Joshua Grzegorzewski: the RunningBull Blog : Tags : motivation

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Find your inspiration (and keep it handy)

Posted by Joshua G May 6, 2008

This past weekend I ran a nice 15 miler in the cool morning fog near my mother's house in northwest NJ prior to visiting with my second youngest brother for lunch to celebrate his birthday. From there, the weekend was a bit of a roller coaster.

I was scheduled to run the NJ Marathon as the 3:30 pace leader, which I did on Sunday morning - finishing in 3:29:34, but Saturday afternoon was absolutely brutal. The temperatures were in the low 40's with howling winds coming in off of the ocean at 35 MPH all accompanied by a persistent misty rain. The pre-race expo was tightly constrained within its big top tent and the crowd was incredibly thick with nervous first timers. I attended the pasta dinner and offered advice and encouragement to a few of those rookies over pasta and salad before a less than appealing hour long drive to the Paterson area where I was staying with my best friend from high school. After 3 hours of sleep, following 2 hours of Gauntlet on the Xbox360, we pointed the car south on the Garden State Parkway and arrived an hour before the start.

Race weather was nearly perfect, especially considering what it looked like just 12 hours earlier, 52-degrees, intermittent breeze off the water, overcast for the first hour. Locking in the pace took about 4 miles while the crowds broke apart and I could corral my group into a relatively cohesive unit so that we hit the 1/2 marathon together at 1:45, right on target. Of course this was while I was battling persistant lower GI pressure that forced me to make a pit stop at the next row of port-a-johns 4 minutes later. Fortunately, I was able to catch up with my group again less than 2 miles later after pushing my pace down to 7:00. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the only time I had to make use of this tactic during the day.

During my second multiple mile game of catch-up I avoided all of the negative thoughts that would have killed my chances of catching up and getting back on the pace to fulfill my mission, to help other runners reach the finish at their target time of 3:30. I focused on the positive experiences from my recent Boston Marathon. I thought of how I overcame the hills, the heat, the sun, the wind, and a much more prolonged period at a similar pace. I focused on my successes and on the successes of those I had met that weekend; from champions such as Joan Benoit, Lance Armstrong, Ryan Hall, and Pam Reed to the countless number of everyday heroes with whom I shared the road that fine Monday morning. I tried to put this into words just before mile 24 for a runner who needed some additional motivation, and a bit of distraction, but I don't think it came across so well while my pace slowly pulled me away from her. Then again, I don't think it is coming across so well here either so I will just end this as I started - Find your inspiration to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep running - and keep it handy because you never know when you might need it.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: inspiration, pace_team, motivation, beginer, marathon

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Got Motivation? - US Women's Olympic Marathon Trials

Posted by Joshua G Apr 28, 2008

Okay, so maybe the motivation and inspiration provided were not to sit behind my computer cropping and resizing digital photos before trying to milk my thoughts into a logical progression so that I can share how the events of last Sunday morning helped me push through to a new PR at last Monday's Boston Marathon.

But I expect that you probably respect me more for getting back out there and running Wednesday night, conducting 5 project inspections Thursday and Friday (including two night time Interstate resurfacing inspections in the wee hours of Friday morning), and putting in a decent 18 on Saturday; pausing for 15 minutes to cheer for the participants of a 5k that overlapped my route than for writing this earlier. And if I am wrong...so be it.

Sunday, April 20, 2008 saw 146 of the best female distance runners in the USA absolutely conquer the 4 loop marathon course through Boston's Back Bay and the East Cambridge waterfront during the 2008 Olympic Team Trials. Though only the top three finishers will be travelling to Beijing in August to represent their country in the marathon competition, 47 of those women qualified for the next Olympic trials with their performances. 41 women ran new personal best marathon times, including 13 or the top 15 finishers.

From the very beginning Magdalena Lewy Boulet, 5th place finisher in the 2004 Olympic Team Trials, took ownership of her own destiny by opening a commanding lead of nearly 2 minutes from the rest of the pack. Her determination to run the race her way on her terms had most of the spectators around me wondering (1) who was this woman, (2) could she hold on at this pace until the end, and (3) what will the other competitors do in response?

Magdalena Lewy Boulet showed no fear of failure, no chance for regret. She went out there and sent a message to the world that the USA Women's Team was not going to be "Dena +2". I can honestly state that I was so impressed and astonished by how easy she made this look that it took a few hours for the magnitude of her accomplishment to sink in.

