The End is Near

Miles to date: 372

I have been awful about updating, so for those of you still reading, thanks for sticking with us.

I have not had much access to the home computer lately as Meghan has been studying for a big test, so I have let this fall to the side a bit. Luckily, my training has been a little more consistent.

Last weekend was the final long run of my training schedule. While the last 20 was originally scheduled for Columbus Day weekend, we made the call to move it back because we all wanted to run the BAA half marathon on 10/10/10.

For the last long run we (Roger, Steff and I) tackled the first 20 miles of the Boston Marathon Course. Meghan was kind enough to drive us out to Hopkinton and we embarked on our journey. The Boston marathon follows a beautiful course starting in Hopkinton and winds through Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley and Newton.


(Notice the statue with the starting gun right behind us)

The first thirteen miles of the run felt great and we held a really strong pace. We stopped for some refreshments in Wellesley center just after the thirteen mile point and that was the beginning of the end for me.

I was able to hold it together for the next few miles but there is a very underrated hill on Route 16, just going over 95 by the Newton/Wellesley Hospital that took an awful lot out of me. Roger and Steff were holding strong and we all managed to keep it together pretty well.

Then came Commonwealth Avenue. As you turn right onto Comm. Ave. from Route 16 you hit the first of the Newton hills (the last being the infamous Heartbreak Hill, which we did not quite get to as it is between miles 20 and 21). I abandoned all hope about halfway up the first hill and took a bit of a walking break. The last two to three miles were absolutely torturous, and took me much longer than I had hoped. Steff, on the other hand, dropped an 8:30 for her last mile, which was MUCH faster than I did.

Regardless, we finished our 20 mile run and it was pretty rewarding. The course was awesome and the weather was great with temperatures in the low to mid 60's and a nice breeze. I imagine the course is a little different on race day with thousands and thousands of people lining the way. I also tend to think I'd have been a little more inspired going through the Wellesley Campus if the legendary Wellesley Scream had been going on. It's something to aspire to.

On a down note, my knee was really hurting me towards the end of the run which gave me some cause for concern.

Last week brought a new pair of shoes into my life, which is always an exciting day. The weather mid-week was fairly awful though as it rained from Monday until Wednesday afternoon. I put in 5 miles on Tuesday morning and a strong 7 on Wednesday despite the damp conditions. Running in the rain did have some negative affects as I ended up with a nasty headcold for the latter portion of the week, leading me to take Thursday and Friday off.

Yesterday was the 10th Annual BAA Half Marathon which is a great race put on by the same people who host the Boston Marathon every year. Needless to say it was an extremely welll organized race and a beautiful day for it. The weather was downright chilly in the morning (about 40 degrees when I left my house to meet Roger at 6:30) and warmed to the low 60's by the end of the race. The temps combined with a beautiful sunny day and a slight breeze created ideal race conditions.

The course has changed since the last time I ran it in 2008, which was my first half marathon ever. The course used to begin near Fenway park and loop out to the Franklin Park Zoo in Jamaica Plain through the Emerald Necklace, which is a series of parks created by Frederick Olmstead in the late 1800's. These parks include the fens, the riverway, the Jamaica Way, the Arnold Arboreatum and the Franklin Park Zoo. The course has been altered to begin in the Zoo and took out the loop around the fens, adding an out and back spur around miles 10-12.

The course was much more challenging then I recall with rolling hills for it's entirety that never allowed you to get fully comfortable. The turnout was incredible with nearly 6,000 people running and an awful lot of runners being part of the Dana-Farber charity which is one of the best causes around.

Roger, Steff and I were joined by some friends and we all ran great times.

I felt good throughout the majority of the race and was on pace to shatter my personal best half time. I struggled to find a good pace early on and bounced from an 8:45 to a 10:00 before finally settling in a little under 9 minute miles for the majority of the race. Around the six mile mark I picked it up quite a bit and was running 8:20 - 8:30 miles, which is just about as fast as I care to go. At the ten mile mark, my knee really started to bother me again (shades of last weeks run) so I eased off quite a bit and dropped closer to a ten minute mile. As much as I would have loved to really put up a great time, I can't take the chance on injuring myself at this point and putting the marathon in jeopardy.

