Bayshore Marathon Mini Report

One more Team in Training event has ended. We had our local TNT event this past weekend and it was a big success. We had over one hundred participates taking part in the Bayshore ½ and full marathon.
Now typically my duties at this event are to be in the spots on the course where I can use my humor and pleasing personality to distract the runners from their misery and pain!
Well this year, I was the full marathon sweeper. If you don’t know what a sweeper is, that’s because you run too fast to be the last person in a race. That’s right, the person just before the police car at the end. It’s the sweeper’s job to ensure that the last person is on pace to finish before they close the course.
Fortunately I didn’t start the race with the participants that would bring up the read, so I was able to see everyone as they dashed past me in both directions. This was an out and back course. I saw most of my team as they were still in a state of semi-freshness wearing their early mile smiles.
So while waiting to perform my official duties, I was able to chat and cheer for everyone that passed my way. As the clock ticked away and the hordes of cheering spectators diminished, I was the sole cheering section for the back-of-the-pack runners. I actually held conversations with a few of them while we shuffled along. One gentleman had lost sixty pounds to be able to run the marathon, he was down to 327 lbs! Another guy was down to 185 lbs but he was only five feet tall.
I met the last two TNT participants at mile 16 and they were walking, which wasn’t a total surprise since I had seen them at mile 11 and they were walking. The goal for them was to finish in six hours but they had encountered some issues along the way and that goal was fading as fast as the temps were rising. Now I’m not a fast walker by any means, so for me to keep up with these ladies meant I would be jogging and walking. We knew from our watches that a lot of the volunteers would be long gone and the fluid stations would be self-serve but that didn’t deter these ladies one bit! I normally have an abundance of things to talk about during a run but 10 miles of walking would get close to exhausting my entire repertoire of tales and advice.
Fast forward nine miles and a exhausted marathon sweeper. My feet are burning and my shins are screaming at me. Now I remember why I run, this is hard! We even had more coaches come out to greet us.



Even though we didn’t make the ‘official’ finish time our final participants were welcomed with open arms at the finish line.



Notice the time in the lower left corner and yes they're carrying a BEvERage!

Bayshore TNT Event

Bayshore ½ and Full Marathon report to come.

Here’s Great Lakes Running Girl Looking for a shortcut on across the lake.

Why Me?

Can somebody tell me why am I going through the agony and effort? I went to another ‘EXTREME hurt your body in new places” class. The trainer held it indoors so we could get in some core work and use more of the equipment.

The class consisted of a routine of doing thirty repetitions of three exercises. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, until you make it four sets with little or no time for recovery?

It’s amazing what a person can have a group of endorphin craving individuals do. I hate doing squats as a solitary exercise, why would I want to do them with my arms raised holding two dumbbells above my head? We did that thirty freaking times! Okay, now do thirty pushups and finish off this set with thirty squat jumps onto an elevated step.

First set, no problem!

Second set, hey this is getting a little tough.

Third set, WTF I can’t feel my arms. I can’t do one pushup and I sweating like crazy.

Fourth set, I’m not doing this shit, I hate that MF.

Then Mr. Trainer realizes that we have time left for some ab/core work. Why should I do this, I love my BEvERages and I’m looking forward to my big belly.

Needless to say I finished the class but it got me to thinking, why am I going through this?

A Lifetime Fee

I just received a very interesting email offer. How would you like to have a lifetime entry into a marathon? The race is guaranteeing a lifetime of racing for a one-time fee. Now of course that is the lifetime of the race first and foremost and then your life expectancy. The price is based on breaking even after five years. Here’s the link to the race: www.grandrapidsmarathon.com

This got me to thinking about what else would I pay a one-time fee for a lifetime? Chrysler is paying $2.99/ gal of gas for customers that purchase their cars during a specific time. Would you have purchase a lifetime of gasoline a few years back for say, $2.00/gal, even when we were well under that price?

How about those lifetime memberships to Vic Tanny, did any of you get in on that deal?

How about running shoes for life, but you have to stay with the same brand and model?

Since the team is tapering, so is the coach. I’ll get in a few short runs but nothing worth mentioning, I love tapering.

The Word ‘just’

It’s that time in the training when the participants always preface their mileage with the word ‘just’. This past Saturday, all they ran was ‘just’ eight miles or the ½ participants did ‘just’ six miles. I remember when these were their long runs! A few of them did comment on how the time has gone by so fast, even though we started in February and the weather hasn’t changed a lot!

I remember once when Grete Waitz ran the New York marathon with Fred LeBeow before he past away. She mentioned how difficult it was to run at a slower pace than she was accustomed to. Well, I spent my Saturday doing damage control tagging along with one of my participants for most of their long run. Since most of the team was doing shorter mileage, this participant had my undivided attention.

