The Joe Nation 2007 NYC Marathon Log

There are some famous situations. I'll try to not add to what is probably an extravaganza of internet comments.

Followed your link, osso, and saw thet the next post was by Joanne Dorel.
That sent a shudder through and I couldn't continue.
Too much of death, lately.

So, after getting off the A at 59th Street at 4:55AM and finding out that it would be a GREAT idea to actually check the temperature before leaving the apartment - it was more than frizzing frigging cold - it was cold enough to ice your throat as you tried to suck in little bites of frozen air, I got back on the train with the idea that I would run the mile from 8th and 23rd to the gym and workout on the nice warm hated treadmill. I did. I started trotting briskly along, leaping over the little mounds of black snow at the street corner and avoiding the folks who were lurking in the entrance of the movie theatre. The theatre has a nice big sheltered area where it's popular to bunk down when you have no place else to go.

It was no warmer. I had on my thick Anna Maria sweatshirt and my striped jacket but it was just like being naked, luckily, I said to myself, it's only a mile and I put my head down and plunged ahead. As I crossed Seventh Ave I thought I saw some people bunked out on the sidewalk and I was right, but instead of a few there were a couple of hundred people. Some fast asleep, some sitting on beach chairs, some huddling together in little knots of humanity.

"What's this?" I asked the two shivering women as I plodded nearer.
"Last Comic Standing." The short one replied. "Auditions"
"Wow" I wheezed, "Good luck. Be funny." And I headed on down the street.
"Hey." said one of the standees, "I know you. You're someone."
It must have been the cold.
"No. No, not me."
"Yeah, aren't you like a musician?"
"No, "I said, looking at the sea of faces looking at me in the frigid air. "I'm a comic."
Everybody laughed.
They are going to be a great audience for each other.

So now I am pissed at myself for being such a wienie. They are following their dream and standing in the cold through the whole night just for a shot at telling three minutes of jokes to several hundred other people who all think they are funnier than they are. Comedy, it's a delightful sickness.

I go to the gym and run two miles on the treadmill with the tv off.

I go to the Marathon Clinic tonight and learn that I must learn to use sportdrinks and nutrition gels and that I am a Level Four - Advanced Intermediate Runner (able to run 5k in 9-10 minutes per mile). I am happy and less pissed off at myself.

This is us all gathered around Coach Shelly who is one tough cookie.


I think to myself as I ride the train home, running the marathon will be a lot easier than winning Last Comic Standing, but the drinks won't be as good.

Joe(jellybeans are permitted as energy food)Nation

> I got back on the train with the idea that I would run the mile from 8th
> and 23rd to the gym and workout on the nice warm hated treadmill.

Heh-heh!

> I go to the Marathon Clinic tonight and learn that I must learn to use
> sportdrinks and nutrition gels and that I am a Level Four - Advanced
> Intermediate Runner (able to run 5k in 9-10 minutes per mile).

The acronym for Advanced Intermediate Runner would be AIR (as in
runnig on?).

Any more technical training goodies to share?

Yes.

Apparently running has changed since I was thirty. Of course, then we didn't train at all for the marathon, we just ran a lot. (Mostly soccer games, I was a referee for six years doing five or six games per weekend and I rode my bike five or six hundred miles a month.)

We drank water. Lots of it.

I used to hang around with a dentist who was one of the first ultra-marathoners, you know, sixty miles or so -jesus- anyway, he taught me the sip-sip-sip method of tanking up. (You take in as much water as you can by sipping little bits just before a race.) Nowadays he's be yelled at for endangering people with something called Hyponatremia.
LINK

We are smarter now. Now they say water at one stop, sportsdrink at the next. Okay. I can try that. I am going to learn to love Gatorade and Jellies.

The only other tip I'll mention now (and I've got a bunch of sites to share with training schedules etc. I just have to dig out my notes) is that your longest run of the week should total no more than 30-50% of your total for the week. So this week, I'm at 12 miles, so a six is the longest I should go.

Add only ten percent increases to your mileage until you get a firm base of 20-25 miles a week, run that for six weeks or so and then start increasing to 30-40 miles per week. O boy.

Coach Shelly says there are three ways to marathon:
You can be in the marathon. Get your picture taken with your family etc.
You can run the marathon. Push yourself to do well and feel well at the finish.
You can race the marathon. Press the envelope of your ability and give everything you have so that the last sixty paces to the finish are the limit of what your body and mind can achieve.

Joe(whew-she's run ten NY's)Nation

The shoot was about the Essential New York City Tool Box. I was one of the consultants for that article in their Best of New York Issue.



I am one of the managers of Vercesi Hardware (est. 1912), three floors packed chock-a-block with whatever New Yorkers need. We are often called upon by the local media, Channels One, 2,4,5,7,11,13 to explain, expound upon and generally riff about something hardware-ish or houseware-ish. Because I have no shame, I usually get the gig.I have a reputation for being both informative and funny.

Last month I did a segment on the effect of the warm weather on shovel and sand sales. (Wow! Exciting huh?) NY-One ran my mug's mouth moving back and forth every half hour for three days. (That may be where the comics saw me.)

In the late seventies I help produce and direct (and did on-air talent for) a live one-hour music show. You learn to look directly at the big black lens of the camera and act as if it's your best friend from school.

