Fundraiser Success!

Thank you to everyone who came out to our fundraiser last night and thank you to those who couldn't make it but donated online!  We have now raised $9,291 this year and $58,694 over the last 4+ years; this success is thanks to every single person that's donated along the way!!  One final thank you goes to the many generous companies that donated prizes for our event:

Aquitaine Boston    Cinquecento    Abe & Louie's    Cambridge.1.
Flour Bakery+Cafe   Grafton Street    The Local
J.P. Licks FanPage    Blue Ribbon BBQ
CorePower Yoga - Boston    Brooklyn Boulders Somerville    ALEX AND ANI
Coolidge Corner Theatre    Boston Duck Tours    Franklin Park Zoo
NE Aquarium    Charles River Canoe & Kayak

Training Done, Taper Begins

Yesterday was our final long training run and we hit the road aiming for 20 miles along the marathon course.  We changed things up a bit and ran with the Nike Run Club for this run.  This was a tough call as the DFMC team means so much to us, but marathon day is so different from our training runs - we're up at 5.30am, head to downtown Boston before taking a school bus to Hopkinton and finally running around 11am.  Fitting with this schedule, we were up at 5.30, took the bus/T down to Nike and then they bussed us runners out to the 4 mile mark of the marathon course where we started our run. While we didn't run the steep downhill from Hopkinton to near Framingham, we did get some work on the downhills and uphills along the way, finishing in Brookline.

Though we didn't start with the DFMC team this run, we ran into a number of teammates along the way.  Just as importantly, we saw many of the DFMC volunteers still working the water stops and supporting not only DFMC runners but all the charity runners that were along the course.  It's estimated that several 1000 runners were along the course training for April 18.  We had a great running day with temps in the 40s, overcast and a mild headwind.  If April 18 is similar, we could have a great race!

This week was also a big week as several additional donations, and 76 donations total, helped bring us above the $8k mark!!  5 years of running with DFMC, every year topping $8k! Amazing and we're close to breaking the $9k mark.  I'm hoping we can top the $9k mark before April 1 and continue right on to our $13,100 goal!

With our major training complete, we still have 3 weeks before the marathon.  I'll begin to taper down a bit, dropping the mileage a little bit each of the next 3 weeks.  I'll focus on some stretching and making sure I get enough sleep so I'm ready to go on April 18 :)

Pace$etter Reached!!

With one last reminder e-mail re our DFMC fundraiser next week, 5 very generous donations were made today and we surpassed the $8,000 mark!  Over $1000 raised in the month of March, more than $57,500 raised in the last 4+ years and there's still plenty of time to reach our $13,100 goal.

Cruise Control

The last few weeks, I've run the weekly long run a bit faster than I really should be.  With a goal of breaking the 4hr mark (still!) this Boston, a good pace is ~9.00min/mile.  This leaves ~4-5mins of cushion for the congestion at the beginning, stopping to see family, RJ and others along the course and the likely slow-down that will come as we hit the Newton Hills.  With this in mind, I should be running the long runs slower than a 9.30min/mile pace but the last few training runs have been at race pace.  I went out this weekend with 1 goal, to run slower and just take my time.  Mission accomplished, running the 16+ miles at a 9.28min/mile.

As always, our volunteers helped us make the run successful.  Team Matty was out there in force with SpongeBob Sq Pants costumes, decorations and music, Matty's favorite cartoon.  Matty Dubuc battled cancer and unfortunately lost his battle on March 25, 2007.  To remember Matty his family will be doing a number of his favorite things on Friday.  As part of the water stop, they had a number of Matty's favorite things for us runners to pick and also do this coming week.  I get to enjoy some skittles, starbursts or sweetarts :)

We had a great day for the run and made it through the 16 miles without issue.  With our longest run of the season this coming weekend, it will be a week to ensure I don't overdo it.  Get the miles in and avoid injuries.  Only 4 weeks to the marathon and overall I'm feeling pretty good!

Catching Up

I'm pretty far behind on posting to the blog and with a number of things to catch up on, I will keep this post short.  With only 33 days until the marathon, we're in the home stretch of training and fundraising!  We've raised over $7,700 thus far this year and over $57,100 since beginning this adventure in Nov 2011!  Looking forward to the day when I can say that we've passed the $60,000 mark for the 5 years!

This past Saturday was a drop down week for us followed by the patient partner poster party.  We got RJ's poster done and I'm sure it will look great at the pasta party on April 17!  The run itself was the first run this season where shorts and a t-shirt were appropriate clothing.  It warmed up quickly and though we started a little slow, we pushed the pace at the end, running in the low-mid 8min/mile range.  It also felt great to hit some of the hills and power up them, passing a number of runners along the way.  Hopefully this holds true during the marathon as well!

This week we'll be increasing mileage back up to the 16-18mi range and then it's our bing 20mi weekend before we start to taper and rest up for the marathon.

Superhero Weekend

I'm a bit late posting about last Saturday's run, but at least I'm getting it done before tomorrow's group run.  Last Saturday was Superhero Saturday.  I don't know how this event got started but it's always a fun day.  Our volunteers were out in full superhero garb and while many of us runners didn't know about the day, many other charity runners did.  We saw plenty of 'Incredibles' costumes as well as firefighters, Army personnel, Batman, Wonder Woman, Thor and many others.

The training run was a drop down week so we only ran 14 miles and are getting ready for our 18 mile run tomorrow.  Hopefully the run will go just as well.  As both marathon training and the 70.3 training pick up, I'm still feeling good and from what I can tell, no lingering issues from last year's stress fracture.  I finally figured out how to look at my historical mileage and I'm sure it's obvious when the injury occurred :)  Glad to be back at it with goals in sight!