It has been a very exciting and eventful week and I have a lot I want to write and share about it, but as usual, life seems to happen faster than I can write about it. Our precious twin daughters were born on last Tuesday, April 7. We expected them to be born early because twins usually are, but at 31 weeks, 4 days, they came even earlier than we expected. The babies are in the NICU but doing very well, and Mommy Kate is still in the hospital recovering from her c-section but also doing well and expecting to get discharged tomorrow (Saturday). There’s much I’d like to share and make sure I get down before memory fades, but in the interest of a writing goal I hope to manage in the next hour or two, I’m not going to even try to catch up and will just tell our birth story Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to showing off your interior design prowess, there’s not much point to wallpapering your storage closet, as neither you nor your guests have much need or motivation to go check it out. Still, if you’ve been meaning to tidy up that closet and want to practice your wallpaper technique, it’s not the biggest possible waste of time, either.

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Workout: 25 min, easy run; The Yard

For the rest of the day after my marathon, I could barely stand and could only move around at a slow hobble, so I spent most of that day in bed, while Kat was kind enough to pamper me. My feet improved quickly after draining what remained of the blisters and coating them in neosporin, but I was still pretty achy for the next couple of days and looked like someone who only recently learned to walk. By the following weekend, I was feeling close to normal again. I wasn’t up for any long-distance walking, but I was recovered enough to join my honored teammate, Reilly, in a charity walk of his own. |inline

When I signed up to do the New Jersey Marathon with Team in Training, the date of the marathon seemed very far away, but sure enough, the big day finally arrived last Sunday. I had an amazingly successful fundraising campaign, and am deeply grateful to my many sponsors for helping me raise over $5000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Even without setting foot on the course, that was enough to make my Team in Training experience very worthwhile. I did, however, set feet on the course – many, many times – and that’s what the account that follows is about. It’s on the long side, I know, but hey, so was the marathon. |inline

At this point in my marathon training, I’ve done about everything I can do to prepare for the main event, which is now only a week a way. After months of adding more miles every week, I’ve been tapering for almost two weeks now. Tapering means I’ve reduced the intensity and duration of training, to allow the body to recuperate and be in peak condition for the marathon. Tapering is a time for rest, relaxation… and annoying anxieties about the upcoming event. |inline

11.5 miles, team walk

With the marathon only two weeks away (!), my marathon training is in the “tapering” stage, which means the mileage and intensity of training is reduced to allow the body to recover and be in peak condition on race day. Given the mileage of my my last few long walks, 11.5 miles felt refreshingly short, and I’m a big fan of this tapering thing so far. I had some shin pain again at the start, but it didn’t take as long to go away today. I think I re-aggravated last week’s blisters, but they weren’t as bad as last week. My breakfast of greasy ribs and leftover chili was probably a bad idea…nah, I’m kidding. I ate bland stuff yesterday and didn’t have any intestinal discomfort this time. Those are pretty much the highlights of my walk this week, and Alison didn’t do anything notably goofy, so instead of describing the walk, I want to talk about fundraising.

The training goal of Team in Training is to prepare for and complete an endurance event. It’s a nationwide program and year-round, thousands of TnT coaches, mentors, and participants like me are training for and participating in various marathons, triathlons, and century bike rides (i.e., 100+ miles). The bigger goal – the reason people are involved with Team in Training instead of just training on their own or with some other group – is to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. At least 75% of the funds raised go toward research, patient services, and advocacy, with the remainder going toward operating costs. Individual fundraising goals depend on which events participants choose, because the further away the event, the more it costs to arrange travel and accommodations for them. I chose a local event, the 2007 New Jersey Marathon, so my fundraising goal is a relatively modest $2000.

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3/31: 16 miles, team walk at Ridgewood “Duck Pond”;

4/7: 20 miles, another team walk at Ridgewood

Of all the team runs and walks I’ve been too since I began training with Team in Training, probably half have been at the site we call the “Duck Pond”. It’s so-called because there’s a duck pond in the part of the park where we meet and start from, but the route we take is a 6-mile path through the [Saddle River County Park][1]. Besides being easy on the eye, a nice perk of walking or running there is that it’s a park path, so there is no car traffic to contend with – just pedestrians, runners, bikers, occasional in-line skaters, and once in a blue moon, a guy on some [weirdly oscillating scooter thing][2]. Perhaps the most important perk is that the path has mileage markers every tenth of a mile, which comes in very handy for people like us marathoners (cough) who are persnickety about keeping track of exact mileage. |inline

14 miles, team walk

As expected, it was a small turnout for yesterday’s walk, because most of the women on the team were walking the MORE Half Marathon in Central Park today. Besides Coach Alison, it was me, “Rocket” Roger, and Maureen. Roger (who’s 58, I found out) zoomed ahead of us as usual after getting warmed up. Maureen lives in the area and had already walked for about an hour before the rest of us got there, so she walked a few miles with me and Alison and then went home. Alison has proven to be a very enjoyable walking companion, because: 1) She laughs at my jokes (always a way to get on my good side); and 2) She always does or says something that gives me material for my blog – map spinning, falling on ice, learning to play golf… What?! Yeah, that was my thought. |inline

~10 miles, team walk at Morristown National Historical Park

Snow and ice led to the cancellation of the walk scheduled for last Saturday, but on Sunday, Coach Alison led a walk at Morristown National Historical Park. It wasn’t one of the usual sites for team walks, but after I ended up there by accident a few weeks ago and [wrote about it][1], she decided to give it a try. I had visions of walking in snow and worrying about wet feet, because I was thinking about the trails again and there was fresh, wet snow from the preceding couple of days, but Alison was smarter than me and I think planned to walk the park roads all along. Before the other walkers got there, she showed up early to drive a loop through the roads that measured out at a little over three miles, so we just repeated that loop. |inline

15 miles; team walk

I nearly missed out on the team walk again due to incomplete info about the meeting place. The meeting place this time was by a Dunkin’ Donuts, and people who have met there before knew that really meant behind the Dunkin Donuts. That detail wasn’t in the e-mailed directions, though, so when I arrived five minutes early to the main parking lot in front and no one else was there five minutes later, I was muttering under my breath and about ready to chalk it up to another miscommunication about where to meet and drive home. Fortunately, another first-timer arrived just before I was ready to give up, and she had something I lacked the foresight to bring: one of the coach’s cell phone number. A quick phone call and a couple minutes later, and we were joined up with the main group in the back. |inline