Fundraising Concert April 30, 2009 7PM-11PM Blue Chalk Cafe

Fundraising Event to Support The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Mission to Cure and Eliminate Blood Cancers



Thursday April 30, 2009
7:00 PM – 11:00PM
Blue Chalk Café - 630 Ramona St, Palo Alto
(Downtown across from City Hall)
Parking available on the street and under City Hall, Carpool!

Whiskey Hill will be performing live from 8PM – 11PM
They blend a mix of Motown, R&B, Blues, Jazz, Rock, Funk, and Soul

$10 Cover Includes: 1 Free Drink and 1 raffle ticket or 3 Raffle Tickets
All proceeds are donated to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
Happy Hour Drink and Food Specials until 10PM

A Raffle will be held with the following:
6 Nice Bottles of Wine
Palo Alto Municipal Golf Token Card, 10 Medium Buckets
(5) 1 Hour session of Personal Yoga Instruction with Louis Jackson
1 Month Membership to Reach Fitness
(2) 5 Day Drop-In Passes to Reach Fitness
(2) Spa Parties for ~10-12 people
1 year old Avocado tree and 1 Avocado
A.G. Ferrari Wine & Cheese party for 11 people
Golden State Apparel
Free Presidents Barber Shop Haircut
$25 Il Fornaio Certificate
(2) $10 Patxi’s Certificates
(2) $50 The Great American Framing Shop Certificates
Raffle tickets can be purchased 1 for $5, 3 for $10

Live Music, Pool Tables, Shuffleboard, Raffle, Dancing, Good Times!

For more information or to donate: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/rnr09/rgreenfield

Monday through Wednesday

Monday was just another day in my fairly strange last week. I woke up, got ready for work, went to work for a few hours, and then walked around downtown for a while accumulating various prizes for the raffle I am throwing in conjunction with the concert that is occurring tomorrow night (Thursday April 30). After walking around and picking up one of the prizes from Osteria, whose manager is really cool and I respect him for his courtesy, I came home and relaxed for a bit before heading back to the gym for spinning and yoga.

Spinning was awesome, I hadn’t gone the previous week, so I expected this week to be really challenging, but it was perfect. Last week my coaches told me to take it easy on the cross-training, so I was expecting to go about 80-90% of capacity, but the workout wasn’t all that hard, so I just went about the routine. After the spinning class I stayed for the yoga class which I haven’t done in about a month. It was absolutely amazing. On one of the positions, I literally heard parts of my body pop numerous times. It felt kind of weird, but extremely relaxing immediately after.

The rest of the night is a blur, but I remember writing emails and then waking up around 6AM on Tuesday and being stoked about training. I got my mind right and then started to run around 7AM, heading over to the gym, which is a little over a mile from my house. After getting there I immediately jumped on the treadmill and decided to run a mile and see what my time would be, having already warmed up and being ready to bang it out. I set a goal to run a near 6 minute mile, so I set the treadmill at around 6:30 pace, which is approximately 9.5MPH. I went like this for the first 3 laps and then increased the cadence to a little over 10MPH and about a 6 minute mile. For the entire mile I was as far up as possible, and occasionally feeling my foot slide along portions of the machine (meaning I was going too fast for the treading). I finished the mile in 6:10 and got off, heading into the studio to do some abs, obliques and lower back. It felt great to do some core as it’s been about 2 weeks since I’ve really gotten a good workout in that section.

After the core I headed back home and then got ready to play tennis with my dad. It was pretty nice outside, fairly overcast but it was much better than the crazy wind from 2 weeks prior. It was sunny for about 2 minutes, but in comparison to the time we played when it was sprinkling, this was awesome, no sliding. Neither of us were particularly on, but it was fun and I could tell that m legs were a little tired from the running less than an hour prior.