And some of that was due to the performance of the pre-race favorite 2004 Olympic Marathon Bronze medalist Dena Kastor, shown here making her move to separate from eventual third place finisher Blake Russell (far right). During the final 6 miles of this race Dena overcame a 1:17 deficit to overtake the leader at Mile 23.5, a feat I missed while fighting my way through the crowd 10 people deep lining the course so that I could watch the final 100 meter stretch leading up to and across the very same finish line that I would be chasing after less than 24 hours later.

But I was there to see Dena Kastor brandishing an American flag picked up along the course as she sprinted through the finish to win with a 44 second margin over Magdalena Lewy Boulet.

The crowd exploded in celebration as Massachusetts born Kastor merrily pranced back down Boylston Street to the Lord & Taylor before stopping to accept some congratulatory handshakes, pose for some photos, and even sign a few autographs while the remaining women streamed in to the finish behind her, including 1984 Olympic Marathon Gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson as she broke the US 50+ record with her time of 2:49:08 in her final competitive marathon. Joanie, as she is known far and wide in this part of the world, has never finished a marathon slower than 3:00. Which in an amazing coincidence, I have never finished a marathon faster than 3:00.

Perhaps I should shoot for never finishing slower than 4:00, which is a positive statistic that I currently hold and can feasibly maintain.

I was incredibly inspired by all of these amazing performances, by the sheer emotion rolling off of the crowd, and the determination pouring out of these fabulous athletes racing for pride. As much as I should have been off my feet and resting in advance of my impending marathon, I didn't care. If anything, I am writing it off along with the 16 hours spent on my feet working at the Expo the previous two days as conditioning for next month's Western States Endurance Run Training Camp - my first ultra running experience.

1 Comments Permalink Tags: boston_marathon, olympics, inspiration, motivation, volunteer, training

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Photos from my Death March Memorial experience

Posted by Joshua G Apr 13, 2008

Surprisingly, my performance in the Death March Memorial Marathon received coverage by my local newspaper, the Somerville Journal. Not so surprisingly, they didn't get all of the details quite right. But that seems to go with the territory.

I finally stopped running around (literally) long enough to sort through the photos from my trip to give a little more insight into the experience. Part of me wishes that I would have had a camera with me while running the race, but to be honest, I don't think my photos would have been all that great. I would recommend visiting the race website and viewing the event photos online.

Upon arriving in El Paso, TX two days before the event, I realized (a) that I had spent way too long crammed into airplane seats, (b) that I needed to get acclimated to heat, the lack of humidity, the sun, the altitude difference, and the terrain, and (c) that I needed to do something fun and educational while I was here. So with that I headed out to the namesake of the missile range and visited the White Sands National Monument the morning before the race. It was about a 120 mile drive from El Paso (the scenic route) and as you can see, the sands are definitely white.

It is also a strangely barren place, which at the time I went was truly devoid of people. During my run along the 4.8 mile "trail" through the dunes I only saw 4 other people, the footprints of whom are seen below. The sand is powder fine and filtered through my shoes and socks and got into just about anywhere on my body that sand could get. Only about the top 3 inches are loose, but that is more than enough to slow a person down dramatically. I was lucky to manage just over 10 minutes / mile and was very thankful for the 44 ounces of sports drink that I was carrying along the way. Fortunately, the sand on the race course was actually much more coarse and therefore easier to run through. I didn't experience anywhere near as much trouble as I did during this training excursion, which is probably how I did so well.

But of course the event was more than just a run on the beach, a beach nearly 1 mile above sea level and hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean; it was a memorial to the soldiers who suffered the horrors of the Bataan Death March through the jungles of the Philippines in 1942. My trip would not have been complete without a visit to their monument in nearby Las Cruces, NM.

I am honored to say that I was fortunate enough to sit and talk with a couple of the survivors of this horrendous chapter from a war full of great atrocities. Eight of these men were on hand to send us off at the start of the race with a handshake and a "hurry back"; an order that I obeyed and used as my inspiration while challenging the 4 mile long hill climb in the middle of the course. I am also proud to say that I was welcomed back by these same men when I crossed the finish line. Below is a picture of Colonel Glenn D. Frazzier and myself (wearing my signature honor flags) after the race. You can learn more about the Death March and Colonel Frazzier's experiences in his book .

