Santa Barbara Marathon Recap - A Training Run

A Runner's Ramblings: Volume 4; 25th Edition
636.3 miles raced in 2009
Race: Santa Barbara International Marathon
Place: Santa Barbara, CA
Miles from home: 778 miles 
Weather: 40-50s; cool and clear

With my Marathon PR attempt for the year passed and my focus now on getting my body ready of running 204 miles in 48 hours at the American Odyssey Relay in April of 2010 my marathons for the next months will take on the role of training runs.  That is the theory anyway.  Now can I just follow through with it, is the question.



First 10k: 7:34, 7:18, 6:50, 7:22, 14:25 (45:00 ish)

As a result of a car accident (one in which I was not involved and I hope no one was hurt in) blocked traffic for a bit on the way to getting runners to the start, the race was delayed by about 25 minutes.  For some, like myself, this was a little bit of a bother as the later a race goes, the more potential there is for warmer weather.  And we are in Southern California after all.  However, the weather forecast called for cooler temperatures and party cloudy skies so that slight inconvenience was not much of a bother.

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Stuffitts - A Product Review

I have had more than a few products in my apartment that I have either been waiting for the right weather or the right opportunity to give a proper review.  Fortunately, the time and weather are always right to have dry shoes.  And if you want dry shoes,  you are going to want to try Stuffits.

I was fortunate enough to run into the CEO/Owner of Stuffitts, Michael Huebner at the Atlanta Marathon expo this past Thanksgiving.  He was kind enough to present me with a gift of his product to give it a test run, if you will. I am always up for supporting smaller businesses and therefore was happy to give them a shot.

Usually, wearing wet shoes is not a problem for me.  I have a large selection of shoes and rotate them rather often.  As such, I rarely wear the same pair on consecutive days. So, if rain, snow or sweat dampen my shoes, I would usually just stick them somewhere to dry and grab another pair.  However, the other day I went for a run that left my feet particularly mushy.  So, I decided I would jam the Stuffitts in the shoes to see what they could do.  The next day, I was gearing up for a run and I instinctively grab a different pair of shoes than the ones I had worn the day before.  Then I saw the distinctive Stuffitts protruding from my shoes.

Well, let's see what those have done, I thought.  I am quite used to things drying much more quickly here in Salt Lake City.  The lack of humidity is just a wonderful thing that I will miss when I leave.  But shoes tend to hold moisture, even with the dry climate.  However, my shoes were bone dry!  Even more than that, they smelled like cedar.  All good things.

Even more so, it had not even been 24 hours since the last run.  In fact, having run in the evening the previous day and here it was mid-morning when I was going for the next run, it had barely been 12 hours.  But as the studies show on the Stuffitts page, the drying begins even in the first hour.  I believe it.

So, rather than just waiting for your shoes to dry, or jamming newspaper into them to soak up the water (something I used to do all the time when I lived in more humid Washington, DC) I would highly suggest investing in a pair of Stuffitts.  When I go on my next running trip, and do not have the luxury of packing a few pairs of shoes, the Stuffitts are going with me.

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Book Review - A Marathon Odyssey

It has been a while since I have done a book review but I felt like I was in the mood to day to do one. I just recently (like 5 minutes ago) finished a book called A Marathon Odyssey.

In the interest of full disclosure, A Marathon Odyssey is written by Malcolm Anderson. Malcolm owns the company which published See Dane Run. Does that mean I am going to give his book preferential treatment? Nope. If I do one thing well, it is being clear and honest with what my feelings are. Like them or not, one always knows where I stand. Just thought I would get that out of the way upfront.

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Running the Triple Crown - Melissa Williams

I was recently turned onto a series of races in the greater Seattle area right after Thanksgiving. The great Northwest is home to many low-key races.  Some call them "Fat-Ass" races and most are meant to take the camaraderie of running and combine it with the formality of a race, with a huge de-emphasis on the formality part.
Now running long distances on a race course not on race day has never really been my thing. I figured if I am going to out forth the effort, I would like to have it be "official".  And if I am not going to have it official, I don't need for it to be "semi-official" by giving my run du jour a name.  That said, I was pretty impressed by a hearty bunch of individuals who took part in some serious running this past weekend, more specifically one runner named Melissa Williams.  Now I haven't had the pleasure to meet Melissa but I hope to do so someday soon and go for a run.  If I can keep up, that is.

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Kelly Luckett

In my Atlanta Marathon recap I mentioned runner Kelly Luckett and how she deserved her own posing. Now here it is and I am going to tell you why. Kelly is an amputee. We tend to label people by what they don't have (e.g.., blind, deaf, etc) and to say Kelly is an amputee is obvious, and helps with context, but it is far too limiting. Kelly is more than an amputee: she is one kick ass-amputee.