I finished in 1:58, which is still my best by about three minutes. All in all, a great race and a great day (the kick-ass shirt given out post-race certainly didn't hurt).

The team headed over to the Dogwood Cafe in JP for some post-race pizza and beer. Many thanks to them for their hospitality and excellent food.

We are entering the tapering phase now. I get to throttle down quite a bit and let my body recuperate from the past few months. It's three weeks until D-Day. Get excited.

Much to discuss

Miles to date: 312

(Sidenote - WOW)

Much to discuss since our last update, lets dive right in.

Training has been coming along well. There have been some bumps and a lot of growing aches and pains but things are going as well as can be expected.

Roger and I tackled 20 miles last week. It was about as bad as one would expect. It took a little over three and a half hours to complete. The weather cooperated leading to fairly ideal conditions. That being said, there is no such thing as ideal conditions for 20 miles.

Roger played the role of motivator and tried to keep me moving. Despite his best efforts I was the one advocating for quite a few stops. At least now it's behind me (sortof, there is another coming up)and I can say I've done it.

Last weeks training runs were actually among the toughest to date as all the aches and pains that have been building up were only exacerbated by the 20-miler. I cut back on the runs and only did 4 on Tuesday and Thursday (Wednesday's run remained at 8).

This past weekend I put down 13 miles on Saturday morning. As much as I was looking forward to "only" running 13, it was a pretty tough run. The weather was much hotter and stickier than I was expecting and it made the run difficult.

I was expecting the run to go fairly smoothly considering all the distances above and beyond 13 I have put in; the reality was a little different. There were more walking breaks than I was anticipating but despite that I came in at a pretty decent time.

This weekend I am looking at my last real long run before D-Day. Roger, Steff and I are planning on running the first 20 miles of the Boston Marathon course. The plan is for Meghan to drive us out to Hopkinton and then we'll finish in the heartbreak hill area.

I can not wait for this to be over.

Getting Closer

Miles to date: 248

Much has happened since the last update. I have logged my two longest runs yet (a 17 miler on the 4th and an 18 miler on the 11th) and d-day is approaching with frightening speed.

We'll start at the most logical place: the beginning. After Earl came by and barely shook hands with the eastern seaboard, I went out for the 17 miler. Meghan was kind enough to agree to meet me at a few points along the run to provide water, food and a brief break. The run was a bit difficult as I got a terrible calf cramp at mile three that hurt like heck through mile six and then went away enough that I could manage to finish the run.

I felt strong through the majority of the course but hit a huuuuuuge wall around mile 15. The last two were extremely painful but I finished in about 2:45 and didn't feel like the world was ending after the run, which is always a positive.

Due to the aforementioned calf cramp, I was pretty sore for a few days after the run. So sore in fact that I opted to skip my Tuesday 5-miler. Never happy to miss a workout but sometimes it can be addition by subtraction.

Last weeks runs went fairly well. It's at the point where it is difficult to find the time to put in an eight mile run either before or after work though. Getting up at 5 to run for over an hour before work is not the ideal way to start my day.

This weekend I was debating doing the Nahant 30-K race with Roger and Steph, however due to some obligations on Sunday, I decided it made more sense to do the run on Saturday and just get it out of the way.

Finding 18 miles to run is not as easy as one would think. I finally decided to do a course from my house down to the Fresh Pond area in Cambridge and then looping around the esplanade from the Elliot Bridge down to the Museum of Science. The first half of the run went very well, once again Meghan was kind enough to meet me on Memorial drive and offer a brief respite.

Unknown to me, Saturday was the annual Heart-Walk along the Esplanade. What this means is that I spent over four miles trying to get around thousands of people taking up the entire path. I think I said "On your left!" more times in that 30 or so minutes more than I ever have in my life. That was the beginning of the end. After finally crossing the Elliot bridge and beginning the last two or three miles back I am pretty sure I lost my will to live. A water stop with Meghan at mile 16 helped a bit but then I had to start running for an uphill mile. At this point I realized that discretion is the better part of valor and declared that a little walking never hurt anyone. Once I finally crested the long gradual hill on Belmont Street I resumed a forward shuffle (it wasn't a run at this point) and finished in almost exactly three hours.

It is worth noting that I managed to avoid injury and calamity on both a 17 and 18 mile run but then managed to get enormous blisters on the back of my heels on Sunday while wearing boat shoes.

This week should be interesting as I try not to exacerbate that problem any further and not compromise my training schedule.

Goodbye Earl

Miles to date: 197

This weekend calls for 17 miles. This weekend also calls for Hurricane Earl to hit the Cape. The weather reports are varied as to the intensity, but there doesn't seem to be much debate there will definitely be lots of wind and rain.

So the debate is when exactly the run is going to take place. I toyed with the thought of trying to get it in today, but after the last three days of running, my body soundly rejected that idea.

It looks to be either Saturday or Sunday, depending on how bad the storm is tonight. I don't really feel like running an obstacle course for 17 miles.

There will undoubtedly be some updates after that run. Get excited.

Good News/Bad News

Miles to date: 186

Lets play a little game called catching up:

Saturday, August 21:

Good News: I survived my longest run to date, 15 miles throughout Sandwich. The run went well enough, just under two and a half hours. There was some walking involved and an offer of a ride with a mile to go that was damn near impossible to pass up, but I finished.

Bad News: My body revolted shortly thereafter. I spent the next hour and a half in a bad way. Powerade makes me sick to my stomach and I was having trouble holding down any food as I attempted to replace the carbs I had expended. Not a pleasant experience.

Week of August 23-27:

Good News: I've started logging some serious mileage in the past few weeks and the thought of 26 miles doesn't seem quite as daunting as it once did. Training has been going well and I feel like I am in great shape.

Bad News: The miles are starting to catch up to me, there's been some nagging aches and pains that have been catching up with me. I had to take last Wednesday off (my weekday long run) to recover a little bit. During my 15 mile run my feet were killing me and I was convinced that my shoes had gone flat and it was time to replace them (after only ~200 miles, which is pretty quick).

Good News: My "training staff" was able to help me out in short order last week. Craig at Brine Sporting Goods in Waverly Square, by far the most knowledgeable sports store shoe guy I have ever met, assured me that my shoes still had considerable life in them and that my pain likely stemmed from some metatarsal issues. My physical therapist, Cheryl Maurer of Functional Mechanics was able to modify the over-the-counter shoe inserts I have in just a few short minutes and it has made all the difference in my training since she did. The foot pain has subsided substantially and some of the shin pain I was feeling has gone away as well due to the increased support.

*Sorry for the plug, but these guys are the best, I can't recommend them highly enough.

Good News: I was able to get a number for the Boston Athletic Association Half Marathon! I am very excited to be taking part in this race over Columbus Day weekend. Hoping it will serve as nice tune-up for the Marathon.

Bad News: Staring at 17 miles this weekend. As I'll be on the Cape for the long weekend, I'll be taking this one on by myself (unless anyone has any interest in coming with? Anyone? Bueller?) The fact that Hurricane Earle is steaming for the northeast with an expected hit of Friday doesn't exactly warm the soul either.

All in all, more good news than bad as of late. As always thank you for reading and your continued support. The training is over halfway over and D-Day is less than two months away. Wow.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Miles to date: 162

Last week, my training was...sporadic.

I took some time off from work last week and spent a few days down the Cape with Meghan after the Road Race. I have pontificated before about finding ways to train when you're away, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.

I was able to get in a decent four mile run on Tuesday, noting too big to speak of. Wednesday, I was scheduled for seven miles, however, I made the executive decision to take the day off. Meghan and I headed for Martha's Vineyard for the day. The ferry schedule that we had to adhere to did not really allow for the time to go for a decently long run. So instead, we went to the island and biked around for the day. We did manage to cover almost 25 miles this way, so the day was certainly not wasted.

I went for my longer weekday run on Friday, as Thursday was spent traveling back to Belmont and my first day back at work. I headed out for a seven mile run and felt like it was going really well, I seemed to be ahead of my time and felt great. I logged it in just under 55 minutes and couldnt believe it.

So I double checked the distance, it wasn't seven, hell, it wasn't even six miles. It was 5.6.

Needless to say, my time was explained.

It was a great week off, and training didn't suffer too too much, so I'll chalk it up to a win.

Better Late Than Never

I promised some pictures from the Falmouth Road Race, so for your viewing pleasure...
(please note that all pictures taken by the Captain of the Unlikeliest Team, Meghan)

Steph and Roger pre-race:




The leaders coming into the homestretch:



The first women coming through:



I call this one "Poetry in Motion":



I need the shirt the guy to my left was wearing:



"A Vision in White":



Steph showing superb form:



Meghan was too excited about Roger's backside to get a picture of anything else:



The Unlikeliest Team with special guest stars Drew and Evan:



The Unlikeliest Team on Sandy Neck post-race:



My two biggest supporters and I post-race:



Hope you all enjoy the pictures. It was a great day, an awesome race and an even better weekend.

The first test

Miles to date: 141

The road race has come and gone. This year the race was spectacular, the weather was ideal: mid-70's, slightly overcast, with a strong breeze coming off the water; and the crowd was in top form.

For those of you who haven't run Falmouth before, it has some of the strongest crowd support that I have ever seen. Spectators line the race course for the entirety of the race, sometimes five or six people deep. The crowd can pick you up and carry you when you feel like stopping and push you when you're questioning the wisdom of sprinting up the hill at Falmouth Heights.

Strong showing this year from the entire unlikeliest team. Roger and Steph both came down for the race and we had special guest appearances from Drew and Evan.

I logged a time of 0:58:51 and was thrilled with my time in the race. I managed to beat my previous best time of 1:06:38 (2009) by almost eight full minutes. This was my first real test since I've started training for the marathon and it is nice to see that the hardwork that's been put in is adding up to something. I came into the race hoping to beat an hour but not really expecting to. An easy start in my corral and solid pacing helped a lot in that regard. Due to the sheer number of runners, where you begin in your corral can have a huge impact on your time, if you start too far back or have too many people going slow in front of you, the first mile or two can be spent bobbing and weaving through people, using up precious time and energy. Based off of my 10K split from the New Bedford Half Marathon, I was able to qualify into one of the higher groups, which helped a lot.

Evan just got a number ten days ago and had not been training very much prior to that, despite this, he put in a great effort and ended up running just over an hour for the very hard, difficult to navigate seven mile course.

Drew put in a great time, despite feeling like crap throughout the majority of the race. Him limping up to the meeting point with bags of ice was one of my favorite sights of the race. Drew also had the line of the day when he described my running style as "You ever see a truck moving without wheels? Kinda like that."

Roger and Steph both did great during the race. This is Roger's second engagement at Falmouth and he improved his time substantially from two years ago. Steph out up a really strong time as well.

There will be some pictures to come in the next few days. All of which are very flattering, especially the ones where I'm gasping for air in the last half mile.

Mileage Update

Miles to date: 126

It's the most wonderful time of the year....

It's time for the Falmouth Road Race. This Sunday marks the race's 38th running. Falmouth will play host to over 10,000 runners this weekend. I. Love. This. Race.

This will be my sixth (seventh? I don't really know, they kind of blend together) time running this race. It's a seven mile course that follows the coast from Woods Hole to Falmouth Heights. The first three miles are rolling hills, followed by a flat run along Falmouth Harbor and ending with a tough climb of a hill leading into the Heights.

This is also a particularly exciting race weekend because this will be the second time that the unlikeliest team has all run a race together. Roger and Steph are coming down to partake and it looks to be a beautiful weekend.

Get excited.

Miles to go before I sleep

Well, that was something.

No matter how you break it down, 14 miles is a LONG way. The depressing thing is that the runs only get longer from here.

However, yesterdays run went well. The Unlikeliest Team tackled our run just before six o'clock. Our run took us throughout a lot of various Boston neighborhoods, including but not limited to Beacon Hill, the North End, the Harbor Walk, the Seaport, Southie, Fort Point, Financial District, the Common, Back Bay, the Esplenade and Cambridge.

The run went a little slower than intended, because as Steph would like to point out "Diabetes Sucks" but the distance was covered and it was a great run along a pretty sweet course.

Note to self: next time, use the body glide before you run, underarms and...ahem...other areas will be more than grateful.

Ugh

Pardon the time between posts. Life gets in the way.

Heading out in a few to embark on a 14 mile run with Roger and Steph. I am officially dubbing us "The Unlikeliest Running Team."

This will officially mark the farthest I have ever run, to say I am not looking forward to this is an understatement.

