Enjoying some trail mix

If people fall in love everyday, what happens when they do the opposite? Do they fall in hate?
Yeah, that’s dumb, but if there was such a thing, I can tell you the first time I fell in hate -- the first trail race I ever ran two years ago, the seventh annual Shawn M. Nassaney 5K at Bryant University in Smithfield.
I remember that race like it was last weekend because it’s the only time I fell three times in a race and one of the few 5Ks in the past couple of years that I ended up finishing near the 24-minute mark (23:53).
I knew the race was going to take place on a collegiate cross country course that had its share of grassy stretches and some challenging twists, turns, and hills in the woods. What I didn’t know when I signed up for it was that there was going to be a strong rain in the morning and a messy course to deal with that afternoon.
To make a long story short, I came home looking like it was the 1980s again and I was trudging home from a pickup football game at Maplewood Park in Fall River. I was muddy, bruised, and a little battered, all from tripping on a large root in the woods, then slipping on a loose rock, and with less than a quarter mile to go, taking a wild digger on an extra-wet grassy hill.
I remember promising myself on my short drive home that I was all set with trail races and I was sticking to races exclusively on good old asphalt.
And when I took the hour-and-40-minute drive to Milford, N.H. last Sunday to take part in the Ghost Train Rail Trail race, I remembered that 5K and my promise and wondered why in the world I was driving to New Hampshire at 6:30 a.m. to run in a tough 15-mile trail race.
The answer is simple -- I’m getting ready for the Barbados Marathon and I was looking for a nice 14-17 mile run in the morning. I could have went to my old reliable spots at Lincoln Woods, the East Providence-to-Bristol bike path, or the back roads of Scituate and Greenville to bang it out, but Bozena found this race on coolrunning.com and wanted to do it. I figured it’d be a lot different and more fun than your normal long-distance training route, so one thing led to another and off we went to the Granite State.
This was the second year of this race, and while last year’s race drew just 28 runners, this one had 63 finishers! Any time you see a race more than double its participants in its second year, that should tell you that the folks who run this race did something right that first year!
Anyway, this was a training run and I wasn’t going to focus on breaking two hours, so I hanged along the back of the pack and ran with Bozena. Neither one of us wanted to get lost, and even though there were lots of blue ribbons and white markings on the trees along the course, it could have been easy to do that because after four miles, it was a little tough to spot the runners in front and back of us in the woods.
Plus, I remembered that I did average a spill a mile at the Nassaney race, so I ran with caution and didn’t end up falling once. Rather, it was Bozena who took a tumble on the second mile! She landed on her wrist, but because she landed on some soft pine needles, she bounced back up and was good to go the rest of the way.
I had my moments stumbling on large roots sticking out of the ground and a rock or two, but other than that, nothing treacherous happened and I got an exceptional run. And I really enjoyed touring this course, the way the trees seemed to form a canopy above most of the course, the colorful foliage …
In a nutshell, here’s some things about the course. You had a short tunnel to run through during the first mile under Route 101, some, short challenging hills after that, a beautiful view of Lake Potanipo, more great scenery and an aid/water station at the “Four Corners” part of the race (at the 3½-/11½-mile mark), a quick ¾-mile run on a street, some more woods to run through, and a comfortable half-mile run on asphalt through a summer camp and toward a small covered bridge, where on the other side, there was the halfway point, another aid/water station, and someone tracking down the 7½-mile splits of the runners.
Most of the course took place on what used to be the Brookline and Milford railroad tracks from the late 19th and early 20th century. Back then, Granite was hauled from Milford and ice from Lake Potanipo to Massachusetts. The rails were eventually removed from the ground for scrap metal during World War II, but some of the railroad ties are still stuck in the ground, and if you look close enough, you could see them on the trail.
We were shooting to run 12-minute miles and finish this race in under three hours, and when we hit 1:30:21 at the halfway mark, I thought we were well on our way. But when Bozena started to crash a bit for the last two miles, we slowed down a bit until the end and ended up finishing in 3:08:56.
There were a ton of volunteers throughout the woods, on the streets, and at the aid/water stations, and when we finished (once you crossed a small gray bridge behind the start of the race at the Milford DPW), there were a dozen volunteers waiting for the rest of the runners to finish and cheering each one as they crossed the bridge.
In two weeks, I will be running another long-distance trail race surprisingly called the Air Line Trail Ghost Run -- mentioning these races back-to-back can be very confusing! It’s a half marathon that also exclusively takes place in the forest, but 10 miles of it is on a stonedust path and the other 3.1 miles is on the street. Again, you have lots of great scenery, but you don’t have the twists or turns of the Ghost Train Rail Trail race, nor do you have to worry about what’s under your feet when you run.
All in all, if I get the opportunity to run the Ghost Train Rail Trail race again next year, especially if I’m preparing for a late-year marathon, I’ll definitely do it again. It’s an eventful run that you don’t get everyday, and it just might make me fall out of hate with trail races!

Knee deep in the hoopla

Sometime last week, while I was aimlessly surfing the web during lunch, I noticed that a fellow runner hadn’t updated their blog since March, so I shot a quick e-mail to that person to see if they were alive and well.
And just seconds after I sent it, it dawned on me -- when was the last time I wrote anything on my blog? It’s been a month and a half and 10 races ago! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Well, it’s time for an update, so I’m just going to empty out my mind for the next several paragraphs or so. Here goes:

-- The first thing I have to say is that when I went grocery shopping at Super Stop & Shop last Wednesday night, I sniffed out the bargain bin and came across the No. 1 thing I need for running marathons -- the one thing that you can’t find at expos at Boston and Las Vegas, but you can buy at Super Stop & Stop, and if you’re lucky as I was, for only 75 cents …
… Charmin To Go bathroom tissue (55 sheets) in a nice pull-out dispenser that would fit great on the side of my running shorts!
As most folks know, I have a problem with old No. 2 when I run marathons (in seven out of my nine marathons, I have hit the Sani Can or any nearby woods). I usually carry a huge wad of toilet paper with me on my runs, but now that I will have this wonderful tool by my side, I feel like I can take on the world! I scooped up two of these babies and I’ll have one by my side when I run in the Barbados Marathon in December. Thank you very much, Charmin!

