Brushing the blogwebs off

Yeah yeah, I know..I have been a complete slacker with the blogs the last couple of months. I could come up with many excuses, but I won't even bother going there. It's not like I had a mob of people demanding a new entry. I did have Thon and Richard bug me, but despite their Italian-like methods of motivation during runs, I wouldn't call them a mob.

Instead I will just give some updates on what's going on in Mikey's world. I continued my assistant coaching duties with AustinFit, which involved the 22-miler 3 weeks before the marathon. I was signed up for the half-marathon, so this was a lot more than I needed to do. However, it was cool to be able to do that much distance just 2 months after the Dallas Marathon. I fared pretty well on the run, but I have developed a slight knee issue over the past few weeks.

Besides AustinFit, I did run a lot with Hava to help her train for her first half-marathon!! She decided to give it a try in December after watching Thon, Carrie, Amy, Venus, and myself finish the full marathon in Dallas. I am not going to lie, I was somewhat skeptical. Not because I didn't think she could physically do it, but I wasn't sure if she REALLY wanted to do it. And if you aren't mentally ready for the discipline required to train correctly, then you are setting yourself up for failure. Of course, I didn't say this to her, because I really wanted to see her accomplish it! So I set out to create a custom training schedule for her on an excel spreadsheet. It had her slowly building up to an 11 mile run 2 weeks before the race. I also mixed in speed workouts, which I thought would help her run her 11-minute planned pace comfortably.

Well, it didn't take much time for Hava to erase my skepticism. She woke up almost every scheduled morning to get her training run in. She did her leg weights religiously to keep her knee pain at bay (ok, she slacked off a bit a few weeks before the race, but whatever). I became a believer very quickly, and I was getting excited at the prospect of having a "running wife"!!! We did one speed workout per week, and she never failed to impress me with her ability to complete the workouts and finish strong. Most of her weekday runs were in our neighborhood, which is full of hills, so had all of the right training to get through the hilly AT&T Austin Half. And what made me even more impressed is that she did all of this training with a good amount of distractions, primarily travel required for work. Her 11 mile run two weeks ago was tough for her. She got through it, but it took a toll on her body. I wasn't too concerned, but I know Hava might have lost a little of her optimism at that point.

My younger sister Susan and her boyfriend Kyle were also planning on running the half with us. This was to be Kyle's first half-marathon as well. Similar to Hava, Kyle has come a LONG way to get to this point. In fact, just a few years ago he was extremely overweight and could not run a mile. Then he met my sister, who also used to be overweight but changed her life a few years ago and got into excellent shape..including finishing the Freescale Marathon in 2005. She was a huge positive influence on him. Of course, I give him just as much credit for putting Susan in a better place in life mentally. They are an awesome couple and were made for each other. Patiently waiting for Kyle to put a ring on her finger (no pressure Kyle). Bonus for me that he is a fellow Aggie!

Ok, so back to my Havalah. We all went to the race expo last Saturday and had a good time. We picked up our packets and shopped a bit. Hava was SO excited and optimistic. Once I saw that, I knew she would do just fine. She was both physically and mentally ready for the race. Barring anything unforseen, my wife was on the brink of finishing her first half-marathon! That evening, Hava and I headed to Richard and Stephanie's place for an excellent pre-race potluck. We had a great time, although Hava kept on having to hear people say how hard the race was going to be because of all of the hills. Luckily, it didn't seem to effect her attitude much! We then went home and prepared for the race..and then went to bed early.

We woke up at 4:45..it was a dry and cold morning, perfect marathon/half-marathon weather! We did our pre-run rituals, got dressed, and headed out to the starting line downtown! The race was set to start at 7, so we eventually made our way to the starting line around 6:45. Hava was bursting with excitement, which was really nice to see. We couldn't hear anything at the front of the starting line, but at 7 there were a bunch of fireworks set off and we slowly made our way to the front. It took 5 minutes just to get to the starting line!!!

We were off!! My goal was to make sure Hava didn't run too fast at first. I knew she felt great, but I also know from experience the resulting troubles of letting the adrenaline and excitement dictate your pace. As I suspected, I had to reign her in a few times. We still went a little faster than I thought we should go, but I still felt comfortable that she could maintain the pace. Susan and Kyle slowly pushed ahead, although at one point they got behind us temporalily because they stopped at the first water stop (we didn't). My parents came in to support all of us, so we got to see them first at mile 3. Hava was so excited to have them out there, it was really motivating to see them supporting us. The course wasn't too bad at first, it was flat to uphill, but mostly gradual uphill.

Hava was doing really well, by the halfway point she still felt really good and was staying hydrated and fueled (with her favorite Jelly Belly Sportz Beans). The first steep hill was at mile 7 near the Mopac Bridge. It is a short hill, but very steep. I know Hava was a bit nervous about the hills, but I repeatedly told her that she was prepared for this. We got to the hill and I told her to take nice and short steps and control her breathing. She did just that and we greeted by my parents at the top of the hill! Once again, it was very motivational to see them, especially after getting to the top of the first difficult hill. The remaining 6 miles were basically up and down hills. Hava stayed pretty strong, although a few of the hills took a lot out of her. However, she recovered very quickly, which I reminded her was a direct result of all of her hill and speed training. We split off from the Marathon on Windsor and eventually got to the second-to-last big hill. It looked tough, and as we ascended we saw a lot of people walking up the hill. I looked at Hava and said something to the effect of "You are better than that..you will not stop running..you trained for this!". I don't remember the exact wording, but I temporarily became a drill sergeant. Turns out she was laughing in her head about my words and tone, but guess what, she made it to the top without stopping. And once again, she recovered quickly. Most importantly, we left all of the people that walked in the dust!

Before we got to the last big hill, we were greeted by Thon right around his house. He ran with us for a couple of minutes and gave Hava some encouragement. He told her how strong she looked....he was not just saying it to make her feel better. She DID look strong!! I was so proud of her, even before she finished. We got to the last big hill around mile 11 on Enfield, it was not only steep, but long. I told her that she just need to make it through this hill and after that it would be a lot easier to the finish. Once again, she didn't fail to impress and charged up the hill.

Around mile 12, I told Hava that once we got to Congress that she should crank up the speed if she had it in her. Once we passed around the capitol, Hava turned on the afterburners and started to run a sub-10 minute mile. And as the finish line came into site, she started to speed up even more. My garmin was registering an 8:50! At one point, I even lagged behind her because she surprised me with a burst of speed. I caught up to her a few feet before the finish and we finished together..final chip time, 2 hours and 17 minutes.

Hava averaged a 10:29 pace, 30 seconds faster than what we thought she would do it in!! Most importantly, she thoroughly enjoyed the experience!! Kyle and Susan finished in 2:10, which was a PR for Susan and an excellent finishing time for Kyle as a first-timer!! As for me, I had the best half-marathon experience I have ever had. It was really nice to just enjoy the run, the people around us, and watching Hava not only achieve her goal, but achieve it with style!!!

How's that for a comeback blog? Congrats to all of my friends who finished the half or full this past weekend! And thanks to Thon and Richard for being out there to support all of us!

30K with Austin Fit

On Saturday I did a 30K run with AustinFit. The course was meant to mimic some of the AT&T Marathon course. It was a pretty challenging course, with many upward inclines and hills on Exposition. I was not sure how well I would do..or if I would make it at all, but I kept a positive attitude. Seriously, it has been less than a month since the marathon!

I ended up doing pretty well overall. The assistant coach position with Austin Fit doesn't entail too many duties, but one of them is to stay back with people who are having a hard time. On Saturday a fellow Austin Fitter was having some knee issues, so I stayed back with him for about 4 miles. At mile 15, we were a good quarter mile or more behind the group. By this time, the guy was in pretty bad shape, so he decided he was going to walk back to the Austin Fit parking lot (about a mile away if you didn't follow the course). So I decided to speed up and try to catch my group! For two miles I ran a sub 8 pace and came within 20 seconds of my group. I was able to maintain this, but I never got any closer. Around mile 17 I started to get pretty damn weak.. I basically hit "the wall" and struggled to the finish. Someone was nice enough to provide beer and champagne at the end, that was yum!

It was still a good run for me, my legs feel good and I fell like I am getting my cardio back!

The rest of the weekend was great, mostly spending time with Hava. Yesterday Hava went to a wedding expo with Tracy (she just got engaged to Raul) and she won a 5 night cruise!!!! We're going to try to go on our 1 year anniversary in September. Last night we met up with Thon, Richard, Stephanie, and Stephen to see Children of Men. It is a must see.

My new hero

I've heard of Dean Karnazes before, even read of some of his exploits, but until I read this article from Wired magazine I never realized just how much of a true superhuman he is. So now I have found a new hero and fresh inspiration. He went from a 30 year old 9-5 family guy (who also drank too much) to a superhuman ultramarathoner.

I have no wishes, hopes, or even dreams of attaining the level of fitness and dedication he has achieved (he only sleeps 4 hours a night!!!), but he serves as a great role model for myself and anyone who aspires to make themselves better people.

The article has many great tips, make sure to check it out!

Cheers, Mr. Karnazes!

Running report: My first run of 2007 was decent, 5.3 miles through my hilly Lantana neighborhood. Mentally it feels great to be back!! Hava and I will be doing a fartlek run tomorrow. I also signed up for a online running log so I can keep to one of my goals this year! It is a pretty neat web site called Running Ahead.

2007 Goals

My fellow Gazelle/blogger Frank published his running and personal goals for 2007. I think that is a great idea, so here goes:

• Stay healthy (this is Frank's first goal too, makes sense to me!)
• Continue to strengthen my friendship and love with Hava
• Continue to keep a healthy balance between running for pleasure and running to attain goals
• PR in the 3M half
• Run the AT&T Half with Hava (it will be her first!)
• Train hard and consistently through the Spring and Summer to keep my base fitness and increase my speed. Strengthen my core.
• Keep a training log so I can actually keep track of my weekly, monthly, and yearly mileage!
• Run 1-2 marathons this year
• Get out of my comfort zone in Gazelle's and make more friends!
• Make my current Gazelle friendships even stronger

Happy New Year! I hope all of you reach your goals, whatever they are.

Being thankful....

Ok, so it is not Thanksgiving, but I'd like to list the people and things I am most thankful for in 2006...

• Hava - my best friend, lover, and wife...enough said.
• Our families - thank you for all of your support and help with everything, especially the wedding. You made our wedding very special and we'll never forget it.
• Thon - by my late 20's, I thought I had found already found all of my close friends. I didn't think I had room for anyone else, let alone be lucky enough to find one. Thon proved me wrong. I am thankful to him for coming into my life and for being a confidante, running partner, and last but not least, a friend that I can fully trust and rely on. He is also welcome to show up at our house unexpectedly any time he wants, as long as he brings an alcoholic beverage to share.
• Richard - I can virtually ditto what I said about Thon, and in addition Richard and his wife Stephanie are such a wonderful couple to all of us. Even with Richard being sick, they met up with us at Mi Madre's every Saturday after our long run..and also came to Dallas to support us when we ran our marathon. They are truly selfless people, and I am thankful for having them in my life. Richard will be running for the first time in many months on January 1st...I can't wait until he can join us again on our runs!
• Carrie - she and I go back a few years, and I am thankful for her unwavering friendship and support..along with her ability to put her mind in the gutter as much, or more, than I do. I can always rely on her to laugh at my raunchy jokes even if no one else does. Carrie, aren't you glad we decided to join Gazelle's together? I can't imagine if we didn't!! Oh, and thanks for being my Running Wife, even if you put out for Shawn instead of your Running Hubby. I don't blame you though, he is a great catch.
• Amy - she makes our runs more entertaining than they would be without her. She is spunky, sweet, and an incredible runner! We don't do a too much together outside of running, but she still manages to add to my life, and I am thankful to her for that.
• Gilbert - my coach...he is one of the most decent and nicest people that I know. Even when I am not running with Gazelles, I am always proud and thankful to be able to call myself one. Thanks Gilbert, for everything!
• All of the Gazelles (even the ones I don't know) - Alex, Frank, Erine, Venus, etc. etc. etc....thanks for keeping the Gazelle spirit alive and for making the organization such an elite one to be part of. It makes me look good.
• Ranger, Shayna, Siskel, Coe, and Peeper - The pets that live in our zoo (some call it a house too). They add so much to our lives, I can't imagine not having them to welcome us every time we come home. I also can't imagine not having to clean wads of pet fur from our floor every week, it just wouldn't be the same.
• Our house - we love our house, we feel truly blessed to live in it. It is going to be great to start our family in it. Just not yet.

I wish a very happy, healthy, and safe New Year to all of my family and friends!

Putting the OTH in my BROTH

When I first started this blog way back when (ok, two months ago), I decided to call it "Mike's BROTH", or Mike's Blog of Running and Other Things Happening. I recently realized that all of the blogs I have written have all been about Running, and not Other Things Happening. So today I have decided to put the OTH in my BROTH.

First off, if there is any blog that I would love to emulate, it would be Carrie's Tritobefunny blog. I really enjoy reading her blog not only for the running recaps (which I co-star in on occasion), but also because she truly knows how to put the OTH in her BROTH. She has published some really great insight in her blogs, and has a very eloquentl style of writing it. She has a pretty large readership level based on the amount of comments left, so I'm obviously not the only one who sees this. Now, I will say that even if she does have better writing skills than me, I do have some skills that chicks love..like nunchuck skills and bowhunting skills.

With that said, I would like to give a recap of the 2006 year. This has been an amazing year, with many ups and few downs. In January, was just getting acquainted with my newly diagnosed stress fracture resulting from overtraining after the Chicago Marathon. It was pretty depressing not being able to run, but what made everything all better was the fact that I had an amazing girlfriend (my Havalah) who supported me and helped me stay positive. We had started dating in September 2005, so we were a relatively "new" couple. However, after a wonderful trip to Vegas in December, we both new that we had found our soul mates.

I decided in early January that Hava was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We had only been dating for 4 months, but this was a situation where you have two mature adults who found the right person and were in the right time of their lives to make this kind of decision without it being forced or too quick. We were meant for each other..and that is just plain fact.
I asked Hava to marry me in late January (she said yes, of course), and on the same exact day we signed a contract to have a house built in Southwest Austin. It was really exciting for us! After doing a lot of great research, Hava found a great place for us to have our wedding and we set a date for September 10th, which happened to be the day before the 1 year anniversary of our first date! Needless to say, both sets of family were ecstatic. Both Hava and I had been engaged in the past to non-Jew's, so the fact that we ended up marrying Jewish was a God-send for our parents.

Over the next 7 months, we sold my house (one of the "downs" of the year, but I won't go into that), I moved in with Hava temporarily, and finally we moved into our new house in early August! And then we had our wedding on September 10th. The wedding was a wonderful experience and we felt so lucky to have our close friends and family join us for it. We then took 2 weeks off, the second of which we spent in Costa Rica, which was a great adventure.

Life has been great since then, and I was even able to get a 5-minute PR in Dallas after such a busy year (sorry, I couldn't help talking a little about running!).

No insight in this blog, but a "brief" recap of the great year that I have had. :-)

Dallas White Rock

So I slacked off the past couple of weeks on the blog, but taper weeks aren't all that exciting anyway.

The marathon FINALLY arrived on Sunday. Hava and made the trip up to Dallas on Saturday in a caravan with Thon, Venus, Amy and her husband Perry, Carrie and her fiance Shawn, and Richard and his wife Stephanie.

We headed to the expo right when we got there and got our packets, etc. I bought a new gel belt to hold the plethora of nutrition I needed for the race. They say not to try anything new before a big race, but I felt pretty safe with the belt. Hava also bought some stuff, and we even got some free Clif Shot block flavors, Margerita and Pina Colada!! I thought they tasted pretty good (from the free samples), and they had extra caffeine and sodium in them.

I was feeling pretty good about the race. My legs felt good, I was in good spirits, and my running buds (Thon, Venus, and Amy) were all feeling positive that we were going to all have a good race. The goal was 3:30. I felt this was reachable, but only if everything was perfect. Otherwise, I knew I'd be happy with a PR, which would be anything faster than a 3:44 marathon.

We had a nice (but slightly cold) dinner at MoMo's on Saturday night. We only could get the patio tables, but they were somewhat heated by gas heaters. Richard was nice enough to let me use his jacket even though all he had was a short sleeved shirt. What a guy!

Race morning was cold, but also slightly humid. This wasn't the greatest sign for me, because even when it is pretty cold, the humidity seems to effect my ability to regulate my temperature. Thon was completely in the zone since we drove up, but as we were walking to the race he loosened up a little bit and cracked a smile or two. We did our last minute prep in the port-o-pottie's, and it was about time to start!! Richard, Stephanie, and my lovely Hava had plans to see us in 5-6 different areas and cheer us on.

We started with the 3:30 pace group. I felt really good, but I told myself I would fall back as soon as I felt like I should slow down. Well, that didn't take too long. After 3 miles, I decided that if I was going to make it, I would have to take the pace to an 8:15-8:30 average. So I slowly lost sight of Amy, Venus, Carrie, and Thon. It didn't bother me, because I wanted to run my own race.

The miles went pretty quickly at first, I definitely felt the humidity, but I got water at every water stop and continued to eat nutrition every 3-4 miles. Our cheering squad was excellent and reliable, they were there to cheer me about every 4 miles. It was so great to see Hava's smiling face...it kept me strong. Around mile 13 I ended up passing up Venus. She looked like she was struggling (which it turns out she was, I'll explain later). I said a quick hello, and kept going. By mile 15, a few little doubts starting creeping into my mind. I was slowing down a bit, reading 8:30-8:40 minute miles on my watch. I wasn't feeling horrible, but also not feeling strong. I told myself to stay strong and not stop, and most importantly not be a big wimp. The biggest mental game that kept me going was continuously telling myself that all of the months of training led up to this race, and it would all be for naught if I didn't actually use the strength from this training to make it throught the race. I kept on trucking....

Mile 20-21 was interesting because it was a series of small inclines and hills. I was worried they would sap my strength, but they actually did the opposite. It was very refreshing to use the different muscles necessary to climb inclines vs. the ones I was using on the flat White Rock Lake area. In fact, I felt a surge of strength and was able to pass a good amount of people. This was a first for me..to find energy reserves in the second half of a marathon. Once the course flattened out, I started to mentally map out the rest of the race. I couldn't believe I had only 5 miles to go..but knew from experience that they would be a LONG 5 miles.

What made things crappy was the half-marathon joined back into the race around mile 21. They started an hour after the marathon, so the people that were running when I met up with them were the slower ones, and in fact many of them were walking. What made this an issue is that many of these people had no freaking clue about race courtesy and were walking on the left hand side of the street instead of keeping the left side for the faster runners. I was already on the verge of having calf cramps, so having to avoid these people only made things worse. One wrong move and I would have been on the ground. Luckily, I only had a few near collisions and made it through unscathed. I also almost ran into an EMS vehicle that a police officer decided to let through. It didn't have its emergency lights on, so I got slightly annoyed. However, a man right in front of me got much more than slightly annoyed and screamed "No, no, no!!!" at the officer, and whaddya know the officers stopped the EMS vehicle and let us pass. I was relieved not to have to stop, but pretty surprised.

Around mile 24, the 3:40 pace group caught up to me. I was starting to feel pretty crappy by this point. However, I decided that I was going to stick with the 3:40 pace group as much as I could. I knew a Personal Record was on the line if I slowed down much more. So I stuck with them, and dug really deep to keep moving. This was my 5th marathon, and the first time I was truly mentally strong enough to push myself beyond what my body thought it could do. It is hard to describe with words though, but it was a big mental barrier that I was able to overcome.
At mile 25, which actually was mis-marked, I somehow got the strength to speed up. I passed the 3:40 pacers and never looked back. I was determined to stay strong for the remainder of the race and finish with a sub 3:40 race time.

The last 1+ miles were ridiculously long. I kept on expecting the finish line to show up in the horizon, but it just never seemed to appear. FINALLY, I got to the 26 mile marker. I was feeling like crap, but the thought of it finally being over kept me going strong. I suddenly came upon Thon right then. It was surprising because I thought he would have finished by then, but I said "Thon, let's finish strong". That was enough for him to pick up the pace with me. He cracked a joke with about 1/10th of a mile to go with "You wanna hold hands?". I just laughed and smiled, and was really happy I was finishing the journey with such a good friend. We crossed the finish line, and gave each other a big hug before we got our medals and finisher's shirts.

Final time, 3:39:26....a 5-minute PR for me. Along with just being ecstatic with finishing, I felt like I ran a great race overall. It was the first marathon that I was truly able to stay in the zone and stay mentally strong. Everyone feels like shit at some point in a marathon, but being able to keep moving even when you do is what separates a well-run marathon from a not so well-run marathon.

As for everyone else:

Amy: ran a 3:28 and looked like she did an easy 5k
Carrie: 3:29 (PR by 6 minutes!!!!) and ready to go for a 3:20
Thon: 3:39..an official PR (had an unofficial PR of 3:37 at Freescale). He bonked towards the end, but I am still really proud of him for having such a great time. If I had bonked, I would not have gotten even close to a 3:39. It was an honor finishing the race with him, and I won't ever forget it.
Venus: 3:45:42- she qualified for the second time for Boston by 17 seconds. It turns out she had foot problems and was running in pain for about 20 miles of the race...yet she still was able to qualify. She is a BAD ASS in my book. Very impressive.
Shawn: Shawn ran a 1:59 half-marathon, congrats!!

Stephanie, Richard, Hava, Perry, my mom, dad, sister, and Kyle: Thank you so much for your support on the run..it meant a great deal to me! I love all of you!!

What's next?? I dunno, but I'm relaxing for a little bit before I even think about it!

Recap for the past 7 days -- and a PR for Mikey!

Thanksgiving was great, and what made it even better was that I am tapering now. Tapering during the Thanksgiving holidays is much better than being in the middle of training!

I'm feeling ok this week, I am having some allergy issues, but I am hoping they will go away with the impending cold front. I am planning on a very restful taper week next week. I am going to focus on getting lots of sleep and eating the right kinds of things. I should probably have this kind of focus all of the time, but you only live once, right?

A recap of my running since my last blog:

Wednesday, November 22nd: I met up with Thon, Amy, Carrie, and a few other people to run the Austin Turkey Trot course. Carrie was the race director (which, by the way, was a resounding success), so she wanted to preview the course. Total miles: 7.3

Thursday, November 23rd: I PR'd in the Ft. Worth Turkey Trot 5k!! My time was 20:40, which averaged around a 6:39/mile pace. I ALMOST placed in the top 3 in my age group. I was number 4, about 30 seconds off from number 3. I couldn't have run it any faster though, so I won't beat myself up. I beat my old PR by 1 minute and 50 seconds, not too shabby! I also ran the 10k run with Hava right after my 5k. I was really proud of her, this was the most mileage she has ever done in a race! It was a tough and pretty hilly course, but she was able to finish strong (with a little "dig deep" prodding from me!). Total miles: 9.3

Saturday, November 25th: I ran on the Mineral Wells Trailway, which is a "rails to trails" trailway..i.e. the trail used to be train tracks. It is a neat ~20 mile trail point-to-point from Weatherford to Mineral wells. It is pretty scenic and has mile markers. I woke up pretty late and the weather was pretty humid, so I ended up only doing 5 miles out and 5 miles back for a total of 10 miles. On a positive note, I was able to negative splits. Total miles: 10

Tuesday, November 28th: Ran 3.2 miles in my neigborhood. It did NOT feel easy, even though that was the intent. I blame the weather and my allergies. Total miles: 3.2

Wednesday, November 29th: I joined the Gazelles for a 7-mile fartlek run. We warmed up for 2 miles and then did 4 miles of 1-minute fast, 1-minute recovery. It was tough for me, once again I blame it on the weather and allergies. I still think it was a successful run overall, I was able to do sub-7's during the 1-minute fast intervals. Ran in my new Fila Sanctuary III's, they felt just as good as my Sanctuary II's. They better, because they are my Dallas Marathon shoes! Total miles: 7 miles

Tonight a big cold front comes in, so I'm hoping my mental any physical funk will be swept away along with the warmth and humidity!