The Pesach Problem
This year and next, Pesach and the Boston Marathon are on a collision course for those who both keep Pesach (particularly those who are Ashkenazi) and run the Marathon. Over the next 2 months, I'll be testing recipes for alternatives to the usual performance nutrition products. For now though, here are some things to consider if you also find yourself needing these alternatives:
1. Carbo load with potato -- we Jews know potato, now the question becomes, how many potato dishes can you make the night before the marathon? If you have good recipes, lets read them!!
2. KP fruit juice with extra salt and water is your friend...take that salt water from sedar and toss it in with fruit punch. Give it to your friends to have every few miles along the course! It is too bad we can't organize Boston's Jewish Community to show up near all water stops to hand it out to those of us who can't take the Gatorade!
3. Honey packets as a Gu alternative; Another alternative (that I personally can't stand) are RingGels -- I may be able to get my friend David to come watch the marathon again this year just by promising to eat them (YICK!)
Some suggestions for what NOT to do:
1. Avoid matzah when possible --- we know what running does to our digestive systems and we know that matzah has it's own special impact...eating matzah the weekend of race day will only cause problems
2. Dried fruit can be tasty but can also loosen things up - some thing that happens naturally while running as well. The last thing you want is to be a few miles into things and have to hit the port-a-johns every few miles. If you do dried fruit, be conservative -- a better alternative could be bananas and oranges that can be found along the route.
Those are my thoughts for now...if you have ideas, I'd love to hear them! Jesse's test kitchen will go into production mode next weekend!
The Long Warm Run??
Well, it is Dec. 25th and it was 55 degrees around noon here in Somerville, MA....that's really unusual for this time of year but made for a beautiful run along the Charles River. I did 9 miles through a number of different neighborhoods in Cambridge and Somerville. The route was a new one and little did I know that a major demolition project was going to block access to a cut through about half way into the run. I manage to make a reasonable guess to the detour's distance and after a route adjustment came in at the correct distance.
This week, I tried a couple of the new
Clif products and was generally happy. The new Cran-Raspberry Blox are fantastic -- much easier on the mouth feel and stomach than Gu. The taste was also a definate improvement. 3 blox = 1 Gu and there are 6 blox to a package. The strawberry, while still an improvement doesn't taste quite as good...next week's long run will allow me to taste the Lemon-Lime variety. I LOVE lime so I hope that I'm not disappointed.
The Mango Recovery drink was also a good purchase. I found that it has aided my recovery better than other products that I've tried. The taste still needs some work but I'm going to track down the Vanilla variety and see if that is any better. I hope that Clif will come up with a couple of other flavor options for this product.
This week's training should be pretty straightforward. I have a 6 mile tempo run on Tuesday, a 6-8 mile run (distance depends on how much sleep I get), and then a 10 miler on Sunday. As always, there will be crosstraining on Wed, Friday, and Saturday after Shabbos ends. Let's keep our fingers crossed for warm weather this week!
You can make a difference
On April 6, 2005 Carolyn and I received a phone call with the news that we had lost our Uncle Chris to pancreatic cancer at age 44. Twelve days later, I ran the Boston Marathon in Chris’ memory with the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team. About 6-8 miles into the race, the cheering started to change from “Yay!” to a more focused cheer – “Go Jesse” (my name was on my arms) and "Do it for Chris!" (“For Chris” was on my shirt). I lost count somewhere between miles 8 and 10 of how many times Chris' name was yelled along the course. It was in the hundreds by that point -- with 16 miles to go! There were people thanking Dana-Farber runners for raising money that helped get them treatment, small kids running after us with cups of water or oranges, and my personal favorite -- juice pops at the turn onto Commonwealth Ave! Thanks to your help, I raised $5500 for cancer research.
This year, I am running the Boston Marathon again to raise money for the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team. The DFMC team’s goal is to raise $3.6 million to support cancer research for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research. Since 1987, this program has helped to provide hundreds of researchers with the money to begin researching new cancer treatments. Experimental treatments such as the ones developed through the Barr Program gave Chris valuable extra time with his friends and family.
Today, you have the opportunity to help cancer patients from around the world benefit from the treatments developed at Dana-Farber. My personal fundraising goal this year is $10,000. This is almost twice the amount that I raised last year. Please take a moment to click on the DFMC link under “Sponsor Me.” By giving to DFMC, not only are you supporting my dream of running the Boston Marathon, you are supporting the opportunity for cancer patients to receive critical treatment options.
Training for the Boston Marathon in New England is always an interesting challenge. Last year there were frozen water bottles, frozen goo, and a 12 mile run with 30” of fresh snow. This year, in addition to the weather, I’ll be training with a new baby and running the Marathon during Passover! To track this year’s challenges, check back in on the Long Cold Run.
Thank you for your support!
The bell tolls...
The constant getting up to bring Yonatan, my 3 week old son, to my partner to nurse and then waking up again to burp and change him before putting him back down to sleep has finally caught up with me. I would estimate that I MIGHT have slept 3 hours last night but I suspect that might be a generous number. Needless to say, I switched my rest day and long run day -- so instead of hitting the pavement, I'm sitting here typing this and pulling together the list of people to send letters to for my DFMC fundraising.
When I haven't been running or changing diapers, I've been checking out the latest product line from the folks at
Clif. Their products are kosher certified and have worked well for me in the past. I've placed an order for Clifblocks and a new energy drink that they have...I'll write more about them after I get them from REI next week. I've also been pulling together nutritional information, breaking in a new pair of running shoes, and pulling all of my cold weather gear out of the closet. With another 8.5" of snow on Friday, I can definately say that the winter training season has arrived. Atleast on some of these cold, windy nights I will be able to sit with Yonatan and hopefully make some progress in preparing for the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge...
Here comes the snow again...
It is 23 degrees and clear this evening - making for a pleasant but slippery and chilly 5 mile tempo run. We are supposed to get 4-8" of the white stuff tomorrow but lucky for me it will be a weight lifting day so I won't have to run in it.
I'm enjoying these first runs of the training season but know that I've only just begun. These first weeks though are a good reminder of how much I enjoy running just to run. With old man winter knocking on the windows here in New England I am trying to enjoy the runs while I can. Soon, I'll be back to work from parental leave and running long miles before heading to the office.
One tool that I just discovered to help plot out my runs is the
Gmap-Pedometer . It has allowed me to pick new routes rather than getting stuck on the same of paths. This website is a must for anyone running this many miles.
First snowy cold run of the year
I just got back from a 7 mile run on snow and ice -- the first of these cold wet runs of the training season. The titanium pin in my left knee helped to remind me that yes, winter is indeed here! The temperature was 31 degrees at run time with snow and ice all over the place from the 3" we received yesterday.
Trying to train as a new parent running on less than 4 hours of sleep has been interesting. I'm learning a great deal about the need to be flexible but not too flexible. I'm off of work until the New Year so trying to have a training schedule when nothing else in my life is scheduled right now has been tough. That's when I start focusing on why I run with the Dana-Farber Team.
The Boston Globe provided this week's inspiration when cover the life and death of a 15 year old Red Sox fan and cancer patient named
Patrick White. Take a moment to consider making a donation to my Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge run so that together we can give the Patrick White's of the world a fighting chance!