I am so truly honored to have been able to compete in this event in honor of these men as well as all who have followed in their footsteps by answering the call to service. I truly appreciate that I can show them all my respect for what they have done and continue to do in the name of liberty and democracy. I also am honored that you have chosen to help support these efforts through your participation in following my progress, in your comments of encouragement, and in your pledges of support for this noble cause to help the NESHV.

And of course, no visit to the White Sands Missile Range would be complete without a visit to the missile museum.

Well...only 7 more days until the Boston Marathon. I know that I am recovered enough to complete the full 26.2 mile marathon distance, but I am unsure of just what pace to set for myself. Especially since less than 2 weeks later I will be undertaking the duty of leading others in their quests to qualify for next year's Boston Marathon by holding the 3:30 pace (8 minutes per mile) throughout the New Jersey Marathon. I intend to better my time from last year and would like to at least finish in under 3:20, but I really want to requalify myself for Boston with a 3:10 or better. Ideally I would be shooting for sub-3:00, but that might have to wait until the fall at the Marine Corps. Marathon, depending on the outcome of my application to pace at a marathon I completed before.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: boston_marathon, veteran, marathon, inspiration, motivation, new_jersey, pace_team

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1st time Marathon Pace leader - Mission Accomplished

Posted by Joshua G Feb 1, 2008

This past weekend I participated in my sixth career marathon, the 6th annual ING Miami Marathon, but more importantly it was my first time leading a pace group for ANY type of race. I was tasked with escorting any and all runners who wished to complete the 26.2 mile course, or the 13.1 half-marathon course, from the pre-dawn start, along the beautiful tour of the Miami neighborhoods, and through the finish line in an 8 minute/mile pace (which equates to 3:30 for the full 26.2 mile marathon).

This pace is roughly 10% slower than the pace from my all-time best finish (3:11:15) and was in no way, shape, or form "easy" for me. But at the same time, it wasn't necessarily "hard" because I was absolutely buoyed by the hopes and dreams of the runners I was pacing towards their target time. The conversations held on the run coupled with the sight-seeing experience from crossing the causeways, following Collins Ave, snaking through Coconut Grove, and the pure exhilaration of passing through the "scream tunnel" just made the miles melt away. However, this New England boy made sure to take full advantage of every single one of those 22 hydration stations, the Clif Shot gel stops, and the random orange slices and bananas because the 72-degree race temperature was a long way from the 30-degree conditions I had been (and continue) training in back in Boston. I was a mobile salt-lick by the time I reached mile 16 and was very thankful for the short walk between the finish line and my hotel room at the Intercontinental Miami so that I could rinse off and change into some dry clean clothes before celebrating with the other runners.

It was a great experience and I look forward to my next opportunity to pace at the New Jersey Marathon on May 4, 2008 (13 days after the Boston Marathon).

0 Comments Permalink Tags: miami_marathon, running, motivation

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How to prepare for that 1st Marathon

Posted by Joshua G Jan 24, 2008

First and foremost, take it slow, start small, and accept that your windows of free time are going to be closed down dramatically if you are starting from scratch (like I was). If you are currently participating in zero physical activity, start doing something, anything really, that will get your body used to exercising. Take a cardio-class at a local gym, start building some base mileage on a treadmill, walk/jog around the neighborhood, take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, bicycle, swim, just do something more than you currently are. This worked for me. I was able to learn how to fit exercise into my daily schedule, how to make it part of my routine, and how to get my joints and muscles used to the new demands I would be placing on them.

I began walking the 1/2 mile to and from my local grocery store, which is also more environmentally friendly than driving, when I did my shopping. I enrolled in the twice weekly 45-minute cardio-fitness class at my office gym and started running 15-20 minutes on the treadmill. I subscribed to Runner's World magazine for education and inspiration on running. I bought some running specific technical apparel and got fitted for appropriate footwear based upon my biomechanics.

