The great race swag debate revisited

One thing I'm very thankful for is that traffic to this blog has tripled over the past year. It's all relative because 3X very little is still very little, but it's meaningful to me. For the people who've only hopped aboard the Running Moron train in the second half of the year my favorite series of posts were the ones where I internally debated whether or not to wear the swag from a race I didn't run this year but have run in previous years (I was injured this year and had to pass, but I was registered for it). Ultimately, I decided to wear the swag. And then shortly thereafter I spent three months not running at all due to a stress fracture. Coincidence?

Anyway, I got an email yesterday saying registration for that same race, Baltimore's Survivor Harbor 7, opens on January 1. And! if you register within the first 25 hours you will receive as a token of appreciation a "vintage" tech t-shirt and pair of socks. Guess which t-shirt and socks are considered "vintage" this year. Last's year's t-shirt and socks!


What's old is new again.
So here's another twist on the debate: Is it kosher to wear the swag from a previous year if you didn't run that race that year, even though it was given to you because you're running it this year? And if it wasn't ok for me to wear the swag last year when it was new (even though I did), would be ok for me to wear it this year because it's "vintage" now and given to everyone who registers the first day they're able?

Obviously, there are no easy answers here. There are many moral, ethical, and legal dilemmas to consider when it comes to race swag. I mean, first there's the issue of.... eh, nothing. It all comes down to juju. Is it bad juju to take advantage of this promotion, good juju, or is there a neutral juju effect? As with everything, it's all about science.

The last injury update I'm going to write (I hope)

At the beginning of last week I walked on a treadmill for 15 minutes. Then I ran (jogged) for 30 seconds and held my breath for the next day to see if there would be any aggravation to my (hopefully) healing stress fractured foot. There was none, thankfully.

By the end of last week I was walking on a treadmill for 20 minutes and then running (jogging) for 2 1/2 minutes. I still held my breath for a day to see if there would be any injury aggravation. Thankfully, there was none.

Sunday I walked on a treadmill for 20 minutes and then attempted to run for 10 minutes. After 5 minutes I was feeling pretty good so I increased the speed up to a blistering 6.0 MPH (10:00 min/mile). I made it 10 minutes and then stopped. My foot was a little sore, although in places other than where I was injured, and there was no pain. Still, I took a rest day yesterday to make sure there would be no ill effects of my pushing myself four times as long as I was running just a couple days previously.

Happily, my foot appears to be fine. Today I'm going to walk for 20 minutes on the treadmill and then I'm going to try to run for 15 minutes. And then I'm going to take a day and see where I'm at.

My plan is to add another 5 minutes every other day until I'm up to running for 30 minutes on a treadmill. I'm going to do that a couple times and if all goes well I plan on running outdoors for 30 minutes (or three miles, whichever comes first) on New Year's Day 2012.

Next week I have an appointment with my doctor. I've been weaning myself off my boot by not wearing it around the house in the mornings and evenings (and while I'm in the gym). In the 8.7 seconds of face-to-face time I'll get with the doctor I predict he'll either tell me to continue lengthening the time I'm not wearing the boot until I'm not wearing it at all, or he's going to tell me to toss it straight into the wood chipper. At any rate, provided things go for the next couple of weeks as they've gone for the last couple of weeks the lousy running year that was my 2011 will turn over and become 2012, my year of running redemption.

More than anything, I'm really looking forward to not having a reason to write about any injury I might have. That'll be nice for the new year.

While we're still in the holiday season, if anyone is thinking about getting me something for the awesome content I provide throughout the year I'd appreciate finding this stuffed in my stocking:


Click here if you can't see the embed.
Thanks to my running buddy Roger for passing it along!

There's nothing wrong with it, except for the memories

Yesterday I enjoyed my most intense workout since I suffered a stress fracture in my right foot in late September. My workout consisted of 10 minutes on the elliptical machine, 25 minutes walking on the treadmill, 2 1/2 minutes jogging (yay!), and a plank to put a bow on top. My foot got a little sore but there was no pain during the workout, nor has there been any since. This was a very good small step on my road to getting back out on the road.

