The Runs: Dublin or Bust: Archive

Nov 4th

3 tags

Oct 4th

Oct 1st

5 tags

Aug 23rd

I'm sure that was my fastest 5K ever, for what...

For our Tuesday night group training, Rachel and I and the other Brooklynites did a 5K in Prospect Park. The idea was to run it as fast as we could, so the coaches could gauge our progress going forward. I ran it in 27:37! It was strange to run what used to be a long distance for me, not trying to conserve my energy. It was rough, aerobically, but over all it felt good. This morning I put my...

Jul 28th

3 tags

Jul 27th

2 notes

Jul 26th

The Crud

About two-ish weeks ago, I started feeling like I had a cinder block sitting on my chest. Whatever, I thought. I figured my allergies were acting up, and kept running/ignoring it for as long as I could—that is, until I started hearing junk rattling around in my lungs. As I kid, I was prone to everything from bronchitis to Strep to dropsy to the ague, and fearing the worst, I headed over...

Jul 19th

7 tags

Jun 28th

4 tags

Jun 22nd

In Which Running Helps Transform Me Into My Own...

Jeff was away this past weekend, so when it came time for this Saturday’s group training session, here’s how things went: 7:00am: Awake and walk our adorable dog around our burgeoning Brooklyn neighborhood. 7:30am: Eat fiber-rich bread with Omega-3-fortified peanut butter.* 8:30am: Do my training for my charity endurance event in very beautiful Prospect Park, where we run the...

Jun 21st

1 note

5 tags

Jun 16th

4 tags

Jun 15th

Jun 10th

6 tags

Jun 8th

6 tags

Watch

Michele challenged us to run four bridges in June, and we finished our first one: the glorious (and closest) Brooklyn Bridge. If you got sick during Cloverfield, don’t watch this. A Flip camera is no Steadicam. (Also, we get eaten by some kind of alien sea monster.)

Jun 7th

7 tags

Jun 4th

2 notes

3 tags

Watch

By the way? That time I went to Jackrabbit to buy new running shoes? This was outside. You know what’s better than strippers on wheels? Donating.

May 26th

3 tags

Watch

For our training run last night, we ran around Prospect Park. (I was late, so I had to run faster to catch up to the group. Whew.) It was Rachel’s first time around the park in years, and as you can see, she felt great about it. Donate here or here!

May 26th

4 tags

May 24th

4 tags

May 24th

History of the original marathon →

My cousin Kim sent me this list of facts. One of them came as a big surprise to me…. At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the marathon distance was changed to 26.2 miles to cover the ground from Windsor Castle to White City Stadium, with the 2.2 miles added on so the race could finish in front of royal family’s viewing box. This added two miles to...

May 17th

2 notes

3 tags

May 17th

6 tags

“I dare you to run four NYC bridges in June. Doesn’t have to be TO it from...”

– Michele

May 10th

3 tags

May 9th

4 tags

Conversation our friend David recently had at a...

Me: So, what have you guys been up to?
Girl Who Ran Marathon: We just ran a marathon last weekend!
Me: Wow, that's awesome--congratulations!
Guy Who Ran Marathon: Thanks. We'd never done anything like that before.
Me: It's really impressive. How'd you guys hold up?
Girl WRM: Pretty well. I mean, we'd trained and everything.
Me: Sure.
Guy WRM: Well, she lost a couple of toenails.
Girl WRM: Oh, yeah, right--I lost a couple of toenails
Me: [Unavoidable horror-stricken look]
Girl WRM: It totally wasn't a big deal.
Me: Really?!
Guy WRM: Yeah, happens all the time.
Me: Wait--that's normal?
Girl WRM: Yeah.
Me: So...oh. So did that kind of thing ever happen when you were training?
Girl WRM: Oh, no. The most we ever ran in training was like 20 miles.
Guy WRM: It's doing the whole thing that really gets you.
Me: No, yeah, right. Totally. Makes sense.
Guy WRM: And we knew that that might happen.
Me: Sure. So wait--are there other things like that, like injury risks or whatever that you knew about going in?
Girl WRM: Yeah, totally.
Me: Like what?
Girl WRM: There's lots of stuff...like, oh, your nipples can bleed!
Guy WRM [nodding sagely]: Yeah, the nipple bleeding thing.
Me: [Unavoidable horror-stricken look.]
Guy WRM: It's totally not a big deal.
Me: If you run a whole marathon, your nipples bleed?
Guy WRM: Yeah. It's really common.
Girl WRM [helpfully, as though to a seven-year-old]: It's because of the friction? With your shirt? And your nipples? They rub up and down?
Me: Yeah, no, I--I get it. But so...
Girl WRM: For girls it's not usually as big a deal, because you're wearing a sports bra.
Me: Right.
Guy WRM: And if you're a guy you just tape your nipples up before you start.
Me: Tape them?
Girl [back in seven-year-old mode]: Like with tape?
Me: Uh-huh. So here's something that's always gotten me about marathons: It seems like such a long distance that the human body isn't really built for it.
Guy WRM: The human body is totally built for running. How do you think ancient humans got food? They hunted! You'd have to run down your food or you'd starve. It's natural selection.
Me: I guess I always saw ancient humans as using their brains to attain superiority on the food chain. Like, ambushing stuff. Or trapping it and domesticating it or whatever.
Guy WRM: Still, you'd have to run something down eventually.
Me: For twenty-six miles?
Girl WRM: Um, I don't know if you know this? But the reason it's called a "marathon" is that Marathon was a city in Ancient Greece? And after this battle there, this guy ran from there to Athens, which was 26.2 miles, to tell the Athenians about the result of the battle?
Me: His name was Phidippides. And he dropped dead on arrival.
Girl WRM: But he ran it.
Me: You think his toenails fell off?
Guy WRM: Probably.

May 9th

4 tags

Watch

This morning’s video. Apparently running turns me crimson, ages me 10 years, and gives me high beams. HELLO, LADIES. Donate here or here!

May 6th

5 tags

The Map

Here’s what we did today. Sally, the dog, was with us. It’s three hours later, and I think I’m still sweating. View Larger Map

May 6th

7 tags

May 5th

5 tags

Watch

First training run with Team in Training. We did it! It was only about two miles, and we ran slowly, but we ran. WARNING: This video contains “before”-type shots of our bellies. We hope they will be much smaller in October. Donate here or here!

May 5th

Dare us to do stuff, then donate to charity.

Dare us to do stuff, then donate to charity. We are Jeff and Rachel. This is us (as seen through a window in Seattle)! We’ve been dating for about five years, and we like eat and drink and perform comedy and go places and do things together. Sometimes, we even act like rock stars! We do not like to exercise. We are getting tubby and unhealthy, and decided that we wanted to fix that. A...

May 1st