Then we headed over to the WBAL area. I had agreed to carry a small video camera and try to record some of the flavor of the first 6 miles or so of the run. So we met the folks from WBAL, got the camera and the headed off to the starting area, which was located on Russell Street out in front of the Orioles stadium.  The whole scene was an organized mad-house with runners being coordinated for the full marathon, the half, the relays and a 5k run. But the organizers did a fantastic job and we found the starting area without a hitch.  We had signed up for the 4:30 pace group and found that coral and to my pleasure, Pacer Dan (the same from our run in Frederick in May) was one of our pacers. We also ran into a number of runners we know from past marathons and from training. And many new friends. Our hope was to break 4:30 and we had trained hard for that.

We saw the gun go off and started the "press" towards the starting line. Somewhat similar to the MCM, it took a few minutes to get across the line.  And then we wereoff. Almost immediately we started the long climb towards Druid Hill Park, first up Paca and then McCulloh streets, through some of the rougher parts of Baltimore with boarded up houses. This first hill kept going up and up and we realized that between the hills and the warmth of the day (and it was getting steadily warmer), we weren't going to be able to hit our goal pace - we were going to have to slow down a little. We were losing about 10 seconds a mile even early on. So we "adjusted our expectations", focusing instead on finishing and having a great, challenging time.

We turned onto Druid Park Lake drive and ran over to 28th street with the old mansions on our right and the lake and Druid Hill Park (pronounced "droodle park" to you outsiders !http://community.active.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif!. It was beautiful and inspiring. I lived roughly in this area in high school and then later after college and it was like a trip down memory lane. We ran up 28th street to St. Paul Street (right past my old family house) and down the long first hill back towards the inner harbor. We met up with one of my training partners (Karen) and her husband (Sean). Sean was doing his first marathon and he looked in great shape. We ran with them for quite a while and chatted away most of the first half. We ran past the Peabody Conservatory of Music (where my dad worked most of his life) and then past Mercy Hospital (where he passed away). Truly nostalgic.

I turned in the video camera in the inner harbor. The video blog is available at http://www.wbaltv.com/sports/17694572/detail.html.  I'm the links for "Steve Carton (that would be me And I want to say thanks to WBAL for letting me do it.

We ran past the inner harbor and out along the waterfront towards Fort McHenry. This was a great part (one of many) of the run.There is something about the working/industrial shipping  parts of the waterfront always hits me -- it's regular working class neighborhoods along the water and the residents out playing music and partying and cheering us along. I had to stop here briefly for a pee break -- I think I had over-hydrated early on and had to cut back on the water for a bit. But the pee stop cost us about 3 minutes, enough to put us well behind schedule (ah well).

Then we ran out and around Fort McHenry. So beautiful. So inspiring. Met another runner along the path there who was doing his first marathon and had not really gotten the prescribed training in. We gave him some gel -- he was running out of energy and didn't have any of his own. Dude - I don't remember your name, but if you read this, please let me know how you did! As we rounded the point and headed back towards the exit of the park, a Baltimore clipper was sailing out under a full press of canvas. I stopped to get a quick shot with my cell-phone camera.

Then back into the inner harbor area and out Pratt St. and into Little Italy, Fells Point and over to Patterson Park. I lived here (Butcher's Hill neighborhood) for a few years after college -- bought and renovated my first house. That was when the hills started in earnest. I agree with some of the writers here on Active.com -- the hills were not steep, though some were long. But they just kept coming. It was a challenge. But we were psyched and set a pace and kept it. It was somewhere in here that I reallized that the half marathoners were mixed in now. My dim brain hadn't registered the point of the actual merge, but  I started to notice that I was passing more and more people. It was neat -- to be passing people so late in a challenging run (and I don't mean that in a mean way).

We ran up the the Clifton Park entrance which is a fabulous old buildingin need of a lot of love and then on out to Lake Montebello and the live band. Tried to dance a little as I ran (and I don't dance well even when not running). Good thing the vidoe cameras were gone! Had to stop again here to pee and realized I was still a bit overhydrated. And by now it was getting very warm and sunny. It seemedlike I would drink a little and in a short while I was parched again. I took to drinking a little and pouring some water on my face to keep cool and that helped a lot.

