I was running earlier tonight and around mile 7 I was going up a steep, winding, dark hill. Near the top a couple was walking their dog. They saw the flashing lights on my shoes and wrists and, when I got close to them, the woman said, "We were trying to figure out what you were."

"I'm a runner."

Image via Wikipedia

I have a complete lack of energy today.  I know it's because I have not been eating like I should be to maintain the energy levels I need.  Right now I do not have the brain power to write why this happened, and how I am going to remedy it. Believe me, when I do, it will be a good one.  I will just leave you with this: copious amounts of coffee, is not the answer. 

-RunningRob

http://www.rainysoul.net/~mforde/blog/index.pl/2010/03/22#nychalf2010

2010 NYC Half Marathon --

Yesterday was my best half marathon yet. As I stood in the corral waiting for the race to start, the chill in the air was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of last year's race. The decision to move the race from August to March was a good one. The course is definitely a fun one. It starts with an 8 mile loop around Central Park before exiting onto 7th Avenue. From there, the route goes to 42nd street, through Times Square, and out to the West Side Highway where the course finishes near Battery Park.
I started out with the goal of beating my time from last year. As long as I did better than 1:51:49, I'd be happy. I was hoping I'd finish within a minute or two of the half marathon PR I set back in January, but I wasn't counting on it.
As I ran I looked at the split times, and roughly gauged how I was doing, trying to stay on target for something close to 1:37 finish, but primarily making sure I was doing better than last year's 1:51. At mile 8, just before exiting Central Park to head to Times Square, the clock time was about 59 minutes. I realized that the winner of the race was about to finish, if he hadn't already, and I hadn't even made it out of the park.
This year's splits were much better than last year's.

This is the first time I've run negative splits. What really amazes me is that not only was the second half faster, but every 5K split was faster than the previous. There was an excitement exiting the park. There was an amazing rush turning the corner onto 42nd street. The crowds were great, cheering every runner as we passed by.I remember around the mile 11 marker realizing I had a chance to PR, estimating my time at about 1:36, and picking up the pace a bit. I started passing people left and right. One runner saw me and yelled, "Go, man! Go!"

Out of about 15 to 16 thousand people that signed up, 11,493 finished. I finished in 895th place; far, far, behind the winner who took home $20,000.

Universal Sports had a live telecast of the event. I set the DVR to record it before I left, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. It likely focused primarily on the professionals who ran, including the Marathon world record holder, Haile Gebrselassie.

This was a great race on a great day.

--RainySoul

Spring time!!!

This week is going to be short and simple.  This week has been awesome, I have been going through my Rubbermaid container of spring and summer clothes and pulling them out every day I need them!  It's so exciting.  While I do like running in the winter, the apparel is so heavy, sometimes you run and feel like you are going nowhere.  It is a great feeling to break out shorts and a t-shirt and enjoy the weather rather than hide from it.  Not only that, but we have daylight saving time!  I really hate losing an hour of sleep, but I do enjoy running when it's still sunny outside.  The fact that crowds of people step off the treadmill and back into the daylight makes me feel a lot less alone outdoors.  It's pretty unbelievable.  I am not going to comment on being careful about hydration and heat exhaustion yet cause we aren't really at that point yet.  So get outside! Enjoy the weather! Enjoy the beauty of the changing season, and I'll see you all on the roads tonight!

So I say GOODBYE WINTER!  I never liked you anyway!

"You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement."
- Steve Prefontaine

"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs." -Jesse Owens

and my personal favorite

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."
-John Bingham, running speaker and writer

Love that!

-RunningRob

A complete listing of all organizations that accept used running shoes.

Image via Wikipedia

Ok, so this isn't going to be about pancakes, but I just wanted to get that out of the way.  Today I wanted to write about how great it is to run with friends or in a group. 

