I'm Back!

As promised in my last post following the 2011 Boston Marathon, I did not apply to be a member of the 2012 Dana Farber Marathon Challenge team and instead offered my service as a volunteer on weekend group runs and on marathon Monday at the runner's refuge in Hopkinton.  This year I'm back on the team as a runner with an even greater appreciation for the volunteers on those cold January and February mornings.

This year, I am blessed to have received a service grant from my employer, Tocci Building Companies.  As a recipient of the service grant my company will match up to $2,000 of employee donations and I will receive Marathon Monday as a complimentary day off.  I am so grateful for the award and can't wait for my first fundraising event, a luncheon in our home office on January 18th.  Several of my co-workers have been kind enough to help me make food for the Tocci kick-off.  Many thanks in advance Kristen, Kim, and Leslie!  Because of the generosity of the service grant, I have increased my fundraising goal this year from $7,500 to $9,000.

I will again attempt to chronicle my training and fundraising journey on this blog and share with you my reasons for running and the inspiring motivations of my teammates.  Thank you for taking the journey with me.

Long overdue update

I was certainly not great at updating this blog over the training season, with my most recent post in December. I did not want this blog to become a journal of my struggles with knee injuries as it became last year, so I quietly went about my training cutting runs short when needed and slogged along hoping to get to Boston as healthy as possible.

Yesterday was the marathon, but before I delve into the race report I'd like to hit the highlights of the training season first.

• Despite not being able to run more than 10 miles before the race, I came close to a Personal Best at the Hyannis Half Marathon at the end of February. Running with a friend the whole way certainly helped. Unfortunately in the weeks following that I was not able to get much past 10 miles again. I had lots of lower mileage, high intensity workouts to keep my fitness strong, just couldn't quite log the miles on the road.



• Come the end of March, I teamed up with Cherie and Jess thanks to an introduction by last year's teammate Eileen for a FANTASTIC 21 miler. I learned Cherie was a teammate last year and I just hadn't had the chance to meet her. My longest prior run was 13.1 at Hyannis. I never would have thought this jump in mileage was possible, especially without walking any parts, but with awesome teammates anything is possible. We started slow and finished strong. I saw my last year's running partner Marcy at mile 17 and got totally jazzed and ate up those Newton hills at a half marathon pace and finished strong. Negative split, confidence was up for Boston.

Following the 21 miler, I couldn't stop coughing. The slight nagging cough I'd had over the past few weeks became full on bronchitis or possibly had progressed to walking pneumonia and I was down for the count for 2+ weeks. Taper was a hard stop. I got a couple of good short runs in the week before the marathon and I was ready to go yesterday.

The day started great, I was running with a High School and College classmate, Angela up through mile 8. We were keeping a pretty consistent pace around 10:08. A little faster than I planned to start out, but right on target with Coach's race plan for me if I was feeling good. The effort seemed easy, aided by those downhills so I went with it. I split up with Angela, I thought briefly while she visited her family and I went ahead to relieve myself from some excessive pre- race hydration down the road. Unfortunately the port-a-potty line was long and I must have missed Angela as she went by and we never did meet up (Anglea finished a full 1/2 hr ahead of me turns out). I lost a full 3 min plus waiting and for the next mile or so, my mile splits were nonsense and I started to run faster than I knew I was. Once I got a split it was sub 10 and I knew I was starting to get in trouble and needed to slow down. I did succeed in slowing down some through the next couple of miles, but between miles 14 and 15 I realized my early speediness and excessive dressing (black hat and light long sleeve under my singlet that I had shed a few miles back) had gotten the best of me and I needed to slip into survival mode taking short walk breaks when needed.

I suffered to keep the pace as close to possible to 10:30-10:40 range hoping to get a boost from my family just prior to mile 17. I was spent by the time I got there. They were happy for me as I was running my best Boston ever to that point but I was nauseous and I was fizzling. Looking back, I think I probably didn't push through the pain as much as I probably could have considering how I felt at the end of the race, but the nausea was new to me and I was afraid it could be from dehydration and I REALLY wanted to finish and not end up in the medical tent. Despite not meeting my plan A or plan B paces, I did still end up with a PR at 4:54. Not the 4:17-4:27 I longed for with plan A, not the 4:27-4:37 I hoped for in Plan B. But considering several long runs of only 10 miles, 1 at 13.1, and 1 at 21 I'm satisfied.

I think the slower finish than my goals is just a signal for me to keep me pushing to "Raise the Barr" for DFMC. Next year, I will be a volunteer year for me for DFMC. . . 6 in a row has taken a toll on this runner's right knee, but I will be back to the starting line until we find that ultimate finish line, a world without cancer.

Thanks for everyone's support and encouragement over the years. And congratulations to all my DFMC teammates!

Mulligan x 2

On December 19th my test 5K to determine my marathon training paces did not go as well as planned. Hard to run hard when you have to dodge reindeer, Santas, and a variety of other costumed runners. Overall, I improved on my Turkey Trot race (which is good since that was not all out) and finished in 28:52, far shy of my 26:00 goal. The 28:52 5K translates to paces so slow for training that I might as well be walking. The training pace predictions are not in line with my Hyannis Half Marathon from last February pace recommendations so I am using those now quite successfully. I’ve declared a Mulligan on the Jingle Bell 5K and signed up for another on New Year’s day in Lowell. Now I just have to run fast and hope my result indicates I am running the right paces for my easy runs, long runs, and steady state runs. I hope I get a time that is consistent with those paces, as those predict a 4:15 ish Marathon which would totally rock my world.

The 19th was my Mom’s birthday. Because the race was in the middle of the afternoon with scheduled holiday cheer in the form of adult beverages to follow, we celebrated my Mom’s birthday the night before. She had requested a spice cake be made and declared no one else will be made a birthday cake until “someone” made her one. Being the sweet lover that I am, I accepted the challenge. The cake making went pretty well. It’s hard to screw up cake mix from a box. I thought the frosting would be the hard part since I was making that from scratch. To my pleasant surprise the frosting came out great and tasted like my mom’s. I thought I was through the worst of it. I had severely underestimated. Frosting the cake was my downfall. A 6 year old could have done better. I present photographic evidence as proof. . .

Had there been time I think a mulligan was in order here as well, but there wasn’t time. At least it got a lot of good belly laughs and everyone agreed it tasted MUCH BETTER than it looked.

On the fundraising front, I’ve written and printed all my fundraising letters. Envelope stuffing and mailing to follow. I hope to have some positive updates on my fundraising total early in 2011.

Will run for Egg Nog

I have a slight egg nog addiction. Ok, let's be real, I finished 3 half gallons since the supermarket staring selling it in early November so this is more than an slight problem. I'm being enabled in this addiction at work. Diane, our accountant and my first donor this year gave me a 50 cent coupon today :-). I fully understand a gallon and a half of egg nog does not a training diet make. So with steadfast self control I've decided that I will not imbibe the beloved nog until I have completed my scheduled runs. So today, after 31 minutes of running I opened the 4th half gallon. Cross training tomorrow so no more nog until Thursday and with any luck I hope to run from Crossroads on Thursday so pizza and beer after not egg nog. Drat! It is really good they only sell egg nog from November to New Years or I don't think I'd fit it my house.

Turkey Trot

I ran my first every Turkey Trot ever last week. . . the Philip J Whein 5K Turkey Chase in Clinton, Mass. What a fabulously organized race. The detail officers cheered on the kids participating and some of the locals were out to cheer on those they knew in town running. It was also quite a challenging course with 300+ ft of elevation changes down then up, then down, then up again. I think my shin and calf muscles have finally recovered today. Sadly, I can't say the same for my pace 8:40 for the first mile then 10:45 for the uphill second mile, recovering to 9:38 for the final mile. Since my goal was to run Half Marathon Pace of 9:10 or under, I fell short but it was still a great experience. After the race you could tear off the bottom of you bib number for a chance to win a number of fabulous prizes . . .Wachusett 12 packs, BC basketball tickets, pies, etc. Winners for both the under 21 and 21 racers. A race I'm looking forward to next year.

Next race report will be after the Jingle Bell Run next month. For that race, I'm to run all out as it'll be used to calculate my paces for the rest of my training runs this season. I'm approaching the next 3 weeks as a mini training cycle to perform well there. It certainly won't be a PR since I ran in the low 7s in High School, but I'm hoping for a 26 minute race.

On the DFMC inspiration side, there have been some recent family developments that add fuel to my fire to kick cancer's a*s this season. It is my 6th season with DFMC and unfortunately the list of people I run in honor of and in memory of continues to grow. More on that in my next post. Until then, I hope everyone thoroughly appreciated quality time with your loved ones this past holiday season those times are priceless and irreplaceable.

DFMC 2011

Last week was marked with two very exciting emails from the Dana Farber Marathon and Running Programs Office. The first was the subject of my last blog post, the outstanding fundraising total of the DFMC 2010 Team. The second came later that afternoon, word that I have been accepted to run on the DFMC 2011 Team. The excitement of the DFMC Team invitations was evident as a bunch of teammates from past seasons also indicated their excitement with being selected on facebook throughout the week. We are just under 6 months to the 2011 Boston Marathon and I am already pumped to toe the starting line in Hopinkton but there is much work to do between now and then. I'm looking forward to all DFMC has to offer: Thursday night Crossroads runs, Tuesday night track, weekend group runs, catching up with old teammates, and making friends with the 2011 First timers.

After taking sometime off to deal with my nagging knee issues this month, I was back to running on Thursday night. Vic will be easing me back into a marathon training plan through the month of November with full on training beginning in December. It will be great to have the advantage of both Vic's individualized training plan for me and Jack's motivation and experience at each of the DFMC formal runs.

Here's hoping for a healthy Boston 2011!

$4,556,954.60!!!

The record setting total for DFMC 2010 was announced today. Thanks to everyone who supported our team.

With the record setting closing of registration for Boston qualifiers for the 2011 Boston Marathon on Monday there has been some internet chatter putting down the charity program. I can't think of a more fitting response than the photo of that final check to the Barr Program. The money the team raised with the support of our friends, family, and colleagues will keep talented researchers funded so that they may continue their search for clues that will bring us toward the ultimate finish line, a world without cancer. If can't think of a better reason to run from Hopkinton to Boston.

If you are a Boston qualifier and were shut out Monday, please consider it an opportunity to apply for one of the wonderful charity program bibs for the cause the speaks the most to you, your friends, and family. I can't think of a better way to honor your BQ achievement. If you choose DFMC, the honor comes complete with what feels like your own personal cheering squad.: "Go Dana Fahbah!"