We ran over 33rd Street to Guilford and then over 28th to Howard. This was another great stretch. Fantastic neighborhood support. Lot's of local flavor -- crab hats, painted ladies, music blaring, gummy bears handed out by the ton. High-fives everywhere.And sooo important (at least to me) because by this time (mile 22) I was seriously fading. It seemed like every time we'd  turn a corner, we'd have another hill to go up. None steep or even long, but energy sapping. And I was definately getting hot. This was also where I was really glad to be running with Spencer. We pitched each other up every hill.

The we finally hit the long down-hill stretch of howard street and could open up a bit. Made up some time and it felt great, though the sun was getting more intense. I took to running down the left side of the street to stay in the shade a much as possible. It helped. Then we got to the Howard Street bridge. That was hard so late in the run, but we dug deep and worked up over it. At this point we were running to get to the next water stop, instead of running to finish. But after the last hill at about mile 25, it was truly down hill to the finish. Crowds got louder and more packed as we headed in towards the finish. Very nice stretch on the outfield track inside Orioles park (the only time I'm likely to ever be on the field! And a full-fledged sprint to the finish -- huge crowds cheering. 

Finished in 4:42:33. 12:33 slower than we had hoped, but given the warmth of the day and the challenge of the course, we both felt we ran our best marathon yet.   If we hadn't stopped to pee (twice) we probably would have bested our MCM time from last fall, so there's a lesson in that somewhere about overhydrating before the race. But I had a fantastic time and will try hard to do this again.

Following the  race, we made our way thru the crowds to find the double-challenge medal pickup line. The Maryland double challenge was for runners (or fools) who completed both the Frederick and the Baltimore Marathons in the same year. The line was very long, but it moved quickly and we got to meet and chat with yet more exhausted but smiling runners.

A special thanks to all the volunteers at the aid stations, water stops, bag-check and so on. Also to all the police officers who lined the route, keeping it safe.  And thanks to the random runners and spectators who shouted "Looking Good" -- that meant a lot, especially in the tough stretches near the end.  I also send a huge thank you to my wife, who put up with the training time (especially the LSDs after work) and to my running partner without whom I would rarely run at all. Thank you!

7 miles last night, beautiful and at tempo pace. Passed some runners (or were they walkers?). Felt like I could keep going forever! Nice cool weather. Had to stop mid-way for a nature call (I really should not eat salads and other fiber for lunch on a running day). But a great run along the Mt/ Vernon trail.

We're planning 10-12 for tomorrow, and some easy stuff for the weekend and next week. I think we're ready!

And I'm psyched. Putting  more hills in the training and we're past 22 miles on the long run. So if the weather cooperates and we don't have any last-minute injuries, we should do well. I'm back to looking forward to each training run, long or short, which is a big difference from earlier in the summer, when I wasn't interested or motivated.

Still planning to drive the route to see for myself what the hills are about.

Well, it's a bit more than 5 weeks or a bit less than 6 (depending on if you are a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full kind of person) to go until the Baltimore Marathon. Here's my training plan for this last bit:

This week (9/1)

Monday: Intervals 6x800

Thursday: easy long run: 16 miles

Saturday: Tempo run, 10 miles if Hanna permits.

Week of 9/8

Monday: Hills 8x

Thursday: Long Run: 22 miles

Saturday: Tempo run, 10 miles

Week of 9/15

Monday: Intervals 8x800

Thursday: Long Run: 22 miles

Saturday: Tempo run, 12.

Week of 9/22 (Start Taper)

Monday: Hills 8x

Thursday: Long Run: 16 miles

Saturday: Tempo run, 10.

Week of 9/29 (Taper)

Monday: Intervals 6x800

Thursday: Long Run: 11 miles

Saturday: Tempo run, 8

Week of 10/6 (Taper)

Monday: Easy Run

Thursday: Long Easy Run: 6 miles

Sunday: Marathon

Plus the usual bit of cross training and stretching that I plan to do, but never manage.

I've aligned myself with Team Sadie for my run in the Baltimore Marathon, October 11, 2008. Team Sadie is raising money for "Sadie's Gift", a charity established to raise funds for Johns Hopkins Hospital Children’s Center. You can read about the charity at this site:   http://www.sadiesgift.org/.

Here's the short version:

Sadie’s Gift has been established to raise funds for Johns Hopkins  Hospital Children’s Center. After acheiving great success in 2007,      we hope to establish an endowment that will be created in Sadie's      memory. This endowment will support the training program for doctors who care for critically ill children in the Pediatric Intensive Care      Unit (PICU) along the east coast.

