Guest Race Recap: Manhattan Half Marathon

As predicted, I made the executive decision around 5:45am Saturday morning to wimp out of the half marathon. Whooping cough plus fever just seemed a little too aggressive to run on, even for me. Whatever, man, I paid my dues at last year's Manhattan Half! Kim, however, braved the Arctic conditions and is here to give you this week's race recap. 

I'll be stepping in to do the race recap for the Manhattan Half Marathon.  Dearest Monica has been stuck inside with the plague lately, and as any cautious runner (or Runner's World's Twitter feed) will tell you, there is a simple guideline for running while sick: head colds are fine, but as soon as you have a fever, you need to give yourself time to recover sans running in the cold.  

NYRR photo of the winter wonderland...

On playlists, pre-race nerves, and the (Washington) Post

There's no denying it-we're in the home stretch.  The Marine Corps Marathon starts in less than three days (courtesy of the stress-inducing countdown that we've managed to ignore for the past few months as the number fell inexorably lower), and both Monica and I are in the last stage of our taper--the part that comes with all the nerves and apparently a feeling of being overstuffed thanks to our new glycogen reserves.  Hot.

There are no doubt thousands of articles, blogs, and seasoned runners willing to provide advice on how to combat the intense stress we're going through now, but true to style, I'd rather stay calm through a series of distractions and occasionally reminding myself that we have trained for this and will be fine.  Our last long run we did together (16 miles a few weeks ago) was fantastically reassuring and steady at a 10 min/mile pace, and provided a big enough boost in confidence that despite my necessary downtime to let my muscles get their act together (thanks, plantar fasciitis) I feel like I'll be fine. 

This is good, because almost all of the articles about the MCM that we've seen over the past week or so (Monica's mother has been sending her basically everything she sees, which is lovely) have somehow managed to mention the fact that some people don't finish the race (see the Post's article entitled Not everyone will finish the Marine Corps Marathon. That's what makes it a race. Seriously guys? Not helping). 

Corpse colored hot pockets aka Kim's foray into barefoot running!

Continuing with the past week's theme of running accouterments, today Kim dissects her first crack at barefoot running. Beat me to it! Oh and sadly I wasn't creative enough to come up with the phrase "corpse-colored hot pockets" to describe the Vibram FiveFinger gloves; credit goes to the crazy reviewers at Runner's World for the most apt description ever.

Hi everyone! Back for guest post numero dos, on something that seems to be stirring up a lot of attention lately: barefoot running. In the past two to three weeks, I've seen two huge articles about the idea that maybe we weren't built to use extremely padded running shoes, another on what walking in heels does to one's foot over time, gone on a soul/sole-searching quest to get Monica new running shoes, and managed to get into a position where I attempted a barefoot run myself.

Run, Lola, Run aka Running in the Garden of Horses

Today we have a lovely guest post from Dasha (!!), who managed to work in a touristy run while visiting Stuttgart. Obviously Dash isn't in Germany in the photo, just evidence that running is also very handy when terrorizing Tanzanian goats...

So while Monica has been training for her 192,839,280kilometer-uphill races, I am lucky if I motivate myself for a 200 meter trot every other week. However, while I was visiting the lovely German city of Stuttgart, I got dragged out for a run by one of my friends. Now, to be fair, my friend K works on one of the U.S. military bases in Stuttgart and actually has a physical component to his job; therefore, our definition of "running" was a bit different.

MCM history lesson courtesy of Kim!

So as Monica announced, the two of us are now officially committed to running the 35th Marine Corps Marathon on Halloween in Arlington and Washington, DC. I’ve been set on running it since about December, and am super excited that Monica will be joining (I can’t say I expect to be able to keep up with her…I have no desire to do anything but finish, and maybe not be picked up by the stragglers’ bus at mile 20). I’ve been marginally involved with the MCM for the past two years through running the MC10K, which is held at the same time as the marathon, and ends up at Iwo Jima a couple hours before the first marathon finishers cross the line.

The MCM bills itself as “the People’s Marathon,” primarily because it doesn’t do anything to try to attract professional runners—there is no prize money, and no appearance fees paid to the professionals who boost the standing of some other marathons which will remain unnamed in case I ever decide to run them. As a result, I think the MCM is about as unintimidating as you can get for marathons (you know, one you get over the fact that it’s a marathon and all).