Reflecting On 2009

Most of the blogs I read have already done a "reflecting on the past year" post... 'Tis the season, right?

I took a look back at last year's entry on Dec 31. I had just finished quite an amazing year with many feats in running - both in conquering the marathon distance for the first time along with setting some new PRs. But as amazing as 2008 was, 2009 really blew it out of the water:

• I finally surpassed the 1,000 mile marker for the year. Last year I fell 30 miles short and couldn't make it up during December due to falling ill with bronchitis during the last two weeks.
• Actually, 2009 was quite a healthy year for me. No real injuries (some hamstring pain after the NY Marathon, but I dealt with that much better this year). I had a few colds, but nothing longer than a week.
• I ran my second marathon - the NY Marathon on November 1. I ran this as part of Team Run To Remember, in memory of my Nana. I raised close to $6,000 (there's still time to donate here so you can rack up those charitable donations and reduce your tax burden!!!) and met some really great people in the process.
• For the first time, I started running with other people on a more regular basis. I started by going up to New York for a few of the team runs and then found a few running friends in the area to do some long runs with. Although 80-90% of my runs are still solo, I do enjoy running with others when we can schedule it.
• I ran my first race with my wife Sherry - the Rockville Twilight 8K. Again, going with the running with other people theme, I hope to continue to run a few races with Sherry!
• I set new PRs in the marathon, half marathon and 10K (alright...maybe 6 miles), and during the 10K I also ran a faster 5K and mile splits than my previous PRs in those distances.
• In blogging, I have expanded my audience by linking my blog feed and my RunningAhead log to Facebook. I love having more people reading the blog and following my progress, however, sometimes it's a bit cumbersome to read comments in two places.
• At work, I launched my largest project to date and started another project that will last at least 4 to 5 months. Oh...my company filed for bankruptcy in January, my division was bought out in August and I am now working for a new company.

There may be other accomplishments in 2009 that I may not have mentioned...I guess I have a few more days to remember them and throw them in the blog :-)

I also need to start thinking about goals for 2010. There are two things that I'm pretty sure about: a) NO FULL MARATHON in 2010 and b) I will be running the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler as I received a spot in their lottery.

Fundraising Update - I Reached My Goal!!!

Yesterday I finally reached my goal of $5,000 raised for the Alzheimer's Association!!!

Donations are still trickling in - and I hope that they will continue up until the date of the marathon. At this pace I'll probably be close to $6,000 by the time it is all said and done.

BTW, I had set a second goal of having 100 separate donors and I am very close to that too with 96 right now!!!!

If you haven't donated yet, please visit here to be my 97th, 98th, 99th or 100th donor!!!! :-)

No Run Today - Life On Overload

Maintenance window activities went until close to 5am last night. I slept from 5am to 7am thinking that I would be able to go back to bed around 9:30 once my little one was at pre-school. WRONG!

He wasn't feeling well. Was going to the bathroom all morning. I stayed home to watch him (I had one conference call that I needed to be on, otherwise I checked email when I could). When Sherry got home and took his temperature, he had 102 (why didn't I think of taking his temperature while I was with him all morning?).

I finally got two more hours of sleep from 1pm to 3pm, until I was woken up by a customer call.

In less than an hour I have my fundraiser at Noodles & Co (hooray!) and then I'm back to work for maintenance window activities again tonight.

I was thinking that I could possible run in between the fundraiser and going back to work...however, I may want to get 2 more hours of sleep instead. Sleep will most likely win out in this case.

Fundraising Milestones

As a group, Team Run To Remember has now raised over $200,000 for the Alzheimer's Association!

I am 85% to my goal - with $4,270 (this includes a few checks that are in the mail).

What is amazing is that I just received a donation from a 75th person!

So...I have set a new goal for myself. Not only will I try to hit $5,000 in total donations, but I will also try to receive donations from at least 100 donors.

The marathon is in less than three weeks. For those of you reading this and have not donated yet - please visit my fundraising page and help me get to 100 donors and $5,000!

One Month To The Big Race!

It is one month from the NY Marathon. WOW!

I feel really good on almost all fronts. My training is going really well. I have been healthy and not even much soreness. My pace is getting faster each week at similar heart rate. I feel good during and after my runs. I can't really ask for much more here!

Fundraising is going well too. I had been sitting around $3,400 for a while - which has surpassed the $3,000 minimum, but not yet up to my $5,000 goal. Yesterday I sent a email to my colleagues at work and started to receive some more donations. I'm now close to $3,700. I'm also going to do another fundraiser - on October 19 at the Kentlands Noodles & Co. I'll be spreading the news starting next week.

The one thing that I haven't done enough of is exploring my Nana's life and Alzheimer's disease. I was hoping to speak to my father and aunt about my Nana, and get together with my cousins to remember stories we all had about her...unfortunately, this has not happened. I'll try to get on this over the next few weeks, but even if it doesn't happen before the marathon, it will likely happen afterwards.

Show Me The Money!!!

OK...not me. The Alzheimer's Association!

According to the Team Run To Remember Fundraiser page, the team has raised over $120,000 now. Woo hoo!

I have raised a little over $3,400 of that total. (if you would like to add to that, please donate on line here) I had set my goal at $5,000 and I'm pretty much on pace to get there.

Where has the money come from? Well, the math nerd in me decided to break it down. The categories with the most - 26% has come from my Immediate Family (parents, siblings, in-laws, aunts and uncles, etc.), 12% came from my Star Diner fundraiser, and 10% have come from college friends, from synagogue friends and from Israeli dancing friends.

I decided to crunch it down a little further into three categories - Family (both immediate and extended), Communities I Am Active In (Shaare Torah, Israeli Dance, Work, Running Community, etc.) and Social Networking Contacts (friends from High School, BBYO, when we lived in Dallas, etc. - most of whom I only speak to a few times a year or just recently got back in touch with them via Facebook or LinkedIn)

It wasn't so easy to do this, as some people are part of multiple categories - friends at synagogue who also go Israeli Dancing, friends from High School that are also neighbors, etc. In cases like these, I just chose the category that I though fit best.

Here's the results:

Active Community	Fundraiser	12%
	Shaare Torah	10%
	Israeli Dancing	10%
	Work	9%
	Neighbors	3%
	Running Community	2%
	Community At-Large	2%
Active Community Total		48%
Family	Immediate Family	26%
	Extended Family	7%
Family Total		33%
Social Networking	Friend - UofM	10%
	Friend - Dallas	4%
	Friend - BBYO	3%
	Friend - High School	2%
Social Networking Total		19%
Grand Total		100%

The bottom line - all of the time "invested" in being active in the community - going to synagogue on a weekly basis, leading Israeli Dancing, speaking to my neighbors and other runners, etc. - and all of the "lost time" keeping up with Facebook has actually helped me significantly in my fundraising efforts.

The Results Are In!!!!

As I posted last night, the fundraiser at The Star Diner was very successful. Today I spoke to the owner of the diner to find out just how successful it was.

He told me he had a check for me to give to the Alzheimer's Association for $400!!! Wow!!!! I was expecting in the $250-$300 range - even with the larger number of people that showed up.

I had also received a few other donations at the diner last night which totaled a little over $100.

So, the final tally from last night was a little over $500!!!! This pushes me over $2,000 in fundraising now. Woo hoo!!!

(For those of you in the blogosphere who want to donate, please visit my page here!)

Now the question is... Do I do another one???

A few people who did not show last night told me to let them know if I do another fundraiser that they can go to. A few other people who were at the diner last night also told me to let them know.

Actually, there was a table of 20-somethings who were there that made the suggestion that I do a Happy Hour. I told them it was a good idea (and one of my teammates in NY is doing one next week), however, the majority of the people who were in attendance last night would need to line up babysitting in order to attend the Happy Hour. I guess we're just in different stages of our lives right now...

So, do I hold another fundraising event? Part of me thinks that I don't want to be too pushy and ask people to attend multiple fundraisers. But this one was quite successful, and some people were asking if I was going to do another one.

What do you all think????

Birthday Post, Part 2 - And Post #500!!!