While the exercising was going on I was listening to music on my mp3 player when The Black Keys song Next Girl came on. At that moment all the memories of my last run came rushing back. See, after that fateful day when I suffered a strained calf and had to walk 4 1/2 miles back to my car and (in my opinion) causing a stress fracture in my foot in the process, I continued to listen to music. And Next Girl was playing when I was still two or so miles from my car and I knew I was in serious injury trouble, even though at the time I thought it was all calf-related. It turns out I subconsciously relate Next Girl with the experience I had immediately after I suffered my injury.


Good enough song, and one I'll never listen to while running again.
Click here if you can't see the embed.
Now Next Girl is off my mp3 player and is forever banned from being played in an exercise/fitness/workout environment and/or state I may be in. It's a shame too because I like the song and it did a nice job distracting me from the fact that I was running 10 or 14 miles all by myself early on a Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere familiar.

All other songs I listened to while limping those 4 1/2 miles are still safe and workout acceptable. For now.

Holidays are for running hardcore

Susanne's review of Baltimore's Jingle Bell 5K, which I've run a couple times myself, and her comment about how it was hilly for a "charity/family walk/run type event" got me thinking about the hardest race I entered in conjunction with a holiday that maybe shouldn't have been as tough as it was because it was held on a freakin holiday.

It predates this blog, but I think the answer to my toughest holiday-related race is the 2007 Towson (MD) YMCA Turkey Trot, which was held on Thanksgiving morning. I didn't know what to expect because it was my first ever turkey trot, but it was a competitive timed race just like the Jingle Bell 5K is so I took it seriously enough, I guess. Even so, I didn't really expect for the entire second mile to be uphill. Nor did I expect to come across so many people giving up running and then walking up that hill. Nor did I ever think that I'd see people on the side of the road puking their guts up during a turkey trot, and I definitely didn't expect to see it twice like that I did during that second mile. But it turns out that while many people had a rough go of it that morning I actually did ok for myself by coming in 116 out of 824 finishers. So maybe my memory has embellished the real story?


This might be the most fantastically creepy turkey trot illustration I've ever seen.
Anyway, I've run on subsequent Thanksgiving mornings, but I haven't gone back to Towson. For two years I ran the Green Valley North turkey trot, which is a 5 miler that is purely a fun run. There are no bib numbers, no timing, or even anyone there to yell "ready, set, go." The most I saw was some guy get on a bull horn and announce the course was open. But even though that is all fun it features some hilliness too. I like to think it's just because there are no choices but to put some hills in that area, but who knows... maybe the organizers are that sadistic.

Last year I went back to a YMCA, although not Towson, and suffered through yet another mile-long incline, and with yucky weather to boot.

This year I was injured and didn't even consider running on Thanksgiving morning. Based on how runs have tried to, uh, challenge me on that day it's probably for the best.

The me-centered registration conspiracy

Last week was an eventful non-running week at Running Moron World HQ. My son's youth football team played in (and won!) a Maryland state championship game. My daughter had a medical procedure done that was a little nerve-wracking (mostly because it was elective and not medically necessary). I walked on a treadmill without a boot for 8 1/2 minutes (although the goal was 10). My car broke down (kidding). My dog died (still kidding, I don't have a dog). The week had the makings of both a sad and happy country music song.

With that going on I forgot all about running, and the blog, and that registration for the 2012 (Washington, D.C.) Cherry Blossom 10 Miler entry lottery ended last Friday, December 9. I also completely forgot that "winners" of the lottery were to be announced today, December 13. Luckily for me I registered for the lottery on the first day it was open on December 1.

Since I completely forgot about the Cherry Blossom 10M I was surprised yesterday morning to receive this in my e-mail:


"This year your money IS welcome here. Thanks!"
I'm much happier writing this post you're reading right now than I was writing this post you read last year, believe me. But there's something that's nagging me about the whole thing, and it's not that the notice of my acceptance made my OCD go haywire because it was sent to me a day early. It's that I think the whole registration game is rigged, and I think the entire thing revolves around me specifically.

