Running with the birds or for the birds?

blockic

Best of luck in NY! Will keep an eye out on Sunday!

RubyK

Best of luck for Sunday marathastew, you've earned some great running karma after DCM pacing! Have a great one

PaulieYifter

Best of luck and enjoy yourself!

Dory Dory

Cancelled??? Really??? Wow....hard to believe they waited this long to cancel, but there was so much pressure these last few days, and if anything had gone wrong....

Maybe you'll get some nice shopping in......

......or perhaps re-build that house digger mentioned below. (Just watched a musically star studded news show to raise money for the Red Cross for hurricane efforts, and after seeing what these folks are going through, I'll come and re-build that house with you.)

digger2d2

Got a text from her, she was at the Expo when she heard... Very bad form to leave the cancellation this late. Myself and CL were sure she'd run sub 3.30 whilst re-building a house! Anyway, she's off to get pis5ed now

pgmcpq

Sorrythe trip ended like this for you. Badly handled. Hopefully you can both enjoy the trip - might see youin Dublin some day.

Marthastew

Thanks so much for all the messages of support:)

We got to run a marathon in New York:)
Runners from all over the world arrived at the park this morning with food, clothes and money to donate to the relief fund thanks to a facebook group called Runanyway.

Fantastic atmosphere in central park, hundreds (thousands?) of runners and so many locals out with drinks, sweets and never-ending words of encouragement, an amazing experience. Full report next week but I paced my friend to her first sub 4 and we met lots of Irish runners and highlight of the day was running the last couple of miles with a new Yorker dressed as Elf;) He even had a naughty list....
Sandy
Bloomberg
NYRR
A-rod

pgmcpq

Marthastew wrote: »

Thanks so much for all the messages of support:)

We got to run a marathon in New York:)
Runners from all over the world arrived at the park this morning with food, clothes and money to donate to the relief fund thanks to a facebook group called Runanyway.

Fantastic atmosphere in central park, hundreds (thousands?) of runners and so many locals out with drinks, sweets and never-ending words of encouragement, an amazing experience. Full report next week but I paced my friend to her first sub 4 and we met lots of Irish runners and highlight of the day was running the last couple of miles with a new Yorker dressed as Elf;) He even had a naughty list....
Sandy
Bloomberg
NYRR
A-rod

Great - you're amazing ! I though about this but I'm going to try a small marathon in pennsylvania in two weeks. Yup ...A-Rod is a waste is space !

ellie_sun

Marthastew wrote: »

Thanks so much for all the messages of support:)

We got to run a marathon in New York:)

Good on you Marthastew I spent a while in the park earlier today to support you guys and there was a really good atmosphere, glad you enjoyed it.

Marthastew

November 4th
ING NYC Marathon Run Anyway Central Park
After superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the east coast of the US this was never going to be a normal trip to good ole US of A. in the run up to the race I wasn’t my usual excited self as I was still unsure whether they had made the right decision to go ahead with the race. The night before I left I was tucking my boys into bed as I wouldn’t see them before I left and the 11 year old started to cry and told me he was worried the hurricane would get me:( I reassured him I’d be fine and while I wasn’t concerned for my safety I wasn’t sure what awaited us in New York. The flight over went great and when we landed I bumped into a running pal and we both commented on how we were a little apprehensive. My Canadian friend reassured me and when we got to Manhattan in our taxi and saw it was business as usual shops open, people having manicures…. I started to relax. We had dinner and went to the expo where we noticed people frantically texting and calling and it soon became clear that the race was called off. As Ellie Sun has said on her log, a training log is no place to be discussing the rights or wrongs of this decision and the fall-out it caused so all I’ll say is that, like the majority of people, I completely agree it should have been called off but this decision should have been made on Tuesday.
Rightly or wrongly we now found ourselves in New York and we decided to make the most of our trip, I felt very guilty about being tucked up in a warm hotel while so many were without power, homeless or even worse had lost family and friends. Having worked for United Airlines in my non-running life I have a lot of friends who live in or around the area. They were all extremely lucky to only be without power and they were so kind and worried about me arriving in case things got nasty. After the cancellation one of the runners from New Jersey started a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/RunAnywayNYC2012 and my friend was keen to join them. I’m not gonna lie, I would have happily given it a miss as there was still a lot of animosity towards runners and also it’s not like I hadn’t just run two marathons for fun, did I really need to run another one for fun? I had no intention of trying to break my PB for an unofficial race (I am that shallow;), who knew?). Just before I went to sleep I saw I had a PM alerting me to the possibility of a marathon in Phoenix Park for all those Irish who had registered for New York so that definitely meant I would not race the next day, we decided I would help pace her to a sub 4.
Sunday morning dawned, a glorious, glorious perfect day for a marathon and after breakfast we ran the 2 miles up to the park, on the way up we joined a large group of French runners and I started to get a little excited. We arrived, dropped off our clothes and food which we knew would be going to help Sandy Relief and started to run…. I was so happy to see loads of New Yorkers had turned out to cheer us on, they had water, Gatorade, sweets, there were lots of people collecting rubbish, and this race ran itself. I saw one Policeman at the Finish area but other than that this was park full of people running clockwise and counter-clockwise, all making sure they didn’t drop any rubbish and all cheering each other on.
I’ve attached my Garmin link below, as a lot of you know I’d consider myself a pretty good pacer so please do not look too closely at the splits:o My friend has been running for a long time but has yet to get the concept of a negative split, in fact she absolutely thinks you must bank time;) I let her take the lead a lot of the time as it’s not that long since I ran my marathons that way and I knew she was well capable of sub 4 (in fact with a little more training and discipline she’d do 3.45) so we ran and had fun. I met lots of Irish people and chatted with them and people from all over the world. We were doing great until 20 miles and she started to slow down, I found that if I stayed with her she slowed even more so I decided to run about 200 metres up ahead of her, this meant that she had to concentrate on seeing me and catching me and anytime she really slowed I’d run backwards shouting at her. All the runners in between us also shouted her name and she said that really helped. Before we knew it we had four laps done and only 2.2 miles to go, I stayed close to her and kept shouting positive encouragement. I knew we’d be well under 4 hours but I wouldn’t tell her what our time was as I knew she’d slow even more if she knew how well we were doing. All along I had been careful never to retrace my steps so that the distance for her would be the full 26.2 and when we got to 26 miles I ran up ahead of her and stopped at 26.22 and screamed that this was the Finish Line and yelled at her to run as fast as she could.
26.22 miles in 3 hours 53.13, we were both over the moon.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/240819283


