Richmond Marathon: When You Run 26.2 Miles, There's Time to Think

As promised on Monday, I’m writing all about how the ACTUAL Richmond Marathon went for me, as opposed to my 18-week training cycle of joy with a few rough spots along the way. A lot of folks find the finish to be exhilarating, and capture the moment with an official race photo with their finisher’s medal. I have no such photo, which I’ll explain towards the end of this post, but I still got that medal. Take a look.

Pretty, isn’t it?

Back to that race. Now, in case you weren’t aware, let me tell you something: 26.2 miles is a very long way to run. Particularly if you aren’t somebody holding 6 or 7 minute miles (freaks). If you are like me and your training runs fall between 10 and 11 minute mile pace, you’re going to be out there for well over four hours (four hours, thirty four minutes, and fifty two seconds in my case). And you’ll need something to think about for that amount of time. So, I asked friends and colleagues if they wanted me to designate a mile for them, and let them have their pick, with the warning that if anything went wrong during their mile, I would place all the blame on them.

Once all the miles were designated, I printed out the list, made it a bit sturdier by covering it in clear tape, and stuffed it into the pocket of the handheld water bottle I use for races more than an hour long. Come Saturday morning, the race started, and with each mile, I got to check to see who had that mile, and spend at least a few seconds thinking about them so that I have something to keep my mind occupied for several hours.

So what did that involve? Well, a few of the highlights:

• Mile 1: My sister-in-law asked for this mile because she thought that nothing could possibly go wrong, and therefore, she’d get blamed for nothing. Well, joke’s on you, Michelle, because my heart rate monitor acted up at the start and I had to mess around with it - while running - to get it working again.
• Mile 7: This one was for the seven senior-level swimmers on the team I coach. This was also the one where my calf cramped up and stayed that way for THE NEXT SEVEN MILES. Oh, ladies, you’d better believe I thought about you. And workouts I could design that would be almost as painful as that calf cramp.
• Mile 13: Yeah, my calf was still cramped up, but I got to giggle internally about Katie and her fixation on her butt.
• Miles 15-19: I realized that I’d been running for over two and a half hours and still had almost two hours to go. I then declared this entire thing to be stupid, but at least got to think about Dawn, an awesome swim coach I had, for mile 17. This involved chuckling over the first meet where she coached us and just about ripped out her hair because we had to be one of the most obnoxious college swim teams in existence.
• Mile 23: Beth wanted this mile because this is where “things get fun.” Or, alternatively, this is where I feel like I’m going to puke. For several miles. But hey, it’s also a good time to think about ridiculous brownie recipes that we come up with, the impromptu triathlon we did, and the time we biked 50 miles and then swam 5000 meters “just because.”

So that was a nice way to keep myself occupied for the race. But the most meaningful designation of the 26.2 miles of the race was reserved for the last 0.2 miles. That was for Melissa, a woman who I met back in first grade. We saw each other throughout elementary, middle, and high school, as we both joined choir, played handbells, swam, took Japanese, and loved all the tough math classes (doesn’t everybody?). She was funny, smart as hell, pretty, nice, had fashion sense (this is where she and I were very different), and just an amazing, talented young woman in every way possible.

An amazing, talented young woman who took her own life on June 26, 2006.

Suicide is a very touchy subject that can be very divisive, and is seldom discussed publicly. Many believe that suicide is a sin; I personally disagree and believe that each person on this planet is given a life, and it is always their choice to end it when they are in so much pain that they can’t continue. While every single person who ever met Melissa was deeply sorrowed with her passing, it was her choice, and we need to respect that decision as hers and hers alone.

I also happen to disagree with the crowds of people who say that suicide is selfish. None of us – no, not any of us – can know what kind of intense pain Melissa was in. And it would be selfish for US to expect her to endure any level of pain to protect us from the sorrow we felt with her passing, however deep and pervasive it may be.

That all said, it is still incredibly sad that the world lost Melissa and her bright smile and endless talents so early. I’ve never been able to fully emotionally process her death, and probably never will. But when I think about it from time to time, I may be sad for the fact that we have lost her, I am grateful to have been lucky enough to have met her. Since I usually find myself cracking a smile over a great memory I have of Melissa from elementary or middle school, I figured I'd match the excitement of finishing a marathon with a great memory of a great young woman.

Instead, I thought of the intense pain she must have been in to leave this life so early as I ran those last 0.2 miles on the screaming downhill finish that the Richmond Marathon course is famous for. I crossed the finish line and burst into tears, which was the last thing I anticipated after finishing a race I’d diligently trained for over the course of 18 weeks.

Hence no finishers medal photo. It seems pretty irrelevant, and since for the 100 mile drive home, I was still periodically tearing up, this wasn’t a matter of just pulling myself together.

I’ve babbled about this for a while now, but I have one more thing. Even though, as I said above, I respect Melissa’s decision and she had every right in the world to make it for herself, it still affected many people, including myself, very deeply. And while I understand that people often find themselves in pain so unbearable that death seems like the only way out, if you find yourself in that very dark place, I want you to do one thing.

