Marine Corps Marathon

One month ago, Sarah, Grace, and I traveled to Washington DC to visit the family of my eldest cousin where we would run together in the Marine Corps Marathon.  Our journey actually started 20 weeks earlier when Kevin and I began a training regime which would allow us to complete the marathon "in the upright position."

The methodology behind the training would be very different from any running I had ever done before.  As a high school varsity athlete for track and cross country, I was accustom to running as hard as I could and as fast as I could for as long as I could, maintaining or surpassing a desired pace, of course.  I used this old training style to train for my first marathon, the Walt Disney Marathon in 2007.  During training I was plagued by tiring long runs and the inability to really extend my long distance capacity beyond the 13 mile point.  I also did not run in the two months prior to the marathon.  On race day, once again, I was only able to make it to the half marathon and walked the entire second half of the race with soreness and pain in every muscle below my waist.  This time would be much different.

Not a very happy finisher - Disney 2007

Jeff Galloway is a legendary long distance running trainer and has developed a method of training that has been gaining notoriety in past few years, mostly as a way for people who never thought they could run long distance to not only complete an endurance run, but also not to feel like crap when they were done.  Galloway even became the "official trainer" for the Disney Marathon - go figure.  This method, which consisted of purposefully walking at regular intervals during a run, was quite foreign to me and mentally off-putting.  I mean, seriously, who walks on purpose during a racing event?  After several weeks of training, however, with my endurance steadily gaining, my recovery times short, my pace remaining consistent as the mileage increased, and nary an injury in sight, I was beginning to believe.  My longest distance run before the race would only be 15 miles, due to my hiking expedition, working in New Zealand, and just a tiny bit of laziness.  Even so, I felt good about race day.

5AM Pre-Race group photo 

Sunrise over DC from near the start line.

The Washington Monument is in the background.

On October 30th, a family friend, my cousin, and myself woke at 5am to begin preparing and traveling to the start line of the Marine Corps Marathon.  It was a beautiful morning - cloudless skies and a brisk 35 degrees - perfect marathon conditions.  Twenty thousand runners plus would join us.  We had a few set backs, like needing to stop and pee several times in the first 8 miles (I guess that's what happens when you hydrate for 3 hours before the run instead of just getting up and going running like in training) as well as loosing our run-walk timing device (we think it fell off on a pee break - maybe) but the running was easy, the fans were many and cheerful, and the course was beautiful. With the run-walk method, we ran well and stayed together for over 18 miles.  I was not able to keep the pace beyond that and the other two continued on.  I continued running and walking, mostly walking, and completed the race with a time of 5:29:09.  

At mile 23 I took a few minutes to hang out with my supporters, Sarah & Grace.

The group "after" photo - much better than the 2007 after photo - smiling this time. 

Not that you didn't trust me... the finisher's certificate. 

I beat my Disney time by less 10 minutes, but the difference in how I felt, and the enjoyment I experienced during the race was large.  I'm an official endorser of the Jeff Galloway training method.  Next up, run a marathon and actually complete the entire training regime.  Plans for Disney 2013 are already in the works!

If you live under a rock, you might not have heard about Tebowing....

I got's mine on the web too: Tebowing.com

Black Friday vs Extreme Couponing

I'll come right out and say it, "I love black Friday." If you have ever seen an episode of Extreme Couponing, then you have an idea of how I approach black Friday. Most people... strike that... All people on Extreme Couponing are at least a little crazy. They horde newspaper inserts. They take ridiculous amounts of time organizing their coupons. They sucker friends and family into going shopping with them when they go on a buying spree. In short, these people are obsessive about their habit. And for one solitary day each year, I'm the same.

So it was, on Wednesday, the day before thanksgiving, I had called dibs on a neighbor's newspaper advertisements for the following day. The holy grail of newspaper insert days came and I would carefully review each and every one of them for over two hours, scouring the pages for the best deals on consumer products and clipping the adds of the items which caught my eye. After narrowing the list of thousands to less than fifty, I then sorted, and performed a "Do I want this item, or do I NEED this item?" check. We were down to just a dozen items. I then sorted again, arranged by store, time store opened, and value of the deal. Finally, I crosschecked with amazon to make sure I couldn't get the same deal without fighting the crowds, and eliminated anything that had a minimum quantity disclaimer on it. Hey, I'm willing to go to some extra effort to get a good deal, but I will not be on tv in a WallMart pepper spray fight for a video game.

After all this, I was left with the list you see above. I checked with Sarah, made sure she approved, and then guilted my buddy Travis into going with me as a body guard. We didn't head out until around 9 AM, well after the door buster crowds had left, but well before the lunch rush. We hit our 4 stores and checked for 6 items, the crowds were large but not crazy, only one of the products I was looking for had sold out, saved an average of over 50%, and we were home in less than 90 minutes. Take that Extreme Couponers.

I have to wrap this up quickly now as Cyber Monday is coming to a close and I don't want to miss a deal...

Holiday Breakfast

It has Been almost 3 weeks since I posted to the blog. No better way to start off a new day than with some brain food - French bread egg nog toast with bananas and nutella chocolate spread, and some bacon on the side. Yummmmm.

Look for posts about our adventures in the past weeks soon.

Grace and Her Birthday Boys

Last night we all attended a birthday party for four of Grace's friends. The four boys Grace's age from right in the group photo are: Taylor (just turned 2), Benson, Dylan, and Kellan who all turned or will turn 1 within the month. Grace of course is center and loving the party fun. The mothers in attendance I played volleyball with in college (except for Dylans's mom who is an 'honoree volleyball girl'). It's crazy to look back at our college days and realize we've been a part of each other's lives as we've graduated, gone to seek careers, gotten married, and now have children. We have so much fun at get togethers with all the kids, although chaotic as they are.

Some of the father's in attendance decided after the party to go out for some much needed guy time and drinks. Grace and I went home, went to sleep and had to crawl out of bed to go pick up daddy at 1:30 am since he'd had a bit too much to drink and couldn't drive home. Grace was a sport and in the end, we all had a blast with some friends we just don't get around to seeing enough!

Fall Cleanup

The Templin household spent the morning doing some yard work today. We sure enjoyed watching Grace help out. Guess we should get her some tools her own size.

Veteran's Day Lunch

The reasons why I continue to serve today are much different that the reasons why I joined over 9 years ago. The one a year discounts at restaurants was never a consideration, but I certainly enjoy them, so i took Grace and Sarah out for a Veteran's Day lunch at the Ram.