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All it takes is faith and trust. And just a little bit of pixie dust.

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Now, think of the happiest things. It’s the same as having wings. (Disney’s Peter Pan, 1953)

Today is my ‘Runniversary’.

Three years ago today, August 2nd 2010, I set foot inside a gym and did my first Couch to 5K workout. It hurt. I had a hard time using stairs the next day and my shins did not like me at all. For some reason I went back the next day and then the next.

As of July 2013 I have lost 55 pounds, logged over 3,500 miles and completed 8 half marathons, 5 full marathons and many 5K and 10K races. My wife Shari started running a few months after me and she has been equally as successful. To date we have completed 4 half marathons together and 1 full marathon (Walt Disney World in 2013).

July 2010 - Before my journey

July 2010 – Before my journey

January 2013 At Walt Disney World the night before the 'Goofy Challenge'

January 2013
At Walt Disney World the night before the ‘Goofy Challenge’

For about 6 weeks into my Couch to 5K program I had been working out only on the treadmill. I decided to take my first run outside. I was a little ambitious. I had just purchased a Nike+ Fuelband to start tracking my mileage and decided to take it out for a spin in the park next to where I live. This is where I do all my workouts now but at the time I had maybe walked it once or twice before and I had never attempted to exercise there. I wasn’t ready for running on hills but yet I went back again and again.

I stuck to it and started to progress in distance. I ran the equivalent of my first 10K on December 31st 2010 while on vacation with my family in Florida. It was on this same vacation that I read the January 2011 issue of Runners World. There was an article called “New Year New You: A 1st to Remember” which mentioned a marathon at Walt Disney World. I hadn’t really thought about doing a marathon and wasn’t sure I really could but it planted a seed. Also in that month’s issue was a half-page write up on the Philadelphia Marathon. Hmm…

On New Year’s Day 2011 I said to my wife that I planned that for every mile I ran in 2011 I would put $1 in a jar and see how much I’d save by the end of the year. I said that if she wanted to join in I would also do the same for her. We officially started our ‘Miles for Smiles’ account as an incentive to get out and run. I figured we would treat ourselves at the end of the year as our reward. The ‘Miles for Smiles’ fund I started has paid for all our Walt Disney World/runDisney vacations (‘runcations’) in 2012, 2013 and soon to be 2014.

I continued running and upgraded my Nike+ Sportband to a Garmin GPS watch in February 2011 with my birthday gifts (my wife will attest it’s just easier to get me Amazon.com gift vouchers as I am terrible to buy for). Around the same time I discovered Jeff Galloway and his Run/Walk/Run method. I was experiencing some knee pain around this time and I liked his aim for runners to run ‘injury free’. I started using his methods and signed up for my first half marathon (the Bucks County Half Marathon) in April of 2011. I’ve been a Galloway proponent ever since. Jeff also happens to be, although I did not know this at the time, the offical training consultant for runDisney.

Around the same time I saw that that the Runner’s World Challenge was coming to Philadelphia for the 2011 Marathon. That made up my mind to decide to attempt a marathon. I can tell you that I was shaking after I hit ‘complete’ on the online registration. What had I done?

I diligently followed the training program that Runner’s World had provided. During this time I suffered from increased knee pain and ended up at the end of summer at a physical therapist. They took a look at me on a treadmill and a look at the shoes that I was wearing and recommended I get properly fitted. I went to a specialist running store and they analyzed my needs and properly fitted me with shoes (Brooks Adrenaline – I’ve been using this brand and model including the newer versions ever since). I also began to concentrate on my running technique and after 6 weeks of PT I was discharged and feeling comfortable to run again.

My friend Mike had told me about the ‘Goofy Challenge’ at Walt Disney World and this got me thinking about the Walt Disney World Marathon in 2012. We managed to convince our wives to let us sign up (yes, I signed up for a second marathon before even finishing my first) and we made our plans for our first runDisney event. My wife signed up for her first half marathon at the 2012 Walt Disney World Marathon weekend. Now we were all in it together.

