Shamrock Half Marathon 2010: What Does a Running Quack Wear Beneath His Kilt?

I have to say, with all due respect to Disney and Kill Devil Hills, Virginia Beach may be my favorite town in which to run a race. I've run the Shamrock in one form or another twice (marathon 2009, half 2010) and the RockNRoll Half there as well, and it's always done right all the way around. This year was no different.

As I've mentioned before, if I don't have a race to train for, I get, well, lazy and fat, so my spring schedule has been loaded up. After the Goofy, Mrs. Running Quack and I decided that we'd just do half marathons for a while, and we had such a good time running this race last year that it was a no-brainer to include it again this year. It's flat, fast, scenic, well run, has great community support, and has excellent swag. What's not to like?

After the Goofy, I had two goals for the late winter and early spring: transition to midfoot running and PR a half. I thought this race would be the one to in which I would most likely be successful in both endeavors, but the since I PRed the Mercedes while running midfoot, I seemed to have accomplished my goals way ahead of schedule. It took a lot of self imposed pressure off, and I decided to just have fun. Early on, I figured, with the Celtic theme of the weekend, it would be a great time to wear my Sport Kilt. So what if it doesn't really match the color scheme of my Sugoi Brand Champion Ready Shirt or my Newtons, was this a half marathon or a fashion show? Honestly, as bad as I look after some races, who cares whether my color scheme works. I did have a little bit of a concern that it might slow me down, but I had run for a while with a guy in the Disney Marathon who was wearing a kilt, and picked his brain on the effect on his running. His assessment? He didn't even know it was there. I wanted to PR in my kilt.

The Shamrock Half starts at a civilized 7 AM, but Mrs. Running Quack and I stayed a hotel right at the finish line, so we had a half mile or so walk to the starting line. Even so, we left our room around 6:30. We walked outside that morning to the first race that we've run in 2010 that didn't have a sub-freezing start temperature. Arriving at the starting line in what we perceived as plenty of time, we decided to take one last visit to the porta-potties. After waiting in line for quit some time, we emerged to the Star Spangled Banner, and then immediately after, a starting gun, which was somewhat problematic, because we should have been off with the first corral...

We dashed through the crowd of spectators , trying to get into a corral, to no avail. We finally ended up running through the landscaping of several local businesses, hurtling recently sheared pampus grass and narrowly avoiding Spanish Bayonets, but managed to slide into the shoot just as the second wave started. An inauspicious start, but we were both laughing about it.

I took off running at a good pace, and felt great. I was actually running part of the Saturday Night Live Cowbell/Blue Oyster Cult skit through my mind in the early stages for some reason, but instead of Bruce Dickenson/Christopher Walken saying "I put on my pants one leg at a time, and then I make gold records" I was going with the mantra "I put on my pants one leg at a time, and then I run PRs".

I cruised through downtown Virginia Beach towards Fort Story, and discovered a curious thing. I've never run in a kilt before, but apparently, if you do, it's instant street cred with anybody else wearing a kilt. I ran into such a guy around mile 3. He asked me if I had done any practice runs in my kilt (I hadn't). He apparently had done exactly one, but on that run had happened to intercept his son's school bus. There was much discussion on said bus as to why a lunatic was running around the neighborhood in a kilt. No word on whether his son claimed him or not. He was running a good bit slower than I was, so I bade him farewell - he told me to look out for his buddy who was somewhere up ahead of us, and also wearing a kilt.

Miles three, four, and five of this race are on a tree-lined, shady, well-maintained road called Shore Drive. While it's pleasant, there's not a lot of entrainment value. The race folks know this, and station cheering volunteers as well as local DJs and Band along this part of the route. It makes for an enjoyable part of the half. It serves a dual purpose as as miles 16 through 19 of the full marathon, and I don't remember liking it quite so much at that point during that race.

Just before mile 6, you enter Fort Story. You can do funny things with your mind if your try hard enough. Looking at the elevation profile of this race, there's a slow up slope, with peak around mile 6, followed by a long gradual down slope to the finish. The peak is pretty close to the half way point. It's frankly absurd to think of it as a peak. If actually look at the scale, you gain maybe 6 feet over six miles, and then lose those same 6 over the next 7. This ain't Grandfather Mountain. That said, I somehow managed to convince myself that I could tell I was running up hill for the first half, and that the second half was downhill and would be easier. When I reached to half way point, and the "apex" of the climb, I was still easily on pace to break my PR from the Mercedes half by a good 2 minutes. And I felt good. A crazy idea about having a negative split crept in to my mind. And why not, I was running downhill.

In Fort Story, you get the feeling you are running just inside of a cluster of sand dunes that are hiding one of the most pristine beaches in North America. You can hear waves crashing on the shore, and you can feel a sea breeze, but you can't see any water. For all I know it, the shore line could be paved right down to the water, but I envisioned it as a white billowing sand beach, strewn with large whelk shells and scavenging crabs. You even pass between two picturesque light houses. That's on your right side. On your left side is a fence with signs every few feet declaring "Danger, Laser Range". The juxtaposition always made me laugh.

Somewhere around mile 8, I caught the first kilted guy's friend. We chatted for a few minutes, but we weren't running the same pace, and I ran on ahead. About mile nine, you squirt out of Fort Story into a residential neighborhood. At this point, I was still feeling quite good. I had slowed down a few seconds per mile, but was still easily maintaining a PR pace. Things were looking good. Around mile 10, some local, unofficial good Samaritan's were offering beer. While it is usually my policy to take at least a sip of a beer offered to me during a race over 10 miles in length, if not drink it outright, I elected to forgo it on this particular race. After all, I was flying (for me). And then, it all came apart.

For reasons that are unclear to me, somewhere around mile 11.5, I bonked. I lost all my energy, and my right hip started killing me all at the same time. I slowed waaayyy down to what felt like a crawl. I somewhat angrily stumbled through the next mile, which took me out of the residential area and back into downtown Virginia Beach's main drag - Atlantic Avenue. Over this short mile, my sure thing PR seemed to just melt away. I honestly can say that I was giving it all I had at that moment, though.

Around mile 12.5, you zig zag off of Atlantic and onto the Boardwalk. I checked my Garmin against my pacetat, and realized that I still had a chance to PR. I knew I'd be mad at myself if I didn't suck it up and try to burn it on in, so I dropped back nearly to my mile 1 pace, and covered the distance. I knew that if I focused on the now visible, but distant finish line, I'd run out of oopmh before I got there, so I just elected to focus on individual boardwalk lamp posts and run to them, then I'd choose another lamp post to which to run. Doing that, I managed to maintain a pretty good pace all the way to the finish line. But it wasn't quite enough.

I didn't PR, but I was within 31 seconds of doing so. It still goes on record as my second fastest half ever, and had I not PRed the Mercedes, it would have been a minute and four second PR. I grabbed a water and leaned up against the railing to wait for Mrs. Running Quack to cross the finish line. Pretty soon, the second kilted guy showed up, and we started chatting like old buddies. Not too much after that, my wife crossed the finish line, with a 1 second, but well earned, PR.

With all that in mind, I couldn't be too upset when I received my Shamrock Medal, my Shamrock Half Marathon Hat, and my "Surprise Gift", which turned out to be a finisher's t-shirt. I was even less upset when a few minutes later I was enjoying complimentary cold beer and an Irish Stew on Virginia Beach. Mrs. Running Quack and I climbed up on a dune, and watched the waves roll in on a warm, totally beautiful, spring day. Couldn't have hoped for a better ending to a race.

So what does a Running Quack wear beneath his kilt? Sugoi Piston Compression Shorts, if he is running the Shamrock Half Marathon. Mu.

Dissecting a bad run

Last weekend, I had an epiphany. I'm a running moron. I decided to do a short run on a 3.5 mile dirt loop in a local state park. And it was terrible. And I'm really glad. It made me realize that I've slowly transitioned in the way I approach my running. And the transition is good. I'm an idiot for not figuring this out earlier.

As I've explained, I'm not somebody who loves running. Runner's highs elude me, I don't use it as a social outlet, and it doesn't clear my head. I usually run because I have an objective somewhere down the line. I'm your basic medal and tech shirt junky (I swear, I can quit any time I want). I always have to have my next race scheduled so I am training for something. If I don't, it becomes all too easy to just to just tank a run and do something else.

