I didn’t make it through day 25 last time, but my friends rallied around me on the 31st to get the missing miles in and I was able to end on a high note and raise enough money for a family to attend Camp Sunshine.

Now that I’m full time with Run to Win, I’m better able to get my running in during daylight hours when there is less traffic and safer conditions.

Seems like a good time to start it again, doesn’t it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGX2jU8KhDQ

Beginning on March 1 and running through March 31, I will be running the challenge again and I’d like for you to join me. Here’s how you can help:

1. Run the Challenge (sign up below)
2. Donate to Campsunshine
3. Get Camp Sunshine Media Attention***
4. Promote Your Products with Prizes (contact me if you have something)
5. Come Run a Free Race with Us (details to be announced)

Learn about the original challenge and follow the progress of the new challenge at the website:
1MoreMileForSunshine.com

One of the most disturbing stats that I saw on a quick glance through the report is that 40% of the time, Americans are traveling less than 2 miles. However, 62% of the trips that were less than a mile were by car, and 87% of the trips between 1 and 2 miles! Sure, sometimes you need to carry a lot of groceries home, or the weather is bad you’re afraid that you’ll melt. I can understand that. But if it’s a nice day and you’re just going to visit a friend down the road, or if you live close to where you work, why not walk?

Economically, bicycling and pedestrian related projects will normally create between 11 and 14 jobs per $1 million spent, compared to 7 jobs created for highway projects. Despite cost/benefit analyses showing that every dollar spent can result in $11.80 in benefits, states are spending less than 2% of their federal transportation dollars on projects that will encourage people to commute under their own power. That’s just one of the reasons that biking and walking levels are down 66% since 1960 and is probably a contributing factor to a growth of 156% in obesity levels. In fact, between 1966 and 2009, the number of kids walking or biking to school went down by 75% and the percentage of fat and overweight kids has increased by 276%.

Did you know that 6 of the 10 states with the highest levels of biking and walking also have the lowest levels of bicycle or pedestrian fatality rates in traffic accidents? On top of that, in 7 of the 10 states where you are most likely to die in a traffic accident from getting hit by a car you’ll also find the fewest number of fellow bikers and walkers.

Maine is one of the better states to live in if you enjoy moving under your own power, which just gives me one more reason to be happy that I live in Vacationland all year. How does your state rank? You can find out by checking out the report at: People Powered Movement.org

Leave a comment below and let me know how you rank where you live.

Finish Line at the Houston Marathon

It was a great weekend. I knew it would be something special when within a few hours of getting there last Thursday I’d already met up with a half dozen people I knew (and all at random, none of it was planned.) That night, my wife and I crashed a local running club’s pasta dinner (okay, we were invited, but it’s more fun to say we crashed it.) The next day, we met up with a friend of ours that was also in town to take a tour of the Johnson Space Center, and then I spent the afternoon at the Expo trying to drum up business for my book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KneUwacajQw

Download This Video: MP3 – Watch on YouTube

Women at Olympic Trials

That afternoon, my wife and I decided to run to Rice Village for lunch, which was about a 5 mile jog from where we were staying. We actually went to the Chocolate Bar first to get some ice cream, then went to lunch. Rice Village strikes me as being similar to Freeport if you cut Freeport in half. After lunch, Erin took the train back downtown and I decided to run through Herman Park and then back to our hotel, making it about a 13 mile day right before my marathon.

Meeting Brian Sell

Erin wasn’t too happy that I’d been up drinking until 11:30 the night before my marathon, but it doesn’t seem to have affected me too much. I felt fine the next morning, made it to the starting line early enough to get a photo with the Maniacs, and seeded myself around the 3 hour pacer since I honestly had no idea what sort of pace I’d be able to run and figured the best I could do would be 3 hours and a few minutes.

A few miles into the race, Gary Allen was running next to me and spotted me, so we decided to settle into 6:50/mile pace for the next hour since Gary’s “A” goal was just to break 3 hours. Of course, that never happened. We were busting out 6:43s no matter how hard we tried to slow down, and this turned out to be one of the best paced races I’ve run at this distance. Overall, I ran a 56 second negative split and my 5k splits only varied by a second or two per mile. At the end of the race, I got passed by a couple of people in the last 4½ miles, but I passed 25 people. My final time was 2:55:40.

It was a lot of fun, even if I don’t really care for all that concrete that they use for roads down there. I don’t think I’ll be very likely to go back, as I also prefer smaller races, but it was worth running for sure.

