I'm like a bad penny....

....I keep turning up! I'm back! I signed up to run the Lake Placid Half Marathon on June 13th for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. For those of you keeping track at home, here's some random stats:

1 = races I've run for the LLS
1000 = bucks I raised for the LLS by running
countless = friends I've gained by participating in this process
3 = steps I run before I go "ow, this hurts!"

Kidding. It's only 2 steps.

As I've stated before on this blog, I'm not a natural athlete. I'm a big fan of walking the dog, running to catch the elevator door, pulling weeds, alphabetizing things and folding laundry. That's about as crazy as I get on an average day. I know the benefits of regular exercise. I know how important it is to get out there and get moving. And for the most part, I do, but not usually in a manner that makes my knees hurt and my wobbly bits fly around.

But I'm throwing caution (and the wobbly bits) to the wind yet again, to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the incredible work they do to support patients with blood cancers, and to support research that will find a cure.

I'm running this race in memory of two dear friends who passed away from lymphoma, Doug Moak and Frank Strasser. If you've read this blog before, you know a little bit about Doug. And I want to share the joy that was Frank Strasser - Frank was a NYS Trooper, opera lover, a noted authority and champion rose grower, and a dear friend. Frank's curiosity and interests were boundless. Frank had a kind word and an outlandish anecdote for everyone. Frank passed away last year, but his irrepressible spirit lives on. I'll tell you more about these inspirational men in future blog posts.

I hope you can support me on this journey. As I did with the Freihofer Run for Women last year, I'm going to blog every day about my training. It won't be all deadly recits of stats and mileage. I'll throw some fun stuff in too. Please check back often. Daily, in fact. Knowing that there's someone out there keeping an eye on me will help me not to slack off!

If you can, please consider donating on my fundraising page. There are incentives there, to help you feel connected to the race and to the training.

Thanks again for your support!!!

Stay Tuned!

This is just a placeholder post to tell you how much I appreciate your support! I am going to replace this post soon with an in-depth summary of race day and a loooong thank you note, but I don't want to leave you hanging, so here's the quick and dirty:

Race day stats:
weather - perfect
jitters - absent
team camaraderie - inspiring
sense of joy - overwhelming
Race time: 39:46 (not bad for a slow fat girl, eh?)
total amount raised to help patients with leukemia & lymphoma: $1005.00

Words can't express my thanks for your support, but watch this space, because I really am going to use every word in my arsenal to convey my gratitude.

Oops. Almost forgot one stat.

Number of runners who wore a purple wig? Just the one:

(not my most flattering angle)

Pre-race jitters

It's 36 hours to race start.

Oy. I am so nervous it's not funny. Will the training pay off? Will the fact that I have not run at all this week erase all the hard work I've done? Will the purple wig stay on my head during the race? What if I pass out on the course?

I have to admit, this week has been hard, and it's been a bad week to let all my race discipline fly out the window. We're in a bit of a state of flux at our house - we're packing up for a move on June 15th, my fiance has been in China for the past 2 weeks (he just got home tonight), and his sister comes for a visit this Saturday. In fact, her plane touches down at Newark right around the time of the starting gun for the Freihofers. So I've been running a little ragged, trying to get two houses in order, sorting, boxing, and working my regular 8 hour day on top of that.

So race day will dawn with me not having run for a week. My fiance, who was the most tremendous coach and support during last year's race, will be picking up his sister from the airport. I think my soon-to-be stepson will be with me, but I might be doing this alone. That's ok, because I'll have my LLS teammates there.

I'd like to wax lyrical about how wonderful this whole experience has been for me, because it truly has been a life-changing process, but I think that's a blog better left to be written on a post-race euphoric high.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to bite my fingernails a little bit and try to get a really good night's sleep on Friday!

Test Run

38:12

Now I know how fast I can run the Freihofer's, under conditions of extreme heat, no water and utter confusion!

Tonight was the GHI 5K Corporate Challenge downtown at the Empire State Plaza, and my company fielded a 21 member team. The course is roughly the same as the Freihofer's, so I signed up to run, thinking it would be a good test for the Big Day. I've been getting excited about this race all week, and it certainly didn't disappoint, just not in the ways I expected!

