Marine Corps Marathon 2012 Race Report

Before I begin, I need to thank all of our service men and women for all that they do for our country and what they do to protect our freedoms. Without them, we would not have the privilege to run the marathon’s that we do, to train like we do, speak as freely as we do, or quite frankly live the way that we do. For that, I sincerely thank all of them for everything that they do to protect us and our way of life.

I also want to make a disclaimer. Details of this weekend and particularly the race itself are fuzzy in spots and I don’t have a great memory of where things occurred. All mile markers/locations may not be accurate…

Back in March, when my wife and I were seriously discussing running a marathon for my first time, I signed up for the Runner's World message boards and started posting in a forum dedicated to the Marine Corps Marathon which was the marathon that we were looking most closely at at the time. The group of people posting on that board have become very good friends of mine, two of them I'd met in person before traveling to DC for this marathon, and many of them I got to meet for the first time the night before/morning before we started running.

On Friday night, my wife and I took our dog, Yahtzee up to PA to spend the night at my dad's house. He had agreed to watch Yahtzee for us for the weekend. We woke up very early and drove down to the DC Armory for check in and packet pickup. We got our bib numbers and then went in to the expo to get our race shirts and look at all the cool stuff that different companies were selling. We didn't feel like we needed to buy anything, but it's nice to see what's out there.

When we were done, it was only about 11:00am, so we called my wife's parents who were down in DC for the weekend to watch the race/sight see to meet up with them for lunch. My father in law had actually volunteered to work the finish line aid station for the marathon. We hopped on the metro and met them down town for some Mexican food (maybe not the best idea before a marathon, but it was well balanced and delicious). When we were done, we got back on the metro to go back to the Armory because we'd left our car there. When we stepped onto the metro, I heard a girl say my name. When I turned around, it was one of the girls who posts on the Runner's World forum. We'd met before for drinks once in Philadelphia. It was shocking to see her there... I knew she was running, but what are the chances that we'd get on the same metro? Anyway, after she got her packet and went through the expo, my wife and I drove her over to a party for the forum members.

We spent some time at the party and I finally got to put some more faces and voices to some of the names that I see every day. At around 5:00pm, we had to leave to get to church and then went back towards our hotel in Alexandria to check in and get dinner. When we were done eating, we laid out all of our race clothes and double checked our bags to check for after the race. When all was set up, we got ready for bed, set our alarms, and passed out.

Sunday morning was pretty much a disaster until we arrived at Runner's Village. My alarm clock didn't go off (thank goodness that my wife had set one that worked!), we were late leaving the hotel, and we got off the metro at the wrong stop so we had to wait for the next train to come by to take us one more stop. I guess there's a difference between Pentagon and Pentagon City stops. Who knew? We know for next time at least.

Once we checked our bags at the UPS trucks, it was time to meet up with more of the Runner's World folks. One of them made a sign that said "FREE NACHO'S" on it so we could find each other. It was no problem to spot. We got to meet a few more of the people who we didn't get to meet the night before at the party. We chatted for a little bit, and then it was time to get in our start corral and get started.

The start of this race was absolutely amazing. They played the National Anthem, of course, but we also had an Osprey flyover and the start gun was a howitzer! When the howitzer fired, it was a little anticlimactic. Not because the shot wasn't awesome and loud, but because we didn't go anywhere. With 30,000 runners registered, it took us about 15 minutes to cross the starting line. Once we started running, it almost ended too quickly when my wife nearly face planted. She wasn't sure if she caught a toe, was tripped, or what, but she nearly hit the ground... hard. When that kind of thing has happened to her in the past, she usually pulls a muscle or strains something, but she didn't have any problems as a result of the trip. We took a deep breath and carried on.

At around mile 3 or so, we spotted two runners from the Runner's World forum. Athena and Post One. Post is an active duty Marine stationed in Germany. He came back specifically for this race and carried the Guideon of his unit for the entire marathon.

