During a run, you can’t concern yourself with the pace of other runners that you come across. You don’t know where they started or are going to finish.

Almost any distance is attainable – at the right pace.

Prior achievement in a particular distance or route builds confidence in your ability to do it again and gives you a baseline to strive for improvement.

You can’t run as fast looking backwards – and you might hit something.

Add yours to the comments below!
 

Here are some photos I took yesterday at the Marine Corps Marathon. My digital camera has some spots on the lens (from underwater use and some use in other austere environments) but you get the picture(s) nonetheless I had originally set out to take some pictures of the marathon yesterday. When I got there I got motivated, with the Marine Corps V-22 Ospreys flying overhead and all, and decided to run some bandit miles. With no training (2-5 mile runs a few times a week), I made it to the 14 mile mark – marking my first, unofficial, half marathon. Unfortunately this running got in the way of my picture taking.

I definitely intend to run a full Marathon in the near future. Yesterday was inspiring. None of the shorter races that I've participated in had the amount of people cheering the runners on. The overall energy accounted for at least eight of my miles.  The Marine Corps Marathon in particular, with Marines scattered throughout the race passing out water, Poweraide and energy gel, and the course which gives a you a pleasantly distracting tour of the Nation's capital and its monuments, provides for a motivating running environment – to say the least. I came across a random Marine general passing out gu. I even met a few former Dutch Marines to practice my Dutch with. They obviously choose this race because of their military ties and allegiance to the U.S. As a former jarhead myself this just may be my marathon to shoot for next year.

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Marine Corps Marathon 10/25/2009 (19 photos)

I had intended to take some pictures of the Marine Corps Marathon. Upon arrival I got motivated, and with no training, I decided to run bandit and see how far I could get. 14 miles, as you can see. The running got in the way of more extensive photo opportunities.

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Today I stumbled upon athlinks.com a site that somehow had a list of almost all my race results from the races I’ve entered in from the past year and a half. I don’t know how but, pretty cool. Being a little self absorbent, I immediately created a profile and claimed my races. I was even able to find the result for the race I ran in New York under the alias "Scrappy Coco" (from the Adam Sandler Movie, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan).    I’m still waiting for that claim to get approved but the feature to claim missing results is a big one.

After claiming all my race results I added a picture to my profile. I then noticed all the other options you could do with your profile. You can do race summaries, write about your daily training, list your upcoming races, link to interesting articles and more. Crap, that’s everything I do on this site – without the web design hassle.

Despite, offering personal and corporate blog design services myself at the Titanium Effect, I figured it was my due diligence to share this seemingly useful (and FREE) website with you. I’m now going to add it to my list of good websites along with the likes of active.com and mapmyrun.com under my upcoming running resources page.

I’ve been out of the loop for the past couple of months – slacking with my blogging, running and sadly my fund raising efforts. Having run a personally awesome race July 4th, coupled with the beginning of a new romance with a great woman who just doesn’t run as much, and the stress of a job search led me to be a little complacent in my efforts of all of the above. Having to break free from the cuddly arms of my better half and find running routes around places I wasn’t used  to takes some true discipline and desire.

I finally got off my butt and started running a couple of miles regularly around the girlfriend’s parents house while we waited for our apartment to be ready in my new home state of Virgina. Whew, when you’re used to running flat, Northern Virginia just seems mountainous – at least my legs feel that way.

We finally moved in to the new pad in Arlington the other day, and I couldn’t be more stoked to be running again. I’m not running along the beach, million dollar homes or yachts any more. I am however running along national monuments, under military helicopters, a scenic river and for any fan of this country, just some truly motivating real estate. Oh and there’s the lack of humid heat! As a bonus, I guess I’ll be able to write a piece on winter running pretty soon. Below is rough map of the run I made yesterday. It took me through the Marine Corps Headquarters which I’ve never been to before, even while I was in the Corps, along Arlington National cemetery, which you can assume was thought provoking, and past the Dutch monument, as I like to call it (I’m half Dutch), into D.C. and back past the Pentagon.