I'm a true sucker for this kind of thing, being both a parent and a grandparent, and I grew up in the Baltimore area. And my dad taught at Hopkins (Peabody, actually), so Hopkins is near and dear to my heart. So I'm dedicating my run to this cause. What does that mean? Well, first it means I made a donation of my own. But I'm also asking anyone who reads this to donate. You can do so easily and securely, over the internet...

Just go to the Johns Hopkins Childrens Center website and to the ONLINE GIVING FORM page (https://jhweb.dev.jhu.edu/eforms/form.do?formId=5733).

You can make you donation on that page. Please (please please) indicate that your gift is for "Sadie Elizabeth Abell Endowment" by checking radio box near the top. Please also "Select a Runner"  -- Steve Carton (that would be me:-). My name is near the end of the long list and they are not alphabetical, so be persistent

And most of all, thank you. Thank you for the support and thank you for the gift.

Steve

It's been awhile since I've written. I'd like to say I've been hard at work training, but that just ain't so I went through a funk in July, coupled with a long vacation and some work travel that left little time for running. But October 11 and the Baltimore Running Festival is drawing closer and I definately needed to get going with the training. Thank goodness for the great base we've created in the last 18 months. I was able to jump back into the long runs at about the 16-mile point. Not fast, but in the DC summer heat, I slow down a lot anyway. But now I'm back on track and feeling great about it. This is an off week -- my mother in law passed away and my family is embroiled in the funeral so not much time for training, but that's okay -- I'll be back on it next week.

I decided to run Baltimore as a part of "Team Sadie" representing Sadie's Gift Charity (http://www.sadiesgift.org/) if they'll have me. So if this kind of charity interests you, please let me know how much you would like to donate and I'll hook you up. More on that later.

I've been trying some protein mix in my fuel for the long runs and this seems to work well for me. Or, at least I don't feel bad or anything. Hard to tell if it is actually doing anything, but as the runs get longer, the protein may pay off. We'll see. At least I'm not smelling amonia anymore.

Well, after a short break (two weeks of no running at all following the Frederick marathon May 4, one week in the Bahamas partying hardy), we've started training for the Baltimore Marathon. It's running this year on October 11 and it's part two of the Maryland Double Challenge (the things we do for a medal to hang in the closet!). We've decided to start over, from scratch. Sort of. We (my turtle partner and I) are determined to break 4:30. Our fastest times are around 4:39. So we're close. But how do we train for a target speed?

After looking at lots of plans on the internet and talking with other marathoners, here's the basic idea: interval, tempo, and distance runs every week. We're starting out with intervals -- 4x800s with a couple easy warmup and cooldown miles on Mondays. Except that every other Monday will be hill work -- 4x hill ascents and descents. Increasing the number of reps every few weeks. Since we're trying to hit a target finish time of 4:30, we're working the intervals based on the Bart Yasso 800's theory -- so we are aiming for intervals in under 4 minute, 30 seconds.  As I understand it, intervals should be run at a speed just short of gasping for air. 4:30 is too slow for that for us. So last night's intervals ranged from 3:40 to 3:50. Perhaps too fast, but I would like to have some extra gas during the marathon. I haven't figured out how fast to do the hills yet. These are especially important because the Baltimore marathon is very hilly. 

Every Thursday is the distance run.  A 4:30 marathon means a 10:18 pace.  So we are planning to run at a 10:18 pace during our long runs. This may not hold up as the distance extends beyond 16 miles or so. I've personally run 18 miles in 3 hours, which is a 10-minute pace, but after that I faded. But I have to believe that if we want to improve our speed, we need to actually run faster. I guess it's a balance between running fast and having enough recovery time between distance runs. We'll start with only 10 miles, so we should be able to build nicely. We'll run each distance for a couple of weeks, then drop back a bit for a recovery week and then increase by a couple of miles. Gotta work out the water, especially as the DC summer rolls in.

Every weekend will be a  tempo run -- 70% effort as I read it. I really don't know what that means except for a loose definition that we can converse (like all-stars), but it's hard.  I think for me, this means running at about a 9:30 pace. I ran a 10-mile tempo run earlier this spring in 88 minutes, so I think somewhere between 9 and 9:30 should be about right. Maybe a little slower, but under 10 for sure.

So, that's the plan. I'm working on putting it all down on paper (or spreadsheet). Hopefully it will pay off.