We made our way over to Athena (not pictured) and Post One to chat for a few minutes. The first 8 miles of the course are more challenging than the rest. There are hills that my wife and I aren't used to. I had to ask about them because I knew some of the bigger ones were yet to come. They gave us some encouraging words and then we moved past them in an attempt to find our pace for our goal time of 4:30. Fortunately, the hills didn't feel terrible, but I certainly noted a little pain as we topped the two biggest ones on the course.

Everything was going well, nothing eventful to note, really. We saw lots of people cheering, lots of inspirational runners such as the Marine walking in full bomb gear, a man with a prosthetic leg, many soldiers running in full gear and ruck packs, and lots of folks running in honor or in memory of fallen hero's. We also saw a lot of great signs. I'll list some of my favorites real quick:

• Worst Parade Ever!
• Worst Wet Tee Shirt Contest Ever!
• Run like Sandy is Chasing You!
• Bloody Nipples Are Sexy!
• If This Race Was Easy, It'd Be Called Your Mom.

There were plenty of other ones that I don't feel are appropriate for this blog... mostly because my parents read it.

Around mile 16-18, I hit a wall. Serious dehydration had hit me. Hard. My wife looked at me and said, “You look pale.” I felt pale. I had been drinking Gatorade for the entire run thus far because I normally do better with that than water. It was much more potent than I normally drink, it was also lemon lime rather than orange. I’m not sure if that was an issue or not, but I couldn’t take any more Gatorade. I also didn’t think I could stomach another gel. When we got to the next water stop, I filled my hand held with water and took a gel. I felt better, but still not great. My legs were seriously cramped, so we started to run/walk from this point on.

We were following a 1/5 ratio of run walking, initially starting with a 2 minute walk and 10 minute run, then going down to a 1 minute walk and 5 minute run. The ratio got progressively worse as we got farther into the marathon and my legs cramped worse. My IT band on my right knee was killing me. Every time we started to “run” again, my legs took a good 100 yards to loosen up. I had a fleeting ten second moment of “I don’t know if I can manage to finish this thing” but I moved that out of my mind quickly. 

On route, while run/walking, we ran across my mother in law, unexpectedly. It was very nice to see a familiar face in the crowd, and I have to say, it perked me up a little bit. A few miles later, we came across another Runner's World friend who was cheering from the side line (he ran the Chicago Marathon a few weeks ago). My wife had suggested that we put our names on our shirts so people could cheer for us by name. When the cramping got bad, hearing my name really helped motivate me to carry on. I will certainly be wearing my name on my shirt for any other marathon I run in.

Marine Corps Marathon is challenging for a lot of reasons, but one of the most famous parts of the course is called "Beat the Bridge." The bridge is on 14th street and is at about mile 20 of the course. The race allows you a 14 minute mile average from the time the gun goes off. By the time you cross the start line, that really lives about four and a half hours to make it to mile 20. We were never worried about not beating the bridge, but it was a very nice feeling knowing that, although I still had 6.2 miles to run, I was going to be a marathon finisher very soon. On the way to the bridge, there was a grouper of entertainers banging BIG drums. It was almost tribal. You could feel the beat in your entire body... and you could hear it from very far away.

Once we beat the bridge, I was experiencing some of the worst cramps that I’d had on the entire course. My legs were really hurting… my left calf was balling up, my right quad and hamstring were about toast, and my traps were even sore. I saw a guy pull over and vomit off the bridge. I felt better that I was only hurting… not sick. 

When we got on to the second to last road, the wind hit hard. My wife almost lost her hat. Luckily a guy behind us grabbed it and gave it back to her. I had to walk for a little bit here, despite not wanting to walk anymore. While walking, I said to my wife, “I can’t believe Athena and Post didn’t pass us yet." As we got on the off ramp to the final straight away, I saw Post’s Guideon and Athena running next to it. We didn’t even see them pass us! I told myself that I wouldn’t walk anymore unless my wife asked to. All of a sudden, my legs felt great. I got over the wall, I guess. We turned towards the last aid station and a marine standing before the water tables called me out. He said, “Head up Matt!” I looked at him and smiled. I then looked back at the road and he yelled at me again, “HEAD UP!” I put my head up and told myself to man up. This thing is almost over.