For most of my running career, I've purposely distracted myself from what I was doing. I've day dreamed, I've listened to music, I've listened to books on tape, I've composed my own novel in my mind (it was excellent, until about mile 20, when I realized that it was the plot of several Faulkner books mashed together), I've done anything I can to entertain myself. What I haven't done is give much thought to the mechanics of what I was actually doing. But on this awful run, I actually paid attention.

About half way through the run, I realized that I was actually actively making an attempt to vivisect my dying training session. Unconsciously, I had turned off my Ipod, ceased my mental wanderings, and started taking inventory of how my body felt and what it was doing. I realized a few things. First, I've become much more of a mid-foot runner than a heel striker. My Newton Gravitas aren't conducive to dirt trail running, so i had switched back to my old Mizuno's. They may offer better traction on the dirt, but they feel awful now. The heel is waaayy too high. Second, I was over striding a lot. Third, I have a lot more control when going downhill with the above mentioned midfoot strike then with a heel strike. Fourth, there is a limit to how much fiber one should eat prior to a run. I could go on, but the important point is that rather than just bagging it, and deciding to run another day, I actually tried to figure out what was going wrong.

In retrospect, it actually began when I bought my Newtons and started running off a part of my foot other than my heel. It continued on through the Mercedes Half, and is probably why I PRed that race. I'd be willing to bet that most people figure this stuff out while they're training for their first marathon. Not being an athlete, it's taken me five marys and double digit halfs to actually monitor what I was doing. I probably just doubled my running IQ, and I'm still the equivalent of a running cro magnon. Mu.

The Quack Knocks Out a Hundred

It's nice when a product does what it says it does. Some time back in December, I stumbled upon an app on my Ipod Touch called 100 push ups that promised to get you to the point where you could do just that. I find that I do a better job of exercising when I have a goal in mind - that's why I'm always signed up for at least one race past the one I'm training for at the moment. Given that, it sounded like an pretty ideal exercise program - quick, simple, underrated exercise (push up), specific, concrete objective one is trying to reach (100 reps), prescribed time period (about 7 weeks). I downloaded the app for a nominal fee, and got started (don't have an iphone/ipod touch, don't worry - it's also available online at www.hundredpushups.com)

I started the week of Christmas. The app is fairly simple. You are first given an initial test to determine you baseline (nothing fancy, just the number of push ups you can do in a row with good form) and then you are given a set number of reps and sets to perform 3 days a week based on your initial performance. The Ipod version keeps track of these for you and even graphs them if you like. It will also let you broadcast your progress on twitter and facebook, if you are so inclined.

I did well enough on the initial exam to get placed in the highest of the three categories. I found the first couple of weeks challenging, but easily doable. Then came the Goofy. Given that I was a bit concerned about just being able to finish this race, I decided to take a hiatus from any form of cross training for a few weeks. It seems I was able to do this fairly easily, but it did end up stretching me beyond the seven week goal.

Over the next several weeks, I saw a really profound increase in the number of push ups I could do. You actually hit one hundred total push ups by week three, though that includes all the sets. I also found out around that time, that this program was the brainchild of an acquaintance, Steve Speirs, aka @britishbulldog.

The end of week 4 requires another test to exhaustion. While I was able to crank out the maximum level of reps required stay in the highest category, I did make the mistake of then trying to get my sets in after the test. At that point, I decided that it was probably better not to test and work out on the same day.

For the next month or so, I kept plugging along. Unfortunately, I didn't quite keep to the three work outs a week, more like a three every ten days, and while think I would have made better progress had I kept to the rigid schedule, I don't think it ultimately hurt me. A few days ago, I cranked out a total of 274 push ups. I woke up this morning, expecting the daily tally to be in the 300 range, and was surprised to learn that I had completed the program - I just needed to do my final test.

Somewhat nervously, I started at 100 counted down. I didn't even really feel anything until I hit 40 (after 60 push ups). About 25, things started getting hard, and I have to admit, I had to pause a few times and collect myself during the last 20, but I made it, in what I would consider one set. And tomorrow, I'm going to do 105. Mu.

An ailing quack runs a new half.

You know, I don't think I've ever run an inaugural half marathon before. I've run a few inaugural 5K, maybe even a 10k, but never something as long as a half. That said, when the inaugural Columbia Half Marathon was announced about 6 months ago, I figured I had to run it. So what if it was sandwiched half way between Mercedes and Shamrock, I'm just running the halfs, so why should it matter? At least that's what I told myself at the time. And then Mrs. Running Quack caught some sort of upper respiratory tract plague, and I soon followed suit.

Most of the week, I felt like a medium sized sea urchin was slowly and erinaceously crawling over the back of my throat, every once in a while pulling out a miniature flame thrower and letting fly with thermite. I also had phenomenal fatigue and a something akin to fever and chills that had me curled up in bed for several hours on Wednesday afternoon. By Thursday night, though, the echinoderm had morphed into some sort of jellyfish, oozed its way up into my sinuses, and dug in like the Maginot Line (had it not been manned by the French). When I awoke Saturday morning, my throat actually felt good, but my head was completely socked in. Coupled with the fact that it was hovering around the freezing mark, I thought about tanking the race, but talked myself in to it.

I arrived at Columbia, SC's Finley Park on a beautiful and rapidly warming late winter day. The sky was blue and there was no discernible breeze. There was also no discernible starting line - just a group of runners waiting to pick up their champion chips. I retrieved mine and threaded it on to my shoe. Not long after, a loud speaker asked us all to "move to the top of the hill". A few minutes later, somebody yelled "go" and we were off. I waited a few seconds expecting to cross over a timing chip mat, but I never did. I just arbitrarily started my gps a few paces down the hill.

I have to admit, when I saw the course on the www.columbiahalfmarathon.com website, I wasn't really too excited about running it. In my mind, it took a strange rout through town, and about half of it wasn't even really in town. I thought it was a bad course. I was completely wrong.

The course was effectively a big lemniscate, which will become important later. The first leg took us north into an area of town in which I had never set foot. It turned out to be a very pleasant little neighborhood with lots of old trees and unique houses. We quickly looped back in to downtown proper and looped around through the historic district, passing between the Mills House and the Hampton-Preston Mansion - two of the small handful of remaining antebellum homes in South Carolina's capital. We then took a left and headed up towards the University of South Carolina's campus.

USC is always pleasant to run through, and this was no exception. It almost made me forget that I was sick. By this time in the race, I was starting to realize something about myself. Apparently, when I run, I usually breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. My nose hadn't been an option earlier in the race, but it had opened up by mile four. The only problem was, every time I took a deep breath through it, the could air caused a searing pain. I was also starting to get what felt a lot like a dehydration-type headache. I had to remind myself to breathe through my mouth, but every few minutes I forgot and took a big gulp of air through my nose. I also had to walk through water stations because the breathing mechanics were too complicated. It was fun.

As i mentioned before, the route was basically a big figure 8- not a double loop, but you did pass right by the finish right at mile 6. In all honesty, I felt so bad by that time, that I actually stopped and walked off the course. I fully intended to tank the race, head off to my car, and go home and get in bed. I looked down at my Garmin, realized I was running at a pretty good pace, and knew I'd be mad at myself if I didn't finish. At that point, having wasted a minute or two with my internal debate, I hopped back on the course and took off again at a slower pace. In the mean time, I made a small tactical error, but more on that later.

The second half of this run takes you out of the city of Columbia, over the Congaree River, through the town of West Columbia, back across the Congaree on the Gervais Street bridge, and back up a fairly nasty hill to Finley Park. It was on this loop I realized my screw up.

I usually use a gel some time around mile 5, and then again sometime around mile 9. It's probably overkill, but it works for me. I've also figured out that the first sign of glycogen depletion for me is not feeling weak or slow, but a change in attitude about the run. I start despairing. About half way across the Taylor Street bridge, running over the Congaree, I realized that I was dropping into my low glycogen funk. I had forgotten my gel at mile six due to my mental machinations. In most of the races I've run recently, this wouldn't have been a big deal. I was closing in on 7.5 miles, and with water stops every two miles or so, I could just pop the gel and grab some liquid a few minutes later at the 8 mile station. In this race, though, the water stops were spread out to about 3.5 miles, and were sporadic at best. Not so far away from each other as to cause a danger for anyone, but extremely inconvenient for my situation. I figured I needed the sugar, so I used the gel, but it left me with a few miles to run before I had anything with which to wash it down.