About 2 months before my first marathon (September 2011) my parents had planned a trip over from the UK to visit us. They were to spend a week in Florida and then spend a week with us in Philadelphia. A couple of days after they arrived my father suffered a heart attack and I dashed down to Florida on the first flight I could get. I stayed in Florida until my father was discharged from the hospital. He would have to stay in Florida a little longer until he was cleared to fly again but once he was discharged he was over the worst.

I was down in Florida in the midst of my marathon training and that came as a relief to me as with all that was going on at the time I couldn’t really sleep much. In fact I got out of bed at 3am, strapped on my headlamp and my water belt and went out for a 12 mile run. That really was the first time I felt that running was a big stress reliever. It was just what I needed. Sitting in the hospital talking about being heart healthy my father said that if I could keep this training up, maybe aim to do a marathon twice a year, I would maintain a level of fitness. I was 39 and had been overweight for much of my life and probably emotional at the time but I promised him I would try. Again, I should point out that I still had not completed my first marathon, I had now signed up for two marathons and committed to my father to run two a year. I hadn’t really thought this through had I?

The big day finally came around for the 2011 Philadelphia Marathon. The night before the race I just couldn’t sleep. It was a mixture of nerves, apprehension and excitement. I will admit that being a Runner’s World Challenge participant had its perks and the morning of the event I was sitting in the Four Seasons hotel in Philadelphia having a pep talk with the organizers which totally helped calm me down. That and the private marble bathrooms (not your typical start to a marathon).

I have to say that it was a transformative experience running in my first marathon. Crossing that finish line took a huge weight off my shoulders. I had done what less than 1% of the population will ever do. I had completed a marathon. I looked up to the sky with relief. I was a marathoner. No-one can ever take that away from me. The best part of that day was my son Micah (almost 5 at the time) meeting me in the finishers chute as I got my medal. I was expecting to see him back in the hotel but this just lifted my spirits that much higher.

Completing my first marathon - Philadelphia 2011

Completing my first marathon – Philadelphia 2011

A few weeks after that I ran my first runDisney event, the 2012 Walt Disney World Marathon. I did not know what to expect. I had confidence that I knew I had completed a marathon so I knew I could do it so that took a little pressure off but it was so soon (7 weeks) after my first marathon I didn’t know what shape I would be in. It was one of my most enjoyable race experiences. Wow, just wow. The folks at runDisney know how to put on a race. I guess I drank the Kool-Aid as I’ve been back again and again. A nice surprise was that my wife and kids received the notification that I had crossed the finish line just as they were arriving for the morning at EPCOT and rushed over to see me in the finishing area. It was great.

2012 Walt Disney World Marathon

2012 Walt Disney World Marathon

I ran the Philadelphia Marathon again in 2012 and broke 4 hours for the first time. That had been a goal of mine for the year and I was very relieved after all that training that I achieved my goal (3:59:05). I will be running the Philadelphia Marathon again this year except this time I will be running with Shari in her second marathon (her first was at the 2013 Walt Disney World Marathon where we ran together).

Mile 20 with Mickey, Minnie and Pluto

Mile 20 with Mickey, Minnie and Pluto

In January 2013 I ran the Walt Disney World “Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge” (a half marathon followed by a full marathon the next day for a total of 39.3 miles) to raise funds and awareness for the charity ‘Autism Speaks’. I raised over $3,400 for this event.

I will be returning to Walt Disney World in January 2014 to complete the inaugural “Dopey Challenge” again for ‘Autism Speaks’. This is a new race for Disney this year and is a four day event comprising of a 5K, 10K, a half marathon and a full marathon for a total of 48.6 miles. I also hope to beat my fundraising from the previous year and I’m currently over half way to that goal right now.

Raising funds for charity sometimes feels harder than the actual training itself. In addition you feel a little extra pressure to make sure you achieve the goals you set out for yourself so you don’t let everyone down. It’s tough and hopefully your family, friends and colleagues understand why you repeatedly ask for sponsorship.

I started this blog back in January of this year to create a record of the races that I run and to keep me on track towards my goals.Sharing goals publicly makes you more accountable for them. If I can motivate a couple of people to join me on my journey that would be great. If people want to just read for enjoyment I am happy for that too.