As we got up towards the water station, I saw that Athena and Post had started walking through the water station. I asked my wife if we could try to catch them. At about half a mile to go, we did just that, chatted, got some pictures, and then we had to walk for one last time. It was more important to me to run the hill up to the Iwo Jima memorial at the finish than finish with friends at that moment.

When we started running again, Athena and Post were way out in front of us. We made the final left turn towards the hill and a spectator crossed our path with a stroller cutting us off and everyone around us. SO FRUSTRATING!

My wife and I CHARGED up the hill. I was so proud to pass as many people as we did at that moment. When we topped the hill and ran towards the finish, I grabbed my wife’s hand and held on tight. We crossed with our hands in the air, together, just like we had planned from the moment we signed up. I could not ask for a better training partner, support person, or wife. She is the reason I signed up to run MCM and the reason I finished this whole thing. I love her so much and am so thankful to have her in my life.

We finished in 5:16:30

After finishing, we ran into Athena and Post again. I got to watch Post salute a group of Marines with his Guideon, get awarded his medal, and then get saluted back by all of the Marine’s. He had to leave, so we didn’t get to chat with him much, but we stood with Athena in line to get our medals and finisher photo’s. When you get your medal at Marine Corps Marathon, a Marine Lt. puts the medal around your neck and salutes you. I felt strange being saluted by someone who put his life on the line for me, but honored at the same time. There were a few times that I almost cried on course because of the pain, because I knew I was going to finish, because I was about to cross the finish line, etc... but this part choked me up pretty good for sure.

While in line for our medals, my father in law spotted us from the finishers aid station. He walked over, gave us hugs, got a quick picture, then went back to work.

 I need to quickly thank Athena for all of her inspiration and her awesome photography skills while running. She took pictures while running backwards, stood with us in line, took all of those pictures, and even got this one in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial!

And because she was so heavily featured in this post and was a large part of my first marathon experience, we got a picture with her too.

We are still a little bit sore, even 3 days later, but over the last few days, every time I take a step and my legs almost give out or cramp up on me, I’m reminded of an amazing weekend, and accomplishing something I never thought I’d ever attempt let alone finish… I’m a marathon runner.

Oorah.

Marine Corps Marathon 2012 - Pre Race

It's been a while since I've posted. I guess you could say I've been busy? Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I lost motivation to post because things seemed monotonous and why would I want to bore you with the same post every week?

Well, today I'm writing because I need to. For my own sanity, really. This Sunday, October 28th, my wife and I will be tackling the Marine Corps Marathon. For those of you who don't know much about running, a marathon is 26.2 miles. Always. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked, "How far is your marathon?" It's 26.2 miles. Just like every other marathon in the history of marathons... OK, I got off track...

I don't know when my wife would tell you she started training for this run, but I have been training since October 7th, 2011 when I ran my first half marathon. The one that I did with my wife around our neighborhood just to see if I could do it. That day, I ran 13.1 miles in 2:26:33 (an 11:11 mile). Since then, I've always wondered what it would be like to run a full marathon. This half marathon was when the seed was planted.

After we moved to NJ, it was time to start thinking about our next running adventure. We decided it would be fun to sign up for my first REAL half marathon. Before it was time to run, we had to make the decision... are we signing up for Marine Corps Marathon or not? The date rolled around and it was time to sign up... March 7th, 2012. The race sold out in record time... 2 hours and 41 minutes. We were locked in.

On April 1st, 2012, my wife and I ran side by side for 13.1 miles through Atlantic City and neighboring towns along the coast. I'd looked into running calculators and talked with some more experienced runners about what kind of pace I could maintain for this distance based on training runs and shorter races that we'd done earlier in the year. I was told that I'd be somewhere in the 2:05 range. I wanted to run it under 2 hours. We decided that it was at least worth a shot. That day we took the starting line and off we went. 1:59:21 (9:06 pace) later, we crossed the finish line.

We took a break for a few months until we "officially" started training for the 26.2 mile distance. Our break meant maintaining some level of endurance... so we ran between 8 and 12 miles once a week (as well as other shorter runs during the week) until it was time to start for real.

The average first time marathoner will follow a beginner program. Most of those programs build to 20 and then taper off for the marathon. But I'm not your average person, am I? We ran 20 miles three times. Between each 20 miler, we took a "step back" week and only ran 14 miles. Except for the weekend when we hopped on our bikes and rode 100 miles.

I have to admit, I laughed a little bit typing that paragraph. "Only ran 14 miles." Like that's some small feat. Let me be honest, though... when you've gone 20 miles, 14 doesn't feel so bad. For me, it's one less hour of running.

Now that the marathon is less than a week away and the last 20 mile run is almost three weeks behind me, I'm starting to over think stuff. How's the weather going to be? Will I be dressed appropriately? Am I going to have fun? Will the hills be too hard? Will my legs hold up? Will my feet and knees be ok?

Here's what I know from past experience. The mind is extremely powerful. So I'm going to answer my own questions... Who cares about the weather? You'll be dressed how you're dressed... you'll be fine. Yes you're going to have fun, no the hills won't be too hard, your legs will do what they're supposed to, and if you're in pain, you'll work through it.

I'll be telling myself those things for the rest of the week. Check back next week some time for a race report... I'm sure it'll be a doozy!

Reflection

I've had a lot of time recently to reflect on my journey thus far. When you run 20 miles, you've got a load of time to get lost in your thoughts. On Friday, my wife and I did our first of three 20 mile runs. During that run, I thought about how far I have come.

In high school, I remember doing Weight Watchers with my mom. Back then, they prescribed 20 minutes of physical activity a day. Yeah. 20 minutes. At the time, I thought it was outrageous. No way could I, at 300lbs, maintain 20 minutes of physical activity a day. And then, everyone started saying that you needed 30 minutes of physical activity a day. NO WAY can I do that! If 20 minutes wasn't hard enough, 30 was impossible.

I spent 6 hours doing cardio over the weekend. Four hours of running, two hours of cycling.

Obviously, I've come a long way.

Progress isn't something that comes easy. It takes a lot of hard work. I believe that's true in all aspects of life, but especially with fitness and weight loss (for me, anyway). When I started running a little over a year ago, I hated it. I learned to enjoy it to a point by setting my goals and working to improve my personal distance and time records.

Ultimately, I set a goal to run a half marathon, which I completed. It hurt worse than anything I'd ever experienced through exercise. My muscles were completely exhausted and my mind was struggling to keep my body going. When I finished, I broke down in tears. Partly from the pain, partly because I was so proud of what I'd done. That 13.1 mile run took me 2:26:33. It was a distance PR, but I'd left myself plenty of room for improvement on time. Right then, I didn't care about the time, I was just happy to have run the distance.

When my wife and I moved to the shore, I signed us up for another half marathon. This one, I was going to train better for. We ran through the winter and we set the goal of finishing under 2 hours. Again, we accomplished our goal. In Atlantic City, we ran 13.1 miles in 1:59:21, besting my previous half marathon time by over 26 minutes.

Next up, Marine Corps Marathon. We're most of the way through our training and things are going well. We had our best long run in a long time and covered more distance than I'd ever thought dreamed I could do. Until recently, 26.2 miles was outside the realm of possibility for me. I'm still a heavy guy, but damn if I didn't just run 20 miles on Friday night. I'm confident that once the weather cools off and the humidity dies down my speed will increase and the distances will be easier to cover. At this point, I feel ready to run a marathon and I'm excited about how far I've come.

