Armistice Day

Today I FINALLY got back out running after two weeks of struggles. Annie has to be at work at 6 AM and lately she's been getting scared walking by herself in the morning. That's understandable since there's not many people out at that hour and Baltimore is a forbidding city in the dark. I've also been worrying about her too, so I've started getting up with her and either walking her to work or driving her down there, depending on how we feel. It takes a weight off both our minds that she's safe, but it means I can no longer run in the morning. Which actually is OK because I have had zero success in motivating myself to wake up and run in the mornings. I just can't be bothered for some reason even though I go to bed fully intending to wake up and run.

But I have found a solution. There is a gym at my office that employees can join for $25 per month, which is a steal. It's fully equipped with treadmills, weights, and locker rooms with showers. So, I joined last week and am going to start running midday. I can go down to the gym, change and head outside to run when it's warmer and lighter. I can then come back and shower before going back to work. And I have lots more motivation in the afternoon than I do in the morning. For now, it's a good solution.

Unfortunately, my lack of running means I'm going to have to not run Richmond on Saturday, but honestly there's no way I could complete 13 miles at this point. I've let my fitness erode too much and would risk injury if I tried to push 13 miles out of my body. So, there's always next year, but it's a nice $70 penalty for laziness, to be sure. My next race is the Green Valley North Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day, which I will be ready for, I believe. Annie may still run that with me, we'll see.

In closing, here in the U.S. today is Veterans Day, where we celebrate the memories of those who have given so much, and some who have given it all, for our country and our freedom. It's no small statement to say that there is no higher sacrifice to make for one's country than one's life. Even those veterans who came back from war in 1918, 1945, 1953, during the years of the Vietnam War, 1991 and today gave some piece of themselves, great or small, for the greater good. For that reason, every day should be Veterans Day.

In Europe, November 11th has an even deeper meaning. While Veterans Day in the U.S. is a celebration of Veterans, it's a day of remembrance in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and across the Continent. It's difficult to equate Armistice Day in Britain or France with an American holiday. If we held a day of remembrance on April 9, the day marking the end of the Civil War, it might be the same. 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War and the country was fundamentally changed forever. 700,000 Britons and 1.4 million Frenchmen died in World War I, effectively sealing Europe's fate for the rest of the 20th century. Another 1.2-1.5 million Germans died in the war. It's almost impossible to visit a town in France or England today and not find a monument with the names of the town's war dead from the Great War somewhere. To this day, most people in Britain purchase red poppy pins that they wear in the weeks leading up to Armistice Day. The proceeds go to help today's British veterans and it's a national sign that they haven't forgotten the enormous sacrifice that generation made.

Every major war can be told through some form of communication. The Revolutonary War was told through letters and diaries of soldier and Founding Father alike; the Napoleonic Wars were told in huge historical texts compiled over many years; the Civil War was the first war to be photographed; World War II and the Korean War were caught on black and white film; Vietnam was fought in living color; the Gulf Wars were fought on live television. World War I is unique in my mind in that much of its horror and sadness and nobility is told through poetry. I've never been a fan of poetry, although I certainly appreciate the insight and talent it requires. But some of my favorite prose comes from poets who fought on the front lines in France and, in some cases, who died there.

I would suggest finding and reading The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry (Revised) to get a flavor. It's possibly some of the best war writing you'll ever read, if for no other reason than it conveys the sadness of the Great War better than any book ever will. My favorite poem of the WWI poems, and possibly one of my favorite poems period, is The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke. Check it out:

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Upside down week!

After an insane week that saw me run but twice, I'm hoping that not only will I be able to start running more often, but that I can get back to more regular posting. Just a quick summary:

We got back from the honeymoon on Saturday night and I was back at work on Monday without any problems. Monday passed without incident and I arrived at the office on Tuesday thinking that maybe life would calm down now that the wedding and everything was over. Halloween was coming up and my biggest concern was how I was going to get a costume together in three days that didn't require me to dress up and look rediculous at work on Friday AND that would not require any monetary investment on my part.

At 11 on Tuesday morning my company announced that they would be laying off about 1/3 of the total workforce due to the market conditions and declining business, which effectively threw my week out the window. They also said that the final decisions would be announced Thursday morning, which essentially meant that very little work woudl be done until then as people worried about their jobs. Annie and I spent the next three days worrying and planning for the chance that I would be unemployed by Thursday afternoon. Thankfully, my job was spared, although my team of analysts was cut in half, which may cause many more problems in the long-run for the three of us left. But at least I'll get my salary for the immediate future.

So, by Friday night, we were both exhausted and blew off the Halloween parties we had been invited to in favor of chilling. Saturday I spent on the couch relaxing and today I plan on watching some football, getting some errands done and generally gearing up for the new week.

