#NoResolutionsNeeded: Early 2016 @Marathoner Schedule

There's only one way to ring in a New Year: With a new race schedule.

Hamptons Marathon: This Is Living

The Hamptons Marathon on Sept. 27 was my 15th marathon, my 107th race overall, and my third marathon of 2014 after the ASICS LA Marathon in March and the Boston Marathon World Run in April. After this I have the Staten Island Half on October 12 and then the Walt Disney World Marathon on January 11. Here is a recap from paradise:

Stained Glass Medal. It's the most elegant medal I own now. When you hold it up to a light, it is almost like a stained glass window, with a beautiful blue ocean hue, which you can compare to the shot below. The engraving is a lifeguard stand with surfboards on its sides. Nice style.

What makes someone a Marathon Maniac?

I answered "yes" to all 15 of these questions below on marathonmaniacs.com. Guess that explains why I am Marathon Maniacs #6697 on their membership roll. How about you?

• Do your thoughts switch to the next scheduled race immediately after finishing a marathon?
• Are you signed up for more than one race right now?
• Do you know specifics about many of the marathons? Dates, courses, years run, etc.?

• Do you know the story of how the marathon got started? Also why the course is 26.2 miles?
• Do you read books on marathons like Marathon and Beyond?
• Is www.marathonguide.com bookmarked on your computer?
• Do you look at the race schedule more than once a week?
• Do you start to feel down when you haven't run a marathon in a while?
• Are your closets and dressers filled with marathon t-shirts?
• Do you have so many marathon medals that you've run out of room on the hook they hang from?
• When asked about your racing from non-running people, do you find yourself talking with great passion to the point that the person that asked the question regrets ever asking?
• Have you run marathons on back to back weekends? Or better yet back to back days?
• Have you run a marathon as a training run? Or just to pace a friend?
• When asked by loved ones what your plans are for the weekend, you feel guilty telling them your running another marathon so you tell them "it's only a half this weekend"?
• Do you plan all your vacations around a marathon race?
  
  There are actual qualification steps to be a Marathon Maniac, of course. I got there by running an ultra within two weeks of a marathon. But I think those 15 questions pretty well cover the criteria best. All of them hit close to home here, probably why I go by @marathoner on Twitter!
  
  Next up: Hamptons Marathon on Sept. 27, Walt Disney World Marathon on Jan. 11.

Top 5 @Marathoner Running Highlights in 2013

As long as I can write this post at the end of each year and conclude that I JUST KEPT RUNNING then I consider it a very successful year!

But of course, we don't just run. We look for new challenges and exciting adventures that keep our running interesting and add meaning to our lives. So without further ado, please allow me to count down my top 5 running highlights of 2013:

5. Run For Boston. After the Boston Marathon bombings, we all bonded together in the running community and went out in the streets in support of our brothers and sisters who were impacted. I was among many who donned blue and yellow "I run for...BOSTON" running shirts and hit Central Park for the first official New York Road Runners race after that tragedy, the City Parks Run for the Parks 4-Miler. The Boston Marathon bombing was the biggest story in 2013, and naturally it hit home especially in the running community. It was good to see so many people rushing to help in any way they could, and another reminder of how running brings good to society and puts you in a position in life to help others. Also, I am constantly uplifted by the stories of so many who were injured on Boylston that day and have surged back in life with a positive attitude. And just to show how much this subject rather dominated my life in 2013, consider that I left Fenway Park in the middle of the clinching game on Oct. 30 and hiked quickly over to the bombing site so that I could interview Red Sox fans and citizens on what it meant for a World Series title to help their healing process. I then rushed over to a Copley hotel lobby to type my story and FTP the videos to our Major League Baseball Advanced Media HQ back in NYC, and my story and video from that night can be found on MLB.com right here. I really thought the City of Boston should have been TIME mag's Person of the Year, but I can live with the Pope.