-- As you can see, I took a picture of one of the tubes (very light, fits in the palm of your hand), and also pictured with the tube is a bottle of Snapple’s Compassionberry Tea from this past spring’s Celebrity Apprentice. If you followed the show, you know that Bret Michaels, the lead singer of one of the greatest bands around, Poison, won the show in a very close battle with Holly Robinson Peete, and their final test on the show was to make a brand of Snapple that appealed to consumers.
Even though I wanted to see Holly lose and lose badly, I have to admit that the Compassionberry Tea she invented is extremely good, and that’s coming from a guy who doesn’t even like Snapple! It’s very tough to find this brand or Bret’s Troparocka Tea (I have never tried that and I have no idea where it is sold) and Compassionberry Tea hasn’t been on the shelves in a couple of months. But right after I discovered my Charmin To Go tubes, I lit up when I saw a six-pack sitting there in the aisle. I haven’t been that excited about a six-pack of anything since I was underage in college!

-- As I just said three paragraphs ago, I will be running in my 10th marathon, the Barbados Marathon on the first weekend of December. The air and hotel reservations are done, it’s just a matter of dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on the race application. And unlike the Boston Marathon, there’s no need to rush and get in my application -- 128 people registered for last year’s race.
I took a look at last year’s results and only 81 people finished. Two made it halfway through the race, but weren’t able to complete it, and who knows if the other 45 entrants ran, but didn’t get across the 13.1-mile mat to count in the results, decided not to run at all, etc.
The race starts at 4:30 a.m., but heat still figures to be a factor in this race as it progresses. But that’s OK. I’ll have my Charmin and Garmin nearby!
The good thing about this marathon is that I could have a truly terrible race, trudge across the line with a 4:40, and still finish 50th overall! Obviously, I want to do a lot better than that, but if things fall apart mid-race a la Boston, I can still save face and suck up a top-50 finish!

-- I vowed last year that I would never, ever run the UnitedHealthcare Half Marathon in Newport again, especially after what happened with the crazy Nor’easter that hit the area and the lack of shelter, bus transportation, and any help by the race directors to stay safe. But when the new race directors stepped in and offered my running club 40 percent off the registration fee, how could I say no, especially when you get to run a course as nice as the one this race offers?
I do have to say that this race was far and away better than last year’s event, and that’s not just because of the weather, which was sunny and a bit cool. There were more folks helping out with the race, at least 20 buses (not five) shuttling runners to and from the parking area, a beer tent with Harpoon and IPA brew, and lots of bagels, pizza, hot soup, water, and Gatorade, and more importantly, I got a feeling that everything was very well organized.
The only problem I had was not getting to the parking lot at Newport Grand (the former Newport Jai Alai) early enough to catch a bus that got me to the start on time. I showed up at Newport at 7:15 a.m., figuring I’d have enough time to get a bus, arrive, stretch out a little, and get somewhere close to the start. But instead, I ran right into a long line of cars trying to bottleneck it’s way into the parking lot, and by the time it was 7:50, I was finally boarding a bus.
When my bus arrived to the start and I jumped out of it, the race had started. I ran to the start, finally crammed my way into the start area, and began the race three minutes late. And things got a lot worse. I found myself having to duck, dodge, and weave around some of the slower runners in front of me, and having to run uphill for most of the first mile on the race’s new course didn’t help matters.
Once we hit the first mile marker, I checked my watch and saw a 9:43. For one mile!? Then I stepped on a cone that I didn’t see as I ducked past a wall of four runners (they may have been walkers) in the middle of the road and fell on my left arm, but I bounced right back up before I could get trampled or take anyone else down with me.
My second mile was 9:30 on the dot, but just before I could have an anxiety attack, the crowd began to filter out and I finally had room to run. My third mile was 8:47, I didn’t run a mile worse than 8:35 after that, and I ended up settling in with a 1:55:45 finish.
If there’s one thing I didn’t like about the race, it was the medals they gave out to the finishers. They were exactly two inches wide and an inch-and-a-quarter high. I just looked at all the medals I ever received at races and this is by far the smallest in my collection. When I wrapped it around my neck, I honestly had to look down and check to see if there was a medal attached to it because I thought it fell off! But nevertheless, this was a very, very good race, and yes, it’s in my good graces.

Poster boy

A month later and I still crack up when I see this. Yeah, that's me in this advertisement promoting the 2011 Georgia Marathon. And if this ad in any small way makes you want to register for next year's race, you can click here to sign up!

Up for a Challenge

Once again, I'm trying to raise money for the American Cancer Society, but this time, I'm not asking anyone for money, just their support as loyal fans!

Let me explain. I entered the Movement Challenge, a contest sponsored by New Balance and Rodale publications that according to its web site, "combines the excitement of racing, the fun of a running community, and the passion for a cause you care about into an exciting Movement for social awareness."

To make a long story short, I'm trying to win a $25,000 donation from Rodale and New Balance to the ACS, as well as a full-page public service announcement that will be published in Runner's World, Running Times, Women's Health and Men's Health sometime in 2011.

