St. Petersburg, FL Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon

After running the Rock 'n Roll Philly Half-Marathon, I saw that they have a Heavy Medals program http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/heavy-medals where they give you additional medals as you enter multiple Rock 'n Roll event. I thought the heavy medals looked cool so I figured I would run some of their races this year to get some while I could also travel to places that I've never run. The first race that I signed up for was the inaugural St. Petersburg half-marathon because it's near my parent's house in Florida and I thought it would give me a nice break from the winter weather in Philly. The weather in Philly had been surprisingly mild this winter and I was able to get outside and do a lot of training runs during the winter months.

The trip to Florida got off to a rough start which would be the theme for the entire weekend for me. After boarding the plane at the Philadelphia airport, we were told that the plane would need to be deiced and that would cause us a delay. No problem I figured, so I called my parent's home phone to let them know that the plane would be late. No one picked up so I just left a message on the house phone voicemail. The flight ended up landing about 45 minutes late in Tampa. As I turned my phone on there were six voicemail messages for me. My stepfather had to be admitted to the hospital caused by a swelling in his leg from a blood clot. He recently had hip replacement surgery and then had a stroke while doing physical therapy for his hip. My mom left me a message that she wouldn't be able to pick me up and called some of their neighbors and arranged for me to get a ride with Rich and Marianne, who were going to be in the Tampa area anyhow. Unfortunately, they didn't know the plane was going to be late so they waited patiently for me to finally get there.

I came out of baggage claim and was able to spot them pretty quickly in the Arrivals pickup. They took me over to the Expo at Tropicanna field to pick up my race stuff. The Expo was right on the baseball field where the Tampa Bay Rays play which I thought was pretty neat. My only complaint with this race was that you had to pay $10 to park at Tropicanna Field to go to the Expo. We were lucky and found a spot right outside the parking lot so we didn't pay, but I had prepaid for a space on race morning to avoid any hassles. I eventually got to my Mom's house late in the afternoon and waited for my mom to get home from the hospital. After she did get home, she had to bring glasses to my stepfather in the hospital so we stopped by the hospital before going to dinner at the Inn on the Gulf. It was good to see him but he was certainly not happy being in the hospital.

I woke up early on race day because it's almost an hour drive to St. Petersburg from my parent's house. plus the race organizers were closing the parking lot at 6:30 AM so I wanted to make sure that I was parked before then. I had kept an eye on the weather all week and saw that it was supposed to be in the 40's on race morning which I thought would be perfect for running. Luckily at the last minute, I threw my long running pants, a sweatshirt and running gloves into my suitcase. I don't know if it was really 40 degrees or not, but I'm quite sure with the wind chill it was closer to 20 degrees. It was not comfortable at all and since I knew I was very chilled, I could only imagine how the Floridians were coping with it.

The race got off to a good start, even with the cold weather, and I found the 1:45 pace group so I tried to stay with them. Around the fourth mile, I started having severe intestinal pains. I gutted it out for two more miles hoping that it would pass but at the six mile marker I saw some port-a-johns and  made the stop. The pace group was going a minute faster than they should have been at that point so I didn't lose much time and still could have made my goal of 1:45. The course winded through some neighborhood streets and then came to a park that runs along the waters of Tampa Bay. This is where it would get really cold as the wind blowing off the water was just a biting, frigid cold. I wasn't comfortable to begin with and I was really feeling it going around the St. Pete Pier. My time was slowing again and I didn't think 1:45 would be possible so I just kept gutting it out and trying to get it over with.

One the funnier things that happened during this race was that I needed to check in for my Southwest flight while the race was going on. Around the 12.5 mile mark, I had the Southwest app on my iPhone loaded with my flight info so that I just had to press a button to check in for the flight. It actually worked well and I was in the "A" boarding group for my flight back home the following morning. Nearing the end of the race, I saw the Finish line but just didn't have anything for a sprint to the finish. I gutted out a 1:48:17 time which was a slight improvement over my last half-marathon but below my expectations. After finishing, I had the race photographer picture me Tebowing as that was the latest trend. I wanted to do it right before the Finish line but there were a lot of people and it might have been dangerous.

The course was great, just the weather made it very tough run, but you can't really control that. I chalked it up as a character building race and hope that it would help me be better in future races. The post-race concert was headlined by Flo-Rida. I had previously arranged to meet up after the race with Mark Bagley who is a Delta Chi fraternity brother from UPJ and lives in Tampa with his wife Mandi. They both ran the race and we met up at the beer tent and then headed over to Ferg's for lunch. It was great catching up with them since it had been about 20 years since I graduated and last seen him.

On my way home, I called my mom to see if she was at the hospital with my stepfather. He had actually been discharged and was resting at home. I guess there really wasn't much they could do with him so they sent him home. It was good seeing him when I got back to the house after a disappointing race. I guess all's well that end's well. The next morning, I was up early again to catch my flight home.

Philadelphia Half Marathon

The Philadelphia Half-Marathon/Marathon on November 20th came about two months after the Rock 'n Roll half-marathon. I was hoping to be back to full strength but while I was training since the R 'n R half, but I realized that was still unrealistic. The pain in my calves from the natural running form had subsided, which that was certainly a relief, but the speed and endurance would still need more time. With that in mind, I set my goal to simply beat my previous half marathon time and finish around 1:50:00.

