2013 Boston Marathon Jackets

Here's the 2013 Boston Marathon Jackets.  Pretty sweet looking.  I could buy one now but I would just be torturing myself if I did so.  It's bad karma to wear them before you actually finish the race.  It's kinda like how NHL players avoid touching the Stanley Cup until they win it.  So hopefully sometime around 4PM on April 15, 2013, you'll see me walking somewhere around Copley Square wearing one of these...

Why I Run

Here's a little video we filmed at Dana-Farber last week on why I run...

...and the Boston Marathon training officially begins.

Training Day is finally here...

2012 Feaster Five

So tomorrow marks the beginning of the official Boston Marathon training.  Most marathon training programs are about 18 weeks long.  The training program that I've decided to do is the Hal Higdon Novice 1 Marathon program (or some variation of it).  It's designed for first time marathon runners which for all intents and purposes is what I am.  I'm not counting the 2011 BayState Marathon since I did that with pretty much no training and my results reflected that lack of training.

What I've been doing since September up until now was nothing more than getting my body in shape to begin this marathon training and also getting into the routine of exercising A LOT.  In three months time I've racked up just over 500 miles on the road and on the treadmill.  Add that to the fact that I've been eating salads for lunch instead of fast food and cut out most of the Bud Light calories and the result is my weight dropped from 204 lbs. to 166 lbs.  So there you go.  That's the secret to weight loss.  Burn more calories than you take in.  It's simple math.

My final "pre-training" run was a rainy 10 mile run around Pelham.  That mileage will be steadily increasing from now until three weeks before the marathon when I'll be doing my longest training run which is 20 miles.  Most of these long runs on the weekend will be done with my Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge teammates under the tutelage of our team trainer, Jack Fultz, winner of the 1976 Boston Marathon.

So phase one is over and now it's onto phase two which means a lot more running outside (often in the dark) and running at faster speeds.

Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Partner Program
While this is only one small paragraph of this blog entry, this is actually a pretty big deal.  I found out this past week that I've been accepted to the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Partner Program.  The program pairs up DFMC runners with current pediatric patients of the Dana-Farber Jimmy Fund Clinic.  I haven't found out who my patient partner is yet, but I'm looking forward to meeting and getting to know him or her and helping support their battle with cancer.  My wife Angela was paired up with a DFMC runner for the 1996 Boston Marathon while she was a patient at Dana-Farber.  So we've come full circle.  I'll surely be posting much more about this program once I meet my patient partner.

Heart Health Study
I've also been accepted to participate in a Heart Health Study at Mass General Hospital.  The study is to determine the effects of marathon training on the heart.  So I'll get to have my body hooked up to an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram, and other expensive machines to see what this marathon training is doing to my heart, good or bad.  In other words, I'll be a lab rat running on a hamster wheel.

Fundraising Update
To date, we've raised $1,054.80 for Dana-Farber!  Thank you each and every one of you for all of your support!!!  If you would like to donate to support my run for Dana-Farber, please visit the following link:
http://www.rundfmc.org/2013/andrews

That's all for now, and let the training begin!

Thanksgiving Day Update

Feaster Five
I just got back from the Feaster Five in Andover, MA.  They had a record number of runners for this year's race with over 10,000 runners.  The Feaster Five allows you to run either a 5k or a 5 miler.  I did the 5 miler.  As further proof that my training is actually working, I set a personal record for a 5 miler finishing in 36:24.  Another pretty cool thing is looking at the results and seeing your name on the same page as Joan Benoit-Samuelson (Page 6 of the results).  I'm sure it was just a leisurely jog for her, but still, it's not every day you get to say you did a road race with an Olympic gold medalist marathon runner and finished ahead of them!

The race itself was well organized.  Easy driving in before the race and easy getting out after the race.  I knew that due to the large number of people including walkers, people with strollers, and people with dogs (legally) that runners in the past have had issues with slow people impeding their runs.  Knowing this, I made sure I jockeyed for a position near the front of the field at the start of the race so I hopefully wouldn't have to deal with traffic on the course.  I started at around the 7:00 pace sign and had no major issues.  The 5 miler and 5k course split apart around a mile into the race and there was no congestion after that point until they merge back together around mile 3 and it gets a little bit crowded but nothing I wasn't able to weave in and out of.

Post race swag was decent.  Plenty of chips, bananas, apples, water, vitamin water, and table talk apple pies.  All things considered, it was a fun race and the weather was perfect for Thanksgiving morning (about 40 degrees, sunny, with no wind).  I'll definitely consider doing this race again in the future.

Training Update
The official training is still a few weeks away (December 10th).  But I've been racking up the miles on the treadmill, on my lunch breaks, and on my weekend long runs.  As of this moment, I've logged 407 miles since I began my "pre-training" in early September.  That's borderline insane just seeing that.  But anyways, this blog now has a widget on the right side so you can see how many miles I've run.  Things will change a bit when the real training begins since I'll be doing less slow treadmill running and mostly outdoor running at faster speeds, colder temperatures, and in the dark for much of the training.  So I'll get to try out my new nighttime and cold weather running gear.

Fundraising Update
I haven't really done much on the fundraising front since the initial emails and probably won't until sometime next year.  There's a fine line between being persistent with your fundraising and annoying everyone you know with too many emails.  That being said, if anyone would like to help support my run in the 2013 Boston Marathon for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, please head on over to: http://www.rundfmc.org/2013/andrews.  Your donations are tax-deductible and go to support the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research, which funds the brightest, most creative scientists making basic research discoveries.  Here are brief descriptions of selected projects supported by the Barr Program, illustrating some of the program's most significant impacts to date.  Did I mention that donations to Dana-Farber make great Christmas gifts?  :)

Marathon Update
This just arrived in the mail yesterday from Dana-Farber.  So I guess there's no backing out now!

 

Oct. 23rd - Training and Fundraising Update

Just wanted to give an update on my Boston Marathon training and fundraising.  The training has been going good so far.  Been logging lots of miles on the treadmill during the week and doing my long runs on the weekend with my longest run being just under 9 miles which is the maximum I will run until the “official” Boston Marathon training schedule begins 18 weeks before the marathon on December 10^th.  But until then, it’s more about losing weight and getting my body back in to running shape.  Since I started getting back on the treadmill in the beginning of September, I’ve lost over 20 lbs to date.  Hoping to lose another 20 or so pounds by race date which I think is easily attainable based on the mileage I’ll be running between now and April.  Since the start of September when I found out I was going to be on the 2013 DFMC Team, I’ve run 207 miles.

Went on a bit of a shopping spree for running gear since the stuff I was running with was getting a bit old and worn out.  So I got a couple of new pairs of running shoes from Runner’s Alley in Nashua, NH.  Got some ugly Mizuno Wave Riders in a hideous shiny blue metallic color and a pair of Brooks Ghosts.  Plan is to alternate them from now until Boston breaking them in and pick the pair that feels better for race day.  Or what might actually happen is I’ll pick the pair that looks better on race day which isn’t gonna be the shiny blue ones.  Because the important thing is to look good in the race photographs.

A couple weekends ago Angela and I did the 1st Annual Chunky’s 5k in Nashua, NH.  Chunky’s is a local movie theatre chain.  The run was more of a trail run than a road race.  Rain that morning kept a lot of people away so it was a relatively small race with only about a hundred runners.  But I was happy with my time.  I even got an award for finishing in 2^nd place in my age bracket.  Not as impressive considering the field size but I’ll take it!  I finished in 23:48 which was good for me since this year, my race times had been getting progressively slower and slower with each subsequent race.  To see my time trending back in the right direction was a good sign that my training is starting to pay off already.  I’m sure that was due to the fact that I hadn’t really done much running for most of the year and focused most of my attention on skydiving on the weekends.  But skydiving season is just about to end (this upcoming weekend is my last of the year) so my focus will be solely on running pretty much from now until Boston.

Last night Angela and I went to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (a trip that Angela has made too many times) for an event there to celebrate the fundraising of the 2012 Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team and also to welcome some of the 2013 DFMC runners.  We got to meet some of the DFMC staff and some of my 2013 DFMC teammates who I’m sure I’ll be running many miles with on the group runs on the weekends.  We got to see the big check presentation from the 2012 DFMC fundraising efforts.  The 2012 DFMC Team raised $4,444,154.07 for the DFCI.  Some of the researchers at the DFCI talked about the types of programs the funds we raise goes towards.  Our team goal for the 2013 DFMC is to raise over $4.6 million for cancer research.

So far to date I have raised $1,029.80 (including checks that haven’t been posted to the website yet) thanks to the generosity of many donors whose names can be seen on the honor roll at my donation site http://www.2013bostonmarathon.com.  Thank you all again for your donations and support.

I still have a long way to go with my training and my fundraising, but we're off to a very good start.

It's official...I'm running the 2013 Boston Marathon!

As of 9AM this morning, I have been officially added to the 2013 Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge roster to run the 2013 Boston Marathon!


I am running in support of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute because they saved my wife Angela's life.  Angela was diagnosed with Burkitt's Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 1995 when she was in high school.  She endured months of chemotherapy and all of the nastiness that comes along with that including hair loss, not being able to eat for weeks, and having to re-learn how to walk.  But Angela is living proof of the good things done at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and has been able to call herself a cancer survivor for over 17 years.

Running the Boston Marathon as part of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Team will allow me to give back to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute by raising money for Cancer Research conducted there and at the same time get to do something that's pretty cool and cross one more item off the bucket list.

If you would like to support me and make a tax-deductible donation to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, please visit:
http://www.rundfmc.org/2013/andrews
If you make a donation in honor of, in support of, or in memory of someone, I will run the 2013 Boston Marathon with their name on the back of my shirt.

I'll be using this blog to post updates on my Boston Marathon training and my fundraising efforts.  If you want to be emailed updates from this blog, http://blogtrottr.com will email blog updates directly to your email.
Just enter this blog's address which is:
http://andrewstack2013bostonmarathon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
and your email address and you will be notified when there are new posts here. 

Also, not being on facebook limits the audience I can speak to quite a bit.  So if people can help spread the word to any relevant groups, pages, etc. it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your support!
 -Andrew