Our route is as follows: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/ma/boston/629128093440169682
Knowing this course well only makes it worse, as I'll always have an accurate idea of what's left.

To borrow a line from the "300": This will not be over quickly, you will not enjoy it.

Only the lonely

Miles to date: 89

Big week behind me. Had some great runs, put in a lot of miles.

Running is, by its very nature, a sport of isolation. It lends itself to people who are comfortable spending long amounts of time by themselves. I am not one of these people.

It is for this reason I prefer to run with my previously mentioned running compatriots. However, this being summertime and owing to the fact that I tend to spend my weekends on the Cape, I have not had the opportunity to run with my friends in a long time. This is by no means attributable to them and is solely my fault. This has not been much of an issue, as the runs I've been tackling haven't been too long, or strenuous. That changed this weekend.

Saturday called for about an 11 mile run. The route I mapped out was a little closer to 12. Running 12 miles, under the best of conditions, is a crappy thing. Running 12 miles by yourself is worse. Two hours (give or take) is a long time to spend doing anything.

That being said, Saturday's run was the best run I have had so far in my training. The weather was perfect (with temperatures in the high 60's and no humidity), the scenery was gorgeous - mainly owing to some spectacular views of Cape Cod Bay from the hills on route 130 and Quaker Meetinghouse road, and some beautiful streets throughout Sandwich, and I felt great. I actually felt like a runner again.

/knocks on wood

There is a historical trend that whenever I say I feel like a runner some calamity befalls me. Last time, not thirty seconds after I said that to Roger on a long run, I rolled my ankle and skinned my knee at the absolute furthest point possible from our origination spot. So I don't want to jinx anything.

This week in general the runs felt good. My mid-week long run was a great five miles as well, despite the oppressiveness of the air. Let's hope this is a product of my training and a sign of things to come.

Lets make it official

As of today I am officially entered in the 2010 Cape Cod Marathon.*

*I realize how foolish it would have been if I had started this whole thing and then ended up not being able to run because I had missed the sign-up, the irony is not lost on me.

No longer an issue. I have submitted an application and paid the fee. I'm ready to rock and roll.

In some positive news, I found out today that Roger (part of the aforementioned running team) will also be participating in the Cape Cod Marathon as part of a relay team for his final tune-up for the New York City Marathon. Pumped doesn't quite cover how I feel about this.

In other news, my race schedule is starting to come together for the next few months prior to D-Day.

August 15 - Falmouth Road Race - 7 Miles (one of my favorite days of the year).
August 21 - Canal Run for the Troops - 15K
September 12 - Nahant 30K
October 10 - BAA Half Marathon (if I can somehow finagle a number last minute since I missed the registration as previously detailed)

Always open to race suggestions and comments.

Weekly Update

Miles to date: 66

So this weekend was a bit of a mixed bag. I made the executive decision that going fishing for stripers was more important than my run on Saturday morning. This was the right decision.

Due to this, I had to get my long run in on Sunday (and skip a short run/cross training session)so I headed off to the canal bright and early for a ten mile jaunt.

The first seven and a half miles felt incredible, I finally felt like I was getting in a great long run. I was thinking to myself how great it was and how I could even get a post in about it.

Then the wheels fell off the bus. The last two and a half miles were...difficult.

That being said, I got the ten miles in and it went fairly well. The miles start ramping up at this point so there is going to be a lot more of this to come.

Making it work

It's summer time and the livin' is easy.

Well, it's supposed to be at least. It is summer time, which means it is the busiest time of the year. Granted, this business is self-imposed, as I choose to go away most weekends.

This past weekend was a perfect example, Meghan and I were visiting family down at the Jersey shore. It was a perfect opportunity to take a few days off and derail training. However, despite making some bad life decisions, I was able to get both of my weekend runs in.

Suffice to say I was moving a little "slowly" on Saturday morning, yet I still headed out for my long run. I managed to eke out a little under six miles in some very hot and humid weather, with a bit of a head-ache going on. My friend (cousin-in-law?) Anthony made a valiant effort to join in on the run but excused himself about two miles in. Here's a picture of Anthony and I at the beach post-run:



Anthony did however lead the way for a solid paced three miles on Sunday

The point is, it's easy to get sidetracked when you go away. Regardless as to your plans or where you are traveling, it is certainly possible to keep to your schedule. Running is much simpler than a lot of other sports in that all you need is a pair of running shoes and shorts. All it just takes to keep going is a little desire. A good training partner like Pauly D doesn't hurt either.

