Something special happened this past weekend at the Baltimore Running Festival. Sid Busch ran his 200th marathon, and my friend Marianne ran her very first marathon. Sid was the very last to finish more than seven hours after the start and Marianne slipped through just before he did. I couldn’t help but think about these two runners and how different they were, yet they were the same. Continue reading
Seriously. How do I get so lucky with some of these running conditions? The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. It was mid-50’s at the start time and upper 60’s by the time I finished. There was no rain and a perfect amount of breeze to keep us cool when the sun came out. This was my 5th marathon. And while it’s supposed to be a regular ol’ training run for my 50-miler, deep down, I wanted a PR. I wanted 4:30. Even more, I wanted 4:30 for my friend Megs who had been busting butt all summer long in training.
We met with our Charm City Run training group at Pickles Pub just after 6 a.m. I was able to catch up with Joanna from Races for Awareness before the race. I was so excited to meet her. She’s helping me with organizing a virtual race to raise money fro the Dup15q Alliance which helps families with Dup15q kids, like my nephew. Yes, this is a little bit of a shamless plug. I hope you will join me in this race 🙂 Continue reading
Grit. That’s all I could think of when my partner in crime, Kendra, decided that she was going to run a solo marathon. She was supposed to run the Baltimore Marathon with me and Megs this weekend, but plans changed when something came up and she had to cancel out on the race. Life happens. We know that. But, when you’ve got grit, you don’t just hang up your shoes and quit. You get your ass out there an you run your marathon, even if it is alone.
I can’t believe it’s been a year last month since I started this blog! Looking back, I have shared so much with you and once again, I’m sorry I haven’t been around so much recently. As I sat back and reflected on the writings of my blog, I couldn’t help but go back to the beginning. You know, when crazy started…this crazy thing in my life called running. How does it happen? How did I start running and end up running ultramarathons? Well, I went back in time to see how crazy began. Continue reading
It’s been 874 days since I first “unofficially” walked/jogged my first race, the Celtic Solstice 5 miler. I never thought there would come a day in those 874 days where I would ‘forget’ that I had a race and that race was a full marathon. All week I’ve had that “oh yeah…I’m running the Delaware Marathon on Sunday” moment when trying to make plans for the weekend. And who would’ve thought that it would take me 826 days, to go from 0 miles to an ultramarathon. And I never thought that in 28 days, I would run my first 50 miler. If my calculations are correct, that would mean that it took 902 days to go from running 0 to running 50 miles. Continue reading
Well, it’s that time of year for gift giving, so I took a poll on my So What? I Run. Facebook page to see what runners want for the holidays. And with every response that was posted, I said to myself, “yep, yep, yep.” There was definitely a common theme, we want practical useful “run things.” Here is a list of gift ideas for your favorite runner. Continue reading
If you recall, my recovery sucked for MCM. I did everything wrong, wrong, wrong. I waited 7 – 8 hours to get a REAL meal in, endured a not so great massage, didn’t stretch, didn’t take an Epsom salt bath, didn’t foam roll, and didn’t continue to hydrate. Remember when I said “lessons learned,” well I heeded my words and paid special attention to make sure I recovered correctly after Philly. This is what I did different: Continue reading
Surprisingly, when the alarm when off, I sprang out of bed ready to go. RACE DAY WAS HERE! RACE DAY WAS HERE! I guess it was the excitement of the anticipation of actually pulling this off. I geared up and became “Joseph.”
I hate to break this up into two parts, but there’s just so much to write. And if you have a short span of attention like me, you would probably stop half way through any way, so there it is, Part 1 of 2 of the Philadelphia Marathon Recap.
Earlier this week when I told people that I just ran a marathon, they assumed I was talking about Marine Corps. When I say, “No, I just ran Philly.” I get the “Wha-whaaat??” Call us crazy, but we did. I got a text message from my friend Kendra the day after MCM which said, “I wanna run Philly.” And that was the beginning of our mad quest to secretly run a marathon without letting anyone know, well, with the exception of our families.
So What? I run. 