As far as running goes, my renewed committment to training was interrupted mid-week. I got another short run in yesterday morning, which was fine, however, I'm not confident that I will be ready to run a half marathon in two weeks seeing as how I have yet to run a long run since Baltimore back on the 11th. It would suck to miss Richmond, but in the end, I don't want to drive down there and end up injuring myself or being as rundown as I was after Baltimore due to severe undertraining. We'll see, but that may be $70 I just never get to enjoy. The next race would be the Green Valley North Turkey Trot 5 Miler on Thanksgiving Day, which Annie wants to run as well. I think that might be a more realistic goal given that I have lost yet another week to the stresses of life.

At any rate, tomorrow I will get out for an easy run in the morning to re-start my efforts. Hopefully, this week will FINALLY be one without some major clusterf*ck getting in the way.

Back from Jamaica

After a whirlwind wedding weekend and then a nice, relaxing trip to Jamaica, we've returned to Baltimore ready to get back to our normal lives. It's a huge relief to have the wedding behind us, to be sure.

Unfortunately, I did no running whatsoever while away, but it was 85 degrees everyday in Jamaica with dew points in the high 70's so running was never that appealing to me anyway. I did get out for a short 3 mile run this morning to reacquaint myself with the colder, drier air. Tomorrow morning I'll get another 3 miles in before work and see how I feel. If I have no real troubles (aside from realizing how much fitness I lost over the week), I'll push the distances up to the usual 4-5 miles. The good news is that I have nothing huge going on for the next three weeks leading up to Richmond, so I should be able to get some long runs done and hope for the best.

Baltimore Half Marathon Post Mortem and Next Steps

So, with a day to digest my race and the entire weekend, I have to say that while I regret not being better trained for the race and bummed that I wasn't able to really challenge my National Half Marathon time, I am pleased that I was able to make the 13.1 miles and didn't crash and burn.

Nonetheless, I am sorer today than I remember being after the half marathon in March, which is definitely a symptom of sub-par fitness, but also the general hilliness of the course. I had no idea just how many hills there would be along the way yesterday, especially considering that much of the half marathon course was the back half of the full marathon course. With that in mind, I think I fared pretty well.

In addition to the hills, I was also surprised at just how many spectators there were on most parts of the course. You always expect lots of people to be at the start and finish lines, but I saw people out along much of the course, which was great. As bad as Baltimore's rep is (I mean, The Wire was so hated by the Baltimore political class because it was so accurate in showing the corruption and incompetence of the city government), there's a lot to like about living here, and running through the city seeing people cheer on runners on a Saturday morning was a good example of that.

So, once my legs recover (hopefully by Tuesday morning), what is next? Well, the next two weeks will be consumed with the wedding (next week I'll be married! Whoa.) and then the honeymoon to the Caribbean. Hopefully I can find some time to run during all that time. The Richmond half marathon is about 5 weeks away and I fully intend to be properly trained for it so I can set a new PR.

Ideally, I'd like to set a whole slew of PR's this Fall and Winter, starting with Richmond (half marathon) and then at the Green Valley North Turkey Trot (5 mile) and/or Celtic Solstice (5 miles). Maybe after Christmas I can enter a winter 5K and set a new PR there as well, we'll see.

For tonight, I will continue to recover and rest up so I can hopefully get back to running on Tuesday before flying out to Cincinnati on Wednesday.

Half Marathon Eve

And so here we are, less than 13.5 hours away from the Baltimore Half Marathon. A few brief thoughts:

1. I'm woefully undertrained for this race but I'm a mixture of both OK and unsettled with that. I mean, it's too bad I'm not in danger of setting a new PR, but sometimes a hobby is just that and you have to prioritize when other more important things demand abnormal amounts of attention and energy.

2. I am not a team runner. As I posted in previously, my company is a sponsor of the running festival and so I got to sign up for the half for free, saving me a cool $70 in the process. Unlike last year, this year our corporate communications department wanted to make this a morale boosting exercise. They gave us new Under Armour running shirts that we can wear in the race tomorrow, which was really awesome and far in excess of what I expected. They're red with the "company team" logo (I didn't know we had a company team, but apparently we're the Falcons because a falcon has a nest on top of the skyscraper) on the front and the corporate logo on the back, etc. But they also wanted all the sponsored runners to pose in their shirts for a picture yesterday around 4:45. I wasn't feeling that so much and just chose not to show up for the picture. I feel kind of bad about it, but not enough to do anything about it. I like running, but I prefer to do it by myself. I don't know; I'm weird.

3. I am nervous about the race, per usual, but will try to view it as a training run in preparation for my PR attempt of the season: Richmond. Richmond is a flat course and it'll be much cooler in November than it's going to be tomorrow. That should translate, all else being equal, to a better time.

4. To PR in Richmond, I must train better. I love the Baltimore Running Festival. Nothing is better than walking out my door and being at a world class race in 30 minutes. However, this year it just didn't pan out that I could make this the centerpiece of my racing season. Which is OK, actually. I'll have a great time tomorrow and this will be a nice step in my training for Richmond. In reality, deep down I wanted to make Richmond the main goal this year anyway, since it's on my birthday and it's several weeks after the wedding and honeymoon, which should mean less stress and distraction. This should also mean I can concentrate more on training properly.

