nyc half marathon

on sunday, august 27th i ran the new york city half marathon race. and it went pretty well.
it was a perfect running day, especially for august, with the temperature at a very cool 67 degrees. the race started out in central park at east 87th street. to see the route, click here. we then circled through the entire park. while running through it, we were treated to musicians playing classical music. pretty cool huh?


at around mile 7.5, as i was exiting the park and onto 7th avenue, U2's song "New York" was blasting over the loudspeakers. this was probably one of the highlights of the run, as it was SO COOL to hit the streets of new york with that song playing. it totally pumped me up! from this point to mile 9 was favorite part of the run, as we got to run down 7th avenue and onto 42nd street, running through times square with not a car in sight. all the roads were blocked off and the streets really did belong to the runners.


right before i got to times square, it started to pour rain. in a matter of seconds, all of us runners were soaking wet and the streets were drenched in water. it was really cool to run through times square with water pouring onto my face. however, with the rain as a distraction, i unforunately missed the broadway musical singers who were performing for us on a stage. my friend who ran through there at a different time heard them performing a song from rent. how did i miss that?!

after continuing west on 42nd street, we then crossed over onto the west side highway and ran on it from mile 9 to the finish. at about mile 10, my legs started to get really heavy, and i started to get tired. however, at mile 11, i had the best surprise ever. as i was running, i heard someone yell my name, and looking to the left, i passed right by bettina and brian, who were yelling and cheering for me! that definitely got my blood pumping again and helped me to cross that finish line. i even finished at my goal time of under 2 hours, just barely! i finished the race in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 46 seconds, averaging a pace of 9 minutes and 8 seconds! looks like the yasso 800s was almost accurate in predicting my time!

it was even cooler to run under 2 hours, because only 2 days before, when marc went and picked up my race packet for me, he asked me what goal time was (as nike was handing out pace bracelets) and i said, 2 hours! so it was really exciting to meet that goal! plus i beat my last half marathon time by 5 minutes!

after the finish, upon picking up water, gatorade and an apple, i decided to stand in a very long line for a post-run massage. the line was really long, and seeing as how it was cold and i was still really wet (especially my socks) i kept questioning whether this massage would really be worth it. after standing there for probably over an hour, it was finally my turn. and let me tell you, the wait was definitely worth it. this nice chinese woman gave me a 10 minute massage, working on my legs, gluts and back.

even with the massage, all day yesterday and today, my legs have been really sore! i'm really glad i ran this race though as it will help me to prepare for the full marathon. in fact, running this race has already taught me that if i want to finish the full marathon, i will definitely need to slow down the pace. otherwise i might not cross that finish line!

yasso 800s

yesterday, i decided to hit up the track for some speed training, so i went out to bethesda chevy chase high school out in maryland to use their track. i decided to try this technique that my coach had told us about called the yasso 800s. basically, this guy yasso, who works at runner's world, made up this technique of predicting your marathon time by running 800 meters. what you do is run 800 meters (2 laps around the track) and the time it takes you to to run the 800 meters (in minutes) is what your time will be (in hours) when running the marathon. so yesterday, i started out by running 800 meters fast and then after that 800 meters, i jogged for the same number of minutes it took me to run the previous 800 meters. basically you do 2 laps around the track fast and then a couple minutes slow to recover.

what yasso does is start running yasso 800s a couple of months before his goal marathon. the first week he does four. on each subsequent week, he adds one more until he reaches 10. since yesterday was my first time at doing this, i did 5 repeats. and if this method is correct, i should be running my marathon in 3 hours and 57 minutes. hmm... not sure this is really feasible, seeing as how that's a 9 minute and 3 second pace! and for me, that's fast!

well, i'm running the new york city half marathon this weekend, so i'll see how that race goes!

another plus of running around the track yesterday was that i got to calibrate my ipod. since calibration, i haven't run with it yet, so i'm still not sure whether the calibration worked. but i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

some people have asked me what the heck the ipod+nike device is and how it works, so i've pasted a picture of it here. basically, inside the box, on the left hand side, that oval shaped thing with the apple and nike symbol is the signal. you put this thing either inside your shoe or on your shoe. then, the white thing on the right hand side is what you attach to your ipod. basically the oval thing sends signals to the white thing to tell it how much you have run. then your ipod talks to you -- on the screen of the ipod it tells you the time elapsed, how much distance you have covered, and how many calories you have burned. pretty cool huh?

for some reason, in my previous blog entry, i couldn't get the photo of my friends and i at the arboretum to paste into the blog. so i've put the picture in here.


okay, i'm off. until the new york city half marathon...

ipod+nike

yesterday evening, i finally tried out my new ipod+nike device that serena and kelvin had gotten for me as a gift!

while i should have tried out my ipod on sunday with a 30-minute run, i instead opted to go on a mini-hiking adventure with some friends to the national arboretum. i'll post a photo soon.

anyway, back to my new ipod+nike device and the run. it was pretty cool. not only do you get to listen to music but since i was set to the distance mode, at every mile, a woman's voice would talk over my music and say "you're at X miles!" however, it seems as though i should calibrate the device so that when i run, it's set to the way i run and the steps i take, because according to my ipod, i ran 5.45 miles, whereas when i used gmap pedometer and mapped the route, it was only 5 miles.

according to my ipod, i had run 5 miles at a pace of 8 minutes and 29 seconds per mile totaling 48 minutes and 10 seconds. now, i'm not really sure that this is accurate, for while i was running faster than normal, i'm not sure i was running at under a 9 minute mile pace. for me, that's hard to do! now if i take the gmap pedometer map, i would have run 5 miles at a pace of 9 minutes and 38 seconds, which seems a little bit slower than the pace i was running at yesterday but probably more on par than the ipod calculations!

