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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…

Hustle Up The Hancock

The only thing better than taking an elevator is taking the stairs.  Butterflies and monkey’s with red butts aside, I am proud to inform you that I have successfully climbed the Hancock tower (93 flights of stairs) in 17:28 and placed 40th in my category.

I’ve never done a stair climb before.  There is one famous stair climb in Israel at the Azrieli Towers but I could never understand why one would pay to climb stairs.  I would much rather do something out in nature than climb up a cramped stairwell with a ton of other sweaty people.  There are several very simple reasons why I climbed the Hancock tower despite my preconceived notions about this type of race.

1. Common… It’s THE Hancock tower!
2. What better way to say goodbye to Chicago than from the (tippy) top of the city.
3. I get to say that I did something for a cause (Respiratory Health Association).  I usually just do things for a reason so having a cause is the best reason I can think of.

After an exciting night of pub crawling (see image above), I took the train back into the city.  My climb was at 2PM which gave me plenty of time to have a competition breakfast* and head off to the Hancock.  After arriving, I stood in line and waited patiently for the beginning of the stairwell.  I couldn’t help but think what would happen if there was a fire? Would everybody turn around and run down? It’s a good thing that there was no visible fire alarm because I was dying to find out.
Finally, I arrived at the bottom of the stairwell where a guy said “3,2,1 GO”.  I went.

I didn’t touch the rail the whole way up.  I simply used my arms as much as possible to propel myself and put less strain on my legs. After 17 minutes and 28 seconds I had reached the (tippy) top – Average heart rate was 186 so it wasn’t a piece of cake at all.  The nice part was standing in the open area of the Hancock observatory and cooling down after the effort. What a view…. Goodbye Chicago.  I almost turned my back to the city to throw a coin (like at the Trevy Fountain) but my limited knowledge of physics prevented me.  I know I’ll be back, no need to throw a coin.

• US competition breakfast – Two whole grain Eggo waffles with sugar free syrup and 371 blueberrries (a lot of blueberries).
• Israel competition breakfast – A white bread roll or two pieces of white bread toast with honey.

Just to be brief, this is what happened after that: I finished working in Chicago, said goodbye to my friends, packed my bike, packed my bags, flew to Maryland.  Now I’m in Maryland just training and studying for my GMAT exam until the middle of May.  On the 17th of May… (drumroll).. I will participate… (another drumroll) … in the Ford 70.3 Florida Ironman! Don’t forget to check out my intensifying training log right here.
http://www.workoutlog.com/log/public/anatkramer/log.cfm

Breakfast with Sam Zell

On a breakfast note, I had one with Sam Zell and my friend Tal.  Sam Zell is the one who is responsible for the IDC Zell Entrepreneurship program.  To sum up our internships, we had the opportunity to have breakfast with Sam.  We discussed the financial situation for the most part but we had the opportunity to thank him and hopefully, others will follow in our footsteps in the years to come. Thanks Sam! (Pssst, I’m a little bit taller than you)

Next on the agenda – The Suntrust National Marathon (21st March)

Random Photos

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