/hates self for liking Jersey Shore (the show, not the place, the place is great)

Random note of the day: As much as I love running with my dog, she makes it difficult when she decides to stop eight, count them, eight times in the course of a three mile run for bathroom breaks.

Miles run to date: 53

Foiled Again!

Sorry for the delay between posts, I'm sure that my loyal readers (Thanks Mom!) have been at a loss, but unfortunately real-life got in the way with the job demanding a lot of time this week.

So I promised some updates:

Miles to date: 41 miles as of this morning
Weight: -1.0

It's been a tough week for training with the humidity levels being as high as they have been, but a little extra sweat never hurt anyone. Given the weather, I have to be sure to get my run in as early as possible, I usually aim for about 6 am, but even then it's been tough. I can not express in words how ready I am for the humidity to break.

Yesterday was the sign-up for the Boston Athletic Association half marathon, which is an incredibly cool race stretching from the Fens in Boston's back bay out to the Franklin Park Zoo. Unfortunately, this race filled up in record time (about two hours) and I was not able to get a number.

As of the moment, the only scheduled race I have between now and D-Day is the Falmouth Road Race on August 15. I'd like to find some other races to supplement my training between now and then as a means to a) gauge my progress and b) stay motivated.

I have always found that it's much easier to stay motivated to run by setting short term goals, generally in the form of a race. This serves as either a gratifying experience and a vindication of the training done (occasionally) or a public shaming exposing my lack adequate preparation (much more often).

Any and all suggestion are welcome.

Dealing with a bad day

Some runs are better than others. That's just a fact of life. Today I met one of the crappy ones. In fact, today might be among my top 3 worst runs of all-time.

I went for a for my weekly long run on the Cape Cod Canal this morning hoping to log seven miles before it got too hot. I failed. It's worth noting that when it's about 82 degrees and the weatherman says "It's as muggy as it can be without raining" it's probably not ideal running weather.*

*The moral of this story is that I'm an idiot, this all could have been avoided.

As much as I love running on the canal for the serenity it provides with the water, the downside is that it's a straight out and back run, which is traditionally very boring. The first half went as well as could be expected. The second half, however, I felt like Sisyphus trying to push the boulder in the attempt to finish the run. It. Was. Awful. It was really all I could do to finish, and even that called for more walking than I had hoped to incorporate.

The fact of the matter is that when you're operating on a schedule, you do your best to stick to it. Some days are going to be better than others, they just are, you need to be prepared for that. As much as I told myself it was going to suck, it was far worse than I ever expected. It looked liked I had jumped in the canal by the time I was done. Not a pleasant drive home.

Runs like this are going to happen. In fact, they're probably going to happen pretty often. All you can do is make the most of it. Get what you can out of the run, strengthen yourself mentally and hope tomorrow will be better than today.


Ed. Note: TANGENT ALERT

On a side note, Lebron is an egomaniacal jerk. I don't think he owed it to Cleveland to go back there, but the way he handled this whole sitation screamed "shower me with attention." Screw him.

So what's coming up?

There are only so many ways I can say "I ran three miles this morning, it sucked." With this in mind, there aren't going to be a lot of posts that look like that.

What I plan to do is the following:

1) Log how many miles have been run to date, this will be a feature on the first post of any given day.

2) Provide updates as to the long runs. As the training progresses further towards the marathon (hereinafter, "D-Day") there will be some pretty long runs that I'll be tackling with the team. We'll let you know how they go.

3) Go off on a few tangents. I might rant and rave occasionally about something that is on my mind. Feel free to skip these posts.

4) Keep a weight log. This is an idea I've been going back and forth with. Please note, I am not taking this on to lose weight. That being said, it's certainly something I wouldn't mind and need to work on. I'm not going to tell you the starting weight, as it doesn't really matter to anyone but me, we're going to call it 0.00, and the weight log will reflect the variation from the starting point.

5) Provide some background as I go into why I am doing this and what I hope to accomplish, both in terms of this race and moving forward.