So for any of you who think to yourself, "There's no way I can ever make any progress on this exercise stuff." Think about me and what I've done so far. I may still be overweight, but on October 28th, I'm going to run a marathon!

Catching up...

I have a lot of training and experience in the field of psychology. I can help people with a lot of different problems, but I would have to say that I work best in the field of behavior therapy. I started this blog with the idea that human behavior was modifiable through habit change. I still believe this to be true.

That said, I'm really struggling lately to "counsel" myself out of certain behaviors. Is it an issue of willpower? willingness? habits? desire? I'm not sure. I've been trying to work it out in my head for weeks.

When I was working with volunteers to figure out my Wellness Coaching lessons, a common theme for weight loss was willpower. However, I would give them this example for what willpower does for you... Imagine that you took a double dose of x-lax. Do you think that if you had all of the willpower in the world, that you could avoid the inevitable? I doubt it. It needs to be a permanent change.

So far, I've learned to enjoy drinking water. I've learned to eat healthier meals in smaller quantities. I've learned to enjoy a sport (running) that I formerly hated. I'm a more positive person. I'm happier. I'm healthier. However, I continue to struggle with weight loss. 225-230 is a fine weight. Just not for me.

If you ask anyone who knows me very well, they'll tell you that I'm a good talker. I can argue any point to death until I win the argument. Whether I'm right or not. Unfortunately, this "skill," if you will, also allows me to justify pretty much any action that I do as the right thing to do. I also truly believe that I'm right, most of the time. Which makes it really hard to talk myself out of doing something that I shouldn't... you know... since I think it's the right thing to do at the time.

After that long run of 16 miles the other week, I used my rationalized goal to eat extra calories on days when I burn 1500 or more and ate an extra 800-1000 calories. Except I ate junk food. That wasn't the point of the goal. But that didn't matter at the time. I wanted chips and beer and pizza. I said to myself that it was OK because I had the calories and it didn't matter where the calories came from. I was wrong. I gained weight. After a 16 mile run, I gained weight. After running for nearly 3 hours straight, I gained weight. After burning 2500 calories (1000 shy of a full pound), I gained weight.

So what did I do? I had an easy next two weeks for workouts because of an Ultimate Frisbee tournament and a 10 mile beach race yesterday. I took those two weeks off from my goals because I didn't feel like I was working. I had family in town who wanted to take us out for meals, too. But I wanted to go. I wanted to eat those deep fried meals, the french fries, burgers, etc. So I did. I ate and drank whatever I wanted. I did fine when I was at home, mostly... keeping my food in check. But at this point, the damage is done. It's time for damage control.

I'm not going to finish this 56 Day challenge. I need to take some time to reflect. I'll do another challenge down the road, maybe. I had a friend tell me the other day... "don't give up what you want MOST for what you want NOW." I think she hit the nail on the head.

Right now, I need to figure out what I want MOST. I also need to figure out what I'm willing to sacrifice for it. I'm hoping to spend this week figuring that out. A new challenge may be in order to help me stay on track, but for now, I'm putting a halt on this challenge to figure it all out.

Stay tuned. I'm hoping that I can be back on track soon.

Start of Week 3

As many of you know, I am training to run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. in October. My wife and I have been building a base of miles since January. Originally, it was training for a half-marathon that we finished in a respectable 1:59:21, accomplishing our goal of a sub 2 hour half-marathon. When we finished that, we took a week off and then maintained our base at around 10-12 miles until it was time to start training for MCM.

Now that training is under way, we're already up to 15 mile runs for our long run. We do a long run once a week, usually on Saturday. Our longest long run will be 20 miles, and we're supposed to do that three times before we start to taper off before the race.