Wait a day. Maybe you feel like you can’t deal with the rest of your life. But can you deal with a day? You can change your mind then. Can’t make it a day? Try twelve hours. Four hours. Fifteen minutes. You can always, always change your mind later, but if you do chose to end your life, it will very deeply affect many people for years to come.

(After writing this, I don’t really care to write more about the race itself, but it was a great experience, Richmond is beautiful in the fall, and yes, I’m probably going to do another marathon. My race splits were 10k - 1:05:13, 13.1 miles - 2:17:11, 20 miles - 3:29:50. And yeah, the last 10k was 1:05:02 which means it was faster than the first 10k. That’s weird but kind of cool and I’m proud of it.)

Salty Chocolate, and Don't Say You Can't

I dug into these chocolate covered pretzels by Snyders in the car this Saturday afternoon, and found a delightful combination of sugar and salt in each bite.

And that’s about the end of this review, because the reason I was eating them in the car on Saturday afternoon is that I knew I’d need some salt and sugar on the drive back from the Richmond Marathon.

Yes. Marathon. I did that $%^*.

Now, you might think “wow, that’s amazing,” or you might be one of my friends who has done 5+ marathons who is instead just thinking “so, did you sign up for the next one yet?”. But what I hope nobody is thinking is “I could never do that.”

The sad thing is, a spectator said that to me as I was walking back to my car. And I told him that was nonsense, because I had just done it with a bad kidney and asthma. Oh, and I broke a vertebrae 13 years ago, which resulted in permanent muscular structure changes in my back.

I don’t want to make this a post how anybody, baring severe physical disability, can train to run a marathon – you can instead read Susan’s post about how anybody can do an Ironman. What I do want to write about is the test that training for a marathon – not racing one – puts you through.

And what it does is test your physical and mental strength. Over and over and over. There’s no way to find out just how training for a marathon will do this to you without actually going through it. Of course, other undertakings are more difficult, and believe me, after finishing three degrees at MIT, I know what difficult means. But it’s a different kind of difficult that challenges what you thought you could do from the start of the training cycle 16-20 weeks before the race.

Now I know people go and run marathons without doing more than a handful of 10 mile training runs. They really miss out. They never get to find out what they’re truly capable of putting themselves through, and that is where the real stuff happens. Not on race day. In the four to five months before race day. I had a blast in the process (sick and twisted, I know), but there were a lot of times that I had to do ridiculous things to stay with the training plan.

• A trip to Hawaii in July when it never drops below 75 F and it’s humid all day? Still have to run.
• An Olympic distance triathlon immediately followed by a cross-country business trip? Do the 12 mile training run on a Wednesday morning, which involves waking up at 4:15 am before going to a full day of work.
• Torrential downpours for weeks on end making everything muddy? Go run 13 miles and find yourself completely beaten down, covered in mud, unable to fathom how you’ll ever run twice that far, and then hop on the Metro at Bethesda to get home (that did not make me popular with my fellow riders).
• Heavy rain during a track workout? Hey, it just means you don’t have to shower afterwards. Get on with those 1000s at lactate threshold already.
• The coach for your training group schedules you to swim an hour and then immediately run an hour to simulate the hunger you’ll encounter during the race on Friday? Get on it. Then do the prescribed one hour swim and one hour bike on Saturday. Oh, and this is all before a 21-mile training run on Sunday. How the hell is that possible after the workload from the previous two days? Well, just start putting one foot in front of the other. And go.

And now I know I can do all these things. And more. Could you? Almost definitely. Will you do it? That’s up to you. You have to want it, obviously, since it’s not easy. Are you scared to find out that you can’t? It’s possible, and in fact, I think many people avoid challenges because they are afraid that they’ll find out what they can’t do.

That’s lame. You’re far more likely to find out what you can do. So even if you don’t decide to train for a marathon, try something else that you think is impossible today. You’re more likely to find out what you can do rather than what you can’t do.

And there just might be chocolate covered pretzels at the end.

(I’m writing about the actual race on Wednesday because that’s an entirely different set of semi-serious thoughts that generally don’t appear on this blog. So be ready for that awesomeness. I’ll even tell you my time.)

Madecassee: Pink Pepper and Citrus

So pop rocks in chocolate might be a little weird, based on what folks said in the comments on Wednesday's post. But you know, it’s a cool use of candy in nice dark chocolate. And it’s definitely not as weird as adding, say, citrus and pepper to chocolate.

Er, oops.

It’s true. Madecasse, those folks who team closely with cacao farmers in Madagascar to support sustainable high-quality cacao production, came up with a pink pepper and citrus bar. The citrus is, in this case, from the combava fruit, and it pairs with the pink pepper in a 63% cacao dark chocolate bar.

The bar has an aroma of citrus (surprise) – notably lemon and tangerine. There is an immediate citrus flavor, but it is neither bitter more sour, and has a character similar to that of lemonade.

