One year of PhillytoLAonFoot

June 30 marked the one-year anniversary of PhillytoLAonFoot.com. As I was preparing to head to Europe, I didn't get a cake or celebrate in any proper (note the European term) way. One year is actually fairly significant in the blogging world where blogs rise and fall more than Gordon Brown's popularity (again, I'm staying intra-continent).

Anyway, I had a chance to re-read some of my first posts about the first run, my progress when I started (from early May 2007) and whether I'm really running from Philadelphia to Los Angeles (spoiler: I'm not). I also had a chance to reflect on my run of the New Orleans Marathon back in February of this year. Needless to say, it's been quite a journey and I appreciate all of the great comments and encouragement I got from you over this past year.

At this point, I've run over 950 miles and have run the equivalent of Philadelphia to Oak Grove, Missouri. It's been an amazing journey and I'm only a third of the way through. Here's to two more great years of blogging!

First non-American run

I'm in Cork, Ireland now and will be for the next couple of weeks. I'm "taking classes" at the University College Cork by day and drinking my weight in Beamish and Murphy's at night.

I was in Prague over the last couple of days. I really wanted to go for a run, but didn't for two reasons.

1) Prague is quite seedy and there are a ton of pick pocketers. Since the guy I was traveling with had a paper to write, he wasn't able to go with me. I didn't feel comfortable going along for the crime reason and for reason #2.
2) The streets in Prague are ridiculous. They aren't labeled or change every block and meander around so that there's no good way to find your way back to the hotel, even if I wrote down the directions and took a map.

But today after classes, I went for my first run in 6 days. Wow, I could not wait to lace up my shoes and hit the road. I ran from Centre City Cork to West Cork. I ran 10 kilometers (or 6.2 miles for you Americans) in about 55 minutes. I ended up starting in the "pub" district and then went into a residential area before turning around. That said, a couple quick thoughts about running in Europe:

1. I passed 10 bars in 3 miles, all but 2 of them were in the first .8 miles from city center.
2. I had to stop A LOT at intersections and double check that I wasn't going to get killed. I was pleased that that didn't happen.
3. We Europeans (yes, I'm grouping myself into them because I'm here for a month) love our round-abouts, or as you Americans call them, traffic circles. Back in the states, I think I've gone through a total of 10 in my entire life and hated every minute of it. I had to drive through no less than 30 of them on the way from Dublin to Cork. Today, I had to run through two of them. Question for the group? How does a former American run through a traffic circle? Just like having sex with a porcupine: very carefully.

That's about it from this side of the pond. I'll keep you posted and post some pictures once I remember to take my camera on the run.

Better to be in an active community or not?

As I was running today, I realized that I very rarely see anyone else running, biking or walking. Sure, on a really nice day I'll see a few people. Generally, though, it's either a non-active or gym community.

Now I understand why you'd work out indoors during the terrible winter we had. I didn't, but then again, I'm quite crazy. I was training for a marathon and couldn't bare to go back to a treadmill after I stopped a couple years ago.

When I make the hour or so trip to Boston, I always see runners, bikers and walkers. Boston is an active city and I think the city life tends to push that. Concord, New Hampshire, um, not so much.

So that brings me to my question. Do you think it's better to be in a physically active community or one considerably less so? I know the benefit of being in an active community--there's always someone running so you always have motivation to lace up your shoes and get out.

But, I do like the idea of being the lone crazy person that's always out running when no one else is. It gives me a certain badge of valor much like running in sub zero temperatures gave me during the winter. What do you think?

Oh, and a special programming note. I'm heading to Europe for the month of July for classes (yeah, that's what I'm sticking to). I'll be in Ireland, Prague and Amsterdam to name a few. I'm bringing my camera and absolutely can't wait to run and explore those cities. Europe, here I come!