Running is part of my life now. I hope I can stay healthy to keep on going. I am blessed that my wife joins me in my exploits and we can have a lot of fun out there. Hopefully a healthy lifestyle will be embedded in my two boys. I didn’t get the message until I was 38 years old but they have so much more opportunity than me at their age. I look forward to the future with my family.

Where will I be in another 3 years’ time? Who knows…?

Second star to the right and straight on till morning. (Peter Pan)

peter_pan-207818

May 2013 – month in review

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May 2013 - Nike+ Summary

May 2013 – Nike+ Summary

115 miles this month. I have learned this month that looking just at the numbers does not tell the full story.

I started the month with high expectations for achieving a PR at the New Jersey Marathon. I was just coming off a PR in the Atlantic City April Fool’s Half Marathon which I thought would be a pretty similar terrain being by the shore and I had definitely put in the miles of training.

As you can read from my race recap things didn’t go according to plan. I didn’t achieve my PR and felt fatigued. This manifested itself about 10 days later when my body just ran out of juice. Rather than be in a funk about why I hadn’t achieved my goals and looking for a dozen reasons why I felt bad I took the time to look at how I got here, what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. It basically came down to quality vs quantity. I took a couple of days off and readjusted my goals and my training. Hopefully going forward the changes I am planning will pay off. You can read about that here.

This month I launched a Virtual 5K run to raise funds for Autism Speaks for the 2014 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend where I am running in the inaugural Dopey Challenge. So far the reception to this has been great. Many people have signed up and the first 100 medals have been ordered. I encourage you to sign up and participate if you can just for the fun of it. Remember, if you fully participate and post a picture of Dopey on your run you may be eligible for one of the prizes. See this post for details.

I have my Dopey ready for my run

I have my Dopey ready to run

At the end of the month we celebrated Memorial Day weekend and the official start of the summer. It was a fun weekend as I got to spend a lot of time with the family and celebrate my 10th wedding anniversary. You can read about that here.

Finally, based on a little encouragement, I am venturing into uncharted territory. I have basically been running using Jeff Galloway’s Run/Walk Method since February 2011. It has served me well and got me through 5 marathons. When I revisited what I had been doing as discussed earlier I noticed that although I was putting in the miles I was not getting any faster and all my runs were pretty much the same. Ultimately I want to improve on my marathon times going forward and during the New Jersey Marathon even my walk breaks didn’t seem to help. I am currently reading Pete Pfitzinger’s book on Advanced Marathoning and although I do not expect I will train at that level or follow his plans I am looking to change up my running experience.

Over the last three runs I basically threw caution to the wind and did not use the Galloway Method. I ran a 6 mile easy pace run, a 5 mile tempo run and this morning I ran 10 miles without stopping. These are the furthest distances I have run non stop. That sounds silly coming from someone who has run 5 marathons (including a Goofy Challenge) but I want to see what I can achieve. I believe somewhere out there is a 3:30-3:45 marathon that I can run. It’s worth a try. I’ll be watching carefully how my body reacts and I am open to using Galloway again in the future if I think it will be beneficial. I already plan on doing something like that during Dopey just so I can survive the event!

Looking at the last 3 days of runs it seems to be working so far and I feel okay. Judging from my splits over the last 3 runs my average pace is already that bit quicker. We will see what the future holds I guess.

6 miles easy pace - 5/29/13

6 miles easy pace – 5/29/13

5 miles Tempo run - 5/30/13: 1 mile warm up - 2 miles at tempo with 800m recovery - 1 mile cool down

5 miles Tempo run – 5/30/13:
1 mile warm up – 2 miles at tempo with 800m recovery – 1 mile cool down

10 miles long run - 5/31/13 - miles 1-5

10 miles long run – 5/31/13 – miles 1-5

10 miles long run - 5/31/13 - miles 6-10

10 miles long run – 5/31/13 – miles 6-10

Speaking of future plans, I have a 5K coming up this Sunday (June 2nd) which I will be pushing my two boys in the running stroller again…no PR there 🙂 and on June 16th I will be running the San Francisco Half Marathon with my Wife. I then have the 25 miles Cycle Bucks County event on the 22nd. Lot’s to look forward to. June should be a pretty low key month as the training for this year’s Philadelphia Marathon and January 2014 Dopey Challenge start in earnest in mid-July.