For the most part we are lonely distance runners.  Most of the miles that we put in are on the trail or some sidewalk with only the sound of our breathing or pounding footsteps to keep us company.  It is very hard to get others to come on our journey.   Not just because it's running, it's more about how fast, far, hilly, wet, muddy, snowy, and overall crazy our journey might be.  How many times I have heard "well...how far are you going? ",  followed immediately by "well how fast are you going?",  followed even quicker with "Well, you're nuts..have fun".   So the lonely miles pile up, lonely, but happy.  I can't complain, I run the pace I want, turn right or left where I want and can attack a hill without thinking that it might kill the person with me.   Plus, it's really fun to observe what's going on, just yesterday I was running on the national mall.  I noticed a ton of other runners.  We are finally starting to get some good weather in the Northern VA, DC area, and I think people are starting to get off the treadmill.  There were also a ton of photographers out, but please don't get angry if I run through your photo.....I am looking for fame here after all.  There was also a news cast going on(saw some reporter doing his thing on the Mall).  Anyway, it was fun to watch as I coasted along in my own little world. 

Ok, so after reading the first part everyone is probably thinking "wait, I thought this was supposed to be about how great group running is? "    Ah..and here it is,  the run I look forward to the most every week?  It's the little 3.5 mile run I do with the Shirlington Running Club.   It's simple, it is short, it's mostly flat, there are a bunch of people, I have had some really great conversations, and I have made some pretty good friendships.  I look forward to meeting up with the group every week.  Afterwards we all hang out have a beer or two and eat appetizers....thereby undoing everything we did by running!  No, It's actually really important to take a moment and have fun like that.  Running doesn't only have to be about miles, splits, calories burned, and races, there really is a social aspect of it that can best be seen Tuesday nights at 6:30 at the Capital City Brewery in Shirlington.  Anywhere between 20-50 runners jammed into the back room of the bar in running clothes, sweaty from a great run, having a beer, eating some wings or humus, and talking about what has been going on with them since the previous Tuesday.   It's an encouragement every week to get around these folks!

            Ok, I said this wasn't going to be about pancakes, but I have to share another example of group running.   It was my two brothers, our friend Matt and I out for a nice 6 miles, for my older brother's birthday.   It's been sort of a tradition that we go out for an early morning run on his birthday for the last couple of years.  It's also a tradition that we follow it with pancakes!  It's a selling point mostly, no one wants to get up early on a Saturday and run 6 miles, but the promise of pancakes sweetens the deal.  Great run, super fun conversation, joking, and just goofing off, with a lot of talk about the pancakes that await!  With the run over, the destination was IHOP.  Matt, Ian and I huddled into the corner of IHOP in our running clothes chomping on pancakes, swilling coffee, and devouring our grits.  My point in all this is the encouragement.  We sat around the table, and talked and laughed and it made my day that much lighter.   Running with a group can push you physically, encourage you mentally, and also be a relaxing environment.   There are tons of good running groups around!  Go out and find one!  You'll be happy you did!

-RunningRob

"Born to Run"  by Christopher McDougall

from page 99.

"His love of life shone through ever movement.  YES! Love of life!  Exactly! " - in reference to what trully movtivates. 

"Perhaps all our troubles -- all violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome-- began when we stopped living as Running People.  Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way,"

Personal Record: Shirtless Days

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=18757

I have to admit, I am torn on this.  Back in my day(really? I really took it there?).......When I first started running as a teenager there was no such thing as an mp3 player, you either had conversations with the people you were running with, learned more about the 20 miles immediately outside your home steps(or high school gym) than you ever wanted to know, or did whatever else it took to get through the run.   I mean, there were cd players and portable cassette players, but those just didn't work. They either skipped or just were too big and heavy to even consider buckling onto your shorts.  BUT let me tell you, I always wished I could!

There is a lot to be said in the positive for running with an ipod.  My own personal experience is that it really helped me get through the period when I was just starting to exercise again.  I went out and bought one of those nike+ pedometers, plugged it into my nano and listened to music while trying to motivate myself to keep going.  Not that having an ipod made me run, but being able to do something I liked(listen to music) while doing something I struggled at(running, breathing) made things go far easier.  Running alone can also be pretty boring, listening to music fills the time.  Music also motivates.  On days when it's a struggle to keep one foot in front of the other, the right song can lift you up.  I know on those days I had my fair share of power songs, Anything from Rocky IV sound track, Crazy Train - Ozzy, and Don't call it a comeback - LL Cool J, just to name a few.  The song would start to play and it almost became like marching orders.  So, in this sense, I get the need to run with an ipod. 

