2017 Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge - pre-race, expo, 5k, and 10k

Posted on January 17, 2017 | 6 min read time

What better way to start off a new year than with a weekend full of racing in Disney? For the second year in a row, I ran the Dopey Challenge in Walt Disney World. It’s a 5k, 10k, half marathon, and marathon over the course of four days. And it’s a fantastic and wild event! After last year, I said I wasn’t going to do it anymore. [Read More]

2017 CJRRC Hangover 5k - 21:44

Posted on January 2, 2017 | 5 min read time

That new PR smile! 2016 is finally over and 2017 is here. Who knows what this year has in store for us, probably even worse things than 2016, but let’s just take it one day at a time. And the Central Jersey Road Runner Club’s 35th annual Hangover 5k is a good place to start. This was my second time running this race, and despite it being on New Year’s Day, I like it a lot. [Read More]

The case of 2016

Posted on December 29, 2016 | 14 min read time

I’ve been putting off writing this all month, partially because I’ve been lazy and depressed since the election, but mostly because thinking about 2016 makes me feel weird and guilty. 2016 has been an awful hell year in almost every way imaginable. We lost celebrities and public figures who have inspired us and changed our lives. We lost scientific figures who made important discoveries. We elected Donald Trump as our next President after the worst election year pretty much any of us have been a live to see. [Read More]

One weekend, two DNSes

Posted on November 21, 2016 | 5 min read time

Two races. I DNSed two races this weekend. I’m not too happy about it either. Back in July, I started kicking around the idea of doing a second fall marathon this year. I didn’t want to commit to it at the time, but it was an idea I had in the back of my head. I figured there’d be two circumstances in which I would actually do it. The first was if I didn’t like how training was going for Chicago Marathon and wanted to push my goal race back. [Read More]

How did I run a nearly flawless race?

Posted on October 19, 2016 | 10 min read time

The me in this photo was expecting pretty much the opposite kind of race performance. It’s been a week and a half now since my nearly-flawless marathon in Chicago and I’m still trying to put together what I take away from this race. I’ve always been of the mindset that there’s much more to learn from failure than from success, but this race feels like the exception to the rule, for me. [Read More]

2016 Chicago Marathon - 3:28:41

Posted on October 11, 2016 | 20 min read time

Oh, yes, look at that smile! Marathon number nine is in the books! And it was fan-fucking-tastic! I would go so far as to describe this as not just my best marathon, but my best race ever. Pre-race The plan after getting to Chicago was to hit up the expo and then take it mostly easy though the rest of Friday and Saturday. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on my feet. [Read More]

Chicago Marathon training recap

Posted on October 8, 2016 | 6 min read time

It’s marathon time. I guess. Well, not I guess, actually. It is marathon time. Tomorrow. Oof. For the most part, training went better than I had expected, but one part of marathoning that I’m really bad at is managing the nerves leading up to the race. I’ve be super stressed about it for the last two weeks. This is typical for me, but this time around it’s even worse. [Read More]