All participants must score points by doing one of the four things: A. Run races and rack up mileage (every mile gets you 100 points). B. PR for the year in a race (that gets you a 500-point bonus). C. Recruit fellow runners to join the Challenge (if they cut and paste the referral code from your profile page into the referral space on their applications when they sign up, you get 100 points), and D. Get fans to sign up to the Challenge as fans (10 points each per fan).

So the key here obviously is to run races and kick enough ass to PR in them. Right now, I'm 12th in the competition, but I have a heavy race schedule this fall that features two marathons, two or three half marathons, and a lot of my favorite ones scattered over a 3 1/2-month span. I looked at the people ahead of me in the Challenge and something inside me tells me that I have a good chance to overtake a lot of them, so we'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, I'd love to recruit as many runners or fans as possible. If you are a runner who wants to take a stab at this Challenge, then please, please use my referral code -- 0e07d093-7264-4b6b-9e0d-e6abcae505f4 -- because I'm going to need ALL THE HELP I can get!

Speaking of marathons, it looks like Hartford's going to be a go for October. I've picked up some serious mileage over the past couple of weeks, and after Labor Day, I got a couple of very long runs lined up.

As for Marathon No. 2, there's a 90-95 percent chance that it could be in another country, actually a faraway island called Barbados in early December. Eighty-one out of 128 runners finished it and 55 finished in under five hours, so if I pull a royal stinker a la Boston the past two years, I still have a chance at a top-50 marathon finish!

Crazy from the heat

Last summer, we had a miserable June that featured 26 days of rain or some sort of drizzle, and after that month, we had a number of beach days that felt like they were few and far between. This summer, it looks like we’re getting 92 days of sun, humidity, and no escape from the heat!

During the past three weekends, I ran in five road races, and all five had one thing in common -- they all took place in temperatures well into the 80s.

Now if I had the choice on whether to run a race in the heat or in the frigid cold of the winter, I’d always choose the heat because I always have a tough time getting going during the winter. But this month has been brutally tough and it’s reflected in my times in these races -- in four races that I’ve done at least once or twice in the past few years (Glocester 5.5M, Little Compton 4.8M, St. Mary’s of Cranston 5.5M, and New Bedford’s Fisherman’s Tribute 5K), I’ve had slower times by at least a minute-and-a-half.

Hopefully the weather gets cooler and soon, because my next two races are very big ones -- the legendary Blessing of the Fleet 10-Miler on Friday, July 23, and the Johnny Kelley Ocean Beach 11.6-Miler 15 days later.

Back on my feet (and on the road) again

It's been more than a blog since I have blogged, but I’m happy to report that I have been slowly picking up my running over the past few weeks. I tinkered with a handful of races near the end of May and I ran in my first Red Rooster Ramble in two months last Thursday night. I’ll be running in two more races this Fourth of July weekend and I’ve already mapped out my race schedule right up into Labor Day weekend. I‘m looking at anywhere from 12-14 races from here until that Monday, so things look pretty good.

Of the races I ran last month, there are two 10Ks I ran (both on Memorial Day weekend) that are worth mentioning -- the new 10K by the Bay in Warwick and the infamous Woodstock 10K in Woodstock, Conn. The 10K by the Bay was very well-organized for a first-time race with a mostly-flat course, tons of volunteers, and a nice barbeque afterwards. It only drew 121 runners, but once word gets around about how great this race was, I’m sure that number will balloon to over 200 next year!

As for the Woodstock 10K, which ranks in my top 10 list for favorite races and most challenging courses, this race again took place on a beautiful day and again gave me a run for my money on Child’s Hill -- the dreadful final mile that is straight uphill and very challenging! Nevertheless, Woodstock is a very beautiful, quaint, country town, and someday, I might check out the Woodstock Fair that takes place there every Labor Day weekend.

Twenty-one days of rain

It’s been a few weeks since I updated my blog, so this afternoon, I opened my blog and found myself gawking at a blank ‘new post’ screen for the past 15-20 minutes. I really don’t know what to write because I haven’t ran or had to urge to run for the past 21 days.

I don’t know if my experience at the Boston Marathon zapped my love for running or because softball season is here and it’s going great -- I’m batting .546 and I think I lead the league in runs scored. I really don’t know.

I tried to map out a schedule for road races this summer and my mind just wandered elsewhere. I haven’t been looking up things at coolrunning.com or seeing what’s up on any other runners’ blogs (I actually check out 13 or 14 of them on occasion -- one of them might be yours!) I have this Thursday night off, and when I usually get this day off, I take off to Warren for the Red Rooster Ramble, but not only don’t I want to run in it, I don’t even want to show up to help out with the run and grab some good pizza afterwards.

A fellow runner told me I’m in just a slump, but how can you have a slump that only consists of one race? Besides, if I was in a slump for softball, all I need to do is take some BP, take a couple of pitches in each at-bat, and I’m right back on my feet again, going 2-for-4 or 3-for-4.

As they say in pro boxing, “You’re only as good as your last fight.” My last ‘fight’ saw me get an embarrassing ass-kicking, so I guess that’s how good I feel.

Boston Massacre II

There’s this one scene in the 2000 remake of the film “Gone in 60 Seconds” when Nicholas Cage’s character, Memphis -- a retired car thief, who under dire circumstances, is forced to steal 50 cars in a span of 72 hours -- scouts a 1967 Mustang Shelby GT 500 he calls “Eleanor” in a parking garage that he plans to steal, but has failed to do so on past occasions.
While Memphis is getting a closer look at the car, his friends began to softly talk among themselves:

Donny: Eleanor is Memphis’s unicorn.
Freb: What's a unicorn?
Donny: Fabled creature, you know, the horse with the horn impossible to capture. It's the one car no matter how many times you try to boost, something always happens. They had a rough history. She almost got him killed a couple a times. Flipped one on the Harbor Freeway.
Kip: He went off the Long Beach Pier once.