I was passed by a whole countless slew of runners but it didn’t concern me. As I’ve written elsewhere you never know where they started, where they’ll finish or how many training hours they got on you. I was just happy to feel in my element and know that I ‘m on pace to get back in shape. Pun intended.

Now that my running seems to be back in order, it’s time to get this blog moving again.  I plan to create two local event calendars, one for South Florida and another for the D.C/Northern Virginia area of course. I still get a ton of emails for races back south.  I know that most sites only list their own affiliated events so hopefully I can provide a set of comprehensive calendars which are useful to the two communities. I’m also planning on writing a quick blurb about the one supplement I can’t do without. 

Regrettably, because of my own job hunt, I haven’t been able to keep up my pledge of donating a dollar for every mile run to the Challenged Athletes Foundation. I guess sometimes charity starts at home. I still am very committed to this cause. As you may have noticed I’ve toyed with placing advertising on the site.  Any revenue generated from this site will go the CAF. I really appreciate the support for those of you who have already donated. It means a lot and you are helping a great cause.

For those that would like to help me in my pledge to raise funds for the Challenged Athletes Foundation in conjunction with my participation in the Men’s Health Urbanathlon, there is still time!  Outside of my entry fee which I’ve already covered, I don’t have to raise any funds for the charity. I happen to find the benefactors of the CAF, challenged athletes (some of whom are injured vets), to be an extremely motivating (I like that word) group of individuals worthy of the right to compete athletically. I’m pretty sure a donation of five dollars won’t hurt anyone. Collectively, you’ll be changing the lives of some inspirational athletes.

I almost lost my ability to make it in October for the Urbanathlon.  Using air miles I had booked the air fare for my buddy Simion and I departing from FL a week before I realized I was moving up here to D.C. Delta (if you’re reading this) wasn’t keen on changing my flight without a change fee equivalent to that of buying a new ticket – not something a job seeker should be splurging on. Anyway, the missus, the saint that she is, offered to help get me there with her miles.  I of course will do a race recap should I make this special event.

Three hours of sleep (darn social commitments:), no warm up (traded it for one hit of the snooze button, and no iPod (out of juice) would normally not lead to a good race. Yet today was something special.  I knew the race was going to finish inside the Florida International University stadium, where for the past eight months I’ve had my sights set on starting my legal education, and that the course would go through Tamiami Park. Yet, until I arrived at the park, I had failed to make the connection that it was the same park a tight group of us Marine Corps Officer Candidate School selectees used for our Phsycial Fitness Tests back in 2000-2001.

At one of those PFT’s we were graced by a prior enlisted Marine outside of our group who already went to OCS the summer before and was pretty much there to support the program and the rest of us while he finished his up his last semester or two. I don’t think Michael Felsberg ran his fasted three mile time of 15:45 that day but it was definitely well, WELL, under the 18:00 minute mark for a perfect score. Felsberg was a track star at FIU that went on to take his commission in the Corps. He volunteered for Iraq to fill the spot of a Second Lieutenant who had given his life for our country.  Sadly Felsberg would face a similar fate. 

As the other runners and I stood still for the customary pre-race audio of the Star Spangled Banner, I notice the guy to my left had a USMC tatoo and the guy in front of me happened to have a shirt from the Marine Corps Marathon.  This race was going to be run for Michael.  In honor of him and the men and women that courageously run into harms way so saps like me can run a 5k back home on a beautiful day.  

During the run I could have sworn I heard something to the effect of "Come on, Marine!" emanate from the runners going the other away a little after the mile mark as I was just passing the 2 mile mark. I don’t know who it was for but I’m pretty sure I heard it.  I also give 20 seconds’ credit to the fact some older gentleman caught up with me and tried to motivate me to keep up with his pace for the final 3/4 mile. He quickly pulled forward but the inspiration took hold in its own way.  Great job by the way, to you, sir!!