I swear that I was more fatigued from running a much slower pace over the course of seven miles than I would have been running at race pace!

Once again the weather in the high-five state for this weekend was crappy. We had rain, sunshine, wind gust and cooler temps in just the morning hours!

O.K. Now Do You get it?

O.K., Avatar, Work With Me

I’m sure that Blogland will be buzzing about the Wii Fit systems. Who out there plans on purchasing it?

Oh, Da Pain

"Fat, dumb and drunk is no way to go through life..."

I’m beginning to think I can live with this look. I am incapable to using the lower half of my body. It hurts to walk! I’m too old for this. I hate exercise! Okay, this is what put me in this predicament.



Tuesday was another session of EXTREME Body Sculpt, which I thought went pretty good. I have to remember to leave my ego in the locker. We did Prisoner Squats, ran up ramps, side lunges and the obligatory pushups. Of course, I have to be one of the faster, stronger participants. These are all performed as one set, so this means repeating the process three times.

Since its Tuesday, I have to go run with the Downtown Runners that evening. Are endorphins the chemical that makes you think you can do anything? On a normal day after the run, I would ice any parts that were aching but since we partake in BEvERages after the run……
Wednesday, and I can walk but not like real walking. The more I move the better it’s starting to feel. What form of exercise should I indulge in today? Hey, there’s a Spinning class over there, let’s join in and get the legs really moving. Forty-five minutes later and I can’t walk up stairs. Once again, I’m not the smartest person in the world, those damn endorphins.
Did I mention a track workout with TNT?

Happy MD

Since it was Mother’s Day and the weather sucked, it became a day of rest for me. I’ve been called a mother before, so I decided to give the old body a rest.
Since Sandy was off doing her 50k trail run, I did the cleaning and cooking. That’s right I loaded the dishwasher and fired up the grill!
We were scheduled to go the Tigers vs Yankees baseball game but it was rained out, so instead it was television watching with BEvERages!
Sandy returned from Gnaw Bone with a new respect for ultras and the inability to walk down stairs!
I hope all of you mothers had a great weekend!

Happy Mother’s Day

Why does it bother me?

We had our 20/13 mile training run today and everyone did really well. These guys are ready for their events. I sent out an invite to some of the recent TNT alumni to join in on the fun and it was great to see a few showed up and help out.
Thanks to Sue, Debbie, Elsa, Robin and Cassandra. They ran with the group and shared their recent experiences at their TNT events. Sometimes hearing from a peer sinks in better than coming from the coach.It still brings a smile to my face when I hear the words, ‘this is the farthest that I’ve ever run’.

I would have had an additional coach but Sandy is down in Gnaw Bone, Indiana running in a 50k ultra. Boy, just because she has a head lamp doesn’t mean she has to run an ultra! It’ll be interesting to see how she does.

Well there was no running for me since I was course marshal, fluid station volunteer and course cheer leader for the team. It’s amazing how that can tire you out or was it the alarm going off at 5:00 AM?

Okay, here’s where the post title comes from.I know that I can’t please all of the people all of the time and that’s a way of life. So why does it bother me to have one person that isn’t pleased? I try to be attentive to each participant and it gets tough on the longer runs because of the distance between runners based on their pace. I had a runner that was struggling and I wasn’t there for them and it gnawing at me. Notice the gnaw reference again? It wasn’t life or death and I know I can’t be everywhere but it gets to me.

Okay, maybe a few BEvERages will get my mind off it!

Proud Almost Dad

My kids that went to Vancouver. Of course one of mine decided to wear her purple instead of white!

Why am I so stupid, oh I mean competitive?

Why would I partake in a class that has the word ‘Extreme’ in it? Well I am stupid sometimes and competitive the rest of the time.

The Wellness Center at my job offered a challenge to the employees to take ‘Extreme Body Sculpt’ class and being the athlete that I think I am, I jumped at it (more on this later).

Now I normally don’t take a lot of group classes because I tend to go overboard and pay for it later. Who really wants to see a grown man cry in a Pilate’s class?

These classes are a combination of movements that you never do in your daily routine, like the Push-up to Squat Jump!

I can do push-ups and I can do squats, why do I need to put them together?

Jumping is one of the activities that I shy away from after a knee surgery and arthritis, but remember I’m stupid and competitive.

Hey, I made it through three sets with minimal knee pain, but we weren’t done.

If this wasn’t in a class environment I would have stopped and walked away, but nooooooooooooo.

Hey, let’s do some jumping in place with our knees touching our outreached hands, are you kidding me?

