The day after I arrived, I went on a short 60km ride along part of stage 4 of the Tour De France.  I actually rode from the house, to kilometer 31 in the stage and continued until kilometer 59.  Aside from a few sprayed slogans on the road, there was no way anyone could have known that the tour had gone by only a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately , my polars’ battery is dead and I don’t have any documentation of my awesome ride; however, I found my old Garmin 0.1 in my backpack and used it instead.  Remarkably enough, it did the job quite well and I didn’t even get lost.

Garmin 0.1 - yes , a pen and paper

The next day I went on a longer 80km ride that left from Aix en Provence which is about 15 minutes from the house.  The ride was beautiful and the bike lanes were perfect… the drivers were courteous, views were breathtaking and after it rained butterflies* I couldn’t help but thinking ‘Is this real??’.  With all do respect to every other country in the world, France is better! I am so glad that I took my bike with me.  Being in France without a bike is like being in a bathroom without toilette paper – You manage but something is not quite right…

* May have only happened in my mind

Silly bike... Only people can go shopping

Working out while traveling

I’m on week 3 out of 17 in my marathon training plan towards the New York City Marathon. It’s not going to be easy to train once my family arrives but I’m determined to get all of my hill, fartlek and long runs in while I’m here.  The day that I arrived, I ran 45 minutes around the little city of Bouc Bel-Air, where the house is located.  Running whenever you arrive in a new place, even if it’s not for a long time, is a great way to figure out where you are, know what’s around you and plan your real runs later during the week.  Tip: Make sure that you fly with compression socks so that your legs are fresh.

Since then I’ve done one hill workout and one long run.  The best way to get the runs in is to just wake up early and do them.  If you leave anything for the end of the day, it just doesn’t get done.  On vacation, you never know what time you’ll get back. Tip: Workout according to time and not distance.  This way you’re not stressed about holding other people up; just run half the time and turn around.

Sunflower Field

Something I saw on the way

Maccabiah Half marathon

On the 21st of July, I participated in the Maccabiah Half Marathon.  If you asked anyone who ran the race to describe it in one word, they would say HOT.  It began at 18:30 so everyone was soaked before the race even started.  At each water station I took a water bottle and ran with it.  It was so hot that when I poured the water on my head, by the time it touched my ears the water was warm… It was so hot that about 20 people were sent to the hospital for dehydration… It was so hot that my running clothes were soaked all the way through after the first 20 minutes … It’s hard to describe.  Due to the terrible conditions, I also had a terrible time – 2:03.  Fortunately, I made my coach promise to make me faster so the problem is as good as solved.

Stuff I need

As you know, my birthday is coming up Joking… No one has to buy me anything BUT I have accumulated some things that I will purchase soon for the marathon training.  Please let me know if there is a better product that I have overlooked.

Compression Calf Guards

CW-X Women’s Pro Fit Shorts

Nathan Speed 2 Wastpack

Some More Photos

View Larger Map

The marathon expo was a bit disappointing after having seen the Chicago Marathon expo. In the Chicago expo I felt like all of the running stores, sports nutrition companies and orthopedic practices in Chicago set up shop in one place. I was like a kid in a candy store. I did manage, however, to buy something at the DC expo. It was a strap for holding energy gels which had proven quite useful during the race. (http://www.ifitnessinc.com/)

There was a booth promoting peanuts. A woman came over to me and said “Do you want some peanuts?”. I said “sure, what are you selling?”. She said “Nothing, we are just promoting peanuts”. Why do peanuts need promoting? Sun-dried tomatoes need promoting! People don’t realize the diversity – put them in salads , on a sandwich with tuna and cheese, on top of Feta cheese…. Not enough people know the uses and its a shame. (Whatever, More for me…)

Nutrition (from SportQuest)

My nutrition was all planned out (thanks coach!). The day before, I was to take my regular 4 Recover Amino Power pills , 4 Calplex, and an antioxidant in addition to two Thermolytes. On the day of the race I needed to take 3 Recovery Amino Power pills, 3 VO2Max Pills, Carbo-Pro and 2 Thermolyte pills. I’m not sure the exact effect that these pills have but they couldn’t hurt, right? As for regular food, I had something regular for breakfast, a LARA bar an hour before and a bagel afterwards.

Clothes

I love my cw-x tights to the sky (and back). I own the CW-X Insulator Expert which keep my muscles and knees in place while I run. They are a bit pricy but you really only need two pairs – one for cold and one for hot.

The Race

I took the metro into the city. The metro started operating at 5AM which was two hours earlier than usual to accommodate the runners. It was strange being on the metro when every single person was a runner. We were all sitting on the train eating energy bars and pinning bibs to running shirts. Some people looked relaxed and others seemed more excited. Some wore special t-shirts that they had made for the event, some were obviously relatives, some were accompanied with spectators and some were alone listening to music. When we arrived, I wasn’t particularly eager to head out into the cold. It was around 30F when I left the house and I knew that it wasn’t much warmer an hour later.

I dropped my stuff off at the bag check and ran over to the armory where people were relaxing before the race. At least it was warmer over there and I could procrastinate for a little bit. It actually felt a little bit like the army – people sitting a huge hanger waiting for something to happen. Finally, we left the hanger, I ran a bit as a warmup that didn’t warm me up, heard the national anthem, and started the race.
I set my polar in the following way : 40 minutes between 6.0-6.5mph, next 40 minutes 6.5-7.0mph and the rest 7.0mph and up. In retrospect, I should have done these splits by distance and not by time since the fastest speed had the least amount of time. While I ran, whenever I was going to fast, I head a fast beeping sound and when I was going too slow I heard a slow beeping sound. This way I could really pace myself the way I wanted to. Two people asked me if I was about to explode but other than that, the beeping was really helpful.

I felt good the entire race and gave one last push towards the last few miles. At the end, during the marathon/half marathon split, some marathon runners jokingly yelled hate words toward the half marathoners. It is kind of cruel to have the split right back at the finish line. Seeing the end of the race at the half way point must be annoying. After arriving at the finish line, I grabbed a silver thing to cover myself, had an ‘everything bagel’… yummm…

Heart Rate & Altitude & Pace

Photos

Coming soon…