Making a Comeback, yinz!

In 2003, UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) dropped out as the main sponsor of the Pittsburgh Marathon, thus ending the annual tradition for the economically-depressed city.

In 2009, watch out Pittsburgh! The marathoners are once again taking over your streets for a 26.2-mile tour of this great city.

As a Pittsburgh-area native, running a Pittsburgh marathon would be a great accomplishment for me. I grew up outside the Pittsburgh area, but we still bled black-and-gold year-round like true Pittsburgh folk. We said "yinz" (when our mother wasn't around), we left important pronouns out of sentences, and we enjoyed going to the crick and drinking pop with our chipped ham. It makes me a little sad that my first marathon was in Philly and not Pittsburgh, but I'm excited to hear now that May 3, 2009 will be a great day in Western PA. The city is a great place--albeit a bit hilly, but that only is classic for the area--tough people, only expecting the toughest to show up to the game.

It appears the logistics are still being mapped out (literally and figuratively). The race course isn't yet set, and the cash prizes (as if any of us really worry about what the cash prizes will be) are yet to be determined. But what I do know for certain, the course will be beautiful, hilly, and will show off all the great sights Pittsburgh has to offer.

Who would've thought.

As a runner, I tend to beat up my feet. As a female, I tend to be drawn towards shoes--typically the strappier and cuter, the better (and generally the worse they look on my feet). Therefore, you can imagine my surprise when I proudly took in my beat-up running shoes to the local running store for some advice, and the first words out of his mouth is: "You are wearing the wrong size."

Let me back up.

My years of running have generally been brought to you by the nearest athletic shop to me at the time. Dick's, Modell's, Foot Locker...as I moved away from urban malls and began new commutes, Sports Authority became the main hub of resource. However, while the new job and new commute has drastically reduced my gasoline purchases, it has not brought me close to any shoe store or athletic store of any kind.

There is a store in Doylestown that I have known about--however, when I was driving by Sports Authority day in and day out, it was hard to justify a 20-minute drive out of my way for a pair of shoes, especially when the pair I had been getting work fine. Now that I'm 20 minutes away from any store, I figured I may as well head up to Doylestown and see what they could tell me.

Apparently I wear the wrong size.

And my shoes, which I have proudly logged 350 miles, looked to him to be more around 500-600 miles (apparently I am a "pounder").

I informed him, politely but surely, that I have always worn a size 8.

"But not in Brooks." I mumbled something about black toenails and he looked at me and I shut my mouth.

And he brought me out the new Brooks shoes. In a size 8.5. Despite the fact they looked like boats, they were extremely comfortable and I had room to wiggle my toes.

I guess you learn something new every day. I left the shoe shop with a pair of shoes that fit, and as a reward, a new sports bra and a cute running top (half off, of course).

Why to finish a race

A few months ago, Ted and I received a race notification in the mail. Actually, it was a Quad Games series...four separate races. For the price of $50 a person, we could enter all four races. The races included a 10K trail run in March, a 15-mile bike race, a duathlon in September, and a 10K road race in October.

The 15-mile bike race was earlier this month. In the past two years, I think I've biked a total of 6 miles. But we figured it wouldn't be a big deal...the 10K trail run in March was small and didn't hold too much competition. We figurd the bike race would be much of the same, and we'd finish in a respectable place. Our goal time was an hour, which we thought would be very reasonable.

We had a different think coming.

Race day showed to be about 200 sponsored bike racers, teams, and a few families who had entered the abbreviated family race (which was just one lap on the 5-mile course, as opposed to the three the rest of us would be doing). The race started, and everyone took off.

Now, let me give you a little background to Maggie and biking. I always had a bike...growing up, I got my first 10-speed when I was in 5th grade, and I was thrilled that I had passed up the temptation for a pink 10-speed, and instead opted for the tough-looking black 10-speed (my toughness was quickly thwarted, however, when the tough looking bike caused me to talk back to my mom and landed me with the loss of a bike, as well as whatever social life a 5th grader thought she had, for a week). Never mind that I never knew how to use the gears--who needed gears when you could just peddle harder going up a hill? And just as I was getting comfortable with the bike, a massive wipe-out caused me to forever fear gravel and peddling downhill and/or around a turn. In my mind, a bike was best suited for the back alley behind the house, the quarter-mile stretch of road in front of the old farm house, or in one's basement (as long as you watched out for your little brother on the tricycle). It was not well-suited for biking and exploring and traveling...or racing.

Fast-forward to Ted and Maggie's great bike race. Somewhere along lap 2 we began to get lapped ourselves. When everyone else was finishing the race, we were beginning the 3rd lap. The pace car followed close behind me with its flashers, and I'm sure the occupants were placing bets on how far I'd make it before they had to pick me up. At one point, I tried to look like I really did know what I was doing and grabbed my water bottle--only to drop it and have to dismount to pick it up. Ted was on ahead of me...but waited faithfully for me to catch up (at one point I came to the top of the hill to see him standing by his bike and talking to the road guard).

When we finally finished, with a time of 1:07, we entered a very quiet finishing shoot. The only people around to cheer us through were the race official, the timer, and a helper or two. All other fellow racers had headed up to the refreshments, and were waiting, quite annoyed, I'm sure, for the awards ceremony.

Despite all this hassle, I still came in first in my age group.

This goes to show you--always finish a race.

Let Pictures do the Talking

Got pictures from Molli of us running...the best ones are below. This is on Anse Marcel, after the largest hill we ran up. You can get an idea as to the severity of the hill (at least I thought) from below...and the wonderful views that rewarded us.

(above) the view of the port below....

(above) Tony and Ted following us...

Starting off...not quite sure what was ahead of us (in the far distance is a building up on a hill...we passed that building about halfway up the hill)