The morning of the race was cool but very comfortable for a race in mid-November. As I started the race within the first quarter mile, I was tapped on the shoulder by Dan Kennedy from the WPR and ran with Dan for the first seven+ miles.We were running at an eight minute/mile pace which was faster than I wanted, but figured if I could keep this pace then I would end with a pretty good time.

It wishful thinking on my part to maintain that pace and as we turned onto 34th street before the eight mile mark, I started fading going up the hill past Drexel University. Dan continued on and I just tried to keep a good pace going to finish the last five miles. As I passed the Philadelphia Zoo, I felt a strange sticking sensation on the bottom of my foot. It was like every step that I took, the skin was sticking to the bottom of my shoe. It a huge blister in the making. It seemed like each step was becoming more painful than the previous step. The last few miles I had to take a few walks to relieve some of the blister pain in my foot.

I came around the Philly Art Museum and had some gas to finish the race strong with a sprint to the Finish. I think I wanted to get it over with as the blister was driving me crazy. I finished under my goal with a time of 1:48:51 with an 8:18 min/mile pace. I was certainly happy with the result but kept thinking about what could have been had I not gotten that blister.

The Back Story

I decided to start a blog to provide people with information about my rehabilitation after a major injury and my training and races that have occurred since that injury. The story takes place over a 14 month period from when I was first injured to completing my first Olympic-distance triathlon on June 24, 2012. I plan to continue updating the blog with races in the future. I hope that people can be inspired by what I’ve been through and possibly motivated to challenge themselves to achieve greater things in their lives. In addition to providing information about my races, I will share some of the tips and tricks that I have learned while training for my first triathlon for anyone who is thinking about doing a triathlon.

My story is that I’ve been a runner for the better part of the last 12 years. I’ve always tried to be somewhat in shape but things like work and other responsibilities have occasionally side-tracked me in the past. For the last eight or so years, I have been pretty consistent with running. I’ve completed three marathons and many half-marathons. Luckily, I have a great job and I live close to where I work (a five minute bike ride or ten minute walk) so I have plenty of disposable time to train without the hassles of commuting.

I had an unfortunate accident on May 1, 2011 where I was playing softball and was hit by a line drive that broke my left kneecap and completely ruptured my quadriceps tendon. While the world was celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden, I was in the ER in Bryn Mawr hospital getting X-rays and being placed in a knee brace, hopped upon whatever pain killers that I was given to numb the pain. I was scared that my ability to run, let alone walk would be forever changed. I met with an orthopedic doctor two days later and he told me that I would need surgery to repair the knee cap and tendon and that was really the only option. The sign of my tendon being ruptured was fairly simple test, lay on your back with your leg straight, and then try to raise your leg. I was totally unable to perform this simple exercise meaning the quad tendon was completely ruptured.

 

I went in for surgery the following Friday morning, May 6th. The surgery went well without any complications. A screw was inserted into my kneecap to attach the broken bones and my tendon was sutured to my kneecap. My surgeon felt the operation went well and was able to bend my knee while I was under. After I woke up from the anesthesia, the surgeon was there and we briefly discussed the procedure. After a few hours at the hospital, I was discharged and  went back to my girlfriend’s place for the rest of the day. As the anesthesia wore off, a numbing pain settled in and became brutally unbearable as the night wore on. Sleeping was impossible and I took my Vicodin at the prescribed times but I don’t think it helped until about 3AM when I was finally able to get some sleep. I would sleep for about an hour and then wake up, take another Vicodin and eventually fall asleep about an hour later. After several hours, the numbing pain wore off or the meds kicked in, but I was feeling much better on Saturday afternoon and even went to a barbeque later in the afternoon. 

 

I spent the next two months in a knee brace to immobilize my leg and doing physical therapy to strengthen my knee. I never missed running as much as I had that summer. I was lucky that I knew had done some physical therapy in the past at the Penn Sports Medicine Center. Chris Kauffman, whom I worked with in the past, saw my Facebook posts about the injury and helped me to get scheduled with a therapist quickly. I started my physical therapy appointments at Penn Sports Med the following week for the entire summer to strengthen my knee. I feel like I was very coachable, patient, and worked hard in PT and at home to get better. I was hoping to be cleared to run at the end of July but I think the surgeon knew that I might go out and push it too hard so he wouldn't clear me for another month. Finally after four months of physical therapy and healing, I was medically cleared to run again. Although my knee still hurt and continues to do so today, it was healed enough for me not to damage anything further with higher impact running. Time for the fun to begin….

Now for the absolutely crazy part of the story. I had registered for the Philadelphia Rock ‘n Roll half marathon before the injury and not wanting to waste my registration fee, I decided that I would try to train for the race which was happening on 9/18/2011. I felt that I would see how it went but wouldn’t push myself if I felt there was any danger for future injury. Just finishing a half marathon would be a major accomplishment based on what I had been through. I started training slow and made a promise to myself to stay within my limits.I was able to ramp my mileage up to completing a 10 mile run within four weeks of training and just a few days before the race.

The race went well and my goal was to finish around the 2 hour mark. I ran a good pace with my friend Alon from the West Philly Runners. We stayed together for 10 miles and had a slow and steady pace going when I started to fade. Alon had a burst of energy and took off for the final 5K. The next two miles were tough as my calves were pretty cramped from a new running form which stresses natural running so it became a run/walk for the last few miles. I was still able to finish under my goal with a time of 1:53:13 and then got to sit back at the finish and listen to a free Bret Michael concert after the race while basking in my athletic achievement. Something that I hadn't expected or thought possible a few short months prior.