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Atlanta Marathon Recap

A Runner's Ramblings: Volume 4; 24rd Edition
610.1 miles raced in 2009
Race: Atlanta Marathon
Place: Atlanta, GA
Miles from home: 1914 miles 

Weather: 40-50s; cool and clear


In the few short days between the Atlanta Marathon and my previous race in Mesquite, I began to think that this was the shortest rest I had ever had between races.  Them I remembered it was tie.  Last year I had run Boston on a Monday (twice actually, but that is another story) and then flew to Korea to run the Hangang Marathon.  Due to the International Date Line, I lost a day in transit and the time between was 4 days.  So the adventure I was imparting on was not completely uncharted waters.

In fact, in what remains what has personally been one of my most impressive feats of running, I had run Boston in 3:01 (a week after running a 2:58 in Utah and right before turning around and doing it again under 4 hours with the Race Director) and then inexplicably ran a 2:56 in Korea.  However, while I had done a similar event before,  I knew no such effort was going to be repeated here in Atlanta.  As early as Tuesday before the race, I was still limping around like I had not done post marathon in quite some time and knew that merely slogging through the race might be my only option.  In addition, I had the largest of monkey wrenches thrown into my Thanksgiving week plans the day I was departing to partake in those plans, and was completely mentally spent.


So I did what is very hard for most runners.  I decided the Atlanta Marathon, my first in Georgia, was going to be nothing but a training one.  But one which I felt would simulate many of the events I have planned for the near future.

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Mesquite Marathon Recap

A Runner's Ramblings: Volume 4; 23rd Edition
583.9 miles raced in 2009
Race: Mesquite Marathon
Place: Mesquite, NV
Miles from home: 338 miles
Weather: 40-60s; clear and windy

(PICTURES TO BE POSTED SOON)

The race reports that are the toughest to write are those which follow a complete and undeniable failure to reach any of your desired goals. Unfortunately, this is one of those reports.  There is no way to sugarcoat it, and for all those who wished me good luck on my attempt to set a personal best, I am not going to drag it out: I did not make it.  Did not even come close.  But it is in our failures that we learn the most about ourselves.

Like, no matter how much I hydrate, if it is sunny, I am screwed in a marathon.

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A new personal best?

In my travels around the country and world, I have learned that, for whatever reason, while everyone calls their fastest time in a race their "personal best", only Americans shorten it to "PR" (presumably for "personal record".)  My Australian friends always say "PB" and it automatically makes me think of Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches and how I once dated a girl who thought that idea of PB &J together was disgusting.  I think that is pretty much against the Constitution and all for which it stands. But I digress.

Tomorrow I will be shooting for a new personal best, personal record, fastest time I have ever run (or whatever you would like to call it at the Mesquite Marathon in Mesquite Nevada.  While many I know are hesitant to state their goals or their ambitions, sometimes to not jinx themselves, sometimes so that they do not have to answer "No, I didn't get it" to well-meaning friends who ask them how they fared after a race that did not go off as planned, I think it is good to get it out there in the ether what you intend to do.  It really is a freeing feeling to let others who do care know your intentions.

That said, I may have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell in setting that new PR this weekend.  Well, maybe not that bad of a chance but I am definitely not sitting all that pretty.

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Mileage Game

One of the greatest things about running are the numbers.  In a world of constant flux, numbers are permanent and something we can always fall back on.   Granted, sometimes they can be too controlling and make us a little more obsessive than we should be, but the measuring stick they provide us makes running so unique.

The numbers I am referring to for this post are the miles I ran this year.  Back in 2006, while doing the 52 Marathons, I raced 1362.4 miles (52 times 26.2.)  For the entirety of the rest of the year, I only ran 409.1 other miles. That means 77% of my running that year was spent in the middle of marathon races.  That is obviously a ridiculously high percentage of racing miles and never one I expected to repeated.  As I have only really been keeping track of miles since 2006, I did not have much to go on in terms of how many miles I should be running. But I know I ran way less than in 2005 and 2004, when my running career really began than the 1771.5 I ran in 2006.  As such, with this upward trend, I fully expected and planned to continue adding more miles to my yearly total each year.

Funny thing is, Life doesn't much care about what your plans are.

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The Need for Tougher Boston Marathon Qualifying Standards

The title of this post should have a question mark at the end as I have not fully decided if there really is a need or not.  However, one thing is certain: one must be quick on the registration trigger to be one of the 20,000+ runners traversing the storied road from Hopkinton to Boston.

When I first qualified for Boston in 2005, it was the middle of January.  Hoping to get a slightly better time, I waited until the middle of March when I lowered my time to a 3:07 at the Little Rock Marathon.  I immediately came home and registered.  However, even though that was just five weeks before Boston that year, I don't think I was the last one in.

That is not the case anymore.

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