See you on the road.

April 2013 – month in review

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March 2013 - Nike+ Summary April 2013 – Nike+ Summary

April 2013 – Nike+ Summary

I’m posting this a day late but there is quite a lot to look back on this month.

This month I logged 145 miles, logged a new Half Marathon PR, signed up for a new Disney race and began tapering for the New Jersey Marathon on May 5th.

Spring is definitely here and I clocked more miles outside than inside than I have since the beginning of the year.  I’m glad to be outside again although my podcast listening is falling behind (a decent trade off).

My new half marathon PR at the Atlantic City April Fool’s Half Marathon on April 7th is pretty much down to me chasing my wife who is more often than not leaving me in the dust these days. The weather for the race was perfect and the flat course and pace I was able to maintain gives me confidence that I can achieve my goal in the upcoming New Jersey Marathon. 🙂

runDisney also announced this month an addition for the 2014 Walt Disney World Marathon weekend.  The new Minnie themed 10K race and the new ‘Dopey Challenge’.  Needless to say I am in. I signed up to run again with Team Up/Autism Speaks and hope to beat my fundraising of just over $3,400 that I raised for the 2013 ‘Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge’. Wish me luck.

The end of the month sees me in the last week of my taper with only a few days left before the New Jersey Marathon. Looking back at my mileage from month to month I am actually 40 miles or so less than March which was the peak of my training. That feels about a week less of running. I need to learn for future events that I cannot eat as if I ran that extra 40. I’ll worry about that for the next race 😉

The taper itself has not left me frustrated like people often say but the strange thing about running significantly less mileage and catching up on sleep (days without an alarm wake up call!!!) have left me achy and feeling exhausted. Running is definitely a daily energy boost and all the aches and tiredness is hopefully just a sign of my body recharging before the big day. I actually feel refreshed and good about this weekend and hope to meet my goals. If it works out it works out, if not I remember I am not an elite runner and there will be other races. It’s about overall long term health and enjoyment. PR or no PR I will still have run my race, met the distance and earned my medal (and dessert)…although I will be trying as hard as I can for that PR.

(If you want to follow me during the New Jersey Marathon my Bib number is #2492)

Hopefully I will be feeling fit and healthy and have a nice race recap or two at the end of May.

Thanks for sticking with me.

(If you want to support me as I raise funds for Autism Speaks you can do so at this link. Thank you.)

3,000 miles (so far) and how I got here

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Today I passed the 3,000 mile mark in my running career (it’s a full time gig).

Running history from Nike+

Running history from Nike+

So how did I get here?   On ‘My running story‘ page I tell how I got started running. But that is not really the whole story of what I do and how I do it.

I started running on a treadmill back on August 2nd 2010 (I had joined the gym on August 1st) doing a Couch to 5K program.  I persisted through the first couple of painful days as my body reacted to this new activity, and got through the initial shin splints I developed and by mid-September I had gained enough confidence to take a run outside.  In anticipation of this I had started to look at how I could track my runs and invested in the Nike+ Sportband.  I took my first run using the system on September 22, 2010 on an 80+ degree day.  I struggled to run 1.8 miles in the heat (I said I was confident enough not necessarily smart enough) but pushed through gradually building up my distances until by December of that name having lost 20+ pounds I ran my first 10K distance on December 31, 2010. You can see where this is going right?  I’m a statistic tracker (geek) and have recorded all my runs since.  I moved up to a GPS device in February 2011 (my birthday treat) and haven’t looked back.  I use the Garmin Forerunner 305.  To load my Garmin data into Nike+ I use a web app designed by Angus Smithson. Here is the link.  I also upload my data into ‘dailymile‘ and ‘Strava‘ so that I have a history in more than one location should any of these sites stop supporting Garmin devices.  I do this manual upload routine after each run…until I get a watch which will upload to all at the same time!!