This week, we decided that because it's been so hot when we go out for our long runs on Saturday, and we don't want to wake up with the sun, or worse... before the sun, to get the run in, we'd wait for it to go down. Around 7:30 on Friday night, we hooked up some lights... I put one on my camelbak (basically a backpack for water), and one up on my shoulder. My wife put one on the front and back of her fuel belt. Obviously, we didn't get it by a car or anything. We also didn't trip, surprisingly.

Night runs are super fun. I used to do them in college sometimes. People would bust my chops because they'd be going to parties on a Friday night and I'd be heading out for a run. Mind you, my runs were usually around campus which was about a mile. I'd add a little bit here and there, maybe hitting two miles, so Friday's run was nothing like that.

The temperature was so much cooler than running during the day it was insane. I was so much happier, and to be honest, we both felt so much better running in the cooler 70-75 degrees in the dark than the 80-85 degree heat of the day. We'll probably continue Friday night runs through our training.

We also had a bike ride on Monday where we averaged 19.5mph. It was awesome. I didn't want to leave that tidbit out.

As far as my goals go, I did great with the exercise, I only used one high calorie day, and my pushup regimen is going well. I did 21 pushups in two out of five sets in my last workout. My max when I started was 25. I'm sure I could do more than that now.

The weight is the problem. I can't quite figure it out. I think my body is confused. During the week, my lowest weight was 224 (extreme loss, but I figured it was mostly water weight). I had been steady around 226-228, which would put me on target for my goal. After my high calorie day on Saturday, I woke up at 229 on Sunday morning. Fine, since it was after a meal out, probably lots of salt, holding water... no big deal. but this morning, I was 230.5!

I'm not sure what's going on. I'm going to stay the course. I feel good. I know that this process works, and I will continue to work on it. To be perfectly honest... my scale is from my freshman year of college which means it's a solid 8 years old at this point. I might need a new one. It's sticking a little bit and I wonder if that's effecting the read-out.

Start of Week 2

This week was a roller coaster. I lost a bunch of weight really early on in the week. In fact, I had gotten down to 228 at one point. I knew it wasn't real weight, probably water weight. It was so hot here that I've pretty much been swimming in a pool of sweat since the heat wave came in two weeks ago. I woke up this morning at 231.5 again.

Although I'm not shocked, I'm disappointed at the weight. I should be lower. I know exactly what I did wrong, though. While using my 1/3 extra calories from the longer workouts, I pushed a high calorie day back so I could eat more. So on Friday, I went for a bike ride, burned 1800 calories, ate back 1/3 of them, and instead of having pizza that night, we had salads with chicken on them to stay under my new calorie budget. Pizza was eaten Saturday instead, which really messed me up. Not to mention the alcohol. Ugh. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned. I'll fix it this week. I will not be pushing off a high calorie day because of a workout again.

Last week I did something I've never done before in my life. I ran 14 miles. My wife and I got up at 5am to try to beat the heat, and went out running. I used a hydration pack, she brought a water bottle and some cash. We stopped at a Wawa for some calories and water, then got back to running. By the time we got finished with our half marathon (13.1 miles), we were both really struggling. The heat does terrible things to a run. I finished, not strong, but finished. I thought my legs were going to be shot for the rest of the weekend. However, I recovered pretty quickly.

Saturday morning, I was planning on going out for a short bike ride to work the kinks out of my legs. Once I got going, I was pulling 20mph into a slight headwind. It felt awesome! Until I ran over a nail and punctured my tire. Once I got off, pulled the nail out, and threw it in anger, I realized that I didn't have a spare tube with me. I was able to patch the tube, ride to a bike shop, buy a new tube, and get going again at full speed. Unfortunately, my water was pretty much gone and I didn't have the money to go to a store to buy more, so I went home. I ended up being out for a little over an hour and a half and averaged over 18mph.

I also did a baseline test for my pushups this weekend. I completed 25 with good form. I could have probably squeaked out a few more, but I stopped at 25. I really just needed a number to get me started in the program. I also hit my calorie goal 5 times this week, and completed all of my workouts.

Here are some pictures.

