Sandy Runs

The 2013 Wildcat Ridge Romp was supposed to be my first 50K and my New Jersey race for the 50 States Marathon Club. But I only ran 10 miles that day. What happened? I was looking for a New Jersey marathon to fit into my schedule after having bad luck with that state. I was registered for the 2012 Atlantic City Marathon, but had to defer that due to my grandmother's death. Then I registered for the inaugural 2013 Liberty Run Marathon in Jersey City. This race was canceled only a couple weeks before race day. Turns out the race organizers neglected to secure the permits to hold the race. So, I found the New Jersey Trail Series website and the Wildcat Ridge Romp was an August race that fit into my schedule. I had not run a 50K, and this would be a 50K on a challenging trail course, but there was a 12 hour limit. I had heard good feedback from other runners about the New Jersey Trail Series, so I figured I'd go for it. Scot had already run a marathon in New Jersey, but he is a...

I'm going back to 2013 again to catch up on old race reports. During this time I was working on running 30 marathons in 30 different states within 365 days to achieve Marathon Maniacs Titanium status. I was running a lot of "doubles", or weekends with one marathon on Saturday and another marathon on Sunday. Usually the start times of these races were about 24 hours apart. My August Utah and Nevada double was something else. Scot and I ran the Park City Marathon in Utah on Saturday, and then the ET Full Moon Midnight Marathon in Nevada later that SAME DAY, at midnight. Technically, the Nevada race was on Sunday, but just by one minute! We had to drive 7 hours in between the races and got very little sleep. It was a crazy weekend, and I was so focused on the job at hand (get to each marathon, and finish the course) that I didn't take photos from the course like I normally do. It was my first trip to Utah, though Scot had run there before. We landed in Salt Lake Cit...

At the beginning of the year I posted about my 2014 running accomplishments and my 2015 objectives . The year is more than half over. It's time to check in to see how I'm doing against my plan. 2015 Running Objectives Objective: Qualify for the  Marathon Globetrotters  in January at the  Marathon Bahamas , after finishing a marathon in my 5th country. I also plan to run the  Berlin Marathon  in September, taking my country total up to 6, and my World Marathon Major total up to 2 out of 6.  August 2015 Status: I qualified for the club ( blog post here ) and I've gotten involved with club operations (layout of the newsletter ). I have not added any new countries since Bahamas, but I'm still on target for Berlin and also the Jersey Marathon  this fall. Objective: Complete my 50th marathon state in May at the  Newport Marathon  in Oregon. In order to do that, I'll need to first finish the  New Jersey Marathon  in April. A ugus...

I've written about my training plans in the past (most recently here and previously here and here ). I've had mixed results because I'm just not good at motivating myself to stick to a training plan. If I have a race on the calendar, I'll show up for the race and run it, but show up for a training run? Meh. I'm great at planning, but not always great at execution. I've been doing a little better this summer. With no marathons from the end of May to the end of September, there was just no way I could go without some longer training runs. The group I run with Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings ( Friends & Fitness ) is only a half marathon training group. That was fine for the first couple months, but now I've had to make my long runs longer than theirs. Two weeks ago the group ran 10 miles, and I ran 12 (while Scot ran the Endless Summer 6 Hour Run) . This past weekend the group ran 11 miles and I did 14. I did my extra 3 miles before the group run...

I joined the Marathon Globetrotters in January after running the Marathon Bahamas . I came into the club as a Provisional member, having run marathons in 5 different countries (US, Ireland, Scotland, Cayman Islands, and Bahamas). It's harder for someone in the US to run new countries, as compared with some of our European members, where there is easier and reasonably priced transportation to several nearby countries. In order to achieve full membership, complete with voting privileges, I'll need to run marathons in 10 different countries. I'm still only at 5 countries, so how will I get to 10? The good news is that Marathon Globetrotters defines a "country" broadly, so there are lots of places that count as a country...more than I would have thought. For example, each of the US territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, etc.) counts as a country for Marathon Globetrotters status. In another example, each separate nation of the United Kingdom (England, W...

This past weekend marked the Endless Summer 6-Hour Run in Annapolis. Scot was registered for this event, and I tagged along to do a self-supported training run. My training plan had me running 12 miles this weekend, but my training group was only up to 10 miles. With the Endless Summer loop being just over 4 miles, I could do three loops and that would be my training run. My running buddy Rebecca met me there to do her 10 miles (she was to turn around one mile into the third loop). Scot and I were up early to make the drive (a little less than an hour) and get decent parking before his race started. I packed a bunch of drinks and snacks, and juice pops to keep in the cooler. I would set up some folding chairs and make our "camp". Our timing was just about right. Scot had enough time to pick up his packet and make a bathroom stop before the start. We found some Marathon Maniacs and got a group pic. Maniacs at Endless Summer; I took the pic since I wasn't a registe...

A year ago I recapped some of the many marathons that led to my achievement of Titanium status in the Marathon Maniacs. This is the top level of the club and can be earned one of three different ways. I earned Titanium by running marathons in 30 different states in a 12 month period. My Titanium qualifier was the Self-Transcendence Marathon in Congers, New York in August 2013. I didn't blog about it at the time, so here's a throwback race report, which may have a few fuzzy details. Finished Self-Transcendence, earning Titanium and New York! Self-Transcendence was not originally supposed to be my Titanium race; it was my back-up race. I planned to earn Titanium at ET Full Moon Midnight Marathon in Nevada. But the week before ET, I had to drop to a shorter distance at the Wildcat Ridge Romp 50K in New Jersey. That meant that now I would finish this quest at Self-Transcendence. At first I wasn't sure about this race. It was put on by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team...