GAC Fat Ass 50k

“Pain Is Temporary. Quitting is Forever.”
    –Lance Armstrong

I drove down with some friends the GAC Fat Ass 50k this morning with the intention of running all 5 loops. Given the beautiful weather, it almost seemed a crime not to.

It was a lot of fun, despite the lack of anything even resembling snow (at least once it warmed up a little we got some mud to run through) and there were a lot more people than I expected.

Running in a singlet in January in New England somehow seems wrong, but it’s a fun loop and a good group of folks that come out to run.

I was running at a good clip for almost 3 loops when I started to feel a small twinge in my achilles. Not enough that would stop me during a race or even a workout if I were training for something, but enough to make me notice it and consider whether I should continue on for a fourth loop or not given that I’m running another marathon next weekend and I don’t want to risk getting hurt for it.

I decided that it was better to be smart than to have fun and take risks since I had nothing to prove today, but it was a hard decision. The decision did have one benefit in that I had a ride at that point and was able to reclaim a few hours of my day and my afternoon was quite productive, but it was so nice out that it still seems a shame to have stopped.

Hopefully I can get back next year and do a proper job of running all 5 loops.

2012 Boston Ice Sculpture

Last year, I drove down from Maine with a friend from Maine. This year, I spent New Year’s Eve with another friend that lives in the Boston area, which was actually quite convenient because I was able to drop my car off near the Boston Public Library and have it waiting for me near the finish line when I was done.

We arrived in Hopkinton around 5:45 in the morning to join a quickly growing crowd of about 30 runners. Apparently, a good portion of our group was planning on running the course at 7 a.m. instead so they could sleep in a little, and I also heard that the B.A.A. had a group that was planning to run at 9:30 a.m. I’m not sure how many or if anybody showed up for those runs, but our group was around 30 runners strong and about a third of us planned on running the entire way.

The sun had yet to rise for a little over the first hour of the run, and despite warmer temperatures than last year the roads were much slicker from the previous day’s freezing rain. At least it wasn’t as slick as Maine had been on New Year’s Eve…before driving down I took a tumble on my morning trail run and hit the ground pretty hard. As far as I’m aware everybody managed to keep their feet during the marathon.

There was definitely more traffic this year. Last year we pretty much had the streets to ourselves until we got near Boston, but this year there was a regular stream of cars passing us or crossing our paths. I’d consider it light even by Maine standards, so while we couldn’t take up the entire road this year we still had no trouble and for the most part got to spread out across one lane at least.

Around 9 or 10 miles into the run, we passed a murder of crows that came out to watch us run. Gary told us not to look up because the one on the left looked pretty mean, but I think they enjoyed watching us. He also pointed out that we should “notice that there’s no unicorns up in the power lines to cheer us on.” I believe that the first of our group actually finished running the course before the first B.A.A. group got around to starting theirs.

Along the course, there are plenty of Dunkin Donuts that are open, even at 6:00 in the morning, for those needing to use the facilities. The only real problem with relieving yourself is that you then have to play catch-up to reach the group again.

The second time I had to catch up to the group, I decided to take my time doing so and spent a few miles on my own. When I did catch up, Amanda was in that pack and both of us seemed pretty content to take our time through the Newton Hills and moved into the grassy median going up the hills. While the ground was uneven and frozen, it wasn’t as icy as the roads around there so it was easier to keep our feet. We didn’t catch back up to anybody else and ran the rest of the way in to Boston together, where her boyfriend was filming the finish and caught our epic sprint to the line on film. I’m hoping that cut makes it past the chopping room floor!

We ran in a leisurely 3:37:08, about 15 minutes slower than I ran it last year and about 3½ minutes faster than the first time I ran Boston back in 2005. Of course, I was miserable in 2005 and felt great on Sunday so it’s hard to even compare those experiences.

After the run, most of us hung out at a Starbucks a few blocks away from the finish line where I showcased my new book and swapped stories with a great group of friends.

If you don’t have plans for the new year next year, you should really consider joining us.

On November 29, I tried to go to bed early, but I had an idea. So I got up to write down some notes and went back to bed. Then I got up to take more notes. This went on until instead of going to bed an hour early I was going to bed 3 hours late…and that’s how the Runner’s Almanac began.