First things first - it's a REALLY hot day today in Albany! It's 9pm, and the temp is still at 81 degrees. I'm going to hazard a guess that at race time, we were still in the high 80's. There was a stiff breeze, so that helped a lot, and about 60% of the course was shaded, so that also mitigated the heat a bit.

4:30pm rolled around. I shut down my computer. Race singlet and skort: donned. Wrist stopwatch: strapped on. Double pair of socks and sneaks: shod. Hair: scraped back off my forehead. iPhone: set to airplane mode.

I made my way down to the Plaza, toward what I thought was the pre-arranged rendezvous for our team. Strange - there seemed to be a line of massage tables where Steve (our team captain) told us to meet. Okay ~shrug~.

I got a massage. And waited.

When 5:45pm rolled around and I still didn't see Steve, I got a little panicky. Steve had my race number. They won't let me run without a race bib. Finally, after some frantic paging, I got to the correct rendezvous, and everything was set. I lined up according to my anticipated race time, and waited for the race to begin.

BANG! We're off! I passed by the grandstand where Mayor Jennings was standing, reaching down to high five the runners streaming by. I screamed "JERRY!! GIVE ME SOME SUGAR!" in my loudest, opera diva voice, and wouldn't you know it, our perma-tanned Mayor fist bumped me and yelled back "go go GO!"

That was the highlight of the race. It was all downhill from there.

Perhaps I was spoiled by how efficiently and professionally last year's Freihofer's was run, and maybe the fact that this was by far the largest crowd (7700 people!) I've ever run with have colored my opinion, but MAN! Not a well organized race. Not. at. all.

There were no distance markers (that I could see), other than the 1km placard at the entrance to Washington Park. That was accompanied by a time marker, but those were the last official waypoints I saw for the rest of the race, save the finish line. Maybe they were off the to the side of the course, low to the ground, but how are you supposed to see that when you are racing by in a rugby scrum of people? Lift them up high, race peeps!

Worst of all - THERE WAS NO WATER AT THE FIRST WATER CHECK. I was amazed. I was running about a 12 minute mile, and sure, there were lots of runners ahead of me, but there were TONS of people behind me. To run out of water before more than half of your runners has gone by is not cool. And there were no volunteers there either! None! They had abandoned ship! Runners were pawing through boxes of water, looking for full containers! It was like feeding time at the gulag.

There was a second water check that was better staffed about a mile before the finish, but by then, my throat had turned into the Sahara.

Those are the negatives of the race. There were positives. I wanted to get the negatives out the way so that I could finish this post on a high note!

I've already told you about my brush with Rich Corinthian Leather fame (well, his face does look like the seat of a Buick, doesn't it?). I also ran into a friend I haven't seen since grad school! She was on our team, and I had no idea she worked at my company until now. It was so wonderful catching up with her!

It was also wonderful to be in such a supportive atmosphere, with so many people cheering you on! The course passes through the intersection of Lark St. and Madison Ave, and there are two popular bars across the street from each other, the Lionheart and the Lark Tavern. Lots of the patrons had come out onto the sidewalk en masse, and offered vociferous support, beer pints in hand. It was hilarious!

All in all - it was a good night. The heat didn't affect me as much as I thought it would. I shaved 5 minutes off my 5K time from last year's Freihofer. And I know now (after the fact, unfortunately) to bring something for the chafing.

What? TMI?

Thanks for reading! 8 more days till the BIG DAY!! Let's see if I can get my time down to 37 minutes!

Catch up

I'd blame technical difficulties on the lack of posts from last week (my Mac has been freezing up at really inopportune moments), but that doesn't really excuse it, since I can post from my iPhone. But trust me! I've still been running!

Last Wednesday's run was very similar to Monday's - same course in my neighborhood, and I finished in the same time, which was a little bit disappointing, but I'll take it. I could swear there was headwind......

Confession time - I biffed Friday night's run. Didn't do it. Yes, I feel bad. But....

Monday night's run was great! Same course, better time! I'm now doing 2.41 miles in 30 minutes! Improvement!

Today's run was the same time, same distance.

Tomorrow is the GHI Workforce Challenge. I'm running it with 15 other members of my company, as sort of a test of the Freihofer course. It's the same exact course, only backwards. The race starts at 6:25pm. Wish me luck!

In other news: my race day singlet came!!