The West Columbia part of the race was very pleasant. I don't know what I was expecting, but we twisted through little 1950's-looking neighborhoods, full of tree lined streets and the occasional curious on lookers, who apparently weren't aware that a half marathon was going on that day. Mile 12 hit right at the Gervais Street bridge, and and also right at the base of the only substantial hill on the course. To be frank, I had been running out of gas, and far from passing people like I had at Mercedes, I had been the passee for the last several miles. My head still hurt, as did my sinuses, and my throat was starting to get into the act. I figured I only had a mile left, though, and charged up the hill, overtaking quite a few people. A left turn and a few blocks later, I hit the finishing line, six minutes slower than my last race, but still in a respectable time for me.

A volunteer placed a medal on my neck, and I headed for the post race food - which turned out to be poweraide, fruit, pastries, and oddly, a wide variety of some sort of boneless, sauce-laden chicken wings. The later looked really good to me, but another runner walked up behind me and said "Yuck, you can tell I'm not an ultrarunner, I can't eat that kind of stuff right after a race". Oddly, though Michelob Ultra was a race sponsor, there was no beer. South Carolina has some odd laws regarding alcohol, and this may have been the issue. The chicken partially made up for it, and I downed my share,though some of the sauces did burn my somewhat raw, plague-infested throat. Ah, well.

I have to say, for a first effort, I think this was a great race. The course, which I initially questioned while looking at a map, turned out to be excellent - it gave plenty to look at, took you over the river twice, and wasn't too hilly, which is a feat in Columbia. The crowd, while really small and widely dispersed along the race course, was really enthusiastic. The city of Columbia Police department did a nice job of directing traffic.

I liked this race, and I'll run it again next year. In the the spirit of constructive criticism, however, I'd like to offer some suggestions for the future. First, I may be splitting hairs, but in a race as long as a half marathon, you need timing mats at the start and finish - and for that matter, you need a discernible starting line. Second, the last half-dozen races I have run have had water stops every two miles. While, again, this may not be physiologically necessary, I think folks have come to expect it and plan on it. Third, get some local high schools bands and cheerleaders to come out. Have a contest between local charities to see who can have the best cheering section, etc. Get people involved along the route. Lastly, this is part of a series of races put on by the USRA, but neither the shirt nor the medal make any mention of it. If you are going to have a franchise of races - a la the RocknRoll Series or the 13.1 Marathon Series - flaunt it.

All in all, I was happy I ran the race. It was pleasant, even though I felt terrible, and I'll be glad to do it again next year. It was a very different route from Columbia's other two half marathons - the Governor's Cup and the Palmetto Half Marathon (http://www.palmettohalfmarathon.com/ , also new this year), and I think safely avoided the same race-different name issue. At the end of the day, I may have been ailing, but I'll still finished in the top third, which makes this quack happy. Mu

Mercedes Half Marathon

In the Running Quack household, we've started a tradition. Mrs. Running Quack and I have decided that Valentine's Day weekend is an excellent time for a race. It's long enough after Disney for recovery, but not so long that one gets tremendously out of shape. Last year we made a short as-the-crow-flies, but infuriatingly long-as-the-car-rolls trip to Myrtle Beach, where I proceeded to run the single worst half marathon of my running career, but we still had a nice weekend. This year, we decided to make the longer trip to Birmingham, Alabama for the Mercedes Half Marathon.

Why this particular half marathon? It was well within driving distance, and the swag seemed really cool - I mean, come on, a medal shaped like a Mercedes hood ornament? Who wouldn't want that? It's like combining Flava Flav and Ryan Hall (in a good way). Little did we know that this particular weekend would host the largest snow storm the South has seen in years. We drove through the heart of it on Friday, and other than having a small SUV hit a patch of ice and turn a full 720 in front of us on I-20 (Mrs. Running Quack deftly avoiding T-boning them with my Honda Ridgeline, which would have been bad), we saw few ill effects from the weather.

The city of Birmingham proved an excellent host for a running event. We stayed at the official hotel, which was immediately adjacent to the expo, which was a few blocks from the race start and finish. We parked the car Friday night, and didn't move it until we left Sunday after the race. It was the single best set up I have seen as far as convenience goes. The expo was fairly small, but the volunteers were enthusiastic, as were the exhibitors, and we actually stayed for a fairly long period of time. We then took a little reconnaissance trip around Birmingham and easily found the start line a block away (we also found out that most of the restaurants in downtown Birmingham cater the the weekday business luncher rather than the weekend tourist, the exception being the Roly Poly Sandwich shop, which opened this weekend solely because it was Marathon Weekend. Try the number #38). On a side note, the delightfully quirky Birmingham Museum of Art is located right next to the expo and worth a trip.

We elected to eat in the hotel restaurant that night for our pre-race meal because they were having a special pasta night pre-marathon. The food was good, and because the Black Eyed Peas also happened to be having a concert in Birmingham that evening, the people watching was too (for the record, tech shirt=runner, sequins=concert goer, nice retired couple with 3 year old grandchild = confused). Also for the record, if you want to psyche out a race crowd, put on a red and green jacket with "Kenya" stencilled on the back in big letters- the guy wearing it may have been from Tuscaloosa for all I know, but everyone was staring at him. My wife wants to have one made before her next race.

Checking the weather for Sunday morning, at race time it was supposed to be partially cloudy and about 30 degrees. Thinking back to the Goofy, we garbed ourselves in long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts, zap jackets, throwaway clothes, and space blankets. At the last minute, I left my throwaway clothes in the room. Thirty minutes before race time, we hopped on the elevator and exited into a lobby full of shivering runners. We steeled ourselves against the cold and walked outside... into a beautiful day.

The sun was already coming up and the anti-twilight was cool, but not cold. Furthermore, because of the convenience of the hotel to the race course, we only had to stand outside for about fifteen minutes, and most of that was in a corral with plenty of crowd generated heat. We shed our space blankets and my wife dumped her $3 hoodie almost immediately. Marathon and half marathon participants were all lumped into one big corral, with no discernible mechanism for determining the speed of those around you. We thought we were in the middle of the pack, which seemed appropriate given our middle of the pack runner status, but when the starter yelled "GO" (no pistol, no fireworks), it took us a good two and a half minutes to cross the start.

Mrs. Running Quack and I decided to run our respective races today, so I took off. Or at least I tried to take off. Apparently, the corral had been a much more heterogeneous mix of folks than I had anticipated. I soon found myself dodging groups walking six or eight abreast while some, who were running faster than I was, were trying to run around me. If I have a criticism of this race, it's this - next year have people line up in the corral by pace.

I was a little nervous, because this is the first race I've actually tried to run with a mid-foot style, and my furthest training run in my Newtons had been eight miles. When I started running, though, I felt great. By the time the crowd thinned out a bit around mile 3, I knew that I was going to run a good race. The first couple of miles are slightly downhill, and make a lot of twists and turns through downtown Birmingham. Personally, I like turns, they break up the monotony of long straight stretches and give you a short term goal on which to focus. They also tend to hide things like hills, which is important in this race. Around miles five or so, also due to the lack of line-up-by-speed in the corral, I caught several marathon pace groups who were running decidedly slower than my pace. Around that time, I also encountered, for the first time ,an observer yelling "Great job, just one more mile" for reasons that I don't quite understand. Under blue skies with minimal wind, I got hot enough that I had to unzip my trusty Sugoi Zap jacket.

Somewhere around mile 5.5, this race hits the University of Alabama-Birmingham Campus and also starts a long, slow, generally uphill climb that lasts about the next fours miles. Usually, I don't like this kind of steady climb, but the crowd support was great, the run was again, really twisty, and it offered some nice views of the downtown on occasion. I was also feeling really good, and decided that it was a good day for a personal record. I honestly was concentrating so hard that I really only remember three details about the climb - first, I saw what appeared to be a stately old mansion, but turned out to be a new law firm; second, a Presbyterian Church was giving out gummy bears and much appreciated peppermints that really gave me a boost; and third, I miscalculated distance and had to walk through a water stop in order to be able to use a Roctane and wash it down with liquid (I'm somewhat proud of my ability to run and drink at the same time and usually have my gel downed by the time I hit the appropriate stop).

What goes up must come down, and this course starts going for the most part in that direction around mile 9.5 or so. I checked my pacetat and realized I was only a few seconds off my goal time, despite having the uphill out of the way. I took off downhill. I have to say, I think midfoot running really gives an advantage here. With heel striking, I usually end up slowing myself down because I seem to over stride and don't have any control. With the midfoot, the faster I went, the more energy return I seemed to get from my shoes with no loss of control.

