Marathon Training Update: 50 Mile Week Edition

Yep, you read that right. What­ev­er lin­ger­ing doubts I had about my abil­i­ty to do long mileage were put to rest this week. Not only did I run pain-free, I ran faster than I have in my train­ing thus far. That com­fort trans­lat­ed into a dream­like 20 mil­er yes­ter­day, which Rob and I fin­ished in two hours, fifty-three min­utes and change.

I’m real­ly hap­py to have the Garmin Fore­run­ner 405. Despite a weird bat­tery hic­cup yes­ter­day, it proved an invalu­able train­ing tool. We dis­cov­ered that we ran a bit beyond our rec­om­mend­ed mileage last week­end, thanks to my now com­plete­ly con­den­sa­tion-fried Nike Plus Sportband.

At this point in train­ing, it’s best to have an accu­rate mea­sure to avoid over­train­ing and risk­ing injury. My Garmin does just that, while pro­vid­ing great insight into the actu­al run itself. Neg­a­tive splits, FTW!

The mileage steps back this week, with a long run of 12 miles. The real ben­e­fit is that now I can con­cen­trate on speed and not so much on whether I’ll have enough gas in the tank for Sun­day’s long run. More­over, I’m sure next week will feel even eas­i­er now that long and short weeks alter­nate. I’m already eager to see how much our 20 mile time improves two weeks from now.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

We Can’t Wait for Thursday!

Unless you could­n’t pull your­self away from anoth­er under­whelm­ing Eagles game, you already know what I’m talk­ing about. Yes, the Phils have advanced to face the Dodgers in the NLCS! It’s a fit­ting match up as both teams swept the oth­er in the reg­u­lar sea­son. They’re a for­mi­da­ble oppo­nent, but I like the Phils in five.

Helen and I have tick­ets to game one and we’ll resume our nor­mal posi­tion behind home plate on the main con­course. If they need to play a fifth game, we have tick­ets to that one too!

Con­grat­u­la­tions, Phillies! Let’s go all the way!

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Phillies vs. Brewers, NLDS Game 2

Last night’s per­for­mance was amaz­ing. It looked like it would be a dis­as­ter for Brett Myers in the first after he walked in a run, but he ral­lied and car­ried the rest of the team with him.

Helen and I had tick­ets in the 400s, but we played it like we did through­out the ’07 sea­son, snag­ging the spot right behind home plate on the main con­course and just camp­ing out there. It’s the best place to watch a game oth­er than our cus­tom­ary seats in Sec. 143 in left.

From the start, the feel­ing in the park was amaz­ing. Nei­ther Helen nor I had ever been to a play­off game and it was every­thing we could’ve expect­ed and more. More 46,000 fans pay­ing rapt atten­tion to every pitch, every hit, every call results in an intense atmos­phere. It cer­tain­ly helped.

After Myers fought off pitch after pitch from Brew­ers ace CC Sabathia, every­one knew some­thing bit was com­ing, that the Phils were going to catch an unlike­ly break from the guy who should be a seri­ous Cy Young con­tender. They did.

When Shane Vic­tori­no hit his first career grand slam I thought the sta­di­um might fall apart. Emo­tion­al bed­lam broke loose. Every­one was high-fiv­ing, hug­ging, jump­ing up and down while hug­ging — you get the pic­ture. It was like get­ting mar­ried and get­ting a new job and find­ing out your wife is preg­nant and win­ning the lot­tery on the same day. For a team that’s strug­gled his­tor­i­cal­ly, moments like these are not soon forgotten.

Things got a bit tense after the Phillies left the bases loaded not once but twice, fail­ing to tack on those ever impor­tant insur­ance runs, but with the excep­tion of a Jim­my Rollins mis­cue and a shaky Ryan Mad­son, every­thing was going our way.

After watch­ing Brad Lidge throw an ago­niz­ing 35 pitch­es to save Game 1 yes­ter­day, I could only hope that see­ing some action would calm him down. It did, and he went lights out to seal the win.

Now it’s time to go to Mil­wau­kee to close this thing out. You know what I’ll be doing Sat­ur­day night.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay 1

Phillies in Comcast Center Lobby

The Phils got a cru­cial play­off win today — their first since 1993 — on the back of Cole Hamels’ mas­ter­ful eight inning per­for­mance. For those of us who could­n’t be at the game, you could’ve caught the game in the Com­cast Cen­ter lobby.

I ran down­stairs to get a pic­ture before run­ning back upstairs where I kept an eye on the game in the morn­ing news edi­tor’s cube while fin­ish­ing up some things around the music channel.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay