Or, “The Bluff Course is Actually Shaped Like a Cherry”

I could say all the normal things about my first 50k, like how intense, dramatic, or world-changing this half-day race had turned out to be. Or, how the training worked, the diet held up, the equipment was well-planned. Instead, with tongue firmly in cheek, I would like to describe how the first 50k in fact closely mirrors another important milestone in life – the loss of virginity.

You see, like my 50k race, the voyage into maturity also required a great deal of training and experimentation. It’s not like reading a book can quite prepare you for everything that you might experience or encounter. Much like the 50k, the journey into adulthood required research, planning, coaching, and a good deal of strategy and luck. Here are some of the things that I found were similar – or very different – between the two events. [Read more...]

Ah, the marathon.  The culmination of months of training, endless hours spent on your way to the Guilford docks or on the way back.  And then the months of over analysis and “what if’’s”. 

2008 marked the second year that the Breakers marathon was run on the “new” course, that is, starting in downtown Newport, bimbling along the coast and then heading out to Middletown for the second half.  Fellow runners told me tales of yore when the entire marathon was run in Middletown, circling four laps of an unchanging course.  Happy for the variety in scenery I was about to experience I dashed off at the gun with approximately 700 other runners only to find myself negotiating some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Newport.  It was shocking to observe the blight of urban decay and the real life examples of how the credit market collapse has affected main street America – Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Astors sleeping in cardboard boxes on street corners, topiary animals gone wild, crumbling mansions by the sea.  I found myself wondering if I could manage to scrape up a few million dollars to purchase one of the many properties for sale along the course – do my part for the local economy.  But, who am I kidding?  Dan doesn’t have time to mow those lawns and train for Hellgate at the same time.  

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On Sunday I ran the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon. The weather was perfect last weekend and I started out early enough on Saturday to watch Downhill finish the Hartford Marathon on my way to the race. I met up with Hardware and Quiet Man who had just completed the half. It was a good feeling to see Downhill qualify for Boston.

I stayed at the host hotel in Albany, NY and had to wait a little while for my room when I arrived. I decided to take the elevator down to the ballroom level to pick up my race packet per my runner instruction sheet. When I opened the door to Ballroom A directly in front of me I found the room filled with people wearing spacesuits with antenna’s on their heads. There was a science fiction convention going on in the hotel and i would spend the next day or so with these folks riding elevators and listening to them talk on weird communication devices. Imagine working there with these two groups of sci-fi nuts and runners doing all kind of silly stretching poses in the lobby. It was quite the sight. My race last fall at the Bay State Marathon found me in a hotel filled with old Quiltters from all over New England. I sure know how to pick them. [Read more...]