Deferred

I decided to defer my Marine Corps Marathon until next year. Between the calf strain and a sinus infection I'm just not healthy enough to run the race. Was it a tough decision to make? Yes! Was it the right decision? Yes! Am I disappointed? A little. This will be the first year since my first marathon in 2007 that I will not have completed a marathon. The plan for the rest of 2011 is to continue getting better and run for the fun and love of it. I've mentioned a few times recently that the fun part of running has gotten away from me. I'm going to use the next few months to have fun and fall back in love with running. Hopefully I can run more with Lil Ansky, jump into a Turkey Trot, and just run without the pressure of an "A" race on the horizon.

What about 2012? I can say with a high degree of certainty that MCM 2012 will be my only marathon. I'll write more about this but I've learned that I cannot train for 2 marathons in the same year. I don't have any particular race in mind but I would like to run at least one half marathon in the spring and possibly dip my feet in the multi-sport water with a duathlon.

One more thing.... just because I deferred does not mean I can't take part in the MCM festivities. I'll be in DC for work the week of MCM. If anyone wants to meet up at the Expo either Thursday evening or Friday after 1:00, let me know.

I Spoke Too Soon

In my last post, I mentioned that the foot/calf pain I was experiencing had corrected itself and that the subsequent 2 weeks of training had gone very well. The temperatures were getting cooler and I was starting to get excited about running MCM.

I spoke to soon. My assigned run for last Tuesday was a 1:20 step up run, 20 minutes in zone 2, 20 minutes in zone 3, 30 minutes in zone 4, cool down for 10 minutes. About 15 minutes into the run, I started to feel a sharp, stabbing pain in my left calf.  I continued on for a few more minutes until the pain became so intense that I could not continue. Needless to say, I felt frustrated and dejected. I secretly hoped that with some stretching and foam rolling I'd be able to do my 1:15 recovery run the next day. Due to a death in the family, that run didn't happen. I was hoping 3 days of no running (2 days for Rosh Hashana followed by Shabbat) would be enough rest to get my long run done last Sunday. I thought wrong. 15 minutes into the run the pain was back.

I saw my massage therapist on Monday and he really worked on the leg. I saw my Podiatrist yesterday just to rule out the possibility of any structural damage to the calf. Thankfully there was nothing structurally wrong and the podiatrist felt it should get better with some serious stretching and foam rolling. He also sent me home with one of these

a splint or sorts to help stretch out the muscles.

All of this raises the obvious question: What's my status for MCM?
Honestly, I don't know yet. I spoke with Coach Jeff and he thinks that even if I don't run another step between today on October 30 that I could finish the race. The reason being that I have a big training base both from Vermont and all of the training I did up until now. He said that I shouldn't expect to PR but that I should be able to run an easy marathon and enjoy the atmosphere. I'd like to use MCM as the race where I remember why I love marathoning. I think that's gotten away from me and running MCM for fun maybe just what I need.

That's the plan I'm going to follow. This week I've been stretching, rolling, and riding the spin bike. I may try to run next week just to see how it is. I have until October 20 to defer my entry to 2012 if the calf isn't better.

Stay tuned....

MCM Training Update

In case y'all have forgotten I am training for the Marine Corps Marathon on October 30. I haven't written a lot about my training primarily because, up until recently, it has been less than stellar. Running during the summer months was absolutely brutal. The heat and humidity exacerbated my asthma,  forced me to cut many runs short, and I was questioning if running MCM was still a good idea. I came very close to throwing in the towel and deferring my entry until 2012. In short, I had lost my running mojo.

At the same time, I started developing some foot pain. The pain was on the top of the foot between the top of my ankle and where the shoe laces are on my shoes. At first I thought I was tying my shoes too tightly, but the pain was still there after loosening them up. The foot hurt when I walked, not when I ran. A few weeks ago, I saw a podiatrist mainly to determine if there was a stress fracture or some other serious injury there. The diagnosis came back as an overuse injury. The doctor suggested cutting down on mileage, compression, and ice. I knew there was no way I could cut down on my mileage 6 weeks before MCM but I did start wearing a compression ankle sock and tried to ice my foot as often as I could. I told Coach Jeff what was going and he asked me to send him pictures of the bottoms of my shoes (Newton Gravitas) so he could analyze the wear pattern. This is what I sent him:

Within a few minutes he determined that I was "stabbing" rather than planting "square."  Coach explains it really well in this video he made especially for me.