First, a blogging note. This is post number 500 for me on this blog. Whoa! I originally started the blog to chronicle events leading up to my first marathon, but I guess blogging became a habit which was hard to shake :-)

I did end up getting my run in during an early lunch break. I did the same 6 mile Yasso 800 interval workout as last week. The one difference is that today I ran it without my heart rate monitor.

You see, I own two heart rate monitors - my old Polar (the watch went kaput last year, but the strap still works - and the treadmills at the gym read the signal from that strap), and the Garmin which I use when I run outside. When I packed my gym bag this morning, I made sure to put my heart rate monitor strap in the bag. However, when I went to put it on at the gym, I found that I packed the fabric connector strap of the Garmin, with the electrodes plastic strap of the Polar. And of course these two are not compatible. So no HRM for me on today's run.

After the run, I went to California Tortilla for my free birthday burrito! Then back to work...

Tonight was my fundraiser at The Star Diner. It was hugely successful - I had over 100 people there, and at one point there was over a 30 minute wait for a table (so much for Wednesday nights being slow!) I'll find out tomorrow how much money I made. I should have a few pictures to post as well.

It's My Birthday!

Today is my birthday. I'm now 38 years old. In only two years I'll be 40 - UGH!

I'm going to try not to dwell on getting older and things like that. My body reminds me of this every day :-)

It should be a nice day, though. My work schedule doesn't seem too hectic. I'm planning to run during my lunch break (although I just got invited to a conference call at 12:30pm - so I either need to take my lunch break early or late...). And tonight I'm holding my fundraiser at The Star Diner - so I'll see lots of friends and celebrate!!

Also, I got a nice surprise this morning. Sherry and the boys gave me an awesome birthday present - a race bag from Mile 22 which sports lots of my race bibs! Check it out:

A Not So Easy, Easy Run

This is a step-down week in mileage - runs of 3, 6, 3 and 9 miles this week.

The plan is normal during the week - Monday morning 3 mile easy run, Wednesday lunchtime 6 miles speedwork (likely on the 'mill as it is supposed to be 90 degrees that day), another 3 mile easy run on Thursday or Friday morning. Then we are heading up to New York for the weekend and I'll run the 9 miles with Team Run To Remember - in Central Park!!!

Unfortunately, Monday morning's run was affected by my work schedule. I had a maintenance window activity scheduled for Sunday night - so I worked from 11pm to 2am. I got up at 8am the next morning (my kids let me sleep - hooray!), but it was already hot and muggy out, so I opted for the gym.

My plan was a nice, easy steady run on one of the TechnoGym treadmills - set it for a heart rate program with a target HR in the mid-140s.

Unfortunately, the treadmill and my HR monitor were not on great speaking terms that morning. So my pace fluctuated from as high as 6.5 mph to as low as 4.0 mph. It was horrible.

I guess I'll set my own pace in the future and use the HR monitor as a guide.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow - another run (it has to be better than yesterday's, right?) and my fundraising dinner at The Star Diner. (oh...and it's my birthday to boot!)

Fundraising Update - 25% To My Goal!

Officially, my fundraising site shows that I have $1,150 in donations. I have also sent in two $50 checks, so that puts me at $1,250 once the money hits.

So, I'm 25% to my goal of $5,000!!!

I know a few family members told me they sent in checks - plus I have the Star Diner fundraiser this week - so I may be close to $2,000 by the end of the week.

When Hobbies - And Priorities - Are In Conflict

My two main hobbies right now are running (duh!) and Israeli Dancing.

In many ways, these hobbies are similar - they are both physical activities, they both have very supportive communities, etc.

However, the schedule of these activities - at least from my perspective - are in conflict with one another.

Israeli dance events almost always occur at night. And many of them run late.

I prefer to run in the morning. And many times very early.

Trying to do both of these at the same time means that I get less sleep. Which means my body is not in its best shape to do either very well.

Tonight, I have another layer of conflicting priorities here. There is a big Israeli dance event starting at 9pm which will have over 100 people. I want to go - if nothing else than to publicize my marathon fundraising event for next week. However, by doing this I will put my planned run for tomorrow morning in jeopardy.

Which is more important? Fundraising for the marathon or getting all the training runs in for the marathon?

I've pretty much convinced myself to go to the dance event. Tomorrow's run is a 3 mile easy run - if I don't get it in, I won't fret about it...at least I'm not missing a speedwork run or long run...right?

However, I know I will be really tired tomorrow (I'm really tired right now!).

Over the $1K Mark!!!, A Lunchtime Run, And Tisha B'Av

On Tuesday, I officially went over the $1,000 mark in my fundraising. However, the website was showing less the $1,000 since one of my donations is a $25 check and it won't show up in the totals until it gets processed by the "home office".

So today I received another donation and got over the $1,000 mark on the website. Hooray!!!
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I also blocked off time on my calendar to run at lunchtime (and do a backup on my computer while I was gone...great planning!).

The skies were really gray and the forecast called for thunderstorms (and it was just plain hot and humid outside), so I hit the gym.

The plan - Yasso 800s, 6 miles total. I set the treadmill on "Speed Interval" setting, with a 5.5 mph recovery speed (a little faster than an 11:00/mile pace) and a 6.5 mph interval speed (a 9:13/mile pace - or 4:37 interval time).

I got through all six intervals, however I was really getting tired at the end. My legs are a bit sore right now - on the sides of my thighs mostly. I'll try to stretch out a bit tonight.

Actually, tonight I will be going to Synagogue - it is the Jewish holiday of Tisha B'Av. It is a sad holiday which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. I will be chanting a few excerpts of the Book of Lamentations at the service tonight.

It is customary to fast from sundown to sundown on this holiday...I don't think I have observed the fast completely since college, although, recently I have either not eaten until mid-day or not eaten food during the day - just drank water. I'm not sure if I'll be holding to this tomorrow or not. If so, I will not do my last weekday run tomorrow morning and I'll wait until Friday.

Milestone Monday

After I put today's 3 mile run in my running log, I see that I have hit 500 miles for the year!

I may be able to get to 1,000 miles this year...I was close last year but came up short.

I am also now up to $971 on my fundraising for the marathon (I have a $25 check that I need to send it) - only $29 away from hitting $1,000.

I could hit 500 miles and $1,000 on the same day! Pretty cool!!

First Fundraiser On The Calendar!!!

On the fundraising front - I am currently sitting at $668 raised for the Alzheimer's Association.

I hadn't spread the word too much yet - I sent emails to my family asking for donations, and did some "passive" marketing - posting here on the blog and on my Facebook status - which has brought me some generous donations from people I did not count on giving.

However, today I went on an all out blitz.

I set up a fundraising night at the Star Diner in a few weeks - on August 5 (my birthday!). If you are local and want to attend, here's the details.

I'm sending the invite out to tons of people I know in the area - all of my local Facebook friends, Israeli Dance friends, the guys in my fantasy football league, people I know from synagogue, etc.

In the invitation, I have also included the link to the fundraising website - just in case they would like to give a donation as well.

Let's hope I get a big crowd on my birthday and some more donations on the fundraising page.

5 Mile Run, Donating Blood and New Motivation!

I would have loved to have said that the day started for me when I got out of bed for my morning run, but my 3 year old had a different plan :-(

He was up a bunch during the night - so my wife and I were also up at different times trying to get him to go back to sleep.

Somehow, I woke up a little before 6am and got my behind out the door. I was mixing up the week's runs and doing my mid-week longer run today, since I was giving blood on my lunch break (which means the rest of my runs this week will be slow, lethargic and with an average HR of about 10-20 bpm higher than normal...joy, joy! - but it's all for a good cause, so I continue to do it).

I ran the 5 miles at a 10:37/mile pace - but with an average HR of 156, which again is on the high side. I really need to slow it down, but I had two things going against me this morning. First of all, I was tired - so this probably contributed to my HR being higher. Second of all, I was listening to Green Day's new album, so I know I was responding to some of the loud, fast music at times and then I realized it and had to slow myself down.

I worked at Chloe's Coffee this morning since Sherry was tutoring in our shared office space. I poured myself a travel mug of what I thought was decaf...but for some reason I started to get a bit hyped up. Either I'm getting ultra sensitive to caffeine, or the coffee I took was caffeinated (or half caf or something like that).

