Amsterdam 2014: My First Sick Marathon

When I was just starting with marathons, I would have been 100% confident that I'd never attempt to run one if I was sick. Hell, I wasn't even sure if I could do it healthy.

October 18, 2014 was my second day in Amsterdam after an exhausting trip to India. I felt a little off in the morning, and by the evening the illness has progressed to a full-blown fever, headache, and cough. I spent the second half of the day in an airport hotel room, immobilized in a bed under a blanket.

And here I am, on October 19, deciding to race the Amsterdam marathon, starting at my usual marathon pace of 6:10-6:20 per mile.

Boston Marathon 2014: More Is Less

What: Boston Marathon 2014.
When: April 21, 2014.
Time: 3:07:28. I dropped out at mile 14 (was on pace for 2:47) and jogged to finish.

Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach is a city on the East Coast revolving around (drumroll) a beach. Norfolk 20 miles west seems to take all the industrial and financial load of the area, leaving solely rest and recreation to Virginia Beach.

Groundhog Day 2014 in Punxsutawney

My deal with Punxsutawney Phil -- the famous groundhog from that movie with Bill Murray (who also looks like a groundhog) -- was simple: I should take an advantage of living in Pittsburgh and visit Punxsutawney, PA, which is about an hour away. In February 2014 it happened: +Michelle Corkum and I drove to Punxsy for a night of drinking and a morning of groundhogging.

New Year's Roadtrip Through the Southeast

What can be a better Christmas gift than breaking away from the daily reality?

For the vacation of Christmas-New Years +Michelle Corkum and I did a roadtrip to the south of Pittsburgh and back. Intense, dark, nasty, and, most importantly, completely unplanned. 6 days, 6 hotels, 7 cities, 1800 miles, 1 new year, and tons of fast food.

The counterclockwise direction is stuck deeply in every runner's mind.

Quebec City Marathon: 2:55 or Death!

For those too wise to read everything, a brief digest:

• What: SSQ Quebec City Marathon

• When: August 25, 2013

• Where: Levis and Quebec City, Province of Quebec, Canada

• Why: to be discovered

• Result: 2:50:24, 16th overall. First half 01:25:43, second half 1:24:41. 

• Pace: 6:30/mile; 4:03/km.

• Peculiarities: 
• Small race. 
• Late start at 8:30 am. 
• Good organization.
• Plain course, with only one big hill.
• Clear skies, bad heat in the last quarter of the race.
• 2:55 or death!
• Drove 2000+ miles for it in total.
• First time I beat all the women in a marathon.
• Wet sponges is a must-have for all Spring and Summer races!

2:55.
OR.
DEATH.

Now, to the details. What a boring word, details.

The Mighty Seattle

In July the hurricane of my life brought be to the Seattle area, and in addition to visiting FuSE'13, I wandered around, yawned, ate, and took pictures -- an activity very characteristic of the true intellectual "elite" in the 21st century.

Decker's Creek Half'13 in West Virginia

Although it happened a while ago, but I cannot ignore that fabulous trip to the jungle of West Virginia.

Wild and wonderful. Agreed.

San Francisco, the Home of Harmony

I spent the week of May 20 in San Francisco at ICSE'13. I'll write a bit about the area so that when someone offers me a job there, I could justify adding another dozen grand on top of it.

Cleveland Marathon 2013: My First-time Sub-3 in Blazing Heat

A short summary of the race:

• Date: Sunday, May 19, 2013. 
• Place: Cleveland, Ohio. 
• Distance: 26.2 miles.
• Time: 2:58:16. Average Pace:  6:48 min/mile. Place: 32 overall (out of 2253), 27 gender (out of 1408), 7 age group (out of 83).
• + First time below 3 hours
• + First time never walked
• + First time negative split
• + Not hilly course
• - Terrible heat
• - Terrible chafing
• - My toughest marathon so far

Buffalo Wings Don't Fly Over Niagara Falls

A number of unidentified persons, including myself, had a weekend roadtrip to Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

Halloween 2012

My Halloween entertainment program this year included: 

• Pumpkin carving;
• A visit to Kennywood Fright Nights;
• A costume party;
• A couple of horror movies: the Shining and Silent Hill Revelation (more)

(unlike last year)

Pregnant women and mentally unstable children are not allowed to proceed further into this post (they already have enough problems)!

More Photos from Columbus Marathon 2012

Again, I ran a 3:02:29 marathon in Columbus, OH on October 21, 2012. Now dumping more photos here.

Columbus Marathon 2012

Executive Summary

On Sunday October 21st, I ran the 2012 Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus Marathon with the result of 3:02:29, which placed me 165 out of 5470 marathon runners.

If you're not interested in the events loosely related to this marathon, scroll down straight to the point.

My finisher's certificate.

So far I do not have access to most photos. I'll upload them later.

 

Training

I was in quite a poor shape for this race. I actually did about 4.5 weeks directly pointing at the marathon -- exactly the time that I had in Pittsburgh minus the Great Race.

Before that, in Moscow, I was got down by the visa issue: I would run a couple of miles, stop, walk home, and eat a lot of candy. This doesn't usually work well with marathons.

I did only two of "long" runs in preparation to Columbus, one was 15 miles (then I ran of out fuel) and 18 miles (lots of walking and rest).

In one sentence, I didn't set very high expectations for this race.