After watching this scene in this film last Friday, I realized something -- the Boston Marathon is my unicorn.
For the second straight year, I went to Hopkinton determined to do well and looking to have a good marathon and I ended up in Boston bloodied, beaten down, and staring at a horrid time attached to my name in the final results.
And it sucks. I trained harder this year than I did for last year’s race. Aside from a dismal run at the Stu’s 30K in Clinton, Mass., everything went well in the months leading up to this event. I even ran a 4:12 at the ING Georgia Marathon in Atlanta.
And I bombed -- again. I feel like the Buffalo Bills of the early 1990s who lost four Super Bowls in a row. I get on the biggest stage -- and in running, that stage is the Boston Marathon -- and things come crashing down.
This year, things began to come crashing down for me at the end of Mile 15 when I started cramping up in my right thigh, then my left thigh. A mile or two later, when I was trying to run over and grab a cup of water, I stepped the wrong way on a T track in the middle of the street and twisted my right ankle. Then I was starting to feel cotton-mouth, even though I was taking in fluids every other mile or so. Then my nipples bled. Then came Heartbreak Hill and some increased pain in my ankle. Then came the cramps again.
The next thing you know, my 4:12 in Georgia blew up into a 4:56 in Boston. I saw a picture of me crossing the finish line; my fists weren’t waved in the area and I didn’t look like I wanted to celebrate. I felt like the Russian men’s hockey team when they came home from the 1980 Olympics with a bronze medal after they were upset by the United States in Lake Placid.
I really don’t know what happened, and while the pain and swelling in my ankle have finally subsided from that unmemorable day, I still have been questioning myself 10 days later. I haven’t had the urge to run -- I haven’t gone 10 days in a row without running since the end of December -- and I haven’t looked ahead to running any races in May or June.
Looking back on everything, maybe running four marathons in a span of 6½ months wasn’t a good idea. Maybe I burned myself out and I didn’t know it. Maybe when I jokingly told another runner that I hoped to finish in 4:59:59, I subconsciously set that time for myself. Maybe, maybe, maybe …
Again, the Boston Marathon is, as I heard a runner call it, “The Holy Grail” of marathons. No one really cares about how superb you do in Atlanta, Las Vegas, or Newport or any other marathons. It’s Boston that people associate marathons with, and for good reasons. The history, the tradition, the best of the best running in this race, the streets lined up with fans from the start of the race to the final 0.2 of a mile on Boylston Street. I can go on and on …
I will admit, there have been some very good things to come out of the race. I raised $701 to the American Cancer Society and I had an excellent time at the DetermiNation breakfast the morning before the race and the expo. I ran in front of thousands of fans, and I didn’t get mauled by any crazy Wellesley College girls.
But would I ever do this marathon again? I doubt it. Maybe I’m jinxed when it comes to this race. I really don’t know. But one thing’s for sure, this race is my unicorn, just like the one on the Boston Athletic Association logo -- but a lot whiter and with bigger wings.

I kept my promise

Next week is the almighty Boston Marathon, but this weekend, I decided to have a little bit of fun -- “the calm before the storm” -- and run in two 5Ks, the RIDA Nutrition Fuels Fitness race at Goddard Park in Warwick and the Officer Thomas Giunta 5K in Fall River.

I wasn’t shooting for any big times or fantastic finishes in either race -- just a good run in one of my favorite parks for a 5K and then my old hometown. I did land a much better time at Saturday’s RIDA event (22:36) than I did at Sunday’s Giunta 5K (23:32), but I think I had a good enough excuse for that time.

I wore a running skirt.

Yes, like I promised at the end of January, if I raised $700 for the American Cancer Society, I would run in one of southeastern Massachusetts’s biggest races of the spring in a skirt. So I raised $701and I kept my promise. And it really felt weird, not because it’s every day that you would see a guy running in a skirt, but it was tough to adjust to one.

I wore the leopard-print one that I put in my final January post and matched it with an old Poison concert t-shirt (a member of my running club who will remain nameless offered to double his donation had I wore it). I got a lot of strange looks from some folks and a lot of laughs from others, but I pinned on the back of my t-shirt a sign that reported I was doing it for the American Cancer Society and some people praised me for what I was doing.

As far as the race, right from the start, when the race took runners up a hill for the first three-fourths of a mile, I felt the skirt being really loose around my hips. Was it going to fall? That’s what I asked myself, so I tried to get a bit comfortable by starting to run with a little bend in my hips and I kept my strides a little shorter.

Then halfway through the race, I felt some “freedom” in my skirt and “stuff” starting to “fly” about. But I managed to keep things under control, especially with a lot of fans on each side of the course, and continued to run at a 7½-mile pace.

Meanwhile, the reactions to my skirt continued. I got some long stares from some folks who seemed to try to figure out what was wrong with the picture of me. I freaked out one little boy, who yelled, “Hey mom, that bald man is running with a skirt!” Some old guy on Bedford Street absolutely lost it and started gurgling something in Portuguese.

As for the rest of the afternoon, I put away some chourico and peppers and Fall River chow mein at the post-race buffet and went to the Elks Club on North Main Street for the second post-race party, which included six kegs of beer, some more food (hot dogs and Portuguese soup), a live band, a raffle, and some very, very good company.

And there was some good news that came out of this race. In addition to the record number of runners (somewhere around 1,350) that registered for the race, it was announced that this was NOT going to be the final race, which was advertised as the 16th and final race on the web site and quickly picked up steam around the local running community. It seems like a local police officer is going to carry the torch and take over as race director, so that was very good news to hear! I will be back, but as for the skirt ...

Happy Birthday!

It was supposed to be a training run -- my ‘20-miler’ to help get me prepared ready for the Boston Marathon -- but somehow, thanks to a strong start and a mid-race decision to keep my foot on the gas and go for broke, I ended up celebrating my 40th birthday in style by posting a 4:12:57 time at the ING Georgia Marathon last week in Atlanta.

Two weeks earlier, I had a miserable race at the Stu’s 30K in Clinton, Mass., a challenging course loaded with hills, and completed it in the neighborhood of 3½ hours. Physically, I felt great, but mentally, I was coming off a long night at work and already thinking about what I had to do when I went back to work that night. Plus, I had a rotten meal the night before -- hockey rink food -- and hardly anything for breakfast, and I didn’t drink much liquids before and during the race. So I bonked, vegged out, lost my focus, felt like Cougar at the start of Top Gun -- you name it, I was it, and even though I felt fine from the waist down, nothing else did from the waist up.

It was one of my five worst races I ever run, and I followed it up with one of my five best races. Unreal.

First of all, I got a miserable night of sleep -- three hours top -- and a terrible morning getting myself ready for the race. As has been the case with several marathons and big-time races I’ve run, I just couldn’t fall asleep, and when I finally dozed off, I had one of my infamous running dreams -- I was running on some sandy road with 80s pop star Christopher Cross, he was running faster than me, and I struggled to keep up with him. I can’t explain that one.

When I got up, I found out that there weren’t any pins for my race number in my goodie bag and I didn’t bring any KT Tape for my calves. There was two strikes right there. And when I got to my corral at Centennial Park, the site of the ’96 Summer Olympics, I found out that my Garmin watch, which I charged the night before my flight to Atlanta, had been mysteriously on the whole night and out of juice by the time the race started. I was staring at a recipe for disaster, but I had to remember, this was supposed to be a training run.

When the race started, I made it a point to start off slowly and easily and I kept an eye on the clocks that were lined up almost every other mile on the course. At six miles, I was at 54 minutes -- about half-marathon pace -- and I decided to shoot for a two-hour half marathon before easing back on the reins.

But I never did see a clock for the half-marathon mark when we ran through Decatur, or the timing pad near the sidewalk we were supposed to run over. I was in the middle of the road for most of the race, dipping to the sidewalk now and then to grab a quick drink of water, and when I saw the next clock, it was at the 14-mile mark and it read 2:02.

It was at that point that I said to myself, “You know what? It’s your birthday. You’re running in a big marathon with thousands of other runners in a state you have never ran in before. Why not go for it, try to post a good time, and see what happens?”

So I kept on running, stayed very focused, and battled through some hills in Decatur. There were two tough hills on miles 18 and 19, but I handled them as well as I could, and at mile 20, I had a 2:59 time -- just a minute under three hours and just a 10K to go!

But I was starting to slow down a bit. At mile 22, we did an out-and-back on a flat road through Piedmont Park and went over a three-foot timing pad at the mile marker. I had a 3:19, which meant that I slowed down to 10-minute miles, but I started doing the math and figured that if I could do somewhere in the neighborhood of 9½-minute miles the rest of the way, I could actually hit four hours!

It felt like a no-hit bid in baseball, but like 99 percent of all no-hit bids, they come to an end. And that’s what happened to my race after I ran up a short, steep hill coming out of Piedmont Park and onto a side street. My legs were getting sore, I was fading out a bit mentally, and yes, Mr. Porta-Potty came calling in a big way. Another big hill came calling, and at 24 miles, I was at 3:42.

I was spent. The tank read ‘E’ and it wasn’t for Eric. All I could do was hold on tightly and gut it out the rest of the way, but I picked it up just a bit once we got back to Centennial Park for the final 0.2 miles and came home with a nice finish. The race announcer called out my name and wished me a Happy Birthday and that was cool to hear!

All in all, it was a great week. On Saturday, Bozena and I went to the expo at the Georgia Dome, and while the expo wasn’t as big as the ones in Boston or Las Vegas. I did get to see a lot of cool stuff, talk to Rhode Island’s own Dr. Nancy Clark, and listen to Jeff Galloway talk to a small audience about pre-race preparation.

I also got to meet Danny Dreyer, the author of ChiRunning, and he signed my book that I bought last year, but never really had an opportunity to read because I was still sifting through Born to Run by Christopher McDougal. I did read the first three chapters on the beach later that week when we went to Pensacola, and when I’m done (or halfway done), I promise I will give you all a book report and review, but so far, this book is really, really good.

The night of the race -- after a few hours of ZZZZs and two cold showers -- I met up with a good friend from the Rhode Island Road Runners and his wife who moved to Atlanta last year. We had some very, very good sushi at the Sushi House Hayakawa in Atlanta and good conversation and coffee at a Korean coffee house.

We then went to Pensacola on Monday and stayed there for the next three days. Unfortunately, we only got one good beach day on Tuesday and the water was ice cold, but my beat-up legs really felt great after standing in it for close to a half hour. And I ate nothing but crab legs for the next three nights. I did still feel a bit dehydrated from the race and actually had trouble drinking more than two beers, but I had a nice big bottle of Gatorade that did wonders for me!

Old New Year's Resolutions

I was cleaning out some old files on my laptop when I came across one that said ‘Najarian 5K’. I thought it was something that I wrote about the old David Najarian 5K that until last year, was held every mid-November in Coventry -- this race was best known for its T-shirts that looked almost like the ‘Choose Life’ T-shirts the band Wham! wore in its ’80s video “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” (that’s the picture on the right) -- but I was wrong.
Instead, it was a list of 10 things I wanted to do running-wise in 2009 -- an early list of New Year’s Resolutions. It was funny to see that I saved it and forgot about it, and I must have been off my rocker when I wrote one or two of them. Anyway, here’s the list and if I succeeded in doing each of these:

1. Stay healthy and injury-free!
-- For the most part, yes. I had an episode at the Boston Marathon when I pulled my right calf, strained a groin muscle, and looked rather sickly, but I managed to bounce back nicely a-week-and-a-half later.

