Moose Pass Alaska

from our trip to Seward on the Alaskan railroad

Finish!

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I Did It!

This is it!

Fwd: Errggg!

From Sean, who got to the hotel first!  Hello Alaska!

On our way to Alaska!

Well, the day is finally here... I'm in the car on the way to the
airport with Tom & Jim. Only 16 hours to go till we're there (ha ha).

Marathon Training - Weeks 15, 16 & 17

Ok - it's coming down to the wire!

Week 15 - May 24th... I'm in Ohio, on my own, and I ran 12 miles! It was really a good run in Highbanks Metropark. The weather was nice and I felt totally fine afterwards.

Week 16 - May 31st... Another 20 miler! Yes, I ran from Prospect Park through Brooklyn, across the Brooklyn Bridge, up the Westside highway to the 79th St. boat basin - and back! Wow - that westside highway felt like forever!!! It was a tough run, but I was glad I did it and I learned an important lesson - don't put sun screen on your forehead unless you really like the burn that you get when it mixes with sweat and drips in your eyes!

Week 17 - June 7th... It's officially "taper-down" time! 14 miles this week... a mile to the park and then 4 laps around. It was bo-ring, but I was actually glad to do it because it forced me to focus more on the actual running than on the "from here to there" motivation. By lap 3, I was thinking about stopping and figuring out ways to justify it for every reason, but I honestly kept forcing myself to think about everyone who is supporting me, and that was all it took to get me started on lap 4 (so thanks everyone!) Midway around the last lap, one of my coaches ran with me to the end and that really made it easy to finish.

I leave for Alaska in ONE WEEK - I can't believe it!

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Week 13 & 14

After finishing the Brooklyn half marathon, I was ready for another distance milestone... but I had a volleyball tournament on Saturday the 10th, so I couldn't do the long run with the group that weekend. I also caught a cold, so I really didn't do much of anything except for a couple short runs with the group during the week. By the time this past Saturday came around, I was a little bit nervous about how the run was going to go since it had basically been 3 weeks since I had done my 17-18 mile run.

I got to the park this past Saturday a little early in anticipation, and as the team started to show up I was getting more and more anxious just to get started. Because people were going to do anything from 12-20 miles this week, the coaches decided to have us do variations of the 3 bridges run again (see week 11) so that we could skip a bridge or add additional laps around the park to end up with the distance we wanted. I ended up doing the full 20.6 miles - the same three bridges route as we previously did, and not 1 but 2 laps around Prospect Park. It took just over 3 and 1/2 hours, but it was awesome and really felt like a huge accomplishment. Miles 18 & 19 were the toughest, but I just kept thinking about why I'm doing this as well as all the people that are supporting me.

Next week I'll be in Ohio, so I'm going to try and run on my own. Stay tuned for more... only 1 month to go!!!

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Week 12

This week's training was really exciting because it was an actual race! And not just any race, it was a half marathon in Brooklyn! According to the New York Road Runners website there were over 5,800 runners participating yesterday morning. It started at Coney Island and the first couple miles were along the boardwalk. It was very cool running past Astroland and the Cyclone but a little treacherous as well. I saw three people fall because of missteps on the loose boards that kept popping up as the crowd ran over them. The longest stretch of the race was about 6 miles down Ocean Parkway - right past my building !!! Tom and the dogs came out to cheer us on and even ran along side us for a minute. It was great! (Tom told me afterwards that Foxy really wanted to keep running!) The final part of the race was in Prospect Park, where my team has done most of its training, so it was a great place to run the home stretch. My friend Sean (who is also running in Alaska) and I ran the whole way together and we finished in UNDER 2 HOURS!! It felt amazing & we were both really, really happy with how we did.

After we finished, we stayed and cheered for the rest of our team as they approached the finish line. When everyone was done, we went out for celebratory drinks/eats in Park Slope at and had a fantastic time.

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Week 11

Well, today was another amazing run! Here was the route:
Start at Prospect Park
Run through Park Slope over to Flatbush Ave, through downtown Brooklyn (past Junior's Cheesecake - the pain!) and to the Manhattan Bridge
Over the bridge to Manhattan, north on Bowery through Chinatown to Delancey
East on Delancy to the Williamsburg Bridge
Over the bridge to Brooklyn, turn around & BACK over the bridge, BACK to Manhattan
Bactrack west on Delancey & south on Bowery, but continue south past the Manhattan Bridge to Worth St (@ Chatham Square)
West on Worth to Centre, south on Centre to... you guessed it... the Brooklyn Bridge!
Over the bridge back to Brooklyn, through downtown, down Atlantic Ave to 3rd Ave, down 3rd to 9th St, up (yes, up - it's a hill!) 9th back to Prospect Park
Oh wait, not done yet. Just to finish it (us) off, 1 lap (3.3 miles) around the park.

