Smartphone "smart"-thoughts

The rumors are true: I've bitten the bullet. Taken the leap. Given in . . . and purchased my first smartphone.

I am now a true 21st century millennial. Or something like that.

The reason behind my big move is a little underwhelming. As a late adopter of pretty much every technology, I've determined that you can ask quite a bit of people. You can ask them for directions (because your phone doesn't have Google maps). You can ask ask them to email you pictures (because photos don't register visibly on your tiny phone screen). You can ask them not to send you emoticons (because they just show up as little squares).

Eventually, however, there will be one "ask" too much. And that "ask" came a few weeks ago, when my phone stopped receiving group messages. (Long story short, the "messages" all showed up blank.) I'd been asking for a lot of special treatment from my friends and family, and generally they'd complied, but this was one thing I simply could not ask: I could not ask to receive a special individual text every time they went to send a group message. I just couldn't.

After several days of feverishly reading online reviews and agonizing to my boyfriend over what phone to get (Apple or Android? Which version? Which size? I'd have to live with this decision!), I finally decided to go with the iPhone 5s. My reasoning was that it should sync nicely with my Macbook and iPad, and I already had some experience with the device, having borrowed an iPhone for my international business travels in Canada a few months ago. Also, the size was a big factor. I wanted something that would still fit into my pocket, and female pants are not made to accommodate electronics. Or wallets. Or anything, really.

Now that I've had the phone for a few weeks, I decided it was time to publicly evaluate my decision. Honestly, I'm not sure I made the right choice. In relation to my initial reasons for getting this particular phone, I did make the right choice. I was able start using it right away to do all of the things I wanted it to do: find directions, check my email, join Instagram (because yes, I was feeling left out.) I can fit the phone into (most of) my pants pockets. And it receives photos, emoticons, and group texts flawlessly.

However, the battery life is terrible. One of my reasons for staying off the smartphone bandwagon was their terribly short battery life. Several years ago, when Hurricane Sandy hit, all of the local smartphone owners were crawling around the floors of grocery stores and delis looking for outlets, and my little slide phone was going strong--its battery lasted 4 days without recharging! So I thought that if I waited long enough, limited battery life would no longer be an issue with smartphones.

I was wrong.

On a typical day, I probably text a handful of people a few times. I might check Facebook for a grand total of two minutes, and the weather for another thirty seconds. Once or twice a week, I might talk on the phone for an hour, max, or use the maps app to locate a street. No matter how little I use my phone, though, by the end of the day my battery is eighty percent drained.

Which leaves me with my four-year-old iPod to listen to podcasts on my mile-long walk between the subway station and my office, because I'm afraid that if I try to listen to them on my iPhone, the thing might die on me. How sad!

Instead of developing an electric car, Apple should direct its resources toward improving the battery life of mobile devices. Because now that gadgets can listen to you, talk to you, and give you advice, directions, updates, and reminders all around the world, the next real hurdle is eliminating consumer paranoia that their beloved device might run out of juice and leave them stranded, alone.

If we wanted to be alone, we wouldn't have a smartphone at all. We could go live in a cave. Or underwater.

And of course, if that's too extreme, there's always the Off button.

The Thing About Picking Up the Phone

Here's the thing about picking up the phone: no one does it anymore. Everyone has smartphones that text and ichat and snapchat and email. And when we do pick up the phone to make a call, nine times out of ten we wind up talking to an automated system instead of a real person.

Therefore, when we are finally forced to talk to a real person--never mind a real person we don't know--on the phone, well . . . I for one find it terrifying!

I bring all of this up because for the first time in my life, I am forced to face this very task on an almost-daily basis. And I can't avoid it or put it off or write a letter instead. It's part of my job.

For anyone not in the know, after six-plus years of service at Wiley, I left last November and joined CenterForce, a five-person conference company based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Although I've been there for nearly three months already, I've put off writing anything about my new job because, honestly, I wasn't sure what to say.

Essentially, I didn't want to judge the experience prematurely. Change is hard, new jobs are hard, new coworkers all sitting five feet apart is hard . . . so I didn't want my emotions to cloud my judgement when I finally sat down to write about the experience. Even now I cannot really say that I'm writing emotion-free. When anyone asks "how I like my new job," all I can really say is, "Wait and ask me again in 6 months." Because maybe by then I'll feel like I know what I'm doing. Maybe.

