. I went riding around my neighborhood and had no problems. You want to stop, you just twist your foot out of the pedal before you lose balance and put your foot down.


SpeedPlay X/5 Chrome-Moly Pedal

Well, the first time I went for a real ride with them, I got to an intersection on a slight incline and just couldn't get my foot out in time and down I went. It was kinda weird because it seemed to happen in slow motion. I was so determined not to scratch my bike that I ended up rolling over onto my back in the middle of the road and I swung my bike up into the air above me. The thing is so light that it was easy to keep it off the ground. I also have these fancy shoes with the "Boa System" instead of laces. You just slip them on and spin the wheel to tighten the shoes. This is good for duathlons or triathlons because you don't want to waste a lot of time changing your shoes.


Specialized 2005 BG S-Works Road Shoe

The shoes are really rigid and they have a "cleat" on the bottom that locks into the pedal, so you can't really run in them.

I also recently added "clip-on" aerobars to my bike. These are supposed to make you more aerodynamic. You basically grab the front of the bar and rest your elbows on the pads and just by the way you're positioned, you're pretty much as aerodynamic as you can possibly be on a bike. I really wanted them because I thought that resting my elbows would be less fatiguing than leaning all my upper body weight on the space between my thumb and my index finger. I was told that I should practice using these too as I would, once again, probably wipe out with them. I guess people have trouble steering with all their body centered on the handlebars.


Profile Design Air Stryke

I got these and put them on the bike myself. I'm not really very confident with bicycle maintenance, but I did a decent job putting these on. I may try to improve my bicycle mechanic skills in the future.

Anyway, back to the race. My back has been hurting me for about a month before this race, so I had no intention of pushing myself. I ran a leisurely 2 miles out and it was much easier than I remember last year. When I got back to the transition area, I ran in, took a Clif Shot (Cola flavor with Caffeine), drank some water, put on my cycling shoes and ran my bike out to the road. Clif Shot and all Clif Bar products are the greatest. They really give you the boost of energy you need.



Yeah, so, I got on my bike and pushed pretty hard, but I definitely am not in the same shape I was in November. Ultimately I was 5 minutes slower on the 12 mile ride. I was pretty happy though. Nothing hurt, and I passed a bunch of people. There was one guy who was on a really fancy bike and he was screaming "Come on people MOVE LEFT! MOVE LEFT!" We get it! You're physically superior to us and we're in your way. Shut up! This race is so important that you need to act like an ass? A simple "on your right" would suffice. I wish I was in that guy's way. What a jerkoff.

When I was done with the cycling, I pulled into the transition area and the bikes were all haphazardly thrown onto the racks. I had to lift my bike over my head to get to my rack. I put my bike on my rack and there was a dude across from me just taking his time. The girl next to me asked him why he was taking his time and he told us he was done. Yikes. I took another Clif Shot, available all finer retailers everywhere, put on my running shoes and ran out the back of the transition area.

This is the part of a duathlon called "the brick." At least that's what Yaniv calls it. It's the Bike-Run transition, and it totally fucks with your calves. Your calves are so used to doing bicycle motion that when you switch it up to running, they flip out. I got about a 10th of a mile out and I had to stop and stretch my legs. I finished up the run with a fairly strong 1/2 mile.

I got my bagel and oranges and waited for Natalie who wasn't very far behind me. Hey, I'm happy when everyone is doing well physically, but I was hoping to wait a lot longer for her.

We hung around for a long time waiting to see if she won something because there were only a handful of people in her category, but unfortunately for her, a plaque was not forthcoming. After the race, we consumed away our progress at Chipotle Mexican Grill, which was very good, but still takes second place to Qdoba. By the way, fine folks at Qdoba, I still haven't heard from Clif Bar on my request to be sponsored. I'm probably more physically a Qdoba runner, than a Clif Bar runner. I've still got room on my shirt for a Qdoba logo. Act fast, I know sponsorships are going to be coming soon.

Well, that's about it. Not my best performance, but again, my back is still bothering me. I see big improvements this spring. Look for progress right here, my friends.

My time was 1:31:44.8.

NY Triathlon's 20th March Madness Biathlon - Bib # 385
Narrow Tire Division
Central Park - NYC
April 1, 2006

First Run: 20:09.5 (Place: 306)
Bike (Including both transitions): 50:26.6 (Place: 299)
Second Run: 21:08.6 (Place 319)

For comparison, my first biathlon:
----------------------------------
Time: 1:23:51.9
First Run: 18:58.8 (Place: 178)
Bike (Including both transitions): 45:12.3 (Place: 125)
Second Run: 19:40.7 (Place: 171)
----------------------------------

Overall Place: 314/378
Age Place: 55/62
Gender Place: 254/285

Complete Results

...and I'm Just Getting Started.