Then of course there is the purist side of me who thinks anyone who runs with an ipod should be punted back to the treadmill.  The side of me that says if you can't run a mile without Miley Cyrus jamming in your ears, get off the trail.  I realize this is harsh, but there are real reasons for it. Traffic signals, oncoming traffic, cyclist who will run you over, and well, me yelling "on the right" and getting no acknowledgment cause Johnny Cash is telling you to "walk the line" just to name a few.  Then there is also the fact that if you are zoned into the music, you are definitely missing the world around you.   I run alone a lot, and train for races fairly competitively, but I still do take time to "stop and smell the roses".  There is this old story that still floats around about me from time to time.  My teamates and I were out for a warm up run and we were running by the college baseball stadium, well....it was spring, it was baseball, so I stopped, got a hotdog and watched a few pitches, and then continued on my merry way. 

I do get that there can be some drudgery to running the same trail over and over again, and that you can only take so much in from the same scenery, but my advice is simply to find another route.  It's not that hard, there are many tools such as mapmyrun.com which make it easy and fun to plot new runs.  I guess over the last year I have become a runner who enjoys what or who he is surrounded by, rather than looking at running as a task. 

So, in the end I can't decide.  I would definitely rather see someone out there trying to run, and lose some weight.  If they need to crank the tunes to get the job done, then they should.  I just think when the time is right, you should take off the earphones and take in what's around you. 

-RunningRob

So I run with purpose in every step.

This is an interesting way to start off Eat, Run, Sleep, but it is something I have been thinking about writing for a while.

Everyone always told me that running is a good metaphor for life, and I always thought it kind of cheesy.  Not anymore...the last couple months have been the hardest and most trying times in my life, and I am a believer now that running IS the ultimate metaphor for life.  It does have a start, many twists, turns, uphills and downhills, and eventually a finish.  I'm not sure if I can compare this to a downhill that is just so steep it felt like life was completely out of control or if it is an uphill that was so steep and rocky I have to use my hands to help me get up it.  In any case, Running has been helping me get through this period.  Running didn't heal the wounds, or eliminate the hurt(God is working on that with me), but it has been something that, even when I didn't want too, made me get off the couch, out of bed, and eat and run...and then sleep. 

Let me go through how the routine went in my head from day to day after I lost my job.... in bed....staring at ceiling...realizing if I don't get up and eat something(and a cup of coffee), then I am going to have no energy and be useless on my run later.  So I would eat, run, and then tired from my workout, no matter how much my mind was flying..I crashed into bed and slept. 

So it went on for the first month and a half....then we had snow....and then more heartache...the kind that makes you numb.  So numb you don't eat, you don't sleep, you can't think.....Then, my parents got me running shoes for christmas...the thoughts started again..if I don't eat and sleep, running will become impossible...So while I wasn't my normal self....I was moving, maybe a little robotic, but I was moving.  This was the way it was as I continued with unemployment, continued to deal with heartache. 

It is definitely peculiar the way this has all gone.  So much has changed; I now am almost done with my first week of work since the end of October, and have moved into a new house. I am grateful to God for this ability that He has given me to run...to just concentrate on the love of that first mile.  When I was anxious and nervous, I threw on my running sneakers, said a little prayer, and just went.  I am looking forward to my next race - The Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Nashville, TN, hoping to set a PR, more time will have passed, more healing will have occurred, and more miles will have been run.  I am keeping my head up and looking down at the trail ahead! 

- RobtheRunner

Running forward...one foot in front of the other, you know the terrain from which you have come, it has taught you to run with discipline, you are not running away from it, you are running towards the future, do not worry about what is ahead...one foot in front of the other and keep running forward.

Hi.  I am Rob, and I have a running problem.....there! Now that I have said that, welcome to my new little creation.  I hope this page will be an encouragement to those who are runners, and hopefully encourage those who aren't to start running.  I don't want this page to become me telling everyone everything about how I do things, and what I have done.   I want it to be an open forum about diet, training, and general health and well being.  That being said, there will be multiple authors to this site, and I open it up to anyone who would like to post.  I will throw in my two cents about whatever may be on my mind at that particular moment and so it will go on and on hopefully!

So, let the blogging begin!

RobtheRunner