Oddly enough, the same "just one more mile" guy showed up around mile 10, as did enthusiastic, though somewhat widely spaced, support from the community from here on out. One could also see the skyscraper of downtown Birmingham beckoning one towards the finish line. Checking my Garmin, I realized that I had dropped off on the speed, and made a conscious effort to pick it up. It was one of those "I only have to keep this up for two miles" kind of efforts. At mile 12, Mr. "only one more mile" showed up again, and this time it was true. By that time, my calves were both hurting, as was my left foot, but I knew it wasn't anything to really worry about, so pressed on through.

I do have to admit, I was glad to be heading towards the finish line rather than out to do the same loop again when the full marathoners peeled off right before the finish line. I loved this course, but I wouldn't have liked to climb those hills second time. As it was, when I hit Linn Park, made a sharp left towards city hall, and then a 90 degree right towards the finish line, I had enough left in me to kick it out. For once, I remembered to hit the stop button on my Garmin. Unofficially, it was a PR.

I collected my finisher shirt and waited for my wife to finish. I had just enough time to cool off and realize that I was soaking wet in about 38 degree weather. The post race party happened to be inside, and I was glad to warm up. Both the beer and the barbecue were good, as was the band. All in all, this is a great half marathon. It's well organized, the terrain is varied, and while I wouldn't characterize it as anywhere near flat, I did PR on it, so it must be pretty fast.

Geographically, everything is close together, which makes it great for out of towners. The swag is good - Mercedes Hood Ornament style medal, running hat, cup, and finishers shirt and a post race party that featured Budwiser and Jim N Nicks barbecue -which go great together after running. I'd definitely run it again. And, cruising down I-20 a few hours later after the dust settled, I checked the official results. I had broken my 13 month old PR by 1 minute and 35 seconds. Mu.

A feeling of Deja vu

As I sit here in the eve (or rather close to the eve of) the Mercedes Half Marathon in Birmingham, Alabama, a familiar scenario seems to be shaping up. What started out as a kind of cold race (35 degrees, but clear) has crept into the realm of a really cold race (27ish) and subsequent to this a cold wet race (supposed to rain now). The odd thing is, it really doesn't bother me too much now. My hotel is about a block from the start, I know how to dress for this kind of thing after Disney, and frankly, it seems like some form of frozen precipitation has been present for ever run I've undertaken recently. My bigger issue for this race is the fact that my running ipod has magically disappeared. I'll layer up, go run my race, collect my schwag, and enjoy a frigid Valentine's Day weekend with my wife (the weather giving me the cold shoulder, not Mrs. Running Doc). Mu.

In praise of Fitdeck

A long time ago, I figured out that to stay in shape, I need to do more than just run. I also need to do some form of other exercise - and I don't mean hopping on the elliptical or the bike at the gym. I need some form of resistance training. If I don't, I get flabby fast. My weight balloons, and I pack on fat in places I don't want it and lose muscle in places I do, and then I also just feel crappy. And, I get weak. Fast.
I don't mean to say that I'm a 6% body fat kind of guy, we've already established that I'm not. The only six pack I have is in my fridge and nobody is going to mistake me for a professional athlete (well, maybe a pro bowler). But, I do at least try to stay in shape, and I've found that unless I work out, I run off muscle.
I used to have Andy, the best trainer in the world, who could train six foot two, 195 pound me to the point I was about to throw up but was still grinning, turn right around and do the same for my 112 lb wife, and then go charm a 70 year old grandmother into doing dumbbell presses on a balance ball; but, alas, he moved to Seattle and left me floundering. When I had Andy scheduled every week, I knew I'd get to the gym for at least that period of time. I've tried other trainers, but it just hasn't been the same. Couple that with increasing my mileage for the Goofy, and I just didn't have time to get to the gym while it was open. I increasingly found myself working out really late at night, or at the hospital while I was on call. I needed a portable Andy I could take with me anywhere. And I came pretty close to finding it in Fitdeck.





Conceptually, Fitdecks are pretty simple. They're basically a deck of cards with instructions for a bunch of different exercises written on them. Rather than suits, they're divided up by the different parts of the body that the movement works out (upper body, lower body, core, whole body, etc). They also dictate a number of reps to do based on whether you want a beginner, intermediate, or advanced work out. I'd seen them in a magazine, and thought it sounded like a good concept, but really hadn't looked in to it. Then, browsing trough the app store on my ipod one day, I ran into Fitdeck.
I downloaded it, and it was unbelievable - here was a bunch of body weight based exercises I could literally take and do anywhere - and just as importantly, it provided variety. With 50 different exercises, a quick shuffle resulted in a different set of exercises every day! All I had to do was hit a button, select the number of cards I wanted, and work out.
Given that there are certain places you just don't want to leave an ipod (say, left in a call bag in an unsecured room or in a drawer at the office), I also quickly obtained the traditional deck of cards "analog" version as well. If anything these proved more versatile. Say you want a quick work out, shuffle, deal out 10 cards, do them. Say you just ran 15 miles yesterday - pull out the lower body exercises, shuffle, and go. Want a full body ache the next day kind of thing? Do the deck. They're great! (as an aside, the ipod version is undergoing a complete rebuild, and I'm lucky enough to be beta testing the current product. It's going to be superb!)
I've slowly added more and more Fitdecks to my arsenal - the first thing I did was buy my 67ish year old parents the Fitdeck Senior version - which are thoughtfully about twice the size of the regular cards so that the presbyopic don't have to use reading glasses to see them. Next I added the Combat Sports deck, which provided a whole new series of for the most part whole body exercises.
Body weight exercises are great for travel and times you can't get to the gym, but I have yet to see one that can really provide a good biceps workout. Recognizing that limitation, I also acquired the dumbbell deck. No surprise, not only did it give me a great arm work out, but challenged my legs and core!
The other cool thing about these is that they can be used alone or in combination. I've mixed the combat sports in with my original deck, and add the dumbbells or subtract them simply based on whether I have access to weights or not. Constant variety keeps one from getting bored!
My children loved my original deck, so I bought the Fitdeck junior set for them. They fight over who it really belongs to and frequently pull it out to "train" each other. I have to say, I've done it with them, and it's fun - completely different exercises from the adult version. I also grabbed the trx version (which I'll review with the trx at a later date) and the Navy Seal workout. The later, as you might well expect, isn't for the novice - I find it rather challenging and tend to do it on its own.





In short, I love these things. They're inexpensive, versatile, and effective. With versions like stairs, prenatal, stroller, office, and travel, they have something for everyone. I even entertained getting them as Christmas presents for all my co-workers, but my wife convinced me that not everyone might think they are as cool as I do, and some folks might take it as an insult (ie "are you implying that I need to exercise more"). That's not at all why I would be giving them (I just think they're cool), but she's usually more socially adept than I am, so I took her word for it. I still think they're a perfect gift for the right person! In short, these things are a great, fun tool for staying in shape.

The Dreadmill Chronicle...