Here's why: In 2009, the first year of the entry lottery, I got in. And so did everyone else I knew in person and who I knew virtually. Every single one. Last year, in 2010, not only did I not get in, but neither did anyone else I knew either in person or virtually who registered. Not a single one. This year the results aren't final yet, but so far I got in and everyone else I know both in person and virtually are in. Every single one. With definitive evidence like that to back me up there's absolutely no other explanation for what's going on. The only question now is why me? And why do I hold so much importance to the organizers of the Cherry Blossom 10M?

My resolution for 2012 is to not be paranoid. But it's not 2012 yet. Paranoia reigns!

P.S. My stress-fractured foot is worlds better, and I can see me starting the slow road back to being able to run 10 miles by April 1 soon. My acceptance into the Cherry Blossom 10M gives me a goal to work toward, which will help me a lot as I ramp up the mileage. The Cherry Blossom race organizers know this! I'm sure of it!

If you don't want to run with Italians then go run in Rome

For some reason I get contacted a lot regarding running related products/events/issues from people who want to bring attention to those products/events/issues. I ignore 99% of the contacts because they come from people who just want free publicity and the purpose of this blog is not to shill for things I have no knowledge of and/or experience with. Not for free, at least. I can certainly be bought. And if anyone's interested I can bought quite inexpensively!

Anyway, I did get an interesting press release overnight regarding the Rome, Italy marathon (site linked is written in Italian). It detailed how the event had just crossed over the 10,000 registrant mark with about 100 days to go to the race. I guess that's good or the Rome marathon wouldn't be bragging about it to some yutz in Maryland, USA, but I've run in 10 mile events that were bigger than that. Heck, the local Komen Race for the Cure 5K has drawn 30,000.


Finishing the Rome marathon like natives. (Note: This couple may, in fact, be native.)
[Pic courtesy Rome Marathon - © Christel Schemel]
So why am I writing about it here? Glad you asked. There was an interesting factoid about the registrants included in the release. It said that 57% of the people registered were from outside of Italy. That seems pretty impressive. Until I started thinking about it.

I've spent some time in Europe, and the thing that I liked about it was how easy it was to get on a train and travel anywhere. You could start the day in France, stop for lunch in Germany, and then bed down for the night in Austria. That's setting foot in three countries in a day with little fuss and little muss. With Europe being so small and so relatively easy to maneuver bragging the majority of your registrants come from somewhere else is like saying the majority of registrants for any race are from outside the town/city/state where it's held. And that's probably true for any race with more than a few hundred people participating. Ergo, it's not really that big of a deal.

Or maybe it's really special and I don't know what I'm talking about.

Also, what does this have to do with running? Nothing, really. Carry on.

Back in the saddle, sort of

Today, after 10 weeks of not running, with nine of them spent in a walking boot and one racecation skipped, I felt well enough to start the slow process of working my way back up to middle of the pack runner. The doctor's plan was to take the boot off for an hour or so while hanging around the house and then move on from there. My plan was to condense that hour into 10 minutes walking on the treadmill.

The bad news is that 3.0 MPH (20:00/mile) was too fast and I had to slow it down to 2.5 MPH. The more bad news is that my foot got a little sore at around 7:00 and I quit at 8:30 so I didn't even make it to 10 minutes walking at a lousy 2.5 miles an hour. The good news is that while I can report a little bit of soreness two hours post-"workout" I don't seem to be in any pain. I guess we'll see how the foot feels tonight or tomorrow.

My plan to get back on the horse might have been a little ambitious and I think I might tone it down and actually listen to my doctor. On the other hand, if there's no pain...

Anyway, for the first time ever I can remember my entire workout playlist by heart. There's something to be said for 10 minute workouts, I guess. I share it with you here:

Song 1:


Click here if you can't see the embed.
Song 2 (NSFW language):


Click here if you can't see the embed.
Song 3:


Click here if you can't see the embed.
Yeah, it's not an original playlist, but at least it's genre-crossing!