Training to Ruin A Marathon

I enjoyed a satirical article from The Onion this morning called, "I'm Training to Ruin A Marathon". In the article, the author talks about the fears that a typical marathoner ruiner might have, like:

• the hornets die en route
• not slashing the tires of the first aid vehicles that follow the runners
• not consuming the right diet of pop rocks and soda to get in the right mood

Other important questions:

• Do you call the fire department to report a big accident at mile 12?
• Do you hip check people or stop abruptly?

All good questions. All good questions, indeed.

Progress - 6/14/08 (Pacific, MO)

I'm now 921 miles into my journey and just east of Pacific, Missouri. Pacific is just west of St. Louis and was established in 1859. It's a town of only about 5.5 square miles and 5,500 people. Pacific is on Rt. 44 and historic Rt. 66 (on which you can likely get your kicks).

Since the last update, I've passed through St. Louis and from Illinois into Missouri. I'll stay on Rt. 44 for another 400 miles through Oklahoma.

48 Miles in 48 hours?

During my 5 mile run in the heat today, I came up with an idea. I wanted to do something larger than a marathon, since I've done that. The idea of running 4-5 continuous hours just didn't do it for me. And then I thought...

How about if I run 48 miles in 48 hours? I could run 5 or 6 miles at a clip, take a rest and then start back up. Avoiding highways, Concord, NH to Nashua, NH would be about 46 miles. I could certainly find another 2 miles somewhere in there.

I could stay over night somewhere halfway in between and then finish the next day. I'd do it over a weekend and probably in October since it's much cooler up here at that point, but I can probably still wear shorts for most of the time.

I love the idea of a pseudo ultra marathon and the Ultramarathoner himself, Dean Karnazes, is my inspiration. He did 200 miles in about 48 hours which is far and away above what I'd ever think of doing. But never say never, I guess.

That said, here are a couple of initial thoughts.

1) I'm going to need lots of people to support me. They'll need to meet me at certain spots, bring clean clothes, food, etc.
2) I'd want to include friends around here that are runners who could run a portion of the race with me.
3) I'd also like to do a virtual run with all of my RBFs.
4) I'll need to figure out a way to charge electronics like my Garmin and my iPod.
5) I'll need to train multiple times a day to get ready for 5-7 mile increment runs.

That's just the first draft and I'm not 100% positive that I'm going to do it (just thought about it this morning).

So what does everyone think? Doable? Crazy? What tips do you have for something like this?

The Original Marathon Race Report

I came about an amusing race report by Pheidippides on the Complete Running Network that I wanted to pass along. See the Marathon Race Report from 490 BC.

This leads me to one of my running pet peeves. When you mention that you're running a marathon, some smart guy always mentions that the person, Pheidippides, who started the marathon, died at the end. They always seem to find themselves to be so clever and somehow better for being so smart as to not work so hard to run a marathon because of this superior knowledge. That, or you get people like Laura's manager who told her she wasn't a runner unless she could run faster than some random celebrities.

My guess is Pheidippides didn't stretch before or after (definitely not after), ingest any Clif Shots or take sodium tablets to balance his salt. He probably wasn't drinking Gatorade to keep his electrolytes up. My guess is that he also didn't carbo-load two nights before the run.

Just a guess....

One Year Down, Two to Go

Today marks a full year that I've been tracking my runs. More importantly, it represents exactly one-third of the way to May 18, 2010 which is the last day that I have to complete my run across the US from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. I've been tracking my progress on the upper-right corner of the blog.

I drove about 7 hours today so I had some time to reflect on what the last year meant to me in terms of running. I've had plenty of great running highs (and lows) and at the end of the day, I'm eternally grateful that I started this sport in the first place. After all, after losing more than 75 pounds from this sport, it's tough not to understand why I run.

But the biggest part of my year was the New Orleans Marathon. It was the pinnacle and celebration of my training and hard work. It was an accomplishment that I'll remember forever and I couldn't be happier to have completed something that I absolutely never thought I could do. (To see the progress, click here.)