After the citrus emerges, some pepper comes through, but it is very finely ground so that it doesn’t overwhelm or leave you with a mouthful of chopped peppercorns. These flavors are complemented by a smooth, cooling melt and a tiny bit of sugar that plays well with the slightly spicy pepper and subtly sour citrus.

A great flavor combination with one tricky ingredient – pepper - pulled off flawlessly. Perhaps not such a weird creation after all.

Have you had citrus and pepper together? With chocolate, too?

Christopher Elbow: Dark rocks

Last week, folks all over were lamenting leftover Halloween candy and trying to figure out what to do with it. Some people just ate it, others contemplated baking projects involving leftover candy. I suppose the approach you take depends on the kind of candy you have leftover, but you can probably cover any of it in chocolate.

Well…a chocolate covered chocolate bar wouldn’t make sense. But what about chocolate covered candy corn? Or, say, chocolate covered pop rocks?

Chocolate covered pop rocks? Say what? Oh, it’s a thing. It’s a thing by Christopher Elbow, his bar No. 6: Dark Rocks, a 63% cacao dark chocolate bar blended with popping candy.

The bar has a fruity aroma; specifically, strawberry and banana are evident.

The popping candy gives and immediate crunchy and bubbly quality to the chocolate without being either hard or chewy; rather, they dissolve right along with the smoothly melting chocolate.

Even with the crackling of the popping candy, the chocolate character comes through nicely. The flavor is a bit creamy, with some earthiness and some notes of banana coming forward as well. The chocolate itself is neither sweet nor astringent; the popping candy adds a tart flavor and a bit of extra sugar at the end that tends to bring out a hint of caramel from the chocolate at the end.

Flavorful chocolate, playful candy. I could go for this. Often.

Do you like popping candy? Have you ever had it with chocolate?

Butternut Squash Brownies: They're Impressive (Really)

When I met up with Valerie back in September, we reminisced about the chocolate zucchini blog party we co-sponsored earlier that month. I suggested that perhaps butternut squash and chocolate could be mixed in a recipe; she suggested that perhaps I was insane.

A fair suggestion. I thus abandoned my plan for making butternut squash brownies, until Thursday, when in a conversation with somebody who may or may not be trying to impress, it was suggested that I should, in fact, try to make butternut squash brownies.

(Some people will take this as an opportunity to question whether or not this person is who they think it is, and before obnoxious commentary can ensue, the answer is “yes.”)

So here we go. Combining two unlikely ingredients into delicious, spicy brownies with a slightly cakier texture than my normal brownies.

Butternut Squash Brownies

5 tablespoons butter

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1 ½ cups butternut squash puree (see below)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup flour

Butternut squash puree

2 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter, melted

2 tablespoons maple syrup

To make the butternut squash puree, toss butternut squash, butter, maple syrup, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Roast at 400° F for 35-40 minutes, or until soft, stirring every 10 minutes. Run through a food processor.

Melt butter and chocolate together over low heat, set aside to cool slightly. Mix sugars and butternut squash puree, then add chocolate-butter mixture. Add eggs one at a time, then add cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt. Gently stir in flour until just incorporated, pour into an 8”x8” pan lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350° F for 30-35 minutes.

Then use them to impress anybody and everybody.

Have you ever made brownies with squash in them?

L.A. Burdick: Venezuelan Hot Chocolate

I left a little teaser in Monday’s post recapping my trip to Boston. I mentioned going to L.A. Burdick with Carla.

But I made no mention of what I got there. Did I fall for the confections and bars displayed near the front of the store?

Possibly. But the real showpiece from my visit was the hot chocolate, which is prepared from single-origin chocolate.

Sign me up. And sign me up for the Venezuelan one. Stat.

There we go.

The hot chocolate in that cup is so thick that it resembles a liquefied brownie. Strong caramel and fruity notes are evident, and it is by no means sweet but is not bitter either.

Not bitter at all. More like heaven in a cup in Cambridge.

What’s the best hot chocolate you’ve ever had?

Poe's Kitchen: Flourless Chocolate Cake

I really shouldn’t be talking about snow. It’s November 2. But here I am. Talking about the snow/sleet I walked through in Boston last weekend.

Why didn’t I just stay inside? Well, because a fellow MIT swimming alum had an outstanding personal connection with Brian Poe, the chef at Poe’s Kitchen at the Rattlesnake Bar. Brian prepared some specialized appetizers just for us, and guided us through his delicious southwestern-inspired menu.

And then dessert arrived in the form of flourless chocolate cake.

Now, that raspberry sauce may have added some fruity flavor to the dish, but it also brought out the inherent fruity flavor in the chocolate as well. The cake was simply done, with a soft and dense texture, to allow the specific complex chocolate flavors to emerge.

And then at the end, there was a subtle kick of chili.

To warm us up before we ran back into the sleet.

It was worth the trip out in the sleet. I’d do it again. And you should, too, if given the chance.

What’s the best flourless chocolate cake you’ve ever had?