5. I must train more CONSISTENTLY. Can't say this enough. I need to really try hard to get my ass out of bed in the morning to get my runs in and create a routine that makes that if not easier, than at least a little more bearable.

And with that, I'm off to plan my routine tomorrow and lay out my race clothes.

Go Falcons.

Delays and Roadblocks

That would be how I'd describe my preparation or lack thereof, for the Baltimore Half Marathon. As a result, I am woefully undertrained for this half on Saturday. However, while I am concerned, I don't really mind. The last few months have been stressful with the wedding, work, studying CFA material, moving and trying to fit in training somewhere in the middle. I'm tired and apathetic, which sucks. As a result, my running has been downright awful lately, but I have only myself to blame.

A few weeks ago I found out that my firm would not be reimbursing a fair portion of my CFA exam fees because it no longer wants people to take the exam in December, but would rather they take it in June only. They suggested I also delay taking it until June. At first, I said no, as I wanted to show them I was ready. But lately, reality has been setting in. With the wedding eating up two weeks of this month, I would have to take my books with me on the honeymoon, which was not appealing to me. I would be ready for the exam in December, but if the firm was going to let me take it in June and pay for all the associated fees, why not just postpone it, enjoy the wedding and holiday season, continue studying and have that much mroe time to really hit the ball out of the park when I sit for the exam?

Eventually, I decided that this was the best course of action. Not only will I be able to cut back on studying each week, but I won't be as stressed about the wedding and honeymoon and can devote some more energy to running again, which makes me happy. Plus, I think Annie wanted me to delay taking the exam since the firm was actually encouraging me to do it.

All this is by way of saying that while the Baltimore Half is probably not going to be my best race ever, the Richmond Half is a strong possibility. The bulk of the Fall/Winter racing season is still in front of me and I have 8 full months before the CFA now, rather than 2 months. That gives me the time I have been secretly craving to shore up my knowledge and get back to running on a regular basis.

This Saturday may be painful, but I'll make it and have a great time and for the first time in literally months not worry about getting as much studying done as possible.

Relief.

Cheesecake Factory...ugh

Last week was so busy that every time I thought about posting, something else came up and I had to push it back. Well, here we are nine days later. I got a few runs in last week and a decent 10 miler in on Sunday morning, long story short. The week was cool and dry in the morning, which made my runs in the morning fast and positive. However, a tropical depression came up the cost on Friday and brought two days of rain and wind with it. On the backside of the storm came the tropical humidity that is more typical of July than late September. It made running much more uncomfortable, to be sure. But I got through it and had no ill effects other than some general soreness. 

Monday I took off as planned. I had every intention of getting up this morning and running. In fact, I awoke with Annie around 5:15. However, we ate at the Cheesecake Factory last night and the food did not sit well with me overnight. I woke up several times with stomach pains. This didn't change when I awoke finally at 5:15. I felt slightly nauseous and my stomach still ached a bit. So, I ditched the run and went back to sleep. It was a good decision, as I awoke feeling better and now feel fine in the middle of the day. Needless to say, we won't be going back to Cheesecake Factory anytime soon (we only went because we had company from out of town visiting, otherwise we never eat in the harbor anymore). I forgot how heavy and greasy the food is there and my stomach was not ready for it. 

So, I want to get runs in the rest of the week. I'll be taking my long run on Saturday this week because I'm heading down to Washington on Saturday night to hang out with my step brother, cousins and step dad and won't be back until late Sunday morning or early afternoon. There's little chance of me wanting to do a 10 miler after a night out and train ride back to Baltimore. 

In other exciting news, tonight I am going to see a special showing of Spirit of the Marathon in north Baltimore! It's showing one night only and I talked Annie into letting me go tonight. I've been wanting to see this movie for about a year or so now and I've had two chances to see it before tonight. Both times I either had no access to a car or was otherwise occupied. It's being released on DVD soon, but I was hoping to be able to see it in the theatre before having to risk buying it on DVD and not liking it. I'm so excited to see the movie, especially with the Baltimore Half being just two weeks away. I'm hoping that the movie will inspire me and give me a little more impetus to get up in the mornings and put in the work. The Baltimore Half won't be a PR for me, given my lack of trianing these past months, but I think with high racing season approaching, I can still really work on my times and get some good results. Maybe The Spirit of the Marathon is just what the doctor ordered!

On the racing front, I have registered for the Celtic Solstice in December (one of my favorite races of the year) and the Green Valley North Turkey Trot in November. Together, both races cost me just $30 (30 cents a mile), which I consider a bargain. Now I just need to bite the bullet and register for Richmond before midnight tonight to save $10 on the fee!