 

On the Eve of the Marathon

Alina and I had a very nice Saturday in Columbus -- the capital of the Ohio (reads "Oh-ee-yo") state.

First we drove through the fascinating Fall scenery of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio for several hours.

Food stops is an appropriate decoration for any scenery.

Guess: some trucks crashed here.

We visited the Columbus Marathon Expo. One should never disregard the joy of shopping, right?

 Saw the Ohio Statehouse.

Saw other sorts of nicely-looking building with little idea about their functional purpose.

A brother of the Cathedral of Learning.

Fountains!

Yandex has an office in Columbus.

It is very symbolic that the office is on Gay street.

We also visited the famous Rose Garden, which has unfortunately mostly faded.

 

 

 

We also went to the Topiary Garden. For my commoner's view, it's just a bunch of human shapes made out of plants.

Err, not only human.

Oh yeah, and many ducks.

Then we just went to our hotel room and slept until 4:30am. Getting up so early was not the moment favored the most by Alina. She even refused to take a collective picture.

Marathon

The race started at 7:30am in Downtown Columbus.

The temperature was perfect: about 42F (~5C) in at the start and about 60F (~15C) at my finish.

No explanation given.

We arrived early enough to go around the area, which was flooded by people in the next 30 minutes.

At the local Times Square.

Ghostly Statehouse.

Some American flags are almost as big
as the whole America.

Crowds gathered in the starting corrals at 7, so I couldn't even get to A, where I was assigned. I just sat on the ground, trying to not give my legs more stress than the race promised.

The orchestra is about to perform the anthem.

And finally, a bunch of military guys performed the national anthem.

Shortly, the race started. 

Let me finish with the photos at this point and continue some time later. To get a sense of the whole race, take a look at the recap video:

 

On My Results

Here's my official result record.

With respect to my age, I ran poorly: 393 age grade place overall (this means being rated based not just on the time, but on the combination of time and age). Here's the full list.

19 women have beaten me. Almost all of them are older than me. Ha-ha. Incidentally, I'm 19th in my division (males 20-24). Conclusion: if those women  decided that they needed a young bf who is slower than they are, I would be picked!

The run went through cool areas like Bexley, German Village, and the Ohio State University.
It was flat and fast.

My average pace before mile 20 was around 6:45-6:50 per mile (4:13-4:15 per kilometer). After that point, I started to walk, chill out, and flirt with spectators because my legs were not good for running anymore. If not for the downhill final miles, I probably wouldn't have been able to get to the end at all.

It's all good and well, but it's time to think about the next Spring. Boston marathon registration closed 10 days before I qualified for it in Columbus. Other options that are relatively close and well-known are the marathons of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and obviously Pittsburgh (all in May). So far I'm biased toward the Cleveland one.

Upd. Check out more photos from the marathon.

Roadtrip to Washington DC

If you I drive past Washington DC, why not to drop by to check if it existed. (Running ahead: yes, it does exist.)

Don't have your expectations too high: I could not bring much new to the National Mall area. And it's one of those rare case when I would not like to.

And again, I have to resort to photo-based narration because there would be too much to tell otherwise. 

Looks like a postcard.

The United States Capitol.
My mom tried to break in, despite my claims that people still work there.

Mom near one of the pools.

SEI's cousin, serving as a space and aeronautics museum.

View on the Washington Monument from afar.

Squirrels there feel like peers with birds and humans.

An arrogant rooster. Very insistent.

In front of Washington Monument.
Which is closed because of earthquake hazard.
As if it wasn't tall enough to squash people in far just outside it.

The Reflective Pool was drained!
Sorry about it, Forrest Gump, I couldn't pretend that I were you.
Another time.

Lincoln Mausoleum and us.
Uh sorry, I mean Memorial.
Never get it right.

The White House!
My mom again couldn't accept that they don't let us
into the Yellow Oval Room.

Smithsonian, HQ

The WWII monument is quite neat there, actually.
It has two parts, for the Atlantic and Pacific theatres.
Main battles, known from the Call of Duty, are all mentioned.
Good job architects.

A useless fountain: you cannot drop coins into it.
They're saying that this would dishonor the veterans.
I bet the veterans wouldn't agree to that.

We decided to get a short tour through Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (it's free anyway, and a true Russian never misses anything free). It turned out to be similar to Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I guess that the reason is that we all had the same natural history... 

Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Taking his precious.

!!

A castle, imported from Europe.
It took them over half a century to bring all pieces there and reassemble them.

In the subway of DC. This guy didn't like me too much.

The end! Conclusion: the National Mall does exist -- it's not just Hollywood's scenery, but also a huge monumental complex.

Update from May 2014: I stopped by DC again, this time on my way to a French consulate. The stuff is still there.

Arlington, VA. Rosslyn area looks fancy, but doesn't feel like home: it's mostly hotels and office buildings.

The major structures of the National Mall didn't change: the Capitol, Washington's monument, and Lincoln's memorial are still there.

The reflecting pool attracts families of ducks:

Several other building chose to stay anonymous: 

Finally, two museums are noteworthy. The crime and punishment museum showcases history of crimes and punishments from identity frauds to mass murders, from medieval guillotines to modern DNA forensics.

The holocaust memorial museum has awesome grueling exhibits in the main section, from Hitler's speeches to concentration camps.  Unfortunately, photos are prohibited, but it's absolutely worth visiting.

The holocaust museum.

Finally, a thematic videoclip of the 2014 trip to DC: