Half Marathon... done AND done.

4:45 AM- Wake up in my East Village Apartment.
4:50 AM- 1st cup of coffee (essential to any pre-race strategy)
4:55 AM- 2nd cup of coffee (in order to open my other eye)
5:00 AM- Gatorade and PB & Banana Sandwich
5:15 AM- Out the door in my sweet new glow-in-the dark TFK singlet. I look SO good in neon green!
5:16 AM- See people stumbling home from the night before... awesome.
5:19 AM- Huge rat crosses my path (I hope that's not a bad sign)
5:30 AM- Catch the Uptown 4 Train from Astor Place. I am joined one other runner and a few shady characters.
5:50 AM- Exit 4 train at 86th Street with a hoarde of other runners. I'm pretty The early morning ticket attendant had never seen so much action.

6:00 AM- Bag drop off. Really not exciting at all. I'm probably going into too much detail.
6:05 AM- Port-a-potty surprisingly clean. Really too much detail.
6:15 AM- Meet up with TFK at 102nd Street for our pre-half-marathon 3 miles. 'Cause we're just that good.
6:20 AM- 3 mile run which includes Harlem Hill twice, thanks so much to the coaches for picking that course. (Still dark out, by the way)
6:50 AM- Approach the back of the pack for the start of the race. (sun has risen)


7:00 AM- Start of the race.
7:08 AM- I cross the starting line.
7:08 AM-9:09 AM- I Run 13.1 miles.







Top 10 moments of the run:
10. Trying to keep our whole pace group together through water stations and while dodging other runners
9. POURING rain around mile 7, just as we're about to leave the park.
8. Approaching Harlem Hill just as we're about to start to our fast five minute interval, LOVE the timing.
7. Caramel flavored goo at mile 8... once it hits your lips... so good..
6. The guy walking his bicycle across the race course directly in front of us.
5. The delicious popsicle at the end of the race, whoever made that call, it was an excellent one.

4. The bands playing in the pouring rain all along the course.






3. The final stretch down the Westside Highway, my old stomping grounds.

2. Exiting the park, crossing over 59th street, and seeing the straight shot down 7th Avenue to Times Square filled with runners, all in the pouring rain.





And the #1 moment: the sprint to the finsh of 13.1 miles (in 2:01:07), plus 3, to make my longest run to date... a sweet 16, if you will. (Unfortunately there's no photo of me from the finish... apparently you have to WIN it for that to happen)

NYC Half Marathon this Sunday

This just in: New York City Half Marathon will be televised on 6 ABC starting at 7 AM! For all of you in the New York Area that are up at 7, look for me and my team, we'll be wearing glow-in-the-dark neon green shirts.

NYC Half Marathon Commercial

Article on what we're running for...

"The 2006 Shape of the Nation -- jointly conducted by the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting high quality physical education -- concluded that most states are failing to provide students with adequate physical education requirements"

Read More:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/08/20/PE.NCLB/index.html

This is exactly what Team for Kids and the New York Road Runners Foundation aims to combat and conquer. If you haven't done so already, please donate, as you can read, it's an extremely worthwhile and important cause.

Week Six... I think... I've lost count...

Finished week six with a 14-mile trek through Rockafeller State Park up near Sleepy Hollow, New York. I met up with the team at Grand Central Station at 7:00 AM to catch the Metro-North train up to Phillipse Manor. Despite being half asleep, the train ride was beautiful and there were some fabulous views, the tracks ran right along the Eastern side of the Hudson.

We met up with the rest of the team around 8:20, including the Pace Group leaders who had gotten there even earlier, and our Coaches who had been there since 5 AM mapping out the course for us... huge shout to them for that!







Coach Adam went over the goals for today (#1 goal: to finish), and helped get us all fired up to attack some serious hills.















I stretched out before the run (thanks Omar for the nice shot of my butt!!)













We started our run around 9:45, and set off to conquer some serious hills, get some fresh air, and finish our longest run to date. My 9:30 pace group was awesome, we held our pace fairly consisitently throughout the run, we managed the long, steady incline 1-mile climb as well as the shorter, steeper ones, which were not so much fun (to say the least).


Saw some lovely scenery, wildlife, farm animals... nothing gets me in the mood for a long hill climb like the the smell of pig manure....







I survived my longest run to date thanks to a great group and a great pace group leader... props to Adam for keeping us all in line and getting us to the end in once piece!

Next weekend... the NYC Half Marathon (+ 3 miles after the finish, cause we're just that awesome)

Pics with the Kids!

Some of the kids involved in NYRR Foundation programs before our run together a few weeks ago.

hills, hills, hills

So as you may have guessed from the title of this post, we've moved started our hill training. The first phase (month) of our training was designed to establish our base, and now we've moved into the "strength" phase. Last week I motivated myself to do all the hill workouts by myself, as I had a softball game on Tuesday and was away in Woodstock Thursday through Monday.

I felt pretty strong during my first hill workout, last Wednesday, in which I basically ran up and down this one hill on the Bridle Path in Central Park for about 45 minutes. My second hill workout of the week was not as fun, as I attempted to tackle the hills of the Catskills. I made it through the workout (barely), which included some pretty intense climbs up and some steep downhill work.

Saturday, thanks to the trail-scoping and mileage counting of my parents, I completed my first 12 mile run! This was my longest run ever, and the first long run I've done on my own, just me an the iPod. Props to my madre who sat in the volvo every few miles, her arm out the window with a water bottle or gatorade and some words of encouragement. The run was intense to say the least, started out with a huge hill the equivalent of Harlem Hill in Central Park, and was basically one hill after another for most of the 12 miles. We just don't have hills quite like those in the city... but I'm all the better prepared for this weeks long run because of it!

And mile #25 goes to...

Miss Emily Geiger!! Thanks to her generous donation mile 25 of 26.2 will be dedicated to her! She's seen me at my best and at my worst, who knows what mile #25 will look like... we'll wait and see...

Longest run EVER

I am pleased to announce that on Saturday, August 4th I completed my longest run ever... 11.6 miles! (oh, and it was at 7 AM)

This was also my first long run with the 9:30 pace group. I felt totally comfortable with the pace, and as a group we averaged about 9:15 per mile. Everyone in the group is really great and super nice (not that I didn't love the 10's) and as an added bonus, fellow Penn Class of '05 Alumn Mike Geller is in the group with me... go Quakers!

(I took a 3 hour nap in the afternoon)

Kiddies!

Yesterday before our training run we had a chance to meet one of the NYRR Foundation running groups, "The Rabbits." There were kids of all ages, from 5-18 and they were all from the same community in East Harlem. A few of the kids and some parents spoke about their experience with the team, and shared how much the program has changed their daily lives, their health, and their family. Many of the parents participate in the runs with their kids, and a few of the parents are even running the marathon in November!

What struck me the most about the whole experience was talking to the kids and hearing that in most, if not all of their schools, they had no physical education during the day, and many didn't even get time for recess. So they basically sit in a classroom all day without a break or any time outside (I don't know about you, but I can't even sit still at age 24 for more than an hour without getting restless). One of the mothers said that the biggest improvement in her children since they started the program is that they have been better able to concentrate on their schoolwork and spend less time in front of the TV.

After talking with the kids for a bit, we partnered up with them to do some stretching. My partner was this adorable 5 year old named Sebastian. I first introduced myself and he kind of looked at me with these wide, fearful eyes, so I thought maybe his English wasn't very good (most of the kids were Mexican-American). So then I tried to introduce myself in my very broken Spanish, and still no response. So I keep trying to make conversation, half in Spanish, half in English... nothing happening. About a minute into this pathetic attempt on my part, a fellow TFK-er, Albert, comes over and introduces himself, at which point Sebastian introduces himself in perfect English, they start talking all about running and school. Apparently I am too scary for 5-year-old boys!

So we stretched, played a few games of Tug-of-war (which we totally rocked!), then ran for a bit with the kids. Some of them are SO fast and totally put me to shame. Basically I was running with a bunch of 8 year olds who were totally keeping up with us! When I was 8, a lap around the soccer field felt like an eternity, and here these kids ran our first two miles with us!

The programs are so successful that there is a long waiting list for schools that want to participate. Currently there are about 15,000 kids involved across the country, and they are hoping to raise that number to 25,000 by the end of next year. Much of their funding for the programs comes from Team For Kids fundraising efforts, so please donate if you haven't already!

Hopefully I'll post some pictures of me with the kiddies once they've been posted to the TFK site!