Total mileage: 17.5-18 !!!


If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Weeks 5-10

Well - it's been an unbelievable 6 weeks since my last post, but I've been running the whole time and wanted to share the long-run highlights

Week 5: March 15th
Brooklyn Bridge run
7.5 miles

We started in Prospect Park and ran north through Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Downtown Brooklyn... to the Brooklyn Bridge... over the bridge... and then turned around and ran back to the park! It was an awesome first "out-of-the-park" run.

Week 6: March 22nd
Ocean Parkway run
8 miles

This week we ran south from the park - past my apartment and down Ocean Parkway for about 4 miles before turning around and heading back. This week I ran with new people on the team and we had a really good time pointing out all the interesting things we saw along the way.

Week 7: March 29th
Prospect Park
3 laps (10) Miles: 1:36:43

This week was all about pacing and fueling. Our first lap of the park was supposed to be fairly slow (our "easy" pace). At the end of the lap, we ran back to our regular meeting place and drank some Gatorade. The second lap was also supposed to be
at the easy pace, and after finishing it, we stopped again for another refueling, this time eating an energy gel and drinking water. Finally the third lap which we were supposed to run about a minute per mile faster than the other two. I ran the first 3.3 mile lap at about 10:25 per mile, the second at about 10:00 per mile, and the last at about 8:42 per mile!

Week 8: April 5th
Tarrytown
12.5 Miles: 2:00:00

This week we drove up to Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Sleepy Hollow, NY (near the Tappan Zee bridge.) The run was more about running for 2:00 than it was about actual distance. It was really fun to run in a park, and it was beautiful. At the very beginning of the run we actually saw deer along the trail! The weather was a little cool, but once we started running it was great. There were even a couple times that it was really hot when the sun was shining directly on us. The hills this week were a little bit of a challenge, but not too bad. After the run, the team all went out to brunch together - which of course was OK with me!

Week 9: April 12th
Bayridge-Coney Island
14.5-15 Miles : 2:26:00

This week we met at Coach Collen's apartment in Bayridge. We ran along the water, under the Verazzano bridge to the Coney Island boardwalk and back. It was really humid and really, really foggy. In fact, we couldn't even see the bridge until we were actually under it. On the way back it started clearing up and we were treated to a beautiful view of the statue of liberty (and we were certainly tired and hungry by that point!!) Here's a map of the run:

if you click on the map, you'll be taken to Gmaps Pedometer, a really neat tool for calculating walking/running distances.

Week 10: April 19th
George Washington Bridge / Palisades Park
16.5-17 Miles : 2:55:00

This week we met on the New Jersey side of the GW bridge for a run in Palisades Interstate Park along Henry Hudson Drive After running almost 15 miles in the park, we finished off by running across the George Washington bridge and back for a SPECTACULAR view of the Hudson.

Phew - enough re-cap! The whole training experience has been great so far & I feel totally confident that I will be ready for the marathon in another couple months. I still have problems staying disciplined during the week, but now that it's nicer outside and volleyball is ending I really don't have any excuses. I'm really excited about the upcoming Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 3rd - just the thought of doing an actual half marathon is cool, but it goes right past my apartment (like the Ocean Parkway run), and that makes it even better.

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Week 4 (part 2)

Instead of having our regular group training session yesterday, the coaches suggested we participate in the New York Colon Cancer Challenge that was held this morning in Central Park (read more about it.) There was a 4 mile race and a 15K - I did the 4 mile one and it was a lot of fun (but REALLY cold.) I finished in under 36 min and I was happy about how I ran. I didn't start off too fast, just ran the first couple miles at a really easy pace, and then sped up for the last two. I tried to think about my pacing, my stride, my arm swings and I made sure to get some water at every station just like the coaches asked. Oh, and the coolest thing about it (besides simply running with thousands of people in beautiful Central Park on a cold Sunday morning) was that they had bagels for us at the end of the race! Yum!

Now I'm off to buy a yoga mat, hopefully that will get me more motivated to stretch!

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Weeks 3 & 4

The past couple weeks were a little bit tough because my schedule got thrown off. I'm still trying to get in a regular habit of stretching - but it's hard. Any advice is appreciated!

Monday, 2/25: After my successful 5 miles on Saturday, I decided to up the ante a little and ran for 4 miles this morning instead of my regular 3.3 - that meant running to Avenue M (instead of J.) It went really well, and I felt great. I made sure to stretch when I got home.

Tuesday, 2/26: A day off from running, but I did my stretching & it felt good.

Wednesday, 2/27: Decided to go for a run this morning and found out that thinking about work stresses was NOT a good motivator. It actually made it really hard to do my normal run and I felt exhausted when I got home. It was also a Volleyball day which was a good extra workout, but unfortunately my team lost again!

Thursday, 2/28: A day off, and I went to an injury prevention clinic. It was very informative.

Friday, 2/29: I woke up with every intent of running, but it just didn't happen.

Saturday & Sunday, 3/1 & 3/2: No running over the weekend because I was traveling. I visited my parents and helped my brother's family pick out a new puppy (Hooray!)

Monday, 3/3: I took Foxy with me this morning for a run, it was really fun - but we only made it a couple miles. She started slowing down and I didn't want to wear her out too much.

Tuesday, 3/4: A day off.

Wednesday, 3/5: Volleyball day, no running - and we lost AGAIN!

Thursday, 3/6: Planned to run, but my knee felt a little wonky, so I decided to put it off a day

Friday, 3/7: FINALLY - I actually did my regular 3.3 for the first time in over a week. It felt ok, but I could tell that it had been too long.


For this next week, I'm going to keep working on stretching & try to get back on track with the runs. Thanks for all your support!

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Week 2

This week, I have been so grateful for all the support I've already gotten I was even more motivated than before to push myself and stick with the training. I knew that I really needed to get into a regular habit of running without the group and made that my prime goal.

Monday, 2/18: Since I didn't have to go to work because of the holiday, I had no excuses not to run. So, it was a good day to do my first solo 3 miles. I had already mapped out how far down Ocean Parkway I would need to go in order to end up with a 3 mile round trip. Turns out that Avenue J is 1.6 miles away from where I live, so that is just about perfect. Here's what it looks like on Mapquest:


It was actually a pretty nice morning (weather-wise) and I did the run in about 30 minutes. I felt great afterwards and was very happy that I ran the whole way (despite thinking a few times about walking the last couple blocks back.)

Tuesday, 2/19: A day off

Wednesday, 2/20: Volleyball day. No running, but it was a good workout (even though my team lost)

Thursday, 2/21: Ok, here was the real test. A morning run on a workday... and it was COLD! It was probably about 20 degrees, but as soon as I pushed myself out the door I knew I would feel good about doing it. I actually enjoyed seeing the other people from the neighborhood. Some looked like they were on their way to work, but others were also exercising (both running & walking) along the same route. It kind of felt a little less like I was doing something on my own. Of course I also saw people walking dogs & I'm looking forward to when I feel comfortable enough running that I can bring Foxy with me (because she will LOVE it!)

Friday, 2/22: A day off

Saturday, 2/23: Group training in Prospect Park. Not as cold as last week or Thursday, but lots of snow on the ground. Today's run was 5 miles, more than I think I've ever done before. It turned out to be fantastic. My friend Sean also joined the team, so he and I ran together. We took it nice and slow and ran at a pace that was really good for me. I felt great the whole time, and wasn't out of breath at all.

For this next week, I'm going to try and get in the habit of stretching every day. I'm also going to try and push myself to run at least 4 miles each run. Based on how things went today, it shouldn't be a problem as long as I pace myself correctly. Hope everyone reading this has a great week & thanks for your support in every sense!


If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - New Shoes!

As a member of TnT, I got a discount to buy new running shoes at Jack Rabbit Sports, so I went to to get a fitting yesterday. They videotaped me running on a treadmill so they could see what type of shoes would be best. The tape showed that I need to correct an over-pronation in my right foot which is an inward rolling of the foot during its foot-strike. After putting on a pair of shoes with stabilizers I got videotaped again, and could absolutely see that it wasn't happening anymore. It was really cool. Here are the shoes I ended up with:

Now I can't wait to try them out!

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Week 1

I met other members of the Brooklyn team last Saturday, 2/9, in Prospect Park for our first group training session. We'll meet every Saturday at 8:30 to run, stretch etc. As the weeks go by, Saturday's will be all about increasing distance, but the first week we just ran for about half-an-hour so that the coaches could watch how we run. Our head coach, Michael, videotaped us so that he can address any bio-mechanical "issues" he sees that need to be corrected. It was actually really fun, and I had a good time talking with the other runners. A couple guys that I talked to had both joined TnT last year and had run marathons successfully. It was nice to hear them talk about how the training went and nice to know that they were both coming back for more. After running, we stretched and then I went to get a little snack with Viva, who was assigned to be my mentor, and a few others. I didn't really feel sore or anything afterwards, but I could tell later that day that I had been running.

Sunday, 2/10: a day off from training so I relaxed (I can tell I'm going to be very good at sticking to the schedule on off-days!).

Monday, 2/11: I was supposed to run 3 miles on my own. Hmm. Of course, Monday morning was FREEZING (Alaska won't even be this cold in June.) Instead of running, I did 30 minutes on our elliptical machine. I could tell it really wasn't the same thing, but I'm happy that I at least did something.

Tuesday, 2/12: a day off again!

Wednesday, 2/13: Wednesday's are the other day of the week that group training is scheduled. These nights will typically revolve around some special type of workout or training element. This week was all about upper body movement. Unfortunately, I am not expecting to make it to a lot of the Wednesday nights because it conflicts with volleyball. Luckily the coaches are pretty good at sending out the key details of what is being covered so people can work on things they missed.

Thursday, 2/14: I was supposed to run 3 miles again. Hmm. It was still really cold. I mapped out that running from my building down Ocean Parkway to Avenue J was about 1.6 miles, so there and back would be perfect. But, did I mention it was cold? I decided that I couldn't do it without running pants, so I decided to try and do something after work. I didn't have a chance to by pants during the day, so I came home determined to do the elliptical again. But I ended up only doing about 10 minutes, it just wasn't a good training day.

Friday, 2/15: off! (But I did buy my running pants & a long sleeve running shirt)

Saturday, 2/16: I made it to the 2nd group training run in the park. It was really, really cold (about 23 degrees). We ended up running one loop around the park which is 3.3 miles. I ran with a couple guys who were much more experienced and coach Michael. I felt ok for the most part, but it was hard to catch my breath and I was definitely running too fast to carry on a conversation. It was fine for that distance, I just pushed through, but hopefully I'll figure out the right pace as I start to run more. I really felt good about running the whole way and finishing. It's the first time I've run that far since doing a corporate challenge several years ago (and certainly since injuring my ankle in 2006).

For this upcoming week, I'm really going to try and get in my Monday & Thursday runs - wish me luck!

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

The Mayor's Marathon

Well - it's been awhile since I've blogged, but I started something last week that's really exciting - I'm training for a Marathon! Yes, a marathon. In June. The 26.2 mile kind. Oh, and it's in... ALASKA! I know, I know, it seems kind of crazy, but here's the thing - I'm doing this as part of a team that trains, runs and raises money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to fight cancer. The program is called Team in Training and it has helped beginners (like me) train successfully for marathons since 1988.

So why am I doing it? Here are the reasons in no particular order

• I've had a secret goal of running a marathon for years
  
• It's a chance to work with trainers as opposed to just trying to do it on my own
  
• Being part of a group that's doing this together will really help me stay committed
  
• It's an opportunity to raise money for a very worthwhile organization
  
• It's an opportunity to do something in memory of my friend David Detweiler who passed away 10 years ago, less than one year after being diagnosed with cancer
  
• It's in Alaska
  
• It means I will probably get to eat a lot more while I'm training to keep up my strength!
  
• I'm expecting to be in great shape when I'm done

As I mentioned, part of what I'm doing is raising money. I've set up a fundraising page so that people can help. You can make pledges or see how close I am to my $4900 goal at:

http://www.active.com/donate/tntnyc/dslivken

If you hurry and make a donation right now, you could be one of my first supporters - what a thrill!



Now, here's the "funnest" part for you, my dedicated readers... I'll be reporting on my training right here on this blog every week. That means you can enjoy hearing about (hopefully) my accomplishments as well as (hopefully not as much) my pain as the big event on June 21st gets closer. Your support, financially or otherwise, will really help me make it all the way to the finish line so please check back often and help keep me motivated with any feedback you might have. Click here to read the latest. THANKS!!

For more information on either Team In Training or The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, please visit their website http://www.teamintraining.org