When I got home from the tennis, I got ready for work at the Golf Course and eventually made it over there. The course was fairly slow, so we just hung out for a while. I had a chance to continue reading Barack Obama’s first book “Dreams From My Father.” So far it is a good story, and it’s amazing what I’ve read thus far, well before his political scene began, so there’s probably some really crazy stuff coming up. I was going to head over to a comedy presentation after work with one of my friends, but we got kind of lazy, we’re tired and both had obligations, so I left there and picked up my mom from her friend’s house (We share the car). We watched a little of American Idol and then headed home. I am not an Idol fan, but it’s an interesting show and I think that Simon does a little too much manipulation of the fans’ voting agenda based on emotion. After all, his money depends on the ratings and advertising money (Apparently Coca Cola has a big push, as their big red cups were right in front with the Coca Cola showing for all to see. I don’t think any of them took a drink while we were watching, I wonder if there was even anything in the cups?) In any case, don’t drink soda, it will rot your teeth, cause bone density loss, and make you fat, it’s a no-brainer.

Tuesday night led to Wednesday morning as I fell asleep on the couch for about 5 hours. When I woke up after falling asleep during a recorded episode of Fringe, I woke up to some nonsense and turned it off and headed to bed. I had meant to work on part of the raffle information that night, so in the morning when I woke up, my work began, quickly engulfing my entire day. After working on the raffle for about 2 hours I went to work and then worked on the raffle for the next 4 hours until I headed over to the baseball field for practice. After practice, which was very productive I went to my dad’s for dinner and had some really good pesto chicken and a good salad with sesame miso dressing, it was really good. We hung out for a while and I ate some chocolate, chocolate chip cookies and some orange flavored water.

At this point in the day, I am absolutely exhausted, and I really just want to fall asleep right here on the keyboard, but as there are still things to complete tonight, I shall head on and get them done before falling into a quick REM sleep.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this journal, tomorrow (Thursday) I am hosting a fund raising concert to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society between 7-11PM. Whiskey Hill will be performing with Joe Hayes from 8-11PM, and there will be a raffle with a bunch of cool prizes. I will attach the flier for all to see. It should be really cool and hopefully you’ll be able to attend and bring lots of friends and smiling faces.

Thanks again for all the support, this Saturday will be a new test, 18 miles of running over about 3.5 hours. I’ll let you know how that feels.

In recent news, I have added Clayton Hagy to my list of honorees, for which I am dedicating and running this marathon. Clayton is an 8th grader and family friend of one of the kids on my baseball team. Clayton has biphenotypic acute leukemia, and is waiting for a bone marrow transplant. More information about Clayton can be read at this website:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/claytonhagy

Please let me know if there is anybody in your life that you would like me to run in honor of. I am running this marathon to improve the life of any person with blood cancer, and anybody or their family in the future that may be affected.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great rest of the week and weekend. Start it off right by attending the Fundraising concert!

Ryan

The Last few days, Fund raising concert coming up Thursday

After a really hard practice on Thursday, chock full of really fast 1200, 800, and 400 meter runs, I was told to take it easy this weekend and make sure that everything is rested up for the remainder of the season. That night I went out and saw one of my buddies from Arizona and had a few drinks while his company BarTab was debuting at Blue Chalk Café. The event was fun, I met and talked to some fun people and enjoyed the festivities. I have slightly toned down the craziness of my diet routine in favor of having a more intact social life.



Over the past few days I had noticed being fatigued and affected by the cold air that came through after the intensely hot weekend. I took these as a hint that I might be catching a cold, but thankfully that feeling has passed and I feel incredible. I was going to go running on Saturday, but instead worked for about 6 hours and then coached a baseball game until 9PM, and by then just wanted to sleep. It felt great to get to sleep at a reasonable hour and enjoy a good night’s sleep.



I was tempted to run this morning before going to baseball practice but really wanted to finish some stuff in the garden so that we can plant our watermelon, and other plants before the hot climate picks up in a few weeks. So instead of running this morning I did about 2 hours of yard work and then did some running at the baseball practice. Tonight I am keeping up the relaxation and recuperation and just laying low, no running, or exercising.



This week should be awesome, I’m looking forward to the spinning and yoga classes on Monday, Tuesday will be about an hour of running, Wednesday I will do some kind of exercise (not decided yet), and Thursday I will do the track workout in the morning and then get ready for the concert I have been planning for the last month. It should be really fun because I have a great band playing, and a raffle that should entice some people’s interest. In addition to the event, a bunch of Stanford students will be there playing drinking games which may get a little crazy, though I’m not sure how Stanford students get down, we’ll see. Then Friday I will prepare for the 18 mile run on Saturday morning. And Saturday will be a really long run, which is always enjoyable, other than the muscle fatigue and energy drain, and then a baseball party in the afternoon. The weekend will be finished up on Sunday where I try to stretch my legs and hopefully not wake up at 2:30AM with an incredibly tight left leg muscle (happened after the last long run).



As time winds down to the marathon I am mixed between wanting to train hard, and wanting to relax and make sure that my body is fully healed and in the best shape of the training. The coaches have told me to start cutting back on the extra exercise like cross training and turn it into more cardio and less strength training. This makes sense to me because otherwise I might overwork my muscles doing cross training and then on the long runs the extra work would be useless and possibly detrimental.



It is natural to feel that I haven’t trained enough, but I figure as long as the long runs are doable and I keep a solid pace that can be maintained, the marathon should be about the same. I just have to get used to running with 20,000 people and not try to dodge and run around people because that’s what tires you out and adds distance to an already long 26.2 miles.



It is hard to believe that I have already been training for over 4 months. It seems like yesterday that I was in Reno and decided to get myself involved in a long-term goal and came to the conclusion of a marathon, not knowing which one. Thus far it has been an incredible experience and I highly recommend the journey for anybody that has ever wanted to prove to themselves or others that something this grueling can be accomplished. Or if you just want to get in shape, or fund raise for a great cause, or those plus more, there are so many reasons that a half marathon, full marathon, century ride, or even a 10K are excellent events to become involved in.



Right now I am in the best shape of my life and simply living the dream. Living with and seeing people that I care about, being around friends, though I don’t get to see many of them often due to training and a change in lifestyle, working at cool jobs that are flexible, and being involved in a number activities that are beneficial to myself, the community, the environment and a number of others.



I’m really going to try and post journals more regularly, I’ve just been extremely busy with so many different activities. This Thursday I am hosting a fundraising concert at Blue Chalk Café. I will post more information about this in a journal tomorrow or the next day. It looks like it will be an awesome event and I hope a lot of people including you show up.



Take care,
Ryan

16.8 miles in Woodside

Today I have really jumped to a new level in the training. I toppled my previous longest run by 2.8 miles. The day began at about 2:30AM when I woke up and had some water, I went back to sleep and woke up around 6:30, had some more water and then breakfast. We were slated for a 16 mile run today in Woodside on an overcast morning beginning at 8:45AM. We arrived at the park and ride station at 7:45 and waited for another person to join us, so that we wouldn’t be turned away by the Team in Training mentors/coaches/captains. There were supposedly around 200 people arriving this morning from TNT to run around Woodside, so they wanted to make sure people were really carpooling and not just arriving solo.

In any case, we arrived a little after 8 and just hung out with other people, watched other groups begin and waited impatiently for our turn at 8:45. About 15 minutes before we started I had a Powerbar gel packet, which actually tasted pretty good, though the texture is still a little strange and does not feel like food. We were surprised when a total of 6 people were running in our group, 5 participants and 1 honoree, Keith. I ran with Keith at the Portola Valley run, and we had some good conversations and had run at about the same pace. We got going with instructions and a “Go Team!” cheer, heading off to the left and then traveling across a vast assortment of surfaces.

It was an interesting run, next to some busy streets, on trails, up and around small peaks, through residential areas, and near a freeway for a long time. For the entire first 5 or so miles the 6 of us were all in a group, not more than 20 feet apart, and then we had the only mistake of the day. As a whole we missed the clearly placed chalk marks telling us to travel in one direction and ended up running an additional .8 miles. This wasn’t a big deal considering we were running 16 miles during the course of the morning and early afternoon. We were constantly passing other TNT runners, and a lot of bikers were giving off the chant which boosted our spirits and made us realize what we were really running for. Another major factor was that Keith one of the honorees (he has been battling cancer for the last year) was running with us. He’s a pretty cool guy and we continued our conversation from a month ago with some small jogging of the memory, but for the most part it was a continuation.

We passed by a few aid stations and I stopped at each of them, making sure to get used to getting enough water and gel packets, candy, and pretzels. It’s nice to acknowledge the people at the aid stations, joke around with them for a few moments, and then thank them for their help. After about 12 miles my knees were feeling a little tired, but not enough to force any kind of slowing down or ill effects, so I just pushed on, keeping just under a 10 minute mile pace. Around this same time, the sun was really beating down on us, heating up the pavement and forcing increased amounts of thirst. When we finally made it to the turn around point, my body was pretty exhausted and wasn’t sure what it would feel like to turn around, but it was amazing. At the point where we turned around, Keith and I both breathed a sign of relief and let the others that were only a little bit behind us that the turnaround was near, the happiness was evident on everybody’s face.

I started recognizing the scenery, which was fairly similar to that of Portola Valley, just not as much open space, and more development, fences, and well a freeway. It was a very nice run, just dragged on. At the last aid station we were left without much water left in the jug. I took a small amount in my water bottle and added a bunch of mixture, it tasted quite strange, but it might have been exactly what I needed. At that point there were about 2 miles to go and I was feeling great, my legs weren’t really hurting, just fatigued and Keith was pushing hard to keep the pace. At this point we were beginning to see all of the people who were running between 10-14 miles and it was great to hear all of the support.

With about half a mile left, Keith pushed it, making both of us increase our pace to about 9 minute mile or less, and as we passed people, they probably wouldn’t have believed we were running our 17th mile of the day. We kept it up until we turned right and everybody that had already finished were clapping, waving noise makers, waving plastic clappers, and yelling, it was AWESOME!!! Having that much support was an incredible feeling, especially after training with many of them for the last few months. I rushed over to the water station and filled up after running the last 2 miles without much hydration my body was ready for some sustenance. I hung around and stretched for about 30 minutes and waited for the rest of the people finish. I tried to clap for everybody, but after the 16.8 miles my mind was not completely there and was absorbed in my stretching, and trying to limit my recovery time.

We finished up and headed home. The entire run lasted for 2 hours and 49 minutes, covering 16.8 miles and running all around Woodside.

Hopefully tomorrow my legs will be kind to me and only be a little sore, but this is doubtful and only wishful thinking.

Have a great rest of the weekend,

Ryan

Monday, Tuesday, Socks, 16 Miles next Saturday

This week has been really productive thus far and I foresee the remainder being about the same.

On Monday, after staying up fairly late and getting about 6.5 hours of sleep, I went to work and had a healthy energy drink, so by mid day my body was feeling lethargic and kind of dehydrated until I had some water and food. I biked a few miles during the day, probably about 3, and then biked to spinning and yoga. The spinning class was really hard because I hadn’t gone to the one the week prior. Unfortunately, due to the sickness that’s been floating around, the sub called in sick (the teacher is sick and asked the sub to cover), so no yoga Monday night. I was really looking forward to it after the 10 miles of running on Saturday. Afterward I went to my friend’s house and hung out, and drank a bunch of water, had some food and then went home.

I stayed up late again Monday night and obtained about 7 hours of sleep, it was pretty good quality sleep, but definitely not enough for my active lifestyle. I woke up and began rushing around to get my stuff ready to play tennis. After the tennis, which was very difficult in the crazy wind storm that for some reason engulfed the entire bay area, luckily it was only about 25mph at this point, so the knuckling on the tennis ball was only marginally distracting and difficult. We called it after a while as the wind was picking up, we weren’t playing too well, and both of us had things to get done in the afternoon.

After getting home I decided to go on my Tuesday run, which over the last few weeks has been non-existent. On my schedule for training it states to run 50-70 minutes, which at this point isn’t a hard task, just takes up some time and energy. During the run I visited one of my friends at her work and because it was on the way, ran over to my Dad’s house and hung out there for a few minutes before running home. I had planned to run an hour, but with the increased distance it became a solid 72 or so minutes. After eating, showering and getting ready I went over to work at the golf course. It was absolutely crazy. The wind was getting up around 40-50mph and blowing over trees, large branches and basically endangering those that were intelligent enough to be playing in such conditions. The golf course actually closed early because it was pretty much worthless to be playing, and was basically a hazard waiting to happen.