OK, that's the reflection on the last year part. Here's the looking forward part. I have run around 850 miles since I started (May 18, 2007) and I'm a little shy of exactly one third of the way to Los Angeles. My knee is feeling better and the weather is getting warmer, so I'm excited to get back out on the roads to enjoy myself and this great sport.

For heaven's sake, I'm almost in St. Louis. I've run the equivalent of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to St. Louis, Missouri. That's a ridiculous amount of miles and I'm very proud I've done it. But now it's time to run the remaining 69% and land in LA by the time I graduate from law school: two years from now--May 18, 2010.

Here I come, road! I hope you're ready!

Spectators during routine runs and being a celebrity

I went on a nice 6-mile run this morning to try to get rid of some of the guilt of drinking a lot yesterday and the upcoming drinking tomorrow to celebrate the end of finals and my first year of law school. Woo hoo!

Anyway, since it's a nice day, there were a lot of people out cleaning their cars, walking, running, biking. I always enjoy these days because when people see you running it's almost like you're in a race and they're watching. I pretend that they're saying things like "look how fast he's running" or "wow, did you see how adeptly he made that turn and trounced up that hill?". I know they're not, but I can pretend.

During the winter in NH when it was in the single digits or negatives with wind chill, people gave me some seriously weird looks and I was positive I knew what was in their head. They thought I was nuts. Heck, I was nuts.

Speaking of that, as I was passing a girl (somewhere in the 18-25 range), she said "hi, Greg.". Odd, as I have no idea who she is. I'm not the most social homeowner and I'm sure that I've never introduced myself to her before. And yet she knew my name.

Now I'm used to the celebrity that I get from having this blog. People typically stop me when I'm having dinner with friends to ask for the autograph of the man behind PhillytoLAonFoot. So, I've gotten used to it--it's the tough part of being a celebrity, but Brad Pitt will tell you that it's not all bad. Besides, I always have a tough time trying to figure out if I should capitalize the "to" and "on" in the web site address. You know--the tough stuff celebrities deal with.

So, it could be that. Or, more likely neighbors happened to be outside and wanted to know the name of the crazy person who was running in subzero temperatures so that they'd get my name right when they wrote up the papers for the loony bin. Yeah, that's probably it.

Oh, and on a related subject, the knee is definitely starting to feel better. It tends to have a little soreness 2-3 miles into a run, but if I stop for a second and start back up, I'm generally fine. I'll figure it out someday....

Applefest Half-Marathon sign up

I just signed up for the Applefest Half-Marathon on October 4 in Hollis, NH. It should be a nice race, and a number of friends from law school said they'd run it and train for it with me which is why I signed up.

This was the first race I signed up for after the New Orleans Marathon. I had initially thought about the Chicago Marathon which Maddy, Charlie and Irish Blue (among others) signed up for. However, I've recently gone through a bout of new problems (diminishing--the problems, not my knee) and I wasn't confident that I'd be able to run the race before registration closes (which is soon if it hasn't happened already).

My big beef with the Applefest race is their absolutely maniacal rules for headphones. In the signup, you have to agree that if race personnel sees you with headphones on the course, you will be pulled off the course. I get that it's done for insurance purposes, but why get so crazy about it? Oh well...

Progress - 5/8/08 (Pocahontas, IL)

I'm 847 miles in and just north of Pocahontas, IL on Rt. 70 toward St. Louis. At this point, I have 69% of my trip left and with just slightly less than one-third of the time to completion (May 18, 2010). I'm a bit behind, but not much. With my knee feeling a bit better and the summer weather coming, I think I can make it up.

Pocahontas was named after the the famous Native American who saved John Smith's life. It was originally named Hickory Grove and later, Amity before changing its name in 1850 (thanks Wikipedia).

Country singer Gretchen Wilson was born and raised in beautiful Pocahontas.

Lincoln Tunnel 5K - Results

I completed the Lincoln Tunnel 5K race this weekend in New York City. There were over 2,000 people pre-registered and there were probably a couple hundred more people who signed up at the site.