I started participating in more local events as both a runner and a volunteer to gain better exposure to the running community and to learn tips on good locations to run, groups to run with, clubs to join (which I still have not done), and other events to participate in. After about a year of this I felt ready to test myself with a Half Marathon, the 1st annual Boston's Run to Remember in March of 2005. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be, even with the fresh snow and ice turning the course threaded through downtown Boston and the industrial port area into an especially fun filled treat. When I finished I found that I was only about 7 seconds per minute off pace for my age group to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I was completely amazed at how far I had progressed and how attainable my goal seemed to be. I say "seemed to be" because those 7 seconds per mile combined with an additional 13.1 miles were not quite as automatic as I had thought that wonderfully blustery March afternoon. A fact that would become all too clear 7 months later in Hartford, CT.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: boston_marathon, running, inspiration, motivation, training, beginer

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Why would someone elect to run 26 miles (or more)?

Posted by Joshua G Jan 13, 2008

Family, friends, and co-workers seem to be almost constantly asking me some variation of this question and the truth of the matter is that there are literally countless numbers of reasons to either do or not do anything. So why should running be any different?

As I previously mentioned, running long distances had absolutely zero appeal to me for the first 28 years of my life. As an example, I remember my sophmore year in college chatting with a rather attractive young lady who mentioned that she and I shared many of the same classes, had similiar interests, and that she was also a runner in high school. Now remember, I attended Georgia Tech, an engineering school with a rather dismal ratio of men to women so pretty much any opportunity to spend non-class time with a member of the opposite sex was relished. However, when she started talking about joining in on her afternoon 5 mile runs or her weekend long runs...excuses to be elsewhere couldn't come too fast and that was pretty much that.

So what happened to change my perspective? In 2003 I moved from Atlanta to Boston. In Atlanta, outdoor running was not even an option during most of the year given the heat, the humidity, and the horrible air quality - at least not for a beginning runner. But in Boston, we actually get noticable seasonal variations in the weather that allowed me to get outside more during the day. Plus the area is just so much more pedestrian friendly with a true urban core and a functional transit system that it encourages one to do chose not to drive from home to work to shopping mall to big box retailer to...you get the point. So when I saw the advertisement for a night time Halloween costumed 5k fun run through the Boston Common and the streets of downtown I wasn't quite as apprehensive as I would have been in Atlanta. Sure, I had only run that distance that one time before, but that was in the heat of early summer as opposed to the chill of late October. And we were all a bunch of adults running around in costumes (I was a pirate with an eye patch and a cutlass) through the streets of a city. I finished without having to stop or walk, granted I have some serious doubts about the accuracy of the course length, and the post race party was a blast. So I learned that running a couple of miles wasn't necessarily hard and could actually be a lot of fun.

Fast forward 5 months to April, 2004 and the days leading up to the 108th Boston Marathon. The City and the whole region were all abuzz with talk of the Marathon. Stories about the Marathon were everywhere; in the paper, on television, around the office, and on the train. I learned that it is the oldest annual marathon event in the world. I learned that it is the only such event, besides the Olympics and World Championships that requires the participants to qualify for acceptance. I learned that since it is held on a state holiday (Patriots Day) most businesses are closed and hundreds of thousands of people line the 26.2 mile length from Hopkinton, MA to the finish line in front of the Boston Public Library. I learned that the Red Sox arange their schedule so that they always have a home game that day timed to let out as the racers come by, adding thousands of additional cheering spectators to the streets. But until the day of the race I didn't know what any of this really meant.

Watching 3 time Olympian, 2 time Boston Champion, and 61 time participant John A. Kelley sing "Young at Heart" before the start of the race, watching Rick and Dick Hoyt battle the hills of Newton, and watching the crowd shots along the course on TV was enough to get me off the couch and on the train to experience this in person near the final mile at Kenmore Station. It was only here, in the heart of the crowd nearly 25 miles from the start that I could witness the dedication, the determination, the agony, and the ecstasy of the runners, where I could literaly feel the energy coming from the crowd to support runners over an hour behind the winner. I had never experienced any truer expression of love of sport in my entire life and I had attended college bowl games, experienced the NCAA Final Four, attended a World Cup soccer match, and even Michael Johnson's world record gold medal runs at the 1996 Olympics.

I wanted to be a part of this. I wanted _this _experience for myself. Right then and there I vowed to qualify for and compete in the 111th Boston Marathon, to be held in 2007. It was time to start training because my qualifying time as a male under 35 years of age is 3 hours and 10 minutes. This equates to a 7:15/ mile pace over 26.2 miles.

Next time: 0 to 26.2 in less than 3 years, not too difficult. Covering 26.2 miles in less than 3:10, now that's a bit harder.