By the time lunchtime came around and I went to give blood, I felt really antsy. However, it didn't impact my pulse or blood pressure as they were fine (pulse of 60 bpm, blood pressure of 118 over 78). Perhaps it made me bleed a little faster, as I filled up that pint in less than 9 minutes...probably a record for me!

When I got home from work, I had a package waiting for me...my long awaited binder from Team Run To Remember! There's tons of information in the binder - some about marathon running in general, some maps of running routes in New York City and some great information about fundraising and public relations (which can lead to more fundraising...).

I started to look at some of the fundraising ideas, and I definitely have some new motivation. One of the ideas that I really want to start looking into is to see if some of the local establishments that I frequent will agree to donate a % of their proceeds on a particular date to the Alzheimer's Association (or if not all proceeds then at least the proceeds for the people that I bring to the establishment through my own promoting the event).

There are many either single proprietor or non-chain restaurants/cafe's that I go to in the area - such as Dogfish Head Alehouse, Star Diner, The Wine Harvest, Crepes-a-Go-Go, CaliYOgurt and Chloe's Coffee which I had mentioned earlier - which I may be able to convince to do something like this. I'll likely start asking some of the owners about this in the next week or so...hopefully I can line some of these up.

One other fundraising note - I have surpassed the $500 mark now! Woo hoo! I have set a goal of $5,000, so I'm only 10% there, but I'm still 17 weeks away...

You can help by leaving a donation here...

Good News, Bad News

The good news - I woke up this morning and I'm no longer coughing.

The bad news - I still feel a little weak and run down.

Luckily this is a three-day weekend, so I'm going to postpone my long run until tomorrow. Hopefully I'll feel good enough tomorrow morning to get in an 8 miler.

More good news - I got my fundraising website up. I'll be posting more information about my Nana and connection to Alzheimer's throughout the next few months - and I'd love to hear yours too if you would like to leave them in the comments of the blog. And I would definitely appreciate any donation the readers of my blog can make over here.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Catching Up On Sleep

The plan was that last night after dinner, Sherry and I would watch the Netflix movie we had, drink some wine and hang out.

Instead, I fell asleep in my son's bed at a little after 8pm.  My wife came and got me at 9:30pm and I switched into our bed and slept the night away.  I slept until 6am or so - and I didn't feel like I was about to keel over (like I have been feeling for about the past week when I woke up).

I went out for a morning long run.  I had only run 6 miles so far this week, so 6 miles was the maximum distance for me.

I took it slow - and decided that I would walk if my heart rate was over 160 bpm.  I pretty much stuck to that - for the first 5 miles anyway.  I think that my body is still fighting off whatever sickness it had a few weeks ago, which is making me need more sleep (although I was getting less sleep until a few days ago because of the hours I was putting in at work) and I'm still a bit congested.  I have to remember to bring tissues on my next few runs...I ended up doing a farmer's blow about 2.75 miles into my run this morning - it would have been earlier, but I was running in a residential development and didn't want to do that on anyone's lawn...

So, next week I'll try to get four runs in.  I'll try to follow the Higdon's Novice 2 plan for now - so that would be runs of 3 miles, 5 miles (pace), 3 miles and 8 miles.

I really don't know what to do about that pace run.  I don't yet have a time goal in mind for this marathon.  I would love to run a 4:30, but that would be close to a 30 minute improvement over my first marathon - plus my best half marathon is a 2:13 - so this would be like running two of those back-to-back. I'm not sure that's going to be an achievable goal.  (Then again, I think that if I ran a half marathon during my marathon training last year, that I definitely would have been under 2:10...)

I also received my fundraising page for the Run 2 Remember team.  I'm also a bit anxious about this part of the program.  It's a pretty wonderful story why I'm doing this marathon, and I want to be able to express it the best I can.  I'll likely have the full post about it on the blog and write a summary on the fundraising page with a link to the longer post here....but that still means I need to compose it here!  When will I put that together?  Will it be good enough?

I need to take a deep breath.  Take it one thing at a time.  Just like running - one foot in front of the other...eventually I'll get to the finish line.  I always do!  :-)