If you're not familiar with the Lincoln Tunnel, it's the long tunnel that connects New Jersey and New York under the Hudson River. Needless to say, this was done purely for novelty as I can run a 5K in my sleep and I'd never get a chance to run through the Lincoln Tunnel again, unless I'm being chased.

The race itself was a lot of fun. It was pretty surreal running through a tunnel that I used to drive through all the time. The tunnel itself was pretty clean (they cleaned it the night before) and there weren't any problems with latent fumes or anything. We simply ran to the end of the tunnel (the New York side) and then ran back to the New Jersey side.

The tunnel itself was packed with runners and the chip was only for the finish line so there's no net time. I forgot to bring my Garmin, which wouldn't have been much help for distance but it would have for time.

As for my time, the official time was 30:18 (a 9:45 pace), but I think my time was closer to, eh, 27 minutes or so. I really couldn't care less. I was just out to have a good time and enjoy the once in a lifetime experience.

As an added bonus, my family was there with me and saw me finish. It wasn't quite the finish of the New Orleans Marathon (see report here and photos here), but it was great to have them there.

All in all, I was very glad I did it. It had a nice novelty and a T-shirt to wear for the ages!

UPDATE: ShoreTurtle posted some nice pictures of the race. Apparently he, unlike me as always, was prepared.

Progress - 4/18/08 (Hagarstown, IL)

I'm 823 miles into my trip and just north of Hagarstown, IL on I70 towards St. Louis. I'll continue on Rt. 70 until I hit St. Louis and then I'll continue southwest toward LA.

My progress has been slow since I've developed some knee pain, but I'm continuing. My goal is to be 1/3 of the way to LA by May 18 which is one year from the day I started tracking my runs and 2 years from the hopeful end of my journey.

Just what I didn't Kneed

Since the marathon, I've been enjoying the time off and have started to explore other areas of my town. I've run down streets that I had never run down before and explored a bit. That was fun and gave me some variety as the running has started to bore me a bit.

I didn't go out too far or too fast. I just let my pace naturally fall wherever it decided to fall. Since I'm not yet training for a race, I wasn't all that concerned with the pace. That said, some of the exploring took me up some unexpected hills that I wasn't used to training on.

So, long story long, I think I did something to my knee. The left side of my left knee is hurting quite a bit today. In fact, I only ran once last week and twice the week before because of the pain.

I don't know exactly what it is, but I thought it might be an IT band injury. I know that it's common for runners who do a lot of road running and one of the symptoms is outer knee pain. So, being the self-medicating doctor I am, I decided to buy an IT therapy band to put around my left leg to stop the pain. Did it work?

Well, kinda. The first time I used it it was under jogging pants and it kept sliding down and I had a tough time adjusting it. Yesterday, the first day that I could wear shorts outside (woo-hoo!), I decided to use it and go at a slow pace.

I was doing fine and was in mile 3 of 4. I stopped at a light to left traffic go and then started to run across the road. Apparently I planted my left foot first and that was the wrong move. I stumbled home and have been in quite a lot of pain ever since.

Now normally if I were working, I'd have insurance that would cover a doctor's appointment to get X-rays, etc. Turns out that our law school insurance likely only covers death--and even then, it's touch and go after filling out a lot of forms. So, I may very well have to just continue to rest it and try to figure out what the cause is on my own.

That said, my progress has been less than impressive and I'm just trying to stay off of it and let it heal. Oh, just what I didn't kneed. (get it?)

New Orleans Marathon Pictures

I finally got the pictures from the New Orleans marathon. By finally, I mean I've had them for a couple of weeks and am now just getting a chance to post them. There are plenty more, but these are the best.

Start of the marathon (I'm back by the big sign in the back)

In the park around mile 8

Around Mile 24 (I was starting to hurt at this point)

Right at the finish (the required Rocky pose at Mile 26.1)

The finish (note: raise your hands earlier next time)