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| Shrek & me before marathon and state number 1 - LA Marathon 2007 |
Dear friends and family -
Well, I’m heading east. If GoGo inflight internet works out, I’ll post this from 35,000 feet. (It worked!)
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| Over Wyoming's hills on the flight |
Great news in that we passed $21,000 today in donations. I cannot thank you enough nor can the charities. More over, so many of you have shared kind words about this campaign that I am overjoyed. The feelings and charity gifts both are amazing birthday presents.
Over the past few days, I’ve endeavored to share with you some information about the charities in our campaign and how in some small way I have been personally connected to them. You can find those blog posts here, here and here.
Now attention turns to the run itself. The marathon as I have written is quite hilly (not as hilly as Wyoming which we fly over a few hours ago). When asked recently how do I train for that, I of course answered that I train by running hills! Fortunately I like doing so. I'll experience about 2,000 feet of elevation gain. And loss - down is sometimes harder on the legs than up. Your support will certainly keep the spring in my step as I go up and our charities do as well.
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| July 14, 2013 - State 20 - Montana |
As part of this goofy quest to hit all 50 states before I turn 50 (2 years to go), scheduling becomes a challenge. And finding summer marathons in new states is not all that easy in any case although I have managed to find them. The closest I’ve come to running a marathon on my actual birthday was in Montana two years ago (Sunday, July 14). I just stumbled across this weekend’s marathon almost by accident. (I have run on my birthday every year since 2007 though and did do a 5K once.)
The race itself is not all that large - I think a few hundred competitors as 282 finished last year's. In fact, the run has few enough participants that the race director, Dori, emailed me personally after I signed up. This is the fifth year of the race, and having a personal touch is amazing. She even gave me her cell phone! And she kindly offered to give me whatever bib number I wanted. I selected 12 (the other option were 33 and 48 I guess). I look forward to meeting Dori and her team this weekend. There is actually a whole series of events from a concert Friday night to lots of places hosting dinners on Saturday. And there is a farmer’s market they recommend on Saturday too.
As for training, a lot of people ask me about tapering - the reduction of running before a race. I do in fact do this to some extent, although since I run a marathon every 4-6 weeks, I am sort of always training for them. So, I go up and down in more of a sine wave than a square wave. This week has been just 5 miles Tuesday and I’ll do 5-7 miles tomorrow. Post run, I’ll run again on Wednesday - probably an easy 5. Now, some people just think those are nutty distances. I tell everyone that any run is amazing even to the end of the block. Or just walk. The key is to get out and be active.
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| Running for Andrew Reisse June 2013 |
The other question I get a lot is about food - do I carbo load? That I do not do. In fact, I try to eat a grain-free diet. So, no pasta for me. I do love to eat fish before a race - got to get in those fatty acids! Being back east, I am hoping some good fish options appear on the menus. I try to really keep to the same diet as normal even when traveling. I've been known to find the closest Whole Foods, and it's even better when I can find a real co-op with local foods.
Once again, thank you for the donations. If you haven’t donated yet and wish to, here’s the link again.
More news from the weekend as it happens.
Best,
Laird