Last night after getting home, eating, showering and talking with some people I fell asleep and had an excellent nights sleep. I slept about 9.5 hours and felt energized for my day. I’ve biked 3 miles so far, and will do another 3.5-7 tonight. My bike riding today will be my cross training. My left calf has been really tight, so I will stretch it out later tonight.

I’m gearing up for this weekend’s run of 16 miles. It will be my furthest to date and am really excited to increase my mileage closer to the marathon length. I just bought some running socks so that my feet thank me on these long runs, preventing rubbing, blisters, and other ailments associated with cotton socks. Apparently to runners, “cotton is rotten.” I only have a few instances where that holds true, but I don’t intend on learning the hard way as training difficulty increases.

That’s all for now, I’ll update you after the Thursday training session. Hopefully by then the wind will have subsided and the warmth will ensue.

Cheers,
Ryan

For those that haven’t heard, I am hosting a fundraising concert on Thursday April 30 at Blue Chalk Café. Whiskey Hill will be performing and there will be prizes, raffle and such going on. It should be pretty cool and I hope for a pretty large turn out. The cover is $10, which includes a free drink and a raffle ticket. Plus they have shuffleboard which is a pretty awesome game, not many places have it. I’ll send out more information as the event approaches.

This weekend, long run, relaxation

This weekend encompassed will power, change of mind, physical exertion, hard work and it was very fulfilling.

Friday I relaxed and prepared for my long Saturday run. Not too much happened, just work and gardening.

Saturday I left my house a little bit after 8am, not eating breakfast or bringing along my water belt. I was going to run for about 90 minutes and didn’t really feel like bringing anything with me except the key to my house. Upon leaving my house I didn’t have a plan which is how I like it, so I just wandered around and went towards Stanford University, and then at that point decided to run to the dish and run the dish. By the time the dish came into view I was completely warmed up and ready for a challenge.

After jogging up the initial portion of the dish I came to the conclusion that I wanted to beat my personal time in the loop which is approximately 31 minutes (in a previous journal). Being warmed up, I headed left up the dreaded initial quarter mile of 30-40 degree incline. It really is quite grueling and unfun if inadequately trained, or just not in the mood. However neither of these are the case, I hadn’t ran for the previous week so I was well rested, and my will power was running on full charge wanting to conquer the loop in PR fashion.

I finished the rough introductory incline and proceeded along the fairly flat terrain for the next mile, a little down, a little up, basically just a resting period. The only issue I figured might come into play is that I hadn’t had anything to drink since I left my house (about 40 minutes at this point).

There was a woman ahead of me that had a pretty solid pace so I kept striving to catch up to her, which is basically the worst thing you can do while you’re running and trying to pace yourself. But considering that I was not too worried about pacing and just wanted to get my legs stronger I kept pushing myself to catch up. Finally after about 5-9 minutes I caught up and then passed her. She had a really good pace and I found that just after passing her I was really fatigued and breathing kind of hard. One good thing about training has been that I can recover while continuing to run. A little bit after this point there was a really long downhill portion and I just went after it, almost going to fast. I’m not really sure why I decided this was a good idea, but I was just cruising so I figured it couldn’t hurt to push it.

The downhill was wonderful, went by really quickly, but led to a slight exhaustion along the next flat portion. On the next hill I strived to push myself to an almost sprint, but that turned into hard effort for about 75% of the way and then a relaxed finishing of the hill. Then a slight downhill and then flat ground to catch my breath where I pushed myself a little faster but still in control. Finally I realized that I was almost finished and just needed to complete a really long and gradual incline for about .4 miles. I was determined to finish in PR time so I went as hard as I could for the last portion and ultimately finished the dish in 27:19.

Right as I was finishing up the final sprint to the end I thought I saw Becky from Team in Training, but wasn’t quite sure until I got a little closer and sure enough it was her. She was just about to begin touring another team member along the dish. I was utterly exhausted but I joined them on part of the walk up the left side. Again quite difficult, but relaxing knowing that the real pain was over. After walking down the decline to the main road I began my route back home. I was only about 7 miles into my workout, so it didn’t feel too exhausting, just that my fluid levels were very low and I hadn’t eaten since the night before when I loaded up on spaghetti. After about 3 miles I stopped at my friends’ house and made myself welcome to their free water and some really good bread. I hung out there stretching for a while and then kind of jogged and walked home.

The remainder of Saturday was spent doing various activities and eventually going to Cupertino to go bowling. It was pretty fun even though my skills went drastically downhill after the initial couple rolls. After that we made our way back to Palo Alto. On my walk home my legs were so tired from the running earlier, I decided it would be a good idea to stretch, so I did for about 30 minutes before sleeping.

I woke up today and went out to breakfast with my mom, brother, and 2 family friends. It was really nice, and the restaurant was fairly busy, but the food was excellent. After breakfast I did yardwork for a few hours and then went to baseball practice. Afterward we had some homemade pizza and then I moseyed around and here I am.

I’m pretty exhausted and tomorrow will include spinning and yoga.

Take care,
Ryan

Tomorrow marks the day

Over the last couple weeks I have found myself struggling to complete the necessary training tasks. I’m not sure why, I only know that it can’t continue this way. At the beginning I was getting sick because I was training too hard, and now I don’t feel great and I’m hardly training at all. I still finish the long runs without too much effort, but I know that they will be REALLY hard if I continue this way.

Starting tomorrow, I will be back on track. I’m going to sleep tonight at 10pm and waking up at 6 to train. I just need to drill it into my head that there’s only about 6 weeks until the marathon and in order to achieve my goal of having an awesome time in San Diego for the entire day, not just the marathon, I need to get my ass into optimal shape. I will take up a schedule that can be done without causing pain, injury, sickness, etc. That’s just about the last thing I can have occurring right now.

Another thing, I have found that I only write journals when I work out, and this has shown my dedication, writing about 2-3 journals per week. I even skipped my beloved spinning class on Monday because of the NCAA basketball championship, which I didn’t even really care about. I was hanging out with some friends, and their lazy day turned into my relaxing additional day off. I was still kind of sore from the long run, but I should have at least stretched.

I have also been working in the garden a lot, preparing the soil, digging deep holes, laying bricks, creating pathways, shoveling endless amounts of dirt, but this is usually only for an hour or 2, and certainly not a cardio workout. I must say, it’s looking nice and with this rain hopefully it will create an amazing harvest.

I must admit, there have been a lot of things on my mind, but during college and this last autumn I would use running as my stress release, and because I only run 2-3 times per week, and not at will, I find myself dwelling on more unnecessary information. Hopefully once I begin the workouts regularly this lethargic attitude will cease.

Maybe these last few weeks were just my mind telling my body to relax and recover from the last few months, quiet my body and give me the strength to finish strong and well into the future. That could be wishful thinking, but it would make sense as the mind controls the body and knows exactly what it should do to conserve energy and when to act, assuming it really thinks it needs to complete a multiple hour endurance event. The three weeks I essentially took “off” will show up in either good or bad as the marathon approaches and becomes reality. I just hope that they were the right decision and not detrimental to my training.

Anyway, tomorrow marks the day of a new routine, more stretching, higher quality sleep, better state of mind, more daily journals, and ultimately more fun.

I really appreciate all of the support from everybody thus far and hope that people continue to wish me luck and ask me how the training is going. It’s a constant reminder of what I am really fulfilling. It’s for the people who will be helped by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s mission to cure blood cancers, for those who want to set and reach a long term goal, for anybody with a positive mindset and good intentions.

I’m planning a fund raising concert on Thursday April 30 at Blue Chalk Café in Palo Alto, with the awesome band Whiskey Hill, some giveaways and a silent auction. I’ll have more information about it soon. It should be a good time, if you spread the word, it will be more fun.

Take care,
Ryan

Saturday, depleting but incredible

Yesterday I was picked up at 8am by Carolyn and Danielle and we all drove to Half Moon bay for our Team in Training long Saturday run. It was pretty nice in the morning leaving Palo Alto, so I assumed it would be about the same, but slightly cooler and more wind. We made our way through the beautiful landscape and passed numerous greenhouses, pony rides, berry farms and finally to the destination next to a pier and a group of restaurants.

I had already known that I would be a little late in starting my run, my group was starting at 8:45 and we arrived at around 8:51. I was expecting to catch up with the group along the 14 mile course, so when I saw my group just leaving as I was pulling up I frantically tried to get all my stuff together and get going. It took me about 5 minutes, and they I had to get directions for where to join the group.

I began the run and after about half a mile made a wrong turn, it figures, I was pretty tired after getting about 6.5 hours of sleep and kind of frantic to get going. I just simply missed the arrows (wouldn’t be the last time) to turn right. It wasn’t a big deal, I ran along a street that was kind of run down and with 10 more years of aging would look abandoned.

I figured I had gone down the wrong road so I went back to the last flour marking and then saw the arrow pointing to the right. Continuing on, I saw a couple familiar faces and just decided to run with them, after asking I found there were about 2 miles that were missed by cutting in with them. I talked with a couple people, going at approximately 9:45 pace, which is close to what I want for the marathon.

At this point we were on a paved road with the Pacific Ocean on the right enjoying the roughly 65 degree weather and slight breeze. We moseyed along for a while until some slight turns and changes of surface, mainly on pavement and dirt trails. It was excellent having people to talk to and a beautiful view, helping dull out the pain I would experience for about 10 minutes toward the beginning of the run and later on. I had some sort of side cramp which was pretty annoying and painful. I figured that if running was still possible it couldn’t be too bad. It was interesting, as soon as I mentioned the pain to the person I was running with, it subsided and did not return for the rest of the run.

There were a lot of people out on the beach and nearby, surfing, walking dogs, biking, running, horseback riding, and various other activities. During the course of the run we saw many of the other Team in Training runners and often the words “Go Team; Good Job; Keep it up; Hey” or merely a smile were exchanged. It really is an incredible group of people and organization. We passed the numerous water stations and talked with the mentors, captains, volunteers and other participants at the stops, filling up on pretzels, water, sports drinks, gummy bears and energy.

During many parts of the run I found myself alone, which I really enjoy at some points, being able to focus on my breathing and zoning out, just step, step, step, step, breathe, step, step, step, step, exhale, or something like that. I’m still trying to figure out the breathing techniques without depleting myself of necessary oxygen. I walk every once in a while to either take a drink or eat something, it’s nice that my water belt easily spins around my body so that I can take and put back the bottle with ease. At the turnaround point, I failed to trust my own intuition. We had been running for a little over an hour and I figured we would be turning around soon, but then I saw the X and just continued running, not sure if it was the group running 10 miles, or if there were another one for the 14 mile group. Luckily there was a fork in the road which made me stop and look for chalk, I had 2 choices, a bridge or a forest looking adventure. Then one of the people yelled for me to turn around, because I had missed the clearly marked X. As I mentioned before, I was tired.

On my way back I kept saying those same phrases and smiling at people telling them there was only a little bit further until the turnaround point. I continued on for about 3 miles and then decided it was time to make up my 2 miles I had missed at the beginning. I turned around and ran for 9 minutes, constantly being bombarded with odd looks and questioning for why I was going the wrong way when I was so close to finishing. I had expected the questions so I just told everybody that I had 2 miles to make up for being late. This is about the point where my legs wanted to rest and chaffing began on my arms. Believe me when I tell you this, chaffing really, really sucks. I stopped at the next bathroom and took off my shirt hoping that it would do some good, it made the pain drop from about an 8.5 to 7 on the 1-10 scale. It was nice though, running with a gentle breeze with the Pacific Ocean on my left. Now that I had turned around and done my last 2 miles, I was basically one of the last people to finish up and pretty much saw nobody I knew for the last 2-3 miles.

Finally I came back to the point where I could see the basic area where we were meeting and to my left were a bunch of the team in the really cold water being iced down for recovery. I wanted to run over there and just jump in knowing that it would alleviate much of the pain during the course of the rest of the day and the following days. I resisted the urge and finished the last ½ mile. I stretched and then gathered my belongings and headed over to the water and simply couldn’t wait to get in. Right as I got over there the last people were getting out, so I was left in the Pacific Ocean by myself, counting down the 10 minutes in solitude, minutes go VERY slow in near freezing water without conversation or other stimuli. I basically meditated and kept my mind on a friend who recently passed. This was nice because I hadn’t been thinking about it too much as of late, and owed it to her.

I finished up my 10 long minutes of freezing water and gathered my stuff and headed over to the washing off station and bathroom to get into warm clothes and head back to where Carolyn and Danielle were located. We decided to head back and forego the breakfast with the rest of the team. I’m sure it was very nice, the day was perfect and the team is always in great spirits.

I got home and drank a bunch of water, ate a bit and then took a nap. The rest of the day was spent at the little league field, at dinner, and out at a bar for a short while until I was about to pass out and my sister took me home. I got ready for bed and immediately fell asleep. In all it was one of the most fulfilling days I can remember, and longest. 7am – 12:30 with 1 hour of sleep in the middle, 14 miles of running, freezing water, perfect days in Half Moon Bay and Palo Alto, a legitimate baseball stat builder game (sorry Lions 12-0), an excellent dinner, and some time with family and friends.

In all, it was very depleting but incredible.

And that was my Saturday

Thursday Track Workout

This week has been good so far, really getting motivated to exercise and keep myself in marathon running shape. Yesterday I had a really good cardio workout and then followed it with a solid core and weight lifting routine. It’s amazing how much exercise can be accomplished in 90 minutes. I was able to spin for 35 or so minutes, do all my abs, and work out my chest, back and shoulders.

The rest of Wednesday I spent reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which is an incredible book and I highly suggest it to anybody. I’m going to finish it tonight, it’s really hard to put down after the first 5 words of starting. In addition, last night I biked a few miles and held a batting practice which was fairly productive. Came home absolutely exhausted and had one of the best night’s sleep of my life. I was completely physically drained from intense exercise, and mentally drained from various activities and reading for a few hours.

I woke up this morning and couldn’t wait to get my day on the move. I’ve begun playing tennis on Thursdays for about 2 hours. It’s a really good workout and is still a struggle to be consistent, but since I started about a month ago I have improved a great deal. After tennis I read TBWLOOW (book listed above) and did some other activities until our baseball game. I brought my track workout apparel because I needed to leave the game early and get over to Stanford.

This was the first track workout I have attended in the last 3 weeks, conflicts and lethargy. It was really good and was a bit harder than previous workouts. We worked on pacing ourselves and I really got myself to slow down. On the half miles and mile that we ran I got myself up to about a 10 minute mile which is about how fast I want to run the marathon, per mile that is. Somebody asked me what my goal for this marathon was, and I responded that I wanted to finish and have a good time for the entire day, and not be immobilized through overachieving.

After the workout, I got a ride over to a “hang with the gang,” where we basically hang out with the other team in training participants, mentors and captains and have some food, talk and well, hang out. It was cool, I got to know a couple of the people just kick back and enjoy an hour or so. It’s awesome how different the participants are and how all the various personas and stories all coalesce into a team of very encouraging people.

Tomorrow should be a very relaxing day, hopefully I’ll get a little bit of exercise, but I don’t really want to use my legs at all due to the run on Saturday (14 miles) and then a lovely dip into the freezing water, which will probably really suck for the first minute before the body goes completely numb, and then it will be incredible for recovery. I am definitely looking forward to it because it will be my longest run to date, passing 2 weeks ago on the 12 miler.

I’m not sure when I’ll write again, probably after the run on Saturday, so until then, have an awesome rest of the night and a great Friday.

Ryan