So, where to now?
Well, thanks to the good people In Dublin marathon I get the chance to run my sub 3.30 on November 18th and although there is very little I can do between now and race day I posted on the main forum hoping someone would come up with suggestions on how I could be better prepared and as expected they told me what I’d tell anyone else in the same situation…There is nothing I can do except recover well and keep the legs ticking over. One area I can influence between now and then is my confidence (thanks to all those who replied for reminding me of this fact) and after a wonderful run this morning I now know I can do it (I am, of course, touching wood, saying novenas…) Sub 3.30 here I come, no excuses, the injury is gone I’ve got lots of endurance work in and with a little luck it will all come together on the day:)

Dory Dory

But it's SO hard to not want to bank time....or maybe that wisdom comes with experience. I promise I will not even give banking time a second thought for my next marathon.

And you are SO ready for that sub 3:30!!! You with the amazing legs and rear!! With all that yoga you do and all the classes you take, are you teaching by now??? You'd be an amazing instructor!

RacoonQueen

I was hoping to come out to the park and make up for not supporting you in DCM but club duties are calling.

digger2d2

Dory Dory wrote: »

With all that yoga you do and all the classes you take, are you teaching by now??? You'd be an amazing instructor!

Is yoga not meant to be quiet?

Brianderunner

Am i reading this correctly?

-Out for a month or so with an injury in Aug/Sept
-Running your 4th marathon in 6 weeks :eek:

Sounds a bit risky to me, but it looks like your mind is made up so best of luck

menoscemo

Brianderunner wrote: »

Am i reading this correctly?


-Running your 4th marathon in 6 weeks :eek:

Have you not heard? She has joined the 100 Marathon Club

Marthastew

Brianderunner wrote: »

Am i reading this correctly?

-Out for a month or so with an injury in Aug/Sept
-Running your 4th marathon in 6 weeks :eek:

Sounds a bit risky to me, but it looks like your mind is made up so best of luck

Actually I was out for quite a bit longer which makes things sound even riskier:eek: On the surface it does look as if I have indeed lost my running marbles and I understand (and appreciate) your concern... who knows, this time next week I might be regretting running that fourth marathon? However, sometimes you just have to go with your gut instinct (that same gut instinct that I stupidly ignored when my injury first started:rolleyes:) and I quite honestly feel great. The chiropractor has once again given me the all clear and I'm going to run my heart out next Sunday:)

menoscemo wrote: »

Have you not heard? She has joined the 100 Marathon Club

I was honoured to be allowed into the 100 marathon club and they gave me a warm welcome, although at my current rate of marathons I'll be close to 80 years old when I run my 100th;)



Week 29th October – 4th November
Total miles; 66.4 (including DCM and Run Anyway Central Park marathons:D)


The past week has been very busy with travelling and my sister and her family were visiting so I’ve only been able to fit in the odd run when possible.

Monday& Tuesday Nov 5th / 6th
Rest days/flying home from NY

Wed Nov 7th
5.65 recovery miles @ 9.41
This run was my reset button; I Headed up to Killiney Hill and let all the stress and tension of the weekend drift away as I picked my way through the leaves and the dogs, glorious view of the bay that is always guaranteed to make me realise how lucky I am:D

Thurs Nov 8th
75 minute Hot Ashtanga Yoga
6.04 miles; warm up @ 9.47. 4 @PMP splits (7.54, 7.56, 7.49, 7.28); cooldown @ 8.15
30 minute Spinning class
I received great advice on the main forum regarding what I should do until race day so I decided to go with a few PMP miles, they actually felt great so it was real confidence booster. I also put the “central governor” in order and have given her strict instructions on what we need to do this Sunday;)

Friday Nov 9th Hilly 5.46 @ 9.30 pace
I was up very early getting organised for a night away with the family so this was a tough enough run, sleepy at the start I warmed up and picked up the pace at the end. Fabulous views from Vico Road.

Saturday Nov 10th “almost naked run” approx. 2.47 miles in 23 mins
We were lucky enough to be away in Enniskerry and my sister and her family were leaving at 7am so I got up to see them off and had a fantastic run. The “naked” here refers to a Marathon talk podcast I just listened to, they’re urging us to go out and run “naked”; sans Garmin, sans iPod, sans… at least once this month. I had automatically put on my Garmin when I got dressed (half asleep;)) but I didn’t look at it at all during this run. After a tearful farewell with my sister I was definitely in need of this calming run. The sun had just come up and the colour of the leaves on the trees was simply breath-taking. Peaceful and quiet, I ran slowly and took in the beautiful views of the Sugar Loaf and surrounding areas:)

Sunday Nov 11th
Hilly 6.55 miles @ 8.51 pace
I was worried that this next marathon would be hilly as it’s in the Phoenix Park so I headed to Vico Road for this early morning run. Dublin marathon released the course route later in the day, no hills, lots of laps of the nice easy side of the park:D I think I’ll still stick to hilly runs for the last few runs I have planned as the hills help keep the pace down and I get more bang for my running bucks:)
Total miles for the week 26.17

KillianByrne

I was really sorry to hear about the NY Marathon for everyone who went over there. Delighted to see that you'll get to push on in the Phoenix Park next week, best of luck. Sunday 18th will be my chance to repay you for dragging me (most of the way!) through DCM 2012 - I'm looking forward to shouting for you and all the others from the side of the road.

Run fast & stay safe!

Marthastew

KillianByrne wrote: »

I was really sorry to hear about the NY Marathon for everyone who went over there. Delighted to see that you'll get to push on in the Phoenix Park next week, best of luck. Sunday 18th will be my chance to repay you for dragging me (most of the way!) through DCM 2012 - I'm looking forward to shouting for you and all the others from the side of the road.

Run fast & stay safe!

Thanks so much Killian, I hope you can make it in, I think the atmosphere will be fantastic and I'll be soaking up the support from you all.
I've decided I'm my own personal 3.30 pacer and therefore I'll be in good hands for the day:)

Dory Dory

Maybe digger will decide to show off his big guns and truncheon in this bonus round and pace you to a sub 3:30.

kit3

Best of luck at the weekend MS. Should be a unique one.

PaulieYifter

Best of luck at the weekend - I'll be thinking of you whilst lying by the pool in Lanzarote

Marthastew

I'm really looking forward to Sunday now, obviously I would have preferred these last few weeks to have worked out differently (most of all for those who have been seriously affected by Sandy) but it's most definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity and I intend to make the most of it.
And to make a great day even better Marvellous Mr Stew is pacing so our boys will once again get a chance to cheer us both on (I'm pretty sure they're sick of this marathon lark but they're at least pretending to be excited for us;))

kit3 wrote: »

Best of luck at the weekend MS. Should be a unique one.

Thanks, I hope your recovery after DCM is going well, I'm thrilled it went so well for you in spite of the late injury. I'm sure you've already got your next race in the calendar.

PaulieYifter wrote: »

Best of luck at the weekend - I'll be thinking of you whilst lying by the pool in Lanzarote

A very, very well deserved break after your massive PB:)

career_move

Hope ye have a great day on Sunday. Good luck with the PB....one step on the way to overtaking Mr Stew


Btw what time is Mr Stew pacing?

pgmcpq

Best of luck on Sunday. Sounds like a great event.

My grandmother used to say "Sure it's like America at home". And now it really is .

Look forward to the sub 3.30 report.

Dory Dory

The very, very best to you at the weekend. You and your epic buns need to smash this thing to bits!!! Woo hoo!!!!

ellie_sun

Best of luck on Sunday, looking forward to reading your race report

run44

Best of luck of Sunday, will be there to give ye a cheer!

belcarra

Best of luck on Sunday MS, although you won't need luck to break 3:30 if you run the race you are well capable of!
By the way I saw you mention it elsewhere about proposing a smack-down between the pair of us but that really is just so terribly uncouth and heavens forbid a girly beating my time?? Well, that's just not on!
So lets just term it a "friendly rivalry" and we can begin negotiating a reasonable lady handicap...my opening offer is 30mins...

Younganne

Best of Luck on Sunday MS, i hope you get the sub 3.30 time you're chasing and no doubt you will with all you dedication and hard work. I hope to get up to cheer you all on. Looking forward to the report.:D
its definitely one event that not too many will be able to claim... to have run the NY marathon in Dublin!!!

pistol_75

Best of luck on Sunday MS. Go for it. Hoping to make it in at some stage so I'll keep an eye out for you.