22:56.  Not fast in Felsberg standards, but it is my personal best and finally a step towards my goal of 21 flat.

Thank you, Michael. Happy 4th of July.

These athletes motivate the piss out of me. If I could have half of their determination….Let’s celebrate their efforts and accomplishments by supporting other challenged athletes to live out similar active lifestyles of unlimited potential.

This race was a blast and so different from all of the same old flat and sometimes bland 5k road races I’m used to running down here in South Florida.  The trails of Oleta River State Recreation Area in North Miami set the scene for an Eco or Ranger like challenge running right left and up and down (yes, up and down).  There were three water crossings as well as a log crossing.

Running in the woods is different in nature (no pun) than road racing as you spend most of your time looking down to avoid twisting an ankle. You also can’t see too far past the next turn of the trail.  This adds minutes to your time compared to road race of the same distance. But it also seems to give you a bigger gas can. Maybe its the slower pace or the fact your head can’t play head games with the distance you would have been able to see further down in a road race.

Anyways, the race itself went well. I finished with a time of 54:53.  That’s about a minute faster than the last off road 10k about six weeks ago and yet I came in 10th instead of fifth. Go figure. I thought I did better too because of a believed screw up that turned out to be blessing.

There was supposed to be a 15 minute gap between the start of the half marathon and both the 10k and 5k starts. After the half starts I run to the bathroom one last time.  As I’m running back I hear a blast of the air horn – way less than 15 minutes after the half marathoners took off. I get to the starting group for the next start and ask one of the runners if the 10k group had already started. He must have misunderstood me and said yes. The air horn goes off again and I think I’m running with only the 5k’ers.  The first twenty minutes I ran as hard I passing people in hopes of making up time. Turns out the 5k and 10k started off together as planned.
The race was small in comparison to the run of the mill road race yet the experience was equally or more pleasant. I talked to some great people after the race. That never happens at the other races unless I run into someone I already knew. I wish I would have stepped out of my shell more and talked more to one stunning runner in particular.
Theses smaller races mean the promoter has less of a budget for the thrills like tech t-shirts and chip timing. The promoter Marlon Jael  is a great guy and aptly named his Down to Earth race series (http://www.worksmartplayharder.com). I was happy to see his races growing in turn out.  His races are fun and creative and offer runners an exciting but doable change. Hopefully the larger turnout can help with the chips:)

MALE 10K
231  0:42:32 Scott Reiter 49 10 K m
9       0:42:44 Gil Pol 10 K m
158  0:43:45 Lewis Price 18 10 K m
10    0:47:25 Josh Tobin 10 K m
247 0:47:30 Andrew Sendry 10 K m
174 0:48:16 SERGIO SUPERVIELLE 39 10 K m
87   0:49:13 john robbins 32 10 K m
238 0:52:29 Dave Miller 10 K m
15    0:54:30 Roberto Cordero 10 K m
148 0:54:53 Paul Buijs 32 10 K m
219 0:55:35 Daniel Rodriguez 46 10 K m
179 0:57:51 Jeremy Gleason 34 10 K m
237 0:57:52 Victor Heras 10 K m
187 0:58:59 Nicholas Tucker 30 10 K m
143 1:04:24 Tavis Ramsay 31 10 K m
225 1:04:58 JC Ryan 28 10 K m
190 1:05:50 Frank Gonzalez 25 10 K m
181 1:07:17 German Llanos 33 10 K m
183 1:08:27 Luis Diaz 40 10 K m
129 1:12:36 Bertrand Piller 33 10 K m
98 1:14:06 Glicer Umbaugh 54 10 K m
165 1:16:37 Patrick Lunn 34 10 K m
249 1:16:37 David Gomez 10 K m
133 1:24:27 Romeo Treviño 31 10 K m
132 1:55:54 Isaias Matancillas 31 10 K m
88 Patrick O’Connor 35 10 K m
177 Chris Garone 49 10 K m
135 Sean Kennelly 30 10 K m