If anyone doesn't want to see some of this, let me know. Conversely, if there is something that you are just clamoring for, drop a line and I'll try to incorporate it in.

Meet the team

I am most certainly not taking on this endeavor on my own. In fact, I've got a really great team I'll be training with. I've been running with Roger and Stephanie on and off for the past two years.

Roger and I were law school classmates and started running together while studying for the bar. After bumping into each other on numerous early morning runs, we decided to bring Stephanie into our group. Once the bar exam came and went, we took a bit of a hiatus as we all scattered to different parts of Boston. This past winter we started running together again and have done two half marathons together.

While we're all training for marathons, we all plan on running different races. Roger will be running the New York City Marathon on Nov. 7th, Stephanie will be running the Marine Corps marathon on October 31 and I will be doing the Cape Cod Marathon on October 31.

I think it's high time that we meet them.



Roger is the most experienced runner of the group, with three marathons already under his belt. He enjoys cooking food so hot it burns the nostrils, long walks on the beach, candle-lit dinners and moonlit strolls.



Stephanie will be running her first solo marathon but has completed some marathon relays and a number of half marathons and just finished her first triathlon. When she's not logging crazy hours at her firm, she enjoys sculpting bonsai trees, origami and reading about the newest developments in insurance defense.



While not running with me per se, my biggest support will be coming from my wife, Meghan. She'll be putting up with me disappearing for hours at a time on the weekend and listening to me complain about a voluntary choice I have made to put myself through hell. And she'll do it all with a smile.



Lastly, there is my most faithful running companion, Levee. She'll be logging a lot of miles with me over the next few months, and by logging miles I mean dragging my ass behind her for 3-4 miles at a time.

Why am I doing this?

This is a wonderful question, one for which I wish I had a more satisfactory answer.

I know an awful lot of people who run in memory of others or to raise money for a charity. I am not doing it for these reasons (though I hope to some day run Boston for charity, but that's a different story for a different time).

I'm much more selfish than that. I am running this for me. I am doing this to see if I can. If I can't, well then I'll go down in spectacular flames.

Running a marathon isn't something I think sounds particularly enjoyable, I don't think it will be an especially fun event, but it's a challenge. I want to push myself to see what I am capable of.

I figure at this point, it's pretty much now or never. I'm at a time in my life where I have the time to train and I have a great support group around me to help out (information on them coming very shortly).

Practice? We talkin' bout Practice?

If you google "Marathon Training" you get an awful lot of results. Everyone has an opinion of how you should train, distances you should run, rest you should take, etc.

The decision of which training method I chose doesn't hold the drama of, say, Lebron's choice in Free Agency, but it was a choice that will severely impact how the next few months will unfold for me.

I went through a lot of the options and settled on one that I felt appropriate for me. The top two choices were Marathontraining.com and Hal Higdon's Marathon Training Guide. I ended up going with Hal Higdon's novice training schedule for a few reasons.

1) I'm not looking to break any records, my goal is to finish this thing; and
2) I felt the weekday training runs fit into my schedule much easier than other programs I had seen.

Like most people, I lead a fairly busy life. It's hard to find time to disappear on a run for an hour-plus during the week. This method doesn't demand too much week-day time which was a huge selling point for me.

What is this all about?

We will not be analyzing the secret to life in the posts to come, this much I promise to you, loyal readers.

What I will do is chronicle the next 4 months of pure crap that I am about to put myself through. You see, I plan on running the 2010 Cape Cod Marathon on October 31, 2010.

There is no logical explanation for this. I have decided to enter this race without consulting my wife, my doctor or any other person whose opinion I should likely value.

I am not the kind of guy who you would expect to be running a marathon. My physique does not exactly scream "Distance Runner." It would be much more likely to mumble something along the lines of "It's time to make the donuts," or "Where's the beef?" but definitely not "distance runner."

I'm not jumping into this completely blindly. I have some experience with running, though certainly nothing of this magnitude. I have been running on and off for the last ten years or so and have peaked out at half marathons (Boston Oct. '08, Cape Cod Feb. '10 and New Bedford March '10). I've also had the distinct pleasure of running the Falmouth Road Race five times previously, this summer will mark my sixth time.

I have been in official training for this marathon for just over a week, this is my story.