Two sets of these and I can feel the throbbing in both knees, but we’re doing three sets.

Did I mention that all of this is being performed outside on concrete? I know, now the stupid in me kicks in.

So needless to say, I completed the class with my dignity in tack.

Now if I can only get my pants legs over my swollen knees……………..

Oh Happy Day

I am no longer the last back of the pack slowest oldest runner with my Tuesday running/drinking group!

No, I’m not running any faster, we just picked up a couple of slower runners.

We ran through the longest Winter I can remember here in the high five state, so you would think warm weather would be a blessing. Well not if you go from running in a long-sleeved Tee to going shirtless in one day?
Fortunately, we ran through on of the oldest cemeteries in the Detroit area. Now I normally don’t like running in circles but this run was different, the trees were in bloom and the grass even looked greener than normal. Don’t you just love spring?
Another positive was that the old body held up without any pain, oh happy day!
Needless to say after the run we partook in cold, glorious adult BEvERages.

Maybe I’ll get a chance to get on the bike if this heat wave continues.

Some Assembly Required

Like most people, I like things simple, so I purchased my new toy because it was wireless, which translated into simple for me.
I remember the first wired computer I installed and didn’t want to go through that fiasco again. Who knew to wrap the wires around the bike stem?
So how can you spend three hours and two beers (obligatory beer reference) installing and configuring a wireless bike computer? The physical installation was pretty straight-forward but who knew that you would have to configure this thing?
The instructions were really of no use to me, even though they were printed in eighteen different languages.
This little 2.5 GHZ computer that has features my first car didn’t have needs to differentiate all of the signals that it was receiving from the numerous sensors on the bike. Is the signal coming from the heart-rate monitor or the cadence sensor or is it the speed that I’m cruising?
After several failed attempts at synching every signal, I was cruising down the street monitoring my RPM as my heart rate climbed along with my speed.
I can now tell other cyclist what the temperature is while riding, doesn’t everyone need to know that?
I am also glad to announce that my TNT team in Vancouver rocked! Most of the full marathoners wanted to run sub 4 and all of them did except one, who ran 4:03. Can you believe it, these people ran between 3:45 and 3:53! I am so proud of them all.

Go Team

My new toy

This is going to make me get out on the bike and ride like Lance!
Now I have a heart rate monitor for whatever I’m doing. I have the Garmin, Polar and now the Trek.
Remember when you would just run or bike and not care about receiving a signal or if the distance was correct?
I plan on taking the bike outside today, even if it’s just riding trough the sub-division.
I did run this morning and it was a little chilly, when is the warmer weather coming?
Go Atlanta Hawks!

I'm Not a Slacker

After my cramping episode, I decided to take another day off from running and just strength train. Why do I feel like a slacker for not running when the weather is conducive, especially since we had the winter from Hell!

It just doesn’t seem right to open the fridge and enjoy the cold refreshing flavor of that first beer, while you still have your work stuff in hand!
I’ve been reading that some bloggers have been receiving some free swag to try, so I plan to mention beer in every post for the next year!

Did you hear that, BEER!

Okay, not every day but whenever possible.

Good luck to my spring TNT members up in Vancouver, BC this Sunday, May 4, 2008. As one of the reporters from Vancouver coined the phrase, “May the fourth be with you”.

Corny but cute!

I need to find the time to get my bike off the trainer and onto the road, everyone else is already putting in miles. RunnerGirl is already taking part in a duathlon this weekend and I haven’t been outside yet?
So much to do and so little time…………………

Oh The Pain

This morning I was awaken to the worst muscle crap that I have ever had! Now we’ve all had the calf muscle cramps, where you can sorta walk them off and get back to bed with not a lot of noise but this was way different. I had the most excruciating pain in my left quad muscle that I’ve ever had. This was not one that a walk would get rid of. It was so bad that I scared the crap out of Sandy with my yelling. It’s also at these times when my mind just goes off into Lalaland.
Should I go to Emergency? For a crap!What if this is more than a cramp, I’m probably having a stroke!Where are my pants?I can’t see, I’m going blind too? Oh the lights are off……
After three minutes of massaging and having a heating pad placed on the area, I was finally able to lie back down in bed but my mind was going a thousand miles an hour. This is always when I find myself so vulnerable, in the middle of the night. My own mortality comes to the forefront of my mind. I start to think about all of the possible illnesses that I’ll probably contract and eventually cause my demise. I can’t even fight off the common cold, how am I going to handle cancer? What if I get one of those one month to live speeches? I am such a baby about this stuff.Hey the creator of LSD died the other day, he was 102 years old, maybe that’s what I need……
This getting old crap SUCKS!