To give a bit of background information, I used to be a treadmill guy. I used to espouse the benefit of being able to watch TV for an entire run, the utility of never being more than 25 feet from a bathroom, the beauty of knowing exactly how many miles per hour you are running and wisdom of knowing exactly how fast you were going at all times (as an aside, I've figured out that easiest way to tell an outside runner from a treadmill runner is how they report their speed - mph = treadmill, X minute miles = outside). My wife always scoffed at this, and I have to say she was right. I only hit the treadmill now when I have no other alternative. Lately, the treadmill has been fighting back.
I have to work this weekend, so my usual running schedule is thrown a bit off. I can either run very early or very late. I awoke around 4 AM this morning to the sound of driving rain pelting my bedroom windows, and knowing that the temperature was in the mid-thirties, I resolved to sleep for a while and then run in the afternoon. I subsequently tossed and turned for a few hours, and finally decided to get up and go hop on the treadmill for a quick three mile run.
This would seem like a reasonable plan, except for the fact that apparently a poltergeist now inhabits the dreadmill lurking in my garage. It hates me. Perhaps it loathes me. It is the Moriarty to my Holmes, the Luke Skywalker to my Darth Vader, the Newman to my Seinfeld, the Dr. Doofenschmirtz to my Perry the Platypus. It hasn't always been this way, we've spent long hours together, me plodding along, watching a movie on the minuscule flat screen dvd player/tv combo (bought from a pawn shop that happens to sell things on ebay), it humming just loud enough to drown out the players pathetic auditory system, integrated fans pointed at my face and just barely moving enough air for me know they were on... We were happy. It's still that way for my wife. She turns on the treadmill, and it does what she asks. She can run as fast as she wants for as long as she wants. Me, not so much.
Somehow, over the last few months, any attempt I make to run on the treadmill results in a blown circuit breaker. The first time it happened (just before Christmas), it took me quite some time and many trips to the breaker box to figure out what happened. It seems that not only is the circuit attached to the box, but also to a ground fault indicator outlet on the far side of the garage. This would appear to be the culprit. I do not know what my treadmill is suddenly drawing enough power to blow a fuse, but regardless of why, it drove me into a rage at 5:50AM. As I walked back in to my pre-dawn house, I vowed that the dreadmill would not win the day. I would run before sundown.
So I did. I pulled on my stocking cap and my Sugoi Zap jacket and my Newtons and I took off outside. It's 27 degrees today, and precipitating. And it felt great. I've gotten enough used to my Newton Gravitas that they are no longer a novelty, but I'm still running faster than I was in other shoes. I feel like a running light bulb has come on when I wear them. My Sugoi Zap jacket never ceases to amaze me. I was impervious to the worst old man winter could throw at me. Freezing rain and snow bounced off it like ping pong balls. Wind gusts hard enough to make me duck my head failed to penetrate it at all. Despite it's light weight, I actually had to unzip it a little ways, because I got a bit warm. In short, I ran through the sleet and snow and enjoyed it tremendously (as an aside, when running or driving through snow, I always feel like I'm getting ready to go into hyperspace, it makes me feel fast). Feeling like I could win a land war in Asia as I crossed over the threshold into my garage, I glared at the treadmill and silently thanked it for giving me the opportunity to run in the weather. I think it blinked. Mu.

The Goofy, Part 2

It is appropriate to start this second part of my Goofy blog with a quote from the classic Bill Murray film Groundhog Day - "When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter." Why do I choose this quote? Because to some extent, I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I woke up at 2:50 AM. I ate the same stuff as the day before (though I was too sick of food court peanut butter to eat my midnight peanut butter sandwich). I put on remarkably similar clothes to the day before, down to the throw away flannel shirt, pants, and tyvek painters' coveralls. And then we went out into the cold.

But that's where it ended. Brand new day. It was actually colder for the marathon than the half marathon, somewhere around 25 degrees according to several major news services. It was also, however, not precipitating in any way, shape, or form as we stood in line for the bus. {OK, the bus ride was remarkably similar, and the same Disney volunteer welcomed us to "Disney Alaska", but that was the last Groundhog Day thing - it also provided an easy way to tell the Punxsutawneyish marathon folk (amused by it) from the Chekhovian Goofy folk (less than amused)}. Baggage check was much faster that day, and people seemed to be in very good mood overall. Rather than focusing on the cattle-shoot aspect of the walk to the start, I took a bodily inventory of how I felt after the half, and was remarkably pleased to find that I had no aches or pains anywhere. My leg muscles felt the least bit "not fresh", for lack of a better way to describe it, but not really fatigued.

Approaching the start, we took the obligatory trip to the porta-potties, where, incidentally, I learned that one could shove an entire space blanket down one pants leg of tyvek coveralls and the top half of suit down the other in order to keep them off the floor of said porta-potty. My wife did not think of this, and we ended up ripping the sodden arms off her coveralls, leaving her looking a bit like Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid.

Getting into the corral required some effort, as we had to show our numbers to the volunteer. Mine was pinned to my shorts - under the coveralls and flannel shirt and pants - so required yoga and contorting. In case you are wondering, before a race, clear and colder is better than sleeting and marginally warmer, but we still waited a bit too long to shed our outer accouterments, and so ended up in the far back of the corral after everyone had pressed up to the starting line.

Before long the fireworks lept skyward, and we were off. It ended up taking us about four and half minutes to actually cross the line, but hey, this race is a marathon, not a sprint (which I cleverly worked into the blog as a non-euphemism). The first couple of miles were spent in a huge crowd of humanity. Around mile one, there was an oddly-placed water stop that everybody cruised through, but otherwise the stretch was mostly devoid of ornamentation. Which is not to say there was nothing to look at.

I don't think there was a person at the race who didn't have either a space blanket or a trash bag wrapped around their person at the start. Most discarded them before they started running, but a freezing few held on to them for the first couple of miles only to discard them along the rout. I have no idea whether people dropped them in the middle of the race course or if they threw them to the side only to have the fairly brisk wind catch them and blow them back on to the course, but a forest of mylar and plastic jellyfish soon formed across the road way. They blew about like tumbleweeds a ghost town, wrapping themselves around unwary runners feet. I was sure somebody would trip and fall, but if they did, I didn't see it. What I did observe was the a phenomenon similar to walking out of a bathroom trailing toilet paper stuck to one's shoe. Various runners trailed myler strips for what seemed like half a mile or more, making a distinctive step-crackle sound as they ran, and hoping in vane that the mylar would auto-disentangle (it didn't).

Mile three or so saw us entering and leaving the back side of the World Showcase in Epcot. The coolest thing about this was a broadcast on the globe used in the Illuminations show that closes Epcot each day. No fireworks, but a lot of flashing colors. Soon after, we cruised out of Epcot and joined the folks who had started on the other side of the road - the course would be the same from here on out. It was Deja vu all over again as we jogged effectively back through the starting gate at mile four, and the a little bit later that early water stop made sense as we jogged past it around mile four and a half. It was here that we got our first taste of an unexpected race phenomenon for me - that of the powerade slush. It was actually cold enough that the water and sports drinks at the water stops were partially freezing in their cups, making basically an icee.

Between mile 5 and mile 9, not much usually goes on in this race, with the exception of the mild novelty of passing by the Disney World Speedway. Today, I learned two things: 1. Powerade, when spilled on asphalt in sub-freezing temperatures, does not seem to freeze, and 2.Water, when spilled on asphalt in sub-freezing temperature turns into a slick patch of black ice almost immediately. As runners dropped their partially full cups of H2O, the fan-shaped spillage quickly turned into so many banana peels that the water stops suddenly became one large frictionless bearing. Not exactly fun, but it was entertaining and made the miles go faster.

Miles ten to eleven incorporate the Magic Kingdom on a path identical to that of the half marathon. We stopped to take a few pictures along the way and just generally enjoyed the ambiance. After winding our way through the Fantasyland into Frontierland, we rounded corner to find one of Magic Kingdom's steam locomotives facing us, headlight shining straight at us in the dim morning sun, in a classic incoming train pose. I prefer to think of this as an homage to the late Mr Toad's Wild Ride attraction.

Miles 11 through about 15 are usually fairly dull, only adorned by the Disney water treatment plant, but this year there were a number of witticisms and statistics mounted on the side of the road for our viewing pleasure (the only one I remember was the one that stated "One third of New York City public school teachers send their kids to private school) Not too much later, we hit the very enthusiastic, and very appreciated, accordion club of central Florida, who were cranking out oompah hits with zeal and gusto despite the early hour and the cold. We also had our picture taken with a random reindeer placed strategically on the course.

In the It's a small world category, around this time, in a supposedly over 20,000 person race, we ran in to a friend of my wife's from home. She was running about the same pace that we were and we were glad to have her join us for the remainder of the race.

One enters the rear of Animal Kingdom about mile 15. Just prior to this, we ran into an Air Force Cadet carrying a thirty pound ruck sack on his back and running the marathon. I thanked him for his service, and I hope he did well over the last 11 miles. The course through Animal Kingdom takes you in the back side, around the Tree of Life, skirts Expedition Everest, and out through Dinoland into the AK parking lot.

Enter the least interesting part of the race. The next five mile give you very little to see, and even incorporate a small version of that most dreaded of marathon routes, the out-and-back. Around mile twenty, at the start of said out and back, my joints were starting to bother me a little bit, so I ran ahead of my wife and her friend to a med tent to apply some biofreeze to my knees. I stopped and waited for them to catch up. And waited. And waited. Finally, I saw them coming back towards me on the opposite side of the out-and-back. I had to double time it to catch up with them, which, admittedly, took a fair amount out of me 33 miles into this event. To make matters worse, next up was another one of the overpass/slanted hills climbs - not as bad as the one on the half, but still painful. I didn't really care though, because I knew that Disney's Hollywood Studio was just around the corner.