Fast forward 2 weeks and 2 days and I was ordering a proof. The book was put together, the cover designed, interior typeset, and now it was just time to wait and see whether what I’d envisioned in my head was going to work when it was actually on paper.

And yes, yes it does!

The proof of the book came in today, so I’ve gone ahead and made it available for purchase.

The book will appear at Amazon most likely between Monday and Wednesday of next week, but until then you can check out the book’s website, download a sample chapter if you’d like to see what it’s all about, and order it directly if you’d rather get it sooner rather than later (it would make a great Christmas gift for any runner in the family!)

Just head on over to: therunnersalmanac.com

I’d like to apologize for waiting a week before choosing a winner. I’ve got a great project in the works that is just about finished and ready to be announced that has consumed all of my time over the past couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I’d like to award the final 2 sets of IceSpikes to some deserving winners. If you took part in either of the previous two contests, you are already entered, but you are welcome to get a bonus entry into this contest now if you like by just leaving a comment below.

I will choose 2 winners at random on Sunday night at 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time so you have until then to leave a comment below.

Update: Rather than make yet another post on these contests, since this is the final one I am going to just announce the winners of the last 2 sets!

This time, there were 91 entries, and #13 and #69 were chosen, which are Jim in Wells and Marcel.

Congrats, guys, I’ll be contacting you for a mailing address!

I’d also like to announce another contest for another free set! This one will run a little longer. You have from now until Friday, December 9th at noon Eastern Time to leave a comment below. Also, for those that entered this weekend’s contest – you’ll get an automatic entry from yesterday’s or this morning’s entry and can have a bonus entry by leaving a comment on this post. (This only applies for those that entered before the deadline – future comments won’t be considered on that post, only on this one.)

If you win one of these sets of Ice Spikes, then you aren’t eligible to win again. Sorry – one set per person!

So, who did win the first set? Let’s see:

Contest Winner

The 45th comment (out of 46) was left by LaNeta Roth at 11:27 am this morning! Great job getting your entry in right under the wire, LaNeta! I’ll be contacting you for where to send your free set of Ice Spikes.

And don’t forget, until midnight tonight (Sunday, December 4th) you can get a 15% discount off of any order from their website. Just go to www.icespike.com and enter coupon code: stocking stuffer

And if you want to enter this week’s contest for the next free set of Ice Spikes, all you need to do is leave a comment below.

There are other solutions that I’ve reviewed before, such as Stabilicers and Yak Trax, but until I heard about Ice Spikes my favorite solution was to just drill sheet metal screws into the bottom of my shoes. They’re both cheaper and more effective than anything else I’d tried.

Having used Ice Spikes for a couple of Winters now, my conclusions from 2010 still hold true. Sheet metal screws aren’t as effective as Ice Spikes and they don’t last nearly as long. However, they are a lot cheaper.

How much you run and how much traction you want will determine which solution is better for you, and if you’d like to see all the pros and cons of both solutions then click here to see my full summary.

There is one thing for sure, however, and that’s that if you can get your Ice Spikes on sale or for free, then there’s no contest about which is a better option! Ice Spikes has been kind enough to sponsor quite a few races here in Southern Maine, one of which I direct and a few put on by my trail running friends.

How To Win a Free Set of Ice Spikes

They’ve also been kind enough to provide some of their product for me to give away right here at Run to Win! I’ll be giving them away throughout the month, starting today. If you are paying attention, then this weekend you can just leave a comment here on this page and you’ll be entered into a random drawing. Be sure to leave a valid email address (it won’t appear on the site) so that I can get in touch with you if you win.

As I type this, it is Saturday morning on December 3rd, 2011. This contest will stay open until noon on Sunday, December 4th (Eastern Time.) One fast acting commenter is going to get a free set of Ice Spikes to use this Winter, and you’ll still have time after the contest to buy a set with a 15% discount from their website.

If you buy anything on their website by midnight tomorrow, use coupon code stocking stuffer and you’ll get 15% off of your order. Just go to: www.icespike.com

To enter the contest: Just leave a comment below.

Racing Ryan Hall

They created a display that shows Ryan Hall running for 60 feet down the hallway at his marathon pace of 4:45 per mile. Subway travelers were invited to race against him and then given some stats…for example, did you know that his stride length is 6 feet 10 inches? Wowzas…

Even Ryan and his wife Sara got to try racing him, here’s a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDs4j8ZHzVg

Watch on YouTube

So what do you think…think you could beat him 60 feet down the hall?