Around the same time I started running longer distances I began strapping my right knee as I was struggling but too hard headed to quit (good decision).  I figured I needed to do something about this and while Googling runners knee and other ailments I came across Jeff Galloway and his ‘Run Injury Free‘ method.  I didn’t know who Jeff was at the time but I thought this was worth a try.  I hadn’t signed up for any races at the time but I had a couple of goals. Since February of 2011 I started using Jeff’s ‘RUN-WALK-RUN’ method experimenting with various intervals.  I had signed up for the 2011 Broad Street Run (the largest 10 miler in the US) and that was to be my first big race.  My wife noticed an inaugural Half Marathon in Tyler Park nearby a couple of weeks before Broad Street so I decided to sign up.  My practice run the week before the Half ended up with me getting lost in the park.  It was my first time there and I wasn’t familiar with the park, plus I had the map upside down….D’oh!!

During that Half Marathon (and many subsequent races) many people stopped to talk to me during a walk break as they had seen me taking regular walk breaks in between set periods of running.  I would pass them during the run section and then they would pass me during the walk and this kept going on.  It is usually the latter part of the run when I get stopped as these people have seen me taking these walk breaks but have not managed to pass me.  Jeff’s basic philosophy is to take regular walk breaks before you get tired as this gives your muscles a chance to recover and you can finish a long run faster and stronger.  In his books he states his goals are to have runners cross the finish line standing up with a smile on their faces.

Having run (to date) 7 Half Marathons and 4 Full Marathons I can attest that this method works for me.  In fact I PR’d in a 5K last year with 23:31 which included 3 minutes of walking (6 walk breaks of 30 seconds).  If I had gone flat out I would have faded towards the end of the race.  I once tried a 5K when I wanted to see the difference not taking a walk break would have and I finished with 28:04. That’s a pretty big difference.  So I guess I will stick with what works.  I currently run with a 4:00/0:30 ratio.  This is my plan for this year although I sometimes play around with intervals between races.

Taking walk breaks also reduces the risk of injury as it gives the body time to recover.  I use this time to let my heart rate come down.  I watch this pretty carefully so I can judge the effort I am expending with the pace I am trying to maintain.

The reason I use this method is so that I can continue to run as long as I can.  It’s only been 2 and 1/2 years so far but I would like to continue as long as I can and by using this method I can hopefully continue for many years to come.  One day I hope that I will be running events with my boys.

I recommend you check out Jeff’s site to learn more about him and the training methods he employs.  Now I know a lot more about Jeff, have a few of his books and occasionally ask him questions (to which he timely responds) on his Facebook page.  Jeff is actually the official runDisney trainer and his programs are available on the runDisney website.  One day (hopefully next January) I hope to meet Jeff in person and thank him.  At Disney I am in good company.  There are many Gallowalkers.  Everyone uses their own timers for their Run/Walk ratios and many times I heard beeping and had to check whether it was my turn for a walk break or someone else.  I was in good company.

My goal was never to run to win everything or to always be looking to place in my age group.  Running has enabled me to lose 60 pounds, turn my health around and spend quality time with my family.  In that way I have already won.  Running has given me opportunities to explore different cities and countries.  I have run in the USA, England and Israel to date (and if you count EPCOT’s World Showcase, plenty more countries).  Mostly I compete with myself and enjoy the camaraderie of fellow runners in the events I run in.

Using Jeff’s RUN-WALK-RUN method I have indeed crossed the finish line standing up with a smile on my face.  Long may this continue.  Let’s see how far I can go.

Finishing my 1st Marathon in Philadelphia, November 2011

Finishing my 1st Marathon in Philadelphia, November 2011

🙂

If you are interested in the products above I would recommend you look at them on Amazon.com for some reviews.  I would also recommend checking out DC Rainmaker for running electronics reviews.  They are very comprehensive and do far more justice than I can provide in terms of testing all the functions.  Plus you get to check out how Ray and his wife are doing with their move to Paris and the bakery they opened up there.  Interesting stuff.

See you out there.