I have found that at this point in the race, the Tower of Terror actually serves as a beacon, pulling you towards it. When I see it, I know that there is only about a 5k left. A cadre of volunteers pelted us with Hershey's Miniatures as we entered the Hollywood Studios (most of Hershey's Dark Chocolate was thrown back). By this time, crowds were in the park, and a throng of people cheered us through the Streets of America, around the Sorcerer's Hat, and down Hollywood Boulevard. From here, it's a short run behind Disney's Boardwalk to the back of Epcot.

The World Showcase is a great distraction for the last mile or so of the Disney Marathon, and photo-ops abound. Marathoner's lined up to take pictures with Snow White, Aladdin and Jasmine, Winnie the Pooh, etc. We just wanted to be finished, though, so we ran straight through, jet setting from France to Morocco to Japan to America to Europe to China to Norway and finally back to Mexico in a mater of minutes before veering out the side gate, and past the same, much dryer, much less cold, gospel choir that is always placed right before the finish.

I usually cross the finish line thinking about my race time, and I'm fairly critical of the race I've run. This time, I really felt like I had accomplished something as a volunteer girded me with my medal and shunted me towards the Goofy tent. Granted I'm no athlete, but the little old lady who placed the (friggin heavy, by the way) Goofy Medal around my neck capped my physical fitness career to this point. I'm actually more proud of finishing this race and a half than any of my PRs. I started this blog with a Chekhov allusion, and I'm going to end it with an Anton Chekhov quote, "One usually dislikes a play while writing it, but afterward it grows on one." I think the Goofy is the same, you hate training for it, it's hard to run, but afterward, it's quite a tale. Mu.

The Goofy, Part 1

You know, I have to hand it to the Disney Imagineers. They are impressive. They made the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge that my wife and I completed last weekend quite memorable. Having had people complain about how warm it was on Disney Marathon Weekend for the last couple of years, they apparently decided to turn the Southern US into a tundra just for the races. I had no idea the power they could exert over even mother nature, but now I'm a little scared of them.


For those of you not familiar with the Goofy Challenge, it’s a reasonably unique race in that one runs a half marathon on Saturday, and then turns around and runs a marathon on Sunday for a total of 39.3 miles over not quite so many hours. It presents a fairly unique challenge in that you have time to go home and get sore before you run the marathon the next day. Given that it’s basically 2 races, I’m going to write about it in two stages rather than one long blog.
Back to the Disney Imagineering. Somehow, and I’m not sure how, the fine folks at Disney managed to turn central Florida into a fairly good approximation of a taiga. The week before the Half Marathon, I monitored the weather incessantly, and unfortunately kept seeing temperatures dropping lower and lower to the point where per several national weather services, it was supposed to be in the high 20s at race time. Oh, and by the way, there also might be what is apparently known as a “wintry mix” at the start of the race. Anticipating this difficulty, we purchased tyvek coveralls from the local hardware store and space blankets from Walmart in an effort to keep warm. I also planned on donning some old corduroy pants and a flannel shirt as throw away insulation. I've been caught unprepared at cold races before, and it ain't fun.
On the morning of the race, we rose at 2:50AM, got dressed and were on the bus from our hotel to the starting line by 4AM. We arrived at Epcot about 4:30 for the 5:40AM race start. Hopping off the bus, one was greeted first by the bracing cold, and then by a volunteer cheerfully shouting "welcome to Disney Alaska!", which we all found mildly amusing at the time. While waiting in line at the bag check, my wife pointed out that one could see snow flurries in the lights around the parking lot. At this point, it was novel, pretty, and not sticking to anything. Just the way that the Disney Imagineers planned it when they somehow figured out how to control the weather. After the bag check, we took an obligatory trip to the porta-potties and this is when the real fun began. I began to hear something akin to rain hitting the modern day out-house, and upon exiting, I realized that it was, in fact, sleeting in central Florida. I think the imagineers made this happen just to show that they could do it. We had been carrying our coveralls and space blankets up to this point, and now decided to gird ourselves with our full foul weather gear. We then joined the line of racers heading to the starting line looking like some sort of hazmat-lumberjacks.


The walk from the baggage check area to the start is long in Disney races, and very crowded. It reminds me of the cattle round up scenes in old westerns, complete with cowboy/volunteers herding we, the cows, into the corrals. Though it was cold and sleeting, everyone was still in a good mood. It honestly didn't feel all that bad with as many layers on as I had. We subsequently found our way to corral B, and had just enough time to get our coveralls (which, by the way, were a superb investment for $7) and throw-away clothes off before the wheelchair race started. At this point, I was stripped down to a short sleeve Sugoi Ready T, a Long sleeve Sugoi Ready T, Sugoi Merlin Shorts, and my Sugoi Zap Jacket, but was fairly comfortable.


As would be expected, the Disney folks know how to start a race. Fireworks, blaring music ,the whole shebang. I wasn't paying a lot of attention to it though, mainly because I was discovering that when one runs in driving sleet, it hurts one's eyes. I decided to go full Corey Hart and wear my sunglasses at night (or really 5:40 on a cloud covered morning) simply so I wouldn't have small pieces of ice cutting up my cornea.


The first few miles of the race are flat and fast, or at least they would be if it weren't for the throng of humanity pressed around you. Normally, I hate this part of the race, and spend it weaving in and out of people who are going slower than I am. I exert a lot of energy moving from side to side rather than forward. This time, since I was taking it easy knowing I had to run a full marathon the next day, I just jogged along chatting with my wife; dodging the occasional walker; glancing over at Epcots' signature geodesic sphere, the Spaceship Earth; and thinking about how I was going to be able to brag about this morning to people grousing about subsequent Disney marathons (you think that was bad? I ran in 2010 when it was snowing and sleeting, uphill both ways, and we liked it). Miles 1 and 2 passed easily and were, for the most part, just a time for the crowd to thin out. A few intrepid high school bands and a balloonist, desperately trying to fill his hot air balloon replica of Spaceship Earth with enough miasma to make it stand up straight, provided some distraction between mile 2 and 4. Soon after, you skirt the Disney World Speed Way and Disney Ticket and Transportation center. The later has great, and pretty much indiscriminate, crowd support.


At this point, I feel the need to give a lot of credit to my Sugoi Zap jacket. I'm from South Carolina. I don't run in the cold real often and I certainly avoid running in sleet and snow. This thin, light weight jacket kept me warm, and more importantly, dry for the whole race. I don't think I own any other race wear that could have done that. I would have been utterly miserable without it.


Miles 4 through 7 are probably my favorite part of the race. The stretch starts with occasional glimpses of the taller attractions in Magic Kingdom - Cinderella's Castle, Space Mountain, etc. As you near the contemporary resort, around mile 4.5, you pass under the Seven Seas Lagoon, in what I suppose could be though of as a short under-lake tunnel, but I have always considered to be under an overhead, water-filled overpass connecting two of the larger man-made Disney lakes. The only downside to it, besides the mild claustrophobic feeling that one has millions of gallons of water overhead , is that one of the few hills on this whole course greats you on the other side.


Around mile five, you wind your way through a back gate of the Magic Kingdom onto Mainstreet USA. The crowd support here was phenomenal, despite the weather and early hour. We stopped to have our pictures taken with the Mayor of Mainstreet and the in front of Cinderella's Castle (and, in retrospect learned an interesting fact: Scotchlite is great for keeping cars from running over you in the dark, but in a camera flash drowns out everything but itself, see picture below: what you would see, sans Scotchlite, is my wife and I flanking a Johnny Depp imitator)







The course through Magic Kingdom is fun. You run up Mainstreet, through Tomorrowland, bisect Fantasy Land, run through the backside of the castle into Liberty Square, and then out of the park through Frontierland. We stopped several more times to take pictures with characters, figuring we needed to save our legs for the next day anyway. You exit Magic Kingdom through a part of the park not usually accessible to guests, and see the back side of Big Thunder Mountain and some storage areas, which I always find pretty cool. I almost stopped to take a picture with a moth-balled, animatronic hippopotamus, but it was starting to get cold again, so kept going. The Imagineers had grown bored with making it sleet by this time (or at least I didn't notice it anymore), but had made the temperature paradoxically drop despite rising sun.

The next few miles (about 7 to 10) take you past the Grand Floridian Hotel and the Polynesian Resort as well as by some of Disney's world renowned Golf Courses. Crowd support is really quite excellent in this area, and the run is fairly easy. All that changes around mile 10, however, when you reach, in my opinion, the only hard part of this otherwise flat and fast course. A little after the tenth mile marker, the course follows one ear of a cloverleaf up onto an overpass that takes you down the home stretch to Epcot. The gain in elevation is minimal, but the way the cloverleaf is banked from right to left always kills my joints. I've figured out that that by drifting to the high side of the road and running on the grass, one can get to flat ground. Totally worth the minimal extra distance.

A little after mile eleven, one can see parts of Epcot, and you enter the park, again through a back entrance, soon after. Despite the lure of the finish line just a fraction of a mile away, we stopped to have our pictures taken with Disney Channel icons Phineas and Ferb , favorites in the running doc household (apparently, my face was too numb for me to smile at this point), before running through Futureworld to the fringe of the World Showcase, and then back to the front of the park.



At mile 13, just outside of Epcot, a superb gospel choir (who has appropriately been in the same place every time I have run this race) stood, belting out their craft, their gold robes soaking wet and frosty from the weather. I always appreciate this touch. Turning the corner and trotting to the finish line, I realized that my finishing time was 30 minutes slower than my time the previous year, but this was completely intentional. Last year, I just ran the half and left it all on the course. This year, I had to have a lot left over for the marathon the next day.



As I mentioned earlier, the Disney Imagineers had programmed this ride to get colder as it went along. If memory serves, the temperature dropped about 6 degrees over the course of the race, and we were wet with perspiration by this time. I felt great as long as I was running, but the second I stopped, I literally froze, and my wife was just as bad as I was. My fingers were so cold that I couldn't open my complimentary poweraide. We usually mill about a lot at the finish line, eat, drink, stretch, etc, but this time we collected our medals and made a bee line straight for the buses back to the hotel. It only took us a few minutes on Disney transportation, but from what I understand, traffic was backed up for a few hours for those in personal vehicles.



Overall, this is a great, albeit expensive, half marathon. The course is fast, and I did have my PR on it last year (though I didn't even try to run that type of race this year). The crowd support couldn't be better, and the swag is pretty good. Usually, the weather is mild, but I have to say, all joking aside about Disney inducing this freak weather system, the volunteers and staff were amazing, and proved that they can handle literally just about anything that can be thrown at them and still be cheerful and organized. I have obvious Disneyphilic tendencies, but I think this one will always be my favorite half. In particular, it's a great half marathon for first timers because there is a lot to see along the way.



So what does one do the afternoon after running a half marathon if one has to run a marathon the next day? Why go to Epcot and eat Italian food of course! What better than to prepare you for the other two-thirds of the Goofy. Part 2, coming soon. Mu.

I'm forgetting something.

So much to my chagrin, it appears that Orlando will be mired in the midst of a cold wave for the Goofy. The low for the half is bouncing around in the high 20s and the low for the full isn't much higher. It hasn't been this cold for a Disney race that I have run ever, but it does remind me a lot of the first one my wife ran about 10 years ago. She was a newbie, and I was just a spectator. I remember we ended up buying a sweatshirt just so she could wear the plastic bag to the start. That year, it was so cold that runners were hanging out in the exhaust from the generators powering the parking lot lights. We made the decision that a little warmth wasn't worth carbon monoxide poisoning.
I think we're a little bit wiser at this point, we're taking throw away clothes, space blankets and disposable tyvek coveralls to the start both days. We'll look odd at the start, but we won't be horribly cold. I'm actually going to check a bag with some warmer clothes in it for the first time ever, but its still going to be cold. At least I won't have to worry about an ice bath afterward. I'll be fine in a long sleeve shirt and shorts after we get going.
Packing is presenting an issue, though. I'm sure I'm forgetting something that I'll be kicking myself for on race morning. I just can't figure out what it is.

The Goofy, or a short treatise on how I didn't train like I thought I would

I had fully intended to come up with a great training plan and great strategy for running the Goofy. I fully intended to train hard for it all summer. I fully intended to have run daily for the last year. I fully intended to be in the best shape I have ever been in, right now, today, as I write this. Oh well.
I’m trying to remember what made me think this was a good idea. Last January, my wife was coming off her second Goofy in a row and seemed no worse the wear for it. I thought, hey, I can do that. Hey, I want to do that. I signed up for it the night we got back from the 2009 Disney Marathon Weekend.
I love half marathon. I think they are the most elegant race length. They’re long enough to be an accomplishment, but don’t require hours and hours of training. You can finish a half marathon, shower, and still make it to a restaurant while they’re serving their breakfast menu. I like that distance. It’s my best distance. I ran four halfs (halves?) last year, and I’m already signed up for 5 this year before the end of April. I get respectable times in half marathons, I don’t in fulls. I do have to admit, though, I do feel a little greasy, a little oily, a little wimpy, when I am running a half that also has a full associated with it. I secretly feel like a little less of a runner when I turn off early to go get my medal and beer while the folks I’m running with go on for another 13.1, only half done (maybe I should gravitate towards stand alone half marathon). It’s clearly this effect that made me decide to do the Goofy. And why I am now coming up with a contingency plan.
My conclusion: I’m going to enjoy it. At this point, I’ve run my share of races, I can’t pretend to be a neophyte. I’m not out their wondering if I can do it. At the same time, I’m going to have to convince myself that there is something in between a PR and a DNF. The vast majority of the time when I finish a race, if I don’t PR I end up kicking myself about not picking up the pace somewhere along the way. On this one, though. I think it’s a losing strategy.
Strategy: The Half. After substantial discussion with Mrs. Running Doc, we came up with this idea. We’re going to be tourist. We’re going to run at a moderate pace. I’m going to throw my camera in my belt. We’re going to be the idiots who everyone stares at who stop in the middle of the race to get their picture taken with Pluto. We’re going to be the ones who climb up on the Pirates of the Caribbean float with Jack Sparrow. We’ll line up to pose with Daisy. And then, we’ll finish, and go find a place still serving breakfast. Not an approach I’m used to taking, but I think I need to finish running this one with plenty of gas left in the tank.
Strategy: The marathon. Go run. Nothing fancy here. Start, go as hard as I can. Eventually, be done. Collect medals. Find beer. Take picture of sweaty Running Doc hoisting all three medals in one hand with beer in other hand. Take another picture without beer, so I can be selective in which one I show to people (I read somewhere that you should never be photographed with alcohol in your hand. Too late for that.) I won’t PR this race, and it’s not about that.
And I’ll hurt the rest of the day, and maybe the next day. Depending on how bad, I very well may sign up for the 2011 Goofy before I get home. If I make noises about going to a marathon that associated with an ultra, somebody shoot me. Mu.

Apparently, I'm fatter than an elephant

I somehow ended up in a discussion with some friends about an elephant autopsy that was being performed on the National Geographic Channel. Don't ask how, I stumbled into it myself and I'm not really sure. In the course of the conversation, the point was made that the elephant had very little fat around the middle -it was basically all guts. That got me thinking about something that happened a few months ago in the running doc household.
A few years ago, Mrs. Running Doc came home from Target with a scale that would also measure body fat by impedance. It's not accurate, but its at least something. My wife and I used it fairly religiously, but didn't put too much stock in anything but the weight part of it. Months later, I was flipping through a high-end electronics catalog and saw the Cadillac version of the same scale - this one had a removable handlebar that one held at a right angle to the body which allowed for a more accurate impedance measurement and also calculated things like percent muscle. It was more than I was willing pay for at the time, so I forgot about it.
Several months later, the same scale showed up on http://www.woot.com/ (which is a cool website, if your aren't familiar with it) for about $40 and I jumped on it. When the scale arrived, it turned out it calculated BMI, %muscle, %fat, %visceral fat, and "body age". My wife hopped on first, and was pretty pleased by all the numbers, not the least of which was her "calculated body age" of 18 years - roughly half of how old she really is!
Not to be outdone, I got on next. I'm about 6'2" and weigh around 190 lbs. According to this scale, my percent muscle is well above average, my body fat is below average, my BMI is where it supposed to be. Then it pulls up my calculated body age - 55 years! I'm 34 and so is my waist! and so is my pants sizeNot quite sure how this happened, I run and work out all the time, I'm reasonably careful about my diet, don't smoke? So why is my wife and 18 year old and I'm apparently needing reading glasses? And how does this tie into the elephant talk? Might have to do with that visceral fat measurement.
Mrs. Runningdoc tipped the visceral fat percent at less than 2%, which is obviously quite good. Mine is 7, which is apparently in the "normal" range. Why is this important? Because, as it turns out, not all belly fat is the same. You have a fat layer between your skin and your abdominal muscles - everybody knows this. It's called subcutaneous fat. You can also have fat inside your abdominal cavity, surrounding your organs, This is the so called visceral fat. Subcutaneous fat has one purpose - energy storage. In the words of one of my old professors "it will get you through the winter, but..." It doesn't do anything else (well provides some insulation, but..). Visceral fat on the other hand, is basically an endocrine organ. It pumps out all sorts of "foul humors" as my mentor, the great Jerry Olsen, used to call them, that increase your blood sugar, blood pressure, ldl, triglycerides, platelet cohesion etc, and decrease some good stuff like HDL. This translates into increased risk of coronary artery disease, heart attack, diabetes, and slew of other stuff that you don't want if you're a person (apparently, you don't have to worry about it if you're an elephant). There even some medicines that take advantage of this fact - the diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone) causes increased abdominal fat deposition, but its subcutaneous fat. The drug actually causes a decrease in visceral fat - you potentially gain weight, but your risk of disease goes down.
At this point, I don't quite relish telling my wife "I'm old enough to be your grandfather", so I'm going to keep working on decreasing my visceral fat. Or I'll hack the scale.