my analysis of the situation? that i need to calibrate my ipod so that it fits with the way i walk and run and the steps that i take when i run. my theory is that ipod probably calibrates it to an average person and how he/she walks. since i'm much shorter than the average person (i'm only 5' 2.5"), my ipod is calculating a bigger step than what i'm actually taking. well, at least, that's my theory! i'm heading to the track tomorrow, so i can calibrate my ipod then and see whether it's more accurate afterwards.

until then...

the effects of humidity

on saturday, we did a shorter 8 mile run and it was terrible. all of my teammates were miserable and it was MUCH harder than the 14 mile run we did last week. why you ask? because on saturday, it was unbearably humid. i never realized how much of an effect humidity has when running until saturday. to run 14 miles the week before in such great weather and feel great and then run almost less than half that distance the following distance and suffer so greatly is clearly an indication of how hard it is to run when it's humid.

this coming saturday, i will be running a race, the new york city half marathon. to check out the course map, click here. i really really hope that it will be more like 2 weeks ago rather than this past weekend. i'm also hoping to beat my last half marathon race time at the shakespeare half marathon of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 24 seconds. not sure that will happen though but i can always dream.

photos from the cooper test

for some reason i couldn't get these images posted up earlier, but finally photos of regis and i doing the cooper test. they're kind of crappy, but keep in mind it's difficult to take photos while someone is running. i don't know how those sports photographers do it. but then again, they problably don't have a digital camera with a delayed shutter speed! if you have no idea what the cooper test is, read this post.

hitting new mileage

today we ran 14 miles, which is the most i've ever run in my life! yah! that means that every long run after this where we hit new miles, i'll be running more miles every time!

today's run was great. finally we got a respite from the heat in dc and there was no humidity and cool weather. at 7am this morning, i was actually cold in my short sleeve tee-shirt! let's just hope that it stays like this.

the run was good, although at about mile 11 my legs were really getting tired. but somehow we managed through it and averaged about 10 minute miles. i'm now more than half way there, just 12 more miles to go!!!

i tried the sports beans today and they were alright. the problem was, i had no idea how many of them i was supposed to eat, so i didn't even finish a pack. but they were good, a little sweet but the run was fine, so it might have worked? no idea if these things really work or if it's all mental.

upon getting home, i finally got to take a hot shower (my water heater had been broken for about 2 weeks and FINALLY, the technicians decided to show up at my house last night to fix it!)

not sure if anyone has read about the new nike ipod device thing that they've created. basically it's this cool gadget that you wear on your shoe and somehow it communicates with the ipod nano to record how much you are running. i guess there's also people talking saying motivational stuff that plays over your music. anyway, serena and kelvin got me the nano as a gift (thank you!) and my nano should be arriving any day now. and i got the shoe device thing from amazon so soon i'll be all technologically sophisticated and will be able to track and record my distances. when i get it, i'll let you know how it is. until next time...

running on meat

this past weekend, i got to celebrate my cousin (nephew in chinese culture) timmy's wedding. regis and i took off to toronto for the weekend and met up with family and friends for a fun-filled fabulous weekend of eating, drinking and more eating.

dominic (timmy's brother) picked us up at the airport on friday night and drove us to a very happenning barbeque that was going on, where regis and i stocked up on meat, meat and more meat. i'm talking steaks, burgers, chicken, korean barbeque meat, etc. it was SO good. but i don't think i've had as much meat in the past year as i had that night!

on saturday, i dragged regis with me to go on my 8 mile run (much better than the 16 mile run i would have had to do if my coach hadn't modified the schedule)! and while we ran later than if i was in washington, dc (i think we started running around 10:30ish), it was SO NICE, because it wasn't humid at all. clean, crisp air. it was wonderful! we got through the 8 miles, although i was a bit sluggish at miles 5 and 6! and who would have known that right outside toronto, in markham, where dominic lives, only a couple miles away it's country? we ran past farms, animals, and even a tractor.

since pictures are always more exciting than words, here are some photos of my cousins and i at the wedding. enjoy! until saturday's 14 mile run...

gu vs sports beans

since i haven't written in a couple days, i thought i'd check in. the 12 mile run on saturday was great! it went really well, considering that it was 12 miles. it was hot but not as hot as it is with this crazy heat wave we are having right now! and it wasn't too bad. since the scary run that i had a couple weeks ago, i'm now a bit paranoid, so i went out on my run this time armed with water, gatorade and gu. if you all don't know what gu is, it's this gooey substance that runners take when they run longer then 60 minutes, which has carbohydrates in it, so runners can get more energy. anyway, it's definitely a weird substance and the best way to describe it is its name, gu! it's gooey!


actually my friend was telling me about something else to take, which hopefully i'll get to try soon, since i just ordered them online. they're called sports beans. they're made by the jelly belly people and are jelly beans but are packed with the carbs you need to run. supposedly they taste much better than gu!

anyway, as i stated in the last email, my coach changed our mileage, so we actually ran 2 less miles than what we were originally supposed to do. however, after the run, my legs were so tired that i'm not sure i would have had 2 more miles in me.

anyway, this weekend, the mileage has been cut in half, rather than 16 miles we only have to do 8 miles, which is good, since i'm heading to toronto for my cousin tim's wedding. and the thought of doing 16 miles by myself is a little overwhelming.

i did go running yesterday, in the crazy heat wave we are having out here, and it was rough. i went in the morning so it wasn't as hot, but i was terrible. i was tired, hot and ran really badly. plus i hit every single streetlight known to man and that's just annoying. afterwards, my shins hurt, so i decided that for today and tomorrow i'm going to take it easy. maybe i'll just go to the gym tomorrow and ride the bike or something instead. i want to make sure i'm ready for saturday's run. until then...