2. In 2008, I totaled 294 miles in road races and Red Rooster Rambles (a 5-mile series in Warren), but I couldn’t squeeze in another 10K or two smaller races to push me over 300 miles. In 2009? Over 300.
-- Yes, I barely squeezed it out (301.6), thanks to the year-ending Christmas Run for Hope/Oncology 10K in Newport. The week before, I ran in the Las Vegas Marathon, and even though I wasn’t 100 percent back from that race, I still ran this 10K for shits and giggles and eked out a 51:40.

3. I want to run at least five half marathons and two or three marathons.
-- Almost. I ran in four half marathons (Hyannis, Colchester, that hot, steaming piece of hippopotamus crap known as Amica in Newport, and the Ghost Air Line Trail Run in East Hampton, Conn.) and three marathons (Boston, Maine, and Las Vegas).

4. Of the 45 races I ran in 2007, I will return to 30 of them. And I want PRs in at least 20 of them.
-- I only came back to 18 of them and tried a lot of new races, but I did PR in two-thirds of them (12). So half a point for this resolution.

5. I want to run a race in a foreign country, even if it means Canada!
-- I didn’t leave the country, but I did go to Las Vegas twice and Hawaii. I never thought that would happen!

6. And I want to run a race in another state. California and Pennsylvania were fun last year -- now where else can I go?
-- Done. Maine Marathon. It was the first time I was in this state for longer than two hours and it was really scenic and nice, a place I'd visit again!

7. I want to dog a family member or a friend into running a race.
-- It never happened. I thought I could lure a couple of friends to one of the Red Rooster Rambles because of the good pizza and the abundance of beer after the run, but no dice here.

8. I want to get a total stranger who never ran a road race before to run one with me. And I will lose to that person.
-- What the hell is this!? I think I got drunk the night I wrote this, watched “Fight Club” for the 134th time, and got inspired by the scene when Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt’s character) gave his fight club a homework assignment to start a fight with a total stranger -- and lose. No, I never challenged anyone to a race, and I don’t think I could just gag a race so someone could finish ahead of me. OK, what’s next?

9. I won raffle prizes at 18 different races last year. Here's hoping my good fortune continues and I "strike it rich" in 20 races!
-- That was a running-wise goal!? I must have been drinking some strong beer! I just took a glance at the list of races I ran, thought really hard, and (this may seem like a surprise to people who know me) came up with 18 again! The top raffle prizes I won last year were four round-trip ferry tickets to Martha’s Vineyard (Fisherman‘s Tribute 5K in New Bedford), a big box of basketball and football cards from the late 1980s/early ‘90s that has to be worth some money (Common Point Fence 5-Miler in Portsmouth), and six fresh lobsters (Mews Tavern 5K in Wakefield, R.I.).

10. Stretch a little better before races and improve my pre-race preparations. That should help give me a better chance at achieving some of the goals I just mentioned!
-- Yoga has clearly helped me with my stretching, and I have learned two or three helpful stretches from my practice. There were times in 2008 when I showed up 10-15 minutes before a race and let the chips fall where the may, but last year, I always tried to show up at least 40 minutes early for a race to stretch out, get in a short run, pick up everything I need, and just pretty much get a little mentally focused. I’ll give myself a full point on this one.

So where does that leave me? Out of a score of a possible 10, everything seems to add up to a 5.4. That kind of stinks, but then again, who really keeps all of their yearly resolutions?
Wow, I just realized that there’s actually a picture of George Michael on my blog. This may be a new low for me. A running blog with a picture from an actual Wham! concert. But It could be worse. I could have put a picture of Michael Bolton or the two guys from Right Said Fred, you know …

Some thoughts on a bad day for running

This morning, I was supposed to take the hour-long drive into Connecticut for the Colchester Half Marathon, but when I got up at 7 a.m. and took a look out the window, it was snowing. What a surprise …
So instead of braving the elements (and the slick drive), I stayed home and went back to bed. I learned my lesson from running in the monsoon known as last year’s Amica Half Marathon in Newport (I could write for hours on how miserable an experience that was) and decided to put my health before a good race. And this was a good call on my part, because I went online and saw how bad Connecticut was getting pelted with snow.
This has been a bad winter to run and train for a marathon. I’ve jumped all over the few good days we’ve had and got in some strong runs at Lincoln Woods in Lincoln, the East Providence/Barrington/Warren/Bristol bike path, and picturesque Brown Avenue on Johnston heading into Greenville and Smithfield. But during the bad days -- and there has been a lot of them -- I’ve had to retreat to Bally’s in East Providence and do 80-90 laps around a 13th-of-a-mile carpeted track. One time last year, I actually did somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 laps before I started hallucinating and running a little bit off track!
Anyway, I know it’s been a while since I have blogged -- work, running, and everyday life has occupied my time -- but I'm going to take some of the hour-and-50-minutes it probably would have taken me to finish today's half marathon and catch up on some things:

-- The drive to raise money for the American Cancer Society before my run in the Boston Marathon continues, and to date, I have raised $450, which will soon turn into $500 once a matching gift has been accepted. Again, I am very, very, very grateful to everyone who has donated to my cause, and I still hope to raise more money because every little bit (even a $5 donation) helps people who are less fortunate than us and have to deal with this crap.
I had promised to run in two races in a tight leopard-print skirt and Catholic school socks, but it looks like I’m going to be off the hook! I went an entire week without raising a dollar, and it looks like things are starting to run out of steam. Then again, you never know. Someone might be reading this and saying, “Oh yeah, Eric? Think you’re in the clear? Screw you …”
-- Last weekend, I ran in my first road race of 2010 -- the Old Fashioned 10-Mile Run in Foxboro, Mass., which is a pretty popular race at this time of the year, especially for runners planning to run in the following weekend’s Hyannis Half Marathon on the Cape.
Last year, I finished this race in the 1:22 neighborhood, but this year, I just wanted to concentrate on running nine-minute miles and ended up finishing in 1:28:20 (8:50 pace). My fastest mile was the first (8:33, I guess I got too pumped up for the start!) and the slowest was the eighth (9:34, the toughest hill on a slightly-rolling course), but the other eight miles were in between 8:41 and 9:20, so no complaints here.
-- Earlier this month, my running club held its annual Awards Banquet. It was a big improvement over the past couple I attended, only because of the food, which was prepared by the club’s master chef and featured excellent baked fish, stuffed chicken, and desert, and it took place in a larger facility, the Warren Soccer Club.
During the awards ceremony, I received my third Ironman plaque in a row for covering over 250 miles in road races (301.6), but the highlight of the night was the infamous ‘Yankee Swap’ that involved wrapped gifts in the $10-20 range. If you donated a gift to the Swap, you received a raffle ticket and tried to strike gold with it by either keeping a good gift you unwrapped or swapping it for someone else’s unopened prize.
The rules are simple. Raffle ticket numbers are called, and the person who is called first grabs a prize, opens it, and keeps it on their table for everyone to see. The next person does the same thing, but has the choice of keeping it or swapping it for the first person’s gift. The third person then has the option of keeping their gift or swapping it for one of the other two, and so on.
Once everyone has picked (or swapped) a gift, the first person who picked a gift then has the pick of the litter and can take any gift that was opened, and that wraps up everything. So as you can tell, it pays to have the first pick or even one of the latter picks, but you’re in trouble if you get one of the picks immediately after the first.
I ended up getting one of the middle picks, and to make a long story short, I had a 12-pack of Heineken’s taken away from me late in the Swap for some bottle of white wine, but after the Swap, I made a side trade with someone and exchanged it for the Runner’s World Complete Book of Running. And it’s a great read and a nice addition to the library of running books I already have! After reading a couple of chapters, I feel like I’ve made the biggest trade since the Celtics landed Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves!
-- Next Sunday, I will be running in the ever-so-tough Stu’s 30K in Clinton, Mass., and in two weeks will be the ING Georgia Marathon. Again, I have to keep reminding myself that this is a training run and a time of 4:30-4:45 would be good enough for me. I obviously have bigger fish to fry in April in the Boston Marathon!
In between Georgia and Boston, I think I’m going to have a little fun and run in some short-distance races. On the last Saturday in March is the Run the Reservoir 15K in North Scituate, and that could serve as a nice recovery race for me. Of course, there is the Giunta 5K, and in between those two races is another 5K at Goddard Park in Warwick, which is my favorite place to run a 5K. We’ll see what happens …

Can't skirt this bet ...

In the summer of 1998, I was an outfielder on a very, very good co-ed softball team in Fall River, which had a roster loaded with drunks, delinquents, and the best-looking girls in the league -- and good enough to finish 10-6 and mercy-rule a lot of teams along the way.

I thought we were so good and I was so confident in my team's ability, that when we started off the season with a 3-1 record, I called out the next team we were going to play (in Terrell-Owens like fashion) and told them that I would wear a dress to the next game we played if my team lost to them.

And guess what happened? We didn't hit and we lost a 12-4 game that was highlighted by a simple grounder hit to me in right-center field in the top of the third inning that I misplayed into a three-run homer. True to my word, I wore some ugly dress from the '70s to my next game. I had an excellent nine-year career in that league, but to this day, whenever my name comes up in conversation around the park, some folks still talk about that stinking dress!

Well, that was 12 years ago, but now I'm going back to the future. On my Facebook page, I made a vow that if I raised $700 OR got 12 members of my running club, the Rhode Island Road Runners, to donate at least $5 to my cause, the American Cancer Society, then I will run in the pictured dress (from runningskirts.com) in one of the biggest spring races in southeastern Mass., the Thomas Giunta 5K in Fall River on Sunday, April 11, which last year, drew over 1,000 runners and should do so again this year.

A lot of family, friends, and folks I haven't seen in a while will be at this event, and there's a chance they will see my with this skirt on and I'll feel the same shame and humiliation that I felt the game after that 12-4 loss. It's a gutsy move and a dumb bet on my part, but if I don't raise $700 or get 12 RIRR donations -- and honestly, I don't think either is going to happen -- then I'm free and clear. But if I'm wrong ...

Georgia on my mind

When someone’s birthday ends in a zero, whether it’s their 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th or beyond, they usually celebrate the occasion either with a big party or a night on the town or by doing something else extravagant.

I already know what I’ll be doing for my 40th birthday on March 21 -- I’ll be heading to Atlanta to run in the ING Georgia Marathon.

This week, I toured cyberspace and made visits to coolrunning.com, hitekracing.com, and a few other web sites to find some races that will help get me ready for the Boston Marathon. I had my sights set on the Eastern States 20-Miler at the end of March as my final 20-miler before Boston, but my wife Bozena had the wild notion of flying away to somewhere warm on the week of my birthday and starting the week with a big race. Los Angeles was an option, especially since the marathon also fell on my birthday, but I’d rather settle for a shorter flight. Besides, I’ve never been to Georgia and the Florida panhandle’s just a drive down the road.

Some runners may find it crazy to run marathons on consecutive months -- and others may think it’s no big deal -- but I’m only doing this as a training run, so don’t expect anything in the neighborhood of 4:00 from me! I took a virtual tour of the course and there’s really a lot of historical things to check out, such as the house where Dr. Martin Luther King was born. There’s also some rolling hills to contend with, so I should get a good workout along the way!

I also registered for the Stu’s 30K on March 7 in Clinton, Mass., which is a great prep race for a marathon and features a difficult rolling course around Wachusett Reservoir. And in February, I could be running in the following:

-- Feb. 13, Martha’s Vineyard 20-Miler. I’m 50/50 on this race, probably because of the 45-minute ferry ride and the potential for having a good puke or two before the race. But I’ve heard very good things about the race, from the mostly-flat course to the post-race chowder and minestrone soup.

-- Feb. 21, Old Fashioned 10-Miler in Foxboro, Mass. or the Half on the Hamptons. Tough call here. I did the 10-Miler last year and really enjoyed the race, but I’ve seen the web site for the Hampton Beach race and that looks promising. From the race to the post-race festivities, it would be a great way to spend a day.
The Foxboro race may end up being my choice for the day because it’s a 20-25 minute drive there and I just found out that they are looking for runners to donate old race t-shirts to the race organizers so they can pass them on to some local shelters and community-based programs. I have a ton of t-shirts that I never wore and they are taking up a huge clump of space in my closet, so this would be a good chance to get rid of them.

-- Feb. 27, Colchester Half Marathon in Connecticut. I ran this race last year and the odds are very, very good that I’ll be back for it. And I know a lot of runners are going to Hyannis that weekend to run in either the marathon or half, but I think I’d rather take the road to be less traveled and the shorter drive to Connecticut.
This race is by far the toughest half marathon I have ever run, a lot tougher than what Hyannis has to offer! This was the only time I ever finished a half in over two hours (2:05), and for good reason. The start of the race is a slight uphill, the final mile or two is a giant uphill, and there are so many uphills in between that you swear that there’s no downhills. And the race director seemed to pop up on the tougher stretches of the course and offer some high-fives and laughs to the runners, so that was cool to see.

Officer Thomas Giunta 5K (1995-2010)

Here's some good news -- registration is now open for the Officer Thomas Giunta 5K Memorial Road Race on Sunday, April 11, in Fall River, Mass. Here's some bad news -- the front of the web site notes that this will be the final race in its 16-year existence.

This news really bums me out because this race ranks among my top three favorites and it gives me a chance to race in my hometown and run into people I know from Fall River that I rarely see. If you have never ran it before, it takes place on a nice course with an uphill at the start and a downhill midway through the race, features one of the best post-race buffets around (picture two 60-foot rows of food) with two of my favorite Fall River dishes (chourico & peppers and Fall River chow mein), and a superb post-race party at the Elks Club four miles up North Main Street with a few kegs of beer, good company, and a scaled-down version of the band Bob's Day Off playing music.

It's surprising that this great race is coming to an end, especially since last year it drew over 1,000 participants (1,040) for the first time in its history (a 25 percent boost from the 823 it drew in 2008) and the city really gets behind it. The Giunta family and their race committee put a ton of work into making this race one of the best in this chunk of New England. I'm definitely sad to see this race come to an end, and I'm sure I'm not the only runner who feels this way.

Here's how I'm starting this blog ...

Most people take up running to lose weight or get in shape, try to quit an addiction (whether it’s smoking, drinking, or drugs), or overcome something else personal in their lives. Not me. I started running because my Sunday morning softball team in Somerset got royally upset in the quarterfinal round of the 2004 playoffs and I had nothing to do the following Sunday.

So I gave into the pleas of my then-girlfriend -- who begged me for years to run in the CVS Downtown 5K in Providence with her -- and signed up for that race. The semifinals always took place on the weekend of the race, and had we made it back to that round, there was no way on earth I was going to miss them for some stupid, boring race. And that’s what I thought about running, from high school to 2004 -- stupid and boring. There were times during the past few summers when she would ask me to go running with her, but I’d always bark back, “I do my running on the basepaths!”

Nevertheless, I did a little training that week, and the following Sunday, ran in my first-ever road race. I didn’t do that well (26:43), but I had such a wonderful time that I had to run in another 5K, so I ran in three more that fall around Rhode Island before pulling my right calf halfway through the old Scituate 5K and calling it a year.

The next two years, I was off-and-on-and-off-again with running, especially since I was selling my house in Fall River, buying a bigger house in R.I., and getting married, yet I still managed to run here and there and squeeze in a total of 25.

But I really became full-time devoted to running in 2007, and in each of the last three years, I’ve topped 40-plus races that spanned a total of over 250 miles. I’ve also done seven marathons in six states, placed in my age group (30-39) here and there, and have had some very profound luck in post-race raffles.

Now I’m getting ready for the Boston Marathon in April, but I decided to do some extra special for this event and run it for the American Cancer Society. I just think that after running 160-something races for pretty much no one but myself, it’s time to do something for people who are less fortunate than me and suffering from this deadly ailment.

And that’s kind of why I’m starting this blog. I want people who decide to donate money to my cause (or are thinking about it) to see how my training is going and if I am worth the investment of a few dollars. I want them to tell me in the “comments” section of this blog to take off the prom dress and high heels and pick things up if they think I’m slacking in my training (and I know some people who will be good at doing this!). I also want them to throw me some advice if they think I’m doing or not doing something I should, or comment in any way they wish. It’s all good.

And hey, if you don’t want to support my cause and just have to kill and want to read about some wacky guy who during the winter, likes to run in the snow (and at times, around a 1-13th of a mile indoor track in East Providence) and do yoga three times a week to stay sharp and keep his edge, then that’s also fine. This is going to be a ride and you’re welcome to “get on board” for it …