Wine and your health...

I’m going to start off with a disclaimer here, because this is a controversial subject. I’m not necessarily advocating for or against alcohol consumption. I’m just laying out some interesting facts as reported in the medical literature. It’s not meant to be an exhaustive review, just a quick little blog entry to generate discussion, however, all the literature I am mentioning is readily available, so you can go check it out for yourself if you like.
Most of us have heard something about wine (usually red in particular) being good for cardiovascular health, but aren’t really sure what that means. If you bring up this up in a group of physicians, you will likely get very polarized opinions - a bunch will claim that wine is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and a bunch will claim that alcohol has such a negative impact on society overall that any health benefits are automatically overwhelmed by the bad stuff. I think both sides have some merit to them. Alcoholism is a very real and devastating disease. I’ve taken care of enough people with end stage liver disease and alcoholic dementia to know that it’s a long, protracted, horrible way to die and we’re all aware of the tragedies that occur when people drink and drive. Clearly, you can have too much of a good thing, even if it really is a good thing.
But what about alcohol (particularly wine) in moderation? What does that do? Well, back in 1979 a guy named St. Leger wrote an article that pointed out an inverse relationship between red wine consumption and death from cardiovascular disease. In a slightly morphed way, this later became known as the “French Paradox”. In other words, why can the French smoke and eat really fatty foods without having an unbelievable amount of heart disease? Well, some other studies showed that heart disease was lowest in the regions that drank the most red wine and highest in the regions that drank the least. This prompted a whole bunch of studies on overall mortality (read death rate) and alcohol consumption. As it turns out both retrospective and prospective studies have showed decrease in risk of death with moderate consumption of wine (1 to 2 drinks a day). In some cases, the risk has been shown to be decreased by as much as a third. A similar case has been made for beer, though the risk seems to have been decreased by about 20% in that situation (again, moderate consumption 1-2 drinks a day). Drink more than that and in a lot of the studies the risk of something bad happening actually goes up.
So is it the wine, or something in the wine, that provides the benefit – in other words, can we purify something out of the wine and have the benefits without the risk? Well, in one study that I probably would have volunteered for, the vasodilatory effect of Chateauneuf du Pape, Reisling, and straight up ethanol were compared. It seems CDP opens up blood vessels pretty well, where as ethanol and reisling don’t. Studies like this prompted researchers to postulate that there was something else in the Rhone wine that was beneficial. The phenolic compounds in the wine were seen as a likely source – particularly something called resveratrol. A lot of these compounds are potent antioxidants and also seem to increase nitric oxide synthase (which leads to vasodialation). So do you just take the resveratrol? Maybe, it certainly doesn’t have the other negative issues associated with it that ethanol does (liver failure, alcoholism, etc), but there does seem to be at least some intrinsic benefit from the ethanol. Ethanol increases HDL (which is good) and decreases platelet deposition (which is good if you have a ruptured atherosclerotic plaque, but bad if you cut yourself). Oddly enough, red wine also seems to increase the level of Omega 3 fatty acids in the blood, which is a good thing in and of itself.
So should you drink red wine in moderation or not? That’s for you to decide. Most of the literature recommends cutting back or quitting if you are a heavy drinker and not increasing your consumption if you are a light or non-drinker. As for me, I like Petite Sirah and Zinfindal and Cab Franc and even Pinotage and don’t really need an excuse to drink them.

A Couple of Quick Articles

Just thought I'd post some links to a few articles from the Medical Journal of Australia that I like. Both the MJA and the British Medical Journal put out Christmas additions every year that have some offbeat articles in them that usually wouldn't make it to print.

Ailing Allegories and Sickly Stories: the Quest for Pathology in Children's Literature
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/183_11_051205/mcc10460_fm.html

and

We three kings and Christmas trees: pharmacotherapy from presents and diseases from decorations
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/187_11_031207/smi10731_fm.html

Enjoy!

Really good day at Epcot with the family. Next time I'm down here will be for the Goofy, which is a scary thought.

Can what you put on your toast drop your LDL?

It a word, yes. Many of you may have noticed that there are a number of what are described as heart-healthy spreads on the market. Most of these contain monounsaturated fat, which is not particularly heart healthy, or omega-3 fatty acids (most of which are Alpha Linoleic Acid, which may be heart healthy, but the jury is still out on- see the previous discussion on fish oil). If you really look, a few claim to actually lower cholesterol. Most of these contain either plant sterols or stanols, which turn out to be reasonably cool little chemicals.
Plants synthesize a number of very cholesterol like molecules that we usually refer to as plant sterols as a group, though the do have individual names (the poster boy is a compound called sitosterol, more on that later). When we eat these, they actually are absorbed into the cells that line the intestine by the same protein that helps us to absorb animal based cholesterols - a transporter with the fancy name of the Niemann-Pick C1 like 1 receptor (which is actually where the drug Zetia works). When cholesterol is absorbed into these cells, it gets packed into dense balls of fat called chylomicrons, which then ultimately find their way into your blood stream, and the cholesterol subsequently finds its way into the walls of your blood vessels causing atherosclerosis - this is bad.
In most people, however, if one little molecule of a plant sterol finds its way into that ball of fat, your body kicks it and all the animal based cholesterol stuck in the fat globule back out into your intestine where it simply goes the way of all the other waste products that find there way into the intestine. The fancy name for the molecules that do this is are sterolin 1 and sterolin 2, which are almost always mentioned in conjuction with the genes that code for them ABCG5/ABCG8. In other words, for almost everybody, eating plant sterols keeps you from absorbing cholesterol. If it isn't in your blood stream, it isn't in your artery walls, which is what we are aiming for.
At this point you may have noticed that I keep throwing in qualifiers (almost everybody, most people, etc). That's because some very rare individuals have a condition called sitosterolemia (it also goes by a new name phytosterolemia). These individuals lack the mechanism (due to gene mutations in ABCG5and ABCG8) for kicking the the plant sterols out, meaning that they make it in to the body and wreak havoc on blood vessel walls causing heart disease, heart attacks, etc.
So this brings us to the plant stanols I mentioned earlier. There does not seem to be a disease equivalent to sitosterolemia for plant stanols, so the butter substitutes made with stanols rather than sterols should be safe and effective for everybody. Again, the plant sterol based products are really good for the vast, vast majority of people, but not quite everybody, and unfortunately, there's no quick, easy way to tell if someone has phytosterolemia. The stanols keep your body from absorbing cholesterol the same way the sterols do, but at least theoretically work for everybody.
One other thing I get asked a lot is if you have to eat a lot of cholesterol for sterols and stanols to work. The answer to this is unequivocally no. Most of the cholesterol ( a good 80 percent in most people) circulating in our gut is not from what we eat at all, but actually excreted by our liver and then reabsorbed by the body further down in the intestine (a process called entero-hepatic circulation). Whether you are getting rid of the cholesterol that you just ate or cholesterol that was once in your blood makes little difference, it will all make you LDL come down.