Joe(but the camera never laughs, that's the hard part)Nation

I swear I am not making this up.
I normally listen to an NPR station out of SW Virginia. I send them some money twice a year but they still have this dreadful on-air fundraising thing that is unbearable. So I found another NPR station, located in Richmond, that I can get on my home radio but not in my truck or at my store.
The scheduling of programs and the on-air personalities are taking a little getting used to, and I probably won't stay. But this promo intrigued me:
"I am (so or so). Join me from 2-4 am Sunday mornings for the best in harmonica music."
Talk about a labor of love.

I created a character here on A2K named Gothboy. He travels around the country, quietly watching things, and he periodically calls me. The Gothboy stories are up to some 100 pages in four years. Pages which no
one reads.
Talk about a labor of love.

And so yall run and run and run. And train and run some more.
Talk about a labor of love.

I read them and Edgar reads them.

Where is that scamp now?

Joe(Hmm?)Nation

Yikes, I'll say. I remember plodding along Winthrop Shore Drive in my Jack
Purcells. If someone asked me how far I ran, I'd say "up to Revere Beach
and back." And they'd say "like Hell you did." I took that as high praise. I
still don't know how far it was. I never did master the art of drinking on the
run. I have to walk through water stations. I got so dehydrated on one
training run that I was lost on a street I had run on a gazillion times. I
figured if I just stayed on it, I'd come to someplace I knew. That's what
happened. I got to a place where I could see my office building in the
distance. When I got back I stayed in the shower for a very very long time.

I tried drinking and running during that 15K last week. It is a very good attention getter to have water going up your nose and down your shirt at the same time. Very refreshing.

I pulled over to the right and sucked it up. I hate stopping for anything, even when I see something that would make a great photo, if I have a head of steam, I will never stop to snap it. It's just too hard, I think, to get going again. Maybe that is something else I need to work on.

Drinking while running.
Restarting after a stop.
(During one training run in the middle of January my shoelace came undone. I ran for about a half a mile before I could convince myself to stop before I killed myself.
Jogger Trips On ShoeLace Dies From Head Injury.

You should go to Running Ahead and chart out that old run up the beach.
On the ones I've gone back to the distance is always a little SHORTER than I had guessed.

Joe(I blame inflation)Nation

George's Rule #9
Never ask a question you don't really want the answer to.

Corollary:
The older I get, the better I was.

I need a clarification.

Say I've run 15 miles, but not yet done my long run. Can the run be up
to 15 miles, making a total of 30 miles for the week, of which 50% was
the long run? Or can the long run only be up to 7.5 miles, the long run
being 50% of the rest of the week?

At least I think so, if my notes are right and that's the TOP end of the scale-- it's 30-50% of the previous miles. And it makes sense, if you have 20 miles in, you really don't need to go much past a ten miles to finish the week. Get 30 in and do a 12-15... .

Hey, I had a good time today. I'm over at the US Post Office about a mile from the apartment when it starts to drizzle. Without thinking I just started running for home, up two hills and down one big one and there I was safe and dry, just before the skies opened.

Two years, fifty-two pounds and a bunch of miles ago, I would have looked around desperately for a cab or trudged reluctantly through the downpour.

Joe(then I took a nap)Nation

Yeah, that makes sense.

Cool move, throwing the old bod' into gear and running home.
It's all in the attitude.

After two days of getting rained on I snuck in a leisurely 5.25 tonight. I had to force myself to just jog along for the first four and then I really pushed it for the final mile.

Did I mention I bought my first bottle of Gatorade yesterday.

Joe(I am learning to like it. It doesn't make me want to pee)Nation

When I find myself starting to like Gatorade, it usually means I'm getting
dehydrated.

Gonna do some intervals today.
The plan:
13 min warm-up jog
6x(1 min hard + 2 min easy)
13 min warm-down jog

So I purposely set out today to do the 5.25 horseshoe (the same as Sunday's) but s l o w e r, so I put NPR on the headset and listened to the Business Report and then Night Music which was a lot updated Richard Rodgers songs and one Concerto for Mirimba. Very moving, not.

Anyway, as usual I wasn't passing anyone except walkers and thought I was doing the whole thing just fine. Run slow enough to talk, you burn fat.... . Okay, so I get to the Tavern on the Green which is about a quarter mile from the finish and I am met by all the marathon training classes coming up the hill (I am going to be in the next session which starts in late May) I KNOW I look a lot better than a bunch of those people so again, I start thinking maybe I have a handle on this running stuff.

I finish ---trot--trot--trot--- not going fast, not even breathing all that hard.

Okay Sunday's time 55:00
...........Today's time 55:01

Joe(oh yeah, that's a lot different)Nation

Sounds like a good thing. You can now put it in cruise control and stay at
the same comfortable pace for five and a quarter miles. There's a lot of
guys your age and size (hell, younger and lighter) who would have gone
into cardiac arrest from that workout.

Maybe time to add in some intervals?

Yes. Except that I don't know what intervals are. I'm sure I can find out or maybe there is a website on the web where a person can go and ask questions and get answers. Golly, I hope so.


Joe(someone must be able....to tell me.)Nation