4. Publix Fort Lauderdale A1A Marathon. You can't ask for much more than a pancake-flat run that starts on beautiful Las Olas Boulevard and runs all the way along the Atlantic Ocean surf up to Hillsboro Inlet and then returns back to the Fort Lauderdale strip for the finish. I unfortunately hit a couple of snags that day -- a freak cold front that iced us over at the start line, and a stiff wind out of the North that was in my face for half of the marathon. But all in all it was worth the signup last February, especially after having already run the Miami Marathon twice. We stay each January at our family's condo in Fort Lauderdale, so this worked out amazingly and my family and friends stood out front of the condo and gave me some much-needed support. Maybe the star of this show is the medal. They are very creative, and for this one the race organizer handed out seahorses. The medal was so heavy and with moving parts that there actually was a defect, causing some of the medals to break. But they kept their promise and shipped everyone with a broken medal the replacement, and I have to say I love having seahorses on my wall! Run this race!

3. Marathon Maniacs #6697. I was all excited to finally earn membership into the Maniacs after that Fort Lauderdale marathon, because it was my 10th overall. Alas, I found out that I'm just a dummy. I had actually qualified for entry way back in 2008, when I ran the Knickerbocker 60K ultra within 15 days of a previous marathon (New York City). So for five whole years I could have been a Maniac and had a nice low roll number there. Hey, what the hell, I finally was welcomed aboard. Maniacs have a ton of camaraderie, and you get a lot of inside information and help along the way in terms of race entries and training. I am still waiting to wear the yellow and red gear to show off my Maniac status, but I expect to have years and years to do that because I am a runner for life and now I am a Maniac for life. Who else is a Maniac?

2. ING New York City Marathon. I wanted to keep the "ING" in this just as a final nod and thank-you to the longtime sponsor of the greatest marathon in the world. They meant a lot to me. Now it's the TCS New York City Marathon, and shortly I will take advantage of my 9+1 qualification in 2013 -- at least nine scored New York Road Runners races and one volunteer assignment -- and enter the 2014 race. Looking back on the 2013 race, I was a little bummed that my training was substandard and I could not approach my 5:13 PR. But in the big picture, this one was for my Mom, who was diagnosed in 2013 with lymphoma and at this writing is responding beautifully to chemo. The most painful moments of that marathon journey were the times when I tried to put it in perspective and remember what my Mom is fighting. Mine was just a race. After we missed 2012 because of the cancellation caused by Superstorm Sandy, it was nice to have the NYC Marathon back, and not just back but bigger than ever -- the largest race in WORLDWIDE MARATHON HISTORY. It is still hard to accurate describe the thrill of being cheered on by 2 million spectators and enjoying 100 musical performers and diverse neighborhoods and the conga lines of children who just want you to high-five them as you go by. And the creative signs!

There were a lot of candidates for my Number One. I thought maybe I should go with the first day of 2013, when I ushered in the year by inventing my own #12RunsOfChristmas -- those late nights running in the cold by myself at Central Park just to keep my streak. Or a very typical training run, maybe in the rain, just you and the open road or trail, the kind of run that makes you know you are alive. Or possibly the Staten Island Half because I actually climbed a freakin U.S. Army rock wall at the end of it. And then I thought, Hey, the Fifth Avenue Mile because I ran a faster pace than any time in my life. And you could argue for Boston here, but honestly I would only do that if I had run it or been involved, and I am never going to be fast enough to run the Boston Marathon. Had it not been for something that happened in the last month, my discovery of a new bathroom on the West side of Central Park honestly was going to be my No. 1 in 2013, because that is just how important knowing where the relief is while you run.

So, ladies and gentlemen, a drum roll if you please...

