#megsmiles/ 8 miler with the wifey

 Good Morning!

It's been a long time. Life is busy, both work and home. I'm not complaining... I'd rather have a busy life than an empty life!

My wife and I are in full swing marathon training mode.  With roughly 4 months until the Vermont City Marathon, we are buckling down and following our training schedule.

Saturday was supposed to be an off day but we both managed to get out for a run because of a very important reason. On January 13th, Meg Menzies a mother of three, was killed by a drunk driver while out on her morning run.  In remembrance of her loss, the running community organized a way to honor her life.  Anyone who ran on Saturday the 18th was supposed to post their mileage on Facebook with the hashtag #megsmiles. In all, 70,000-100,000 runners ran for Meg on Saturday! This speaks volumes of the person Meg was and how strong our running community is!

On Sunday, Meg and I were scheduled to run an 8 miler.  All the running parents out there understand when I say that it's really hard to run together unless you have a great support system to help you out!  Luckily, my wife's parents are more than willing to take CW when needed!  While CW was enjoying a treat at Walker Cake Company, the wifey and I set out for an 8 miler.  Here's our route...

Running together is not only good for us physically, but also mentally and emotionally as well.  At a time in our lives when we are usually exhausted by 8 PM and have varying schedules, these runs allow us to catch up and are almost like a date.  It was soooo nice to be able to talk for those 8 miles and to spend some quality time together.  Thanks to my in laws and to the wifey herself!

HAPPY RUNNING! 🏃👟

7 Mile Sunday Run/Bleeding Through My Gloves

Let me start out by saying I went out for a run last night for the first time since Wednesday. Because, sub-zero temps and no treadmill means no running for Matt Thursday and Friday.  So, I was all excited because yesterday I purchased a new iPhone 5s and wanted to try the fancy updated Map My Run app on it.  Everything that could have gone wrong did! 

1. The new Map My Run is waaaayyy different and messed up the whole .4 mile run...  (Yes I only ran .4, I'll get to that later)

2. The 5s is wicked sensitive to being touched.  I didn't have my arm sleeve with me so I put it into jacket pocket.  Again, the whole .4 mile run buttons were hit, opening and closing things etc. etc.

3. Finally, I hadn't taken one of medicine yesterday because I was waiting for a refill.  When I don't take it, I sometimes feel a little fuzzy.  The feeling I got when I started running was complete dizziness.  The reason I only ran .4 was because when I got to that point, I became so dizzy that I almost fell, bracing myself not to fall.  I turned right around and walked back to my car.

This was a lesson that every runner needs to take seriously.  Listen to your body! I could have easily kept running and injured myself badly. But I didn't and I lived to run another day!

Today's run was simply perfect!  7 miles of comfortable running in great winter weather!  You know those runs where keep feeling stronger the farther you go?  Yeah, it was one of those.  And If you saw me out there I probably looked like this...

That run was exactly what I needed. I had a great rest of my day, spent with  Meg, CW and her parents.  

By the way... my hands are so dry that my left middle finger knuckle cracked and bled through my glove today!

Back to school tomorrow!  Oh, and one more thing! I'd like to thank L.U.N.A.R. and the Southern Tier Running Club for their shoutouts on Facebook!

HAPPY RUNNING!

🏃👟🎧

Baby, it's cold outside...

Good evening all!  

This entry is to give you all something to read while you are trying to stay warm tonight.  Meg is up in Hornell with her friends and CW and I are cuddling up by the fireplace!  If you know me, you know I will rarely complain about being cold.  Tonight, I actually turned the fireplace on! 

The bad part of all this cold weather is that there has been no running for me in the past two days.   The good part... Lots of time to spend with CW and Meg!

The past couple of days have been spent shoveling and playing! Oh... And eating too.  Meg made pepperoni bread to bring to her friend's house and because she loves me, she made a loaf for me too!  

CW and I are going to spend the evening watching one of his favorite movies The Lion King.  Here are some pictures of our night and inspirational running meme to keep you warm!

Snowed in/Running Goals of 2014

Back in from shoveling outside...

It's been a wonderful day full of lounging, eating, playing and blogging!  CW (Charlie my son) is currently taking his afternoon nap.  Before that we had spent the day playing and watching Harry Potter movies!  We played with cars, blocks and even painted.  Well, Meg was in charge of painting. But, I did help!  

Sadly, I couldn't go for a run today. It would be too dangerous to go out on the roads.  Here's some pictures to show you what we've been up to.

Since it's the New Year, I'd like to post some running goals to keep me on track for the next year.

Mileage Goal - 1000

Marathons 

Vermont City Marathon: May 25th

God's Country Marathon: June 7th

OBX Marathon: November 9th

Half Marathons

Skunk Cabbage Half (Ithaca, NY)

Shoreline Half (Hamlin Beach, NY) July 

Catherine Valley Half (Watkins Glen, NY)

Oak Tree Half (Geneseo, NY) or 18.12 Challenge (Watertown, NY)

Nittany Valley Half (State College, PA)

Relays and Other Races

Spring Forward Distance Run 15k (Pittsford, NY)

Seneca 7 Relay (Geneva, NY)

Boilermaker 15K Road Race (Utica, NY)

Well, that should keep me busy! These are goals, and I know that I won't have time to be able to do all of those races... But one can hope!

HAPPY RUNNING

New Year's 4 Miler Big Flats, NY

Welcome to Southern Tier runnerDAD! Appropriately, my first post will be about a race that I ran with my family on New Year's Day.

First off, I totally psyched myself up for this race too much.  I made a goal to finish in under 31 minutes, hopefully closer to 30.  I planned a race strategy and it was all I thought about on New Year's Eve.  Thankfully, it worked out, but I have vowed not too work myself up for races like this anymore!  It's much more fun to run for the fun of it!

Meg (my wife), my father-in-law Duane Saxton, and my mother-in-law Michelle Saxton arrived at Big Flats American Legion at 11:15 for the noon race.  It was a great community event put on by the Southern Tier Running Club.  We saw many friends including Deb Vandelinder, Carrie Hale and even our Representative Tom Reed!

Race temperature was a balmy 19 degrees. At 11:40, I decided it would be a good idea to go out for a brief warm up run.  I chose to run at a pace that was about 15-30 seconds slower than I wanted to run for my race pace.  Oh man was I glad that I decided to warm up!  My legs had the feeling of having bricks attached to them.  By the end of the warm up my legs had a loosened up and were ready to go!

I had already decided that my race strategy would be to run at 90-95% of my 5K pace while picking people a few dozens yards ahead of me to pick off one at a time.  I started with only about 15-20 people ahead of me so pretty quickly I was in 10th place and there were no more people to pass.  Thankfully, I found a 64 year old man who was going exactly the pace I desired.  During the entire race I would keep him about a dozen paces ahead of me as a measure.  This man was not only fast, but he was effortless at doing it as well.  While I was huffing, puffing, drooling and spitting, he was galloping easily ahead of me.  I would like to thank him for getting me through the race at a great pace.

During the race it began to snow, giving the race a calm beautiful winter atmosphere.  The bad part was that the cold caused parts of the course to be dangerously slippery (just one of the many hazards of being a runner!)  A part of the course went through Big Flats Community Park.  The road/trail was very icey and a couple of participants fell during that portion of the race.

The first mile of the race went great. As well as the second.  After that, however, realizing I still had half a race to run was quite daunting.  It was around mile two where I passed a few motorists going the other way that obviously didn't understand the concept of the pedestrian having the right of way.  I'm going to get up on my soapbox here for a second...  If you are driving towards a runner please give them plenty of room to run by.  I will do everything possible to get out of your way as well.  I understand that sometimes it is hard to give a runner an appropriate amount of room because of traffic coming in the opposite direction.  If so, please slow down.  It is much more important to be safe than to get somewhere 5 seconds sooner. OK, stepping off the soapbox now.

Mile three was quite tough.  I did have my runner guide to get me through it though.  Thank God for him, because there was not a runner a 1/4 mile ahead of us or behind.  There were a couple up hill portions during this mile which made it a little better.  You'll come to learn, I LOVE hills!

After mile three I had to dig deep!  Considering I was going close to my 5K pace I was now entering un-chartered territory.  I have run 5Ks, 10Ks, 15Ks, Half-Marathons, and a Marathon, but never a 4 mile race. This was a race pace that I had never tried before.  If the race had ended at 5K I would have had about a 22:30 time, which would be about 45 seconds off my PR.  It being winter I thought that was pretty awesome.  The last mile was tough.  I totally misjudged where I was on the course.  I forgot that there was a significant hill before the end of the race, so I kicked it up a notch entirely too early.  I passed my race buddy and was in 9th place.  And then there was the hill...

I know what you're all saying, "You love hills, why are you going to complain about one?!"

I had used what little energy I had left in my kick.  So that hill was tough!  My runner buddy passed me on the way back down the hill and we coasted through the last 1/4 mile and I finished with a time of 30:23.  I met my goal! Yeah!!!

I ended up getting 10th place in the race only finishing 5 minutes from the winner.  Meg ran with her dad and mom.  Michelle and Duane even got 3rd place in their age groups, respectively!  I think Michelle's face was redder from getting her medal than from the run itself!

Thanks again to the Southern Tier Running Club for putting on a great race and for Yellow Jacket Racing for doing the timing and results.  I had a great time and many memories were made!

Below is a picture from the finish line and here is a link to the story from WENY-TV NEWS.  You can see me plodding along at :25.  I'm wearing all the neon...

HAPPY RUNNING