Back to the training front....I feel like I'm back on track. The past 2 weeks have been solid. Temperatures have been cooler and my paces have been coming down to the levels where they were earlier this year when I was training for Vermont City. The Jewish holiday "season" is fast approaching with Rosh Hashana starting next Wednesday night (ack!). The extra non-running days will give me a chance to get some extra sleep as well time to rest whatever aches and pains I have. I'm happy I stuck with the training and I'm starting to get excited about the race. I have 2 more "big" weeks coming up then it's time to taper.

September 11 - Ten Years Later

2001 was quite a year for the Anskys. In February, we closed on our house. In May, I completed my MBA in Finance at Baruch College. In July, Lil Ansky was born.

Then September 11 happened. To this day, I'm not sure why but I was running late for work that day. I got off the A Train at Broadway-Nassau St. in the Financial District and saw huge crowd of people congregating on Maiden Lane right near my office. At first I had no idea what they were looking at. As I got closer to the street, I looked up and saw that one of the World Trade Center towers was on fire. Before I could ask someone what had happened I saw a plane fly right into the south tower. BOOM! Words cannot describe what it sounded like.

I wasn't quite sure what to do. Do I run for it and go home? Do I go into my office which is built like a fortress and could be considered one of the safest in New York City? I knew my brother worked on a low floor (I don't remember exactly which one but it was in the 20s) in one of the towers so I called him to make sure he was OK. The explosions knocked out the cell service because the call did not go through. I decided to go to my office and try to send an e-mail to his 2-way pager (remember those). Thankfully he made it out safely and he was going to his girlfriend's (now wife) apartment in the Village. I told him I would be in touch and that I might need a place to stay that night. I remember talking to Mrs. Ansky on the phone at the exact moment the towers collapsed. My office is 2 blocks from the World Trade Center and I remember the windows shaking and rattling when the towers collapsed. I was on the phone talking to Mrs. Ansky when the towers collapsed. I didn't know what was happening at the time so I told I would call her back (which I did). My mother was teaching a class in NJ and the person answering the phones refused to interrupt the class to let her speak with me. I don't remember how I replied but I'm pretty sure it went something like this "in case you don't know, both World Center Towers were struck by airplanes. One of her sons works 2 blocks from where it happened and her other son works IN the towers. Now interrupt her [expletive] class and let me talk with her!"  My dad was even harder to get in touch with. At the time, he was teaching in a huge NYC Public School. No one in the school knew where he was and his cell phone wasn't working. Finally, he got in touch with Mrs. Ansky who told him that we were both alive and accounted for.

The next few hours were spent watching TV and learning more about what happened. Security had locked down the building and did not allow anyone to leave until 3:00 p.m. When we got the all clear from security that it OK to leave, I wasn't quite sure what to do. I wasn't a runner then so one option was to walk all the way to the George Washington Bridge and then hitch a ride home from there. The other option was to spend the night with my brother and his girlfriend and figure out what to do the next morning. I stayed with my brother that night, and thanks to my brother's colleague who also spent the night I got home to NJ Wednesday morning.

For a few weeks after the attacks on the WTC, my office was closed and we were working out of our office in NJ. When the main office did re-open, it opened the cafeteria to anyone involved in the recovery effort. There were firefighters, police, and military eating breakfast and lunch in our building. The bone-tired looks on their faces stay with me even 10 years later. I remember struggling with what, if anything, to say to them. Did they want to be talked to or did they want to be left alone? I decided "Thank You" was a simple and appropriate thing to say.

Fast forward 10 years.......in the weeks leading up to the 10th anniversary, I was thinking about how I wanted to mark the occasion. Since I had a 2:45 long run on the calendar, I decided that I would run from the NJ side of the George Washington Bridge to Lower Manhattan. I thought it would be a good way to infuse my long run with some meaning. Sunday was cool day, humidity was low, and there was plenty of cloud cover.

I was feeling some pulling in the back of my leg so I kept the effort nice and relaxed. Despite a uncorroborated terror threat, I was happy to see runners and cyclists out getting their miles in.  As I was getting closer to Ground Zero I started to get chills. A lot of memories started to come back. I thought about seeing the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center. I thought about my brother who worked in one of the towers and how thankful I am that he made it out safely. I thought about the looks on the faces of everyone involved in recovery effort when they came through my office's cafeteria in the days, weeks, and months afterward.

When I got to what is now called the New Wold Trade Center site, I stopped for a few minutes, as did many other runners and cyclists, for a few minutes of reflection and a prayer. I turned around and the 2nd hour of the run felt great.

I pass by Ground Zero/New World Center Site every day on my way to work. In the years since the attacks, I'll freely admit that I have become somewhat desensitized to the significance of what happened there. Not that I have ever forgotten what happened, but when you're rushing to get to work it's very easy to develop tunnel vision and ignore the huge construction project right next to you. I am very lucky that I live close enough to Lower Manhattan to be able to do what I did yesterday. It helped put things back into perspective.

Ground Zero - September 11, 2001 (not my photo)

New World Trade Center - September 11, 2011 (my photo)

Race Report: JackRabbit Battle of Brooklyn 10 Miler

Sunday was the 2nd Annual JackRabbit Sports Battle of Brooklyn 10 Miler in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I hadn't raced anything since the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge in mid-June. Coach Jeff was nudging me to sign up for something to see where I was 69 days out from the Marine Corps Marathon. Summer training has been less than stellar but I, and Coach, thought I was in good enough shape to run around 1:15 (my current 10 mile PR is 1:19:50). As always, the wildcard was going to be the weather.

The race started shortly after 8:00 and I felt pretty good early on. After I finished my first loop of the park, I began to feel the effects of the heat and humidity. I saw my heart rate creeping up into the mid and upper 170s. A very dangerous range in ideal racing conditions let alone when it's 75 and 70% humidity. I realized that I needed to make some adjustments so I wouldn't blow up like I did in Vermont. One of the adjustments I made was to walk through the water stops, something I've stopped doing a while ago. I wanted to make sure that the fluid went down my throat and not up my nose. It also allowed my heart rate to come down a little bit. After cresting the big hill in the park for the last time, I dug deep and was able to run a 7:50 final. My official time was 1:19:50, an exact match of my current 10 mile PR.

When I was talking about the race on the New York Running Show Sunday night, Brenn asked me if I felt like I ran the best race that I could on that day. I answered that I thought I did. The weather was far from perfect and the adjustments that I made allowed me to have enough strength to finish strong. I also mentioned that I am not used to first starting a training run, let alone a race at 8:00 a.m. I am usually at the tail end of my run by 8:00 so my body is not used to running during warmer parts of the day. Hopefully it will be cooler for my next race, the Yonkers Half Marathon on September 18.

Keep it Real

Coach Jeff has said over and over again to set realistic goals based on the amount of time you have to train. Unless you're a professional athlete, training is just one aspect of our very busy lives. We all have day jobs, boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, children, etc... Reality set in for me this week. Coach assigned me a workload which was heavier than anything he's ever given me:

Monday: total body workout
Tuesday: 1:40 step-up run
Wednesday: 1:15 recovery run
Thursday: 1:00 bike
Friday: 1:00 w/ 40 minutes in upper zone 3
Sunday: 2:45 long run

That's 8+ hours of training. I thought I could handle it but after cutting my 1:40 step-up run short because time got away from me, I quickly realized that I couldn't. I realized that I only have a finite amount of time in the morning to train. I have no problem waking up at 4:30 every morning and starting a run by 5:00. However, I need time at home to clean up, spend a few minutes with Lil Ansky, and leave my house at 7:15 for my 1 hour commute to work. Which basically means I need to be home by 6:30 -6:40 at the latest. Working out at night does not work for me because Mrs. Ansky works out when I get home from work and Lil Ansky is not old enough yet to stay home by herself. Besides, I am already exhausted from a full day of work, hungry because I haven't eaten dinner yet, and have trouble sleeping because the endorphins are still pumping.

I called Coach and told him that we needed to cut back on the training load just a bit. He completely understood and we're going to make some adjustments that fit into what I have going on in my life including family and religious obligations.

The bottom line is, coaches don't want you to fail. If you have a coach and he/she starts giving you a load that you can't handle, don't be afraid to speak up and suggest some adjustments. Coaches don't want you to fail but you need to be honest with yourself and your coach about how much time you have to train.

Totals for July 2011

Running:
Total Number of Runs: 15
Total Time: 18:19:29
Total Distance: 128.62 miles

Average Time: 1:13:17
Average Distance: 8.57 miles

Cycling:
Total Number of Rides: 3
Total Time: 3:11:03
Total Distance: 35.25 miles

Average Time: 1:03:41
Average Distance: 11.75 miles

July marked my introduction to the bike. I drank the cycling kool-aid and bought Brandon's used Felt Z90 road bike. I'm becoming more and more comfortable each time I ride. I have a lot to learn but I'm enjoying learning a new discipline. The other highlight in July was running a 2k race with Lil Ansky on July 4th. It was the first of hopefully many races we'll run together. Since the race, we've run together a bunch of times on the local high school track. She's really enjoying and is looking forward to running another race when she gets home from camp and the weather gets cooler.

Now that it's August, MCM is another month closer. The heat and humidity have made it difficult to not only get all the miles in but also train at the level I'm capable of. I hope that the work I'm putting in now will pay off once the weather gets cooler.