1. #ASICS! The same premiere running company that has been so important in my running life -- from my first pair of shoes in 2006 to all that Expo apparel I have purchased through the years -- approached me and asked if I would like to run for ASICS. ME! I am not from Kenya and I do not train in Mammoth. I am in my 50s. ASICS asked if I would like to be part of the ASICS LA Marathon Blogger Challenge, for which they would provide race entry, air and hotel, 12-week training plan and followup from elite Coach Andrew Kastor (Deena's husband), and ASICS gear shipped to me during the winter. This is very cutting-edge stuff for a running company, in fact for any company. (Hello, Runners World? Story.) I give big props to ASICS for reaching out to the running community in this way, for about a dozen of us, and I look forward to extolling their virtues as I continue training for my March 9 marathon that starts at Dodger Stadium and ends with a Forrest Gump pose at Santa Monica Pier...ever so fittingly for this MLB guy. I can't wait for 2014!

Please let me know how your own Year in Running went! Happy New Year, Pleasant Running and Peace on Earth. - Mark

NYC Marathon Gear

Marathon Maniac #6977 will be wearing this on Nov. 3 at the NYC Marathon!

Publix Fort Lauderdale A1A Marathon Recap

The Publix Fort Lauderdale A1A Marathon on Feb. 17 was my 11th race of at least 26.2 miles and my first in 2013. I finished in 5:50:21. I learned two important things in this event:

1) I had been waiting all this time to join Marathon Maniacs for no reason! I thought I had to wait until I ran 10 official scored marathons, as one of those 11 was "unofficial." So I was all excited to finish and then apply to MM. I looked at the criteria and realized I qualified in 2008 by running two marathons within 15 days of each other. Oh, well, I'm in! You are looking at Marathon Maniac #6697!

2) Smile.



Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying
You'll find that life is still worthwhile

If you'll just smile.

But Mark, what does smiling have to do with running a marathon?

I'm glad you asked. Here's the story:

We were going to be in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea for a quickie getaway before Spring Training games begin, staying with Lisa's parents at their beachfront condo. I had been looking for a marathon, and lo and behold I realized a week before the event that this marathon goes RIGHT IN FRONT of their building. And not once, but twice! There was no way I was going to come out on Sunday morning and watch marathoners. Plus, it was easily the flattest course in America, essentially no inclines whatsoever. So I signed up, thinking PR, and along came the 6 a.m. raceday start with windchill in the upper 30s.

You should have heard the shrill shudder of the runners who were congregated in front of the Broward County Museum of Discovery & Science, as a freakishly cold and powerful gale blew through the start area. And then it happened again. I enjoyed their race start, with its giant U.S. flag overhead, but clearly it was going to be a cold wind on this day. And even though I started in a long sleeve overshirt and temp gloves, I had no idea.

From miles 3 through 15, with the lone exception of a respite through wooded Birch State Park from roughly miles 5-7, a strong headwind buffeted me with no mercy whatsoever. We are talking concrete canyon up A1A through the condos, through Galt Ocean Mile, far north, a straight shot into the wind. The wind was consistently in the 15-20-mph range, with gusts well above that. I am not a thin man. I am a giant sail in that wind. Just as it makes your car engine work harder in buffeting headwinds such as the Texas panhandle (you are supposed to thus drive slower), I was forced to work harder than I normally would.

The temperature seemed like a good break, but the wind was just one of those things you can't fix.

Let's go straight to the 15th mile. After that one, I would make the U-turn up at Hillsboro Inlet, and theoretically I would have the wind at my back the rest of the way. I was listening to Pandora at the start of the 15th and final into-the-wind mile, and it was on a Frank Sinatra station. The song you just saw in the embedded video above began to play, just as I was at my worst depth of the race, defeated by wind.

Smile.

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness...

You are not going to believe what I discovered next.


For some reason that song moved me to begin smiling. I had spent part of the previous few months having work done on my mouth to improve my smile. My top two front teeth had been a little crooked, and I always tended to have my mouth closed in pictures. I wanted a beaming smile. So I have some new front teeth, even got a whitening treatment. Now here I am, in the least likely time...smiling.