Little blurry on the side picture, but you get the point.

Relaunch - 56 Day Challenge

It’s really time for me to get this going again. I’ve strayed too far. I am pleased to say I didn’t gain much weight, though. I like to think that I didn’t gain because I’ve learned how to eat properly and exercise enough to maintain my current weight. The problem? I’m still at least 30lbs overweight.

My motivation for weight loss has changed. When I started this blog, I wanted to lose weight so that I could play Ultimate Frisbee without getting so winded. I wanted to lose weight because I was ashamed of the way I looked. I also really didn’t want to buy yet another size larger of all my clothes.

This time is different. In fact, ironically, the motivation stems from a very similar place as the original post for my blog. A magazine. This time the magazine is Running Times. The article is called “The Skinny: The simple/complex issue of weight and running” by Rachel Toor.

It isn’t another “how you lose 20 pounds in 3 days” kind of article. It’s more about how weight effects your running speed and efficiency. Rachel begins and ends the article talking about Seabiscuit. Yes, the horse. The owner of Seabiscuit had to decide which jockey to use when racing him and when it came down to it, there was a 3 pound difference. This 3 pound difference of the jockey meant a world of difference. But how? Race horses weigh a ton! Literally! If 3 pounds on a 1 ton animal makes a difference, then what does 3 pounds do to me?

I’m also reading a book called “Racing Weight” by Matt Fitzgerald. It’s a similar topic, but much more detail and instruction. Matt talks about the optimal height, weight, and body shape of athletes in different endurance sports based on averages of the elite performers. I’m only a little bit into the book, but I’m very interested.

The theme runs through both articles that a decrease in weight is equal to an increase in performance. Sorry for the pun. I am finding that I enjoy this sport of running. In fact, I’m already eyeballing my second marathon. I’m not registering for it until I get over how much I hate running a marathon when I’m done with Marine Corps in October. I hear it’s inevitable, so I’ll just accept it and look past it.

For me, I feel a need to lose more weight. I don’t care about what I look like nearly as much as I used to. I’m not fit looking, but I can outrun most of my friends and family by far. My cardiovascular system has improved dramatically. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I want to lose weight to become better. I want to be faster and more efficient. I want to be logging 50 effortless miles a week without being so cared that I’m killing my joints. I want to be able to run 10 miles and have it not feel so much like an event (thanks for the wording, babe!).

Up until this point, the farthest I have ever run is 13.1 miles. I’ve got training runs planned for the rest of the summer that will get me far beyond that. I’ll be running 20 miles three times before my 26.2. Just about every week I will go one mile farther than I had ever done before.

For the next 8 weeks (56 Days), I will be working towards accomplishing a few goals. I’ll tell you them in a minute. Why 8 weeks and 90 days? In exactly 8 weeks, Sunday the 26^th of August, I will run my second official Half Marathon in Wildwood, New Jersey. This will be the last day of the challenge. The next day I turn 27. I can’t see a better end date.

My first goal is to lose 1.5 pounds per week for 8 weeks which means 12 pounds. The rest of my goals will support this goal.

According to my calorie needs calculator, I need to eat between 1840 and 2433 calories per day. I will do this 44 out of 56 days (that’s 12 high calorie days). Exceptions will be made for days where I burn more than 1500 calories in a workout (about 9 mile runs or more). For those days, I will be allowed to eat 1/3 of calories burned back. For instance. If I burn 1500 calories, I can have 500 extra calories that day, OR the day before. Not both. I make this stipulation because I’ll need the calories in at dinner if I have a long run the next day, or calories at lunch if I have a long run at night.

I will run a minimum of 3 days per week for 7 out of the 8 weeks. I will also ride my road bike at least 1 day per week for 7 out of 8 weeks.

My fourth goal is to complete 50 consecutive pushups with good form (nose to the ground).

I slept in late this morning so I missed my wife for pictures. I'll try to remember tomorrow morning. 232.5 this morning.