I did that for the entire 15th mile. I was running northbound among the marathon stragglers (at least 9 out of every 10 runners was in the Half), and those in front of me were passing me in the opposite direction southbound to my left. One by one, those runners would see this dude SMILING as he leaned hard against the wind, and almost without exception my smile would affect them. They gave me thumbs-up. They would say, "Almost at the turn!" It was as if I had new friends. I was blown away by what positive impact a single smile could have on others around you. It made them light up.

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness...

It helped get me through that hardest mile. A fellow runner on Twitter had advised me earlier that week: "Enjoy every mile." I had been thinking about that. Smile every mile. Enjoy every smile. I made the turn and then it was a straightaway to the finish line. I didn't have much gas left for that, and my 5:50 finish is testament. But I finished another marathon and I am completely, 100% healthy. I am 53 and strong.

Other highlights of the Publix Fort Lauderdale A1A Marathon:

* My personal pit crew at miles 12 and 19! Lisa, her parents and other condo owners in their complex all were kind enough to come out and cheer me on and supply Gatorade, salty pretzels, etc. Here's Lisa, and she is smiling, too. We had just celebrated our third anniversary on Valentine's Day.

* Matt Lorraine, the CEO of Exclusive Sports, which puts on the race, is a good guy and I highly recommend anyone sign up for his marathon. It was the eighth annual event, so this is a growing marathon that will continue to get better and better. There is an occasional kink to iron out but for me it was one extremely unfortunate weather system away from being my perfect marathon. I might run it again next year.

* The Expo was moved to the Broward County Convention Center and it was an easy, efficient room. Loved the tech shirt and its design (right), and wore it in the race. Good training food samples! I met a guy at the Dry Goods booth, and learned for the first time about their product. You spray on their cannisters before running, and it leaves a dry, invisible powder that protects you against chafing for 8 or 10 hours. I used it for the first time, and it seemed to do a good job. So for me the Expo added to my repertoire. Also bought a blue race shirt at a 40% discount, as I will wear it at Central Park when it gets warmer. Expos rock!

I put my gear together as usual the night before the race. I take this for granted now, but it is something I learned early and it means you will be organized when you wake up in the dark and looking for coffee on race morning:

* Great fluid stations. All you need. May I suggest sponges handed out at the Expo, and then have a bucket of water at a few stops. I've enjoyed that in some other marathons.

* The seahorse medal! The A1A now has a reputation as one of the best medals anywhere in the world. They put a lot of creative energy into the design process, and this year was the twin seahorses. Unfortunately their manufacturer messed up the hinges on some of them, including mine, but no one was more peeved than the race organizer, who will be offering replacements, and you can't ask for more than that. Great bling!

* Tan. I came back with a lot of sun despite the chilly weather, thanks to the marathon. I was baking as I ran south past Sunrise and the strip on the way to the finish line.

*The first few miles on Las Olas and the sunrise left turn. Once you go down over a slight drawbridge, the view of the beach sunrise and the "Fort Lauderdale Beach" colored sand sculpture is dramatic:

* Birch State Park. I used to work right down the road on Sunrise at The Miami Herald, and I neverhad been there. It was a beautiful run. I also learned that Birch has the best bathroom in the race! A couple pics:

Funniest thing that happened: Mile 18. We had our own lanes coned off throughout A1A, but that didn't stop this one elderly woman with large black prescription glasses, who could barely see over her steering wheel. She turned quickly into the coned land, and was headed RIGHT AT ME. I stopped fast, and held out both of my arms to (hopefully) make her stop. She was very confused. Then she turned back out of our running lane. A runner on my side laughed. Across the street, I saw a Broward Sheriff's car, and the driver rolled down his window and he was laughing and saying something. I had my earplugs in. I can imagine it was something like: "You better watch out for these drivers!" Indeed, be alert -- be very alert!

My next scheduled race is the Scotland Run 10K in April at Central Park and then the Brooklyn Half in May. I'll be looking for my next marathon shortly.