But now I know I can at least say with confidence: my new job involves making phone calls. Lots of phone calls. To literal strangers.

And it. Is. Terrifying.

My job is to recruit high-level executives who handle intellectual property at companies to come and speak at our conferences. (Imagine Susie Q:  a corporate lawyer who deals with IBM technology patents--when they're filed, who's trying to use the technology illegally, etc. That's who we want.) Basically, I comb the internet for these people and then email them an invitation. If they don't respond, I might email them another invitation. And if they still don't respond, I start calling.

Every time I pick up the phone, my heart rate speeds up. Yet I know it's an irrational fear. My head tells me, "Allison, what's the worst that can happen? That you'll stutter and sound like an idiot? That they'll yell at you? Hang up on you? Who cares! You'll never see them again!" And based on my--albeit limited--experience, none of these things are likely to happen. Everyone I've spoken with so far has been very polite and oftentimes even nice. No one seems angry or annoyed.

So what am I so afraid of?

Honestly, I am not sure. What I do know is that I'm out of practice with talking to complete strangers (especially strangers who seem much more "important" than me), and I'm out of practice calling people who aren't my friends or family, and all this lack of practice makes me very very nervous when it comes time to dial a new number.

However, if nothing else, I'm getting lots of practice these days. So now it's just a matter of getting that heart rate down and banishing the feeling of dread that always climbs into my gut when I pick up the receiver. Fingers crossed that such a day comes soon. In the meantime, you'll have to excuse me, but I have a phone call to make.

Chicago Marathon: A Success Story

Put in the work. Do the job. Reap the rewards.

If only running a marathon were that easy.

But sometimes it is.  For me, this time, in Chicago, it was.

When I say “easy,” I am talking about running between 40 and 60 miles per week for months at a time. So no, not exactly “easy.” Frankly, the work required was daunting—but I took it one day at a time, and I did it. When I was told to do core work after an hour-and-a-half workout, I did it. Drills, lunges, speed work, tempo runs, doubles, long runs—I did all of it. And when I was told to rest, I did that, too. Because why hire a coach if you don’t follow his instructions? He was the expert, and I was relying on his expertise to make me faster. Therefore, I had to do what he said. The worst possible thing would be to cross the finish line at Chicago looking over my shoulder at runs I had fluffed or core work I had skipped, wondering if they would have made a difference. Regret always leaves a sour taste, and I wanted Chicago to taste victory-sweet.

However, you can be the hardest worker on the planet and not even make it to the start line. I got lucky. Bad injuries happen to good athletes. No matter how health- and safety-conscious you are, nothing can guarantee that one day, some joint or muscle in your body won’t suddenly rebel, or maybe you’ll trip, or you might accidentally drink out of the same water glass as a kid who had bronchitis. You just never know.

So I got lucky—really lucky. I didn’t get injured. I didn’t get sick. Therefore, the only thing in my way was my own brain, and I was determined to smack that sucker around if it tried to give me problems.

Which brings me to the night before the marathon. I was staying with Coach J___’s family and another teammate in an Airbnb—basically a rich family’s very lavish apartment, which they had rented out to us—and so I had heard him giving other athletes pre-race talks all day. He had cooked us dinner, and now that it was closing in on my bedtime, I was starting to worry that he might not intend to give me a “talk” at all. What if he didn’t? After all this very specific, very instructive training, was I supposed to just run this on my own? Could I manage that? At long last I finally asked him outright. After a bit of jesting derision, he asked me what I thought I was going to run, what my body thought I was going to run.

I don’t like listening to my body, because my body complains a lot. However, based on how I had been running lately, I was pretty confident I would PR this race. The question was, by how much. To date, I had only managed to drop a few minutes at a time at any given race, so I assumed that this race would be no different. In fact, I thought it was quite ambitious of me to say I expected to run around 3:10-3:13. My last marathon, just the previous fall in NYC, had been 3:18 high. In my opinion, eight minutes was a lot of time to drop in less than a year.

In any event, that’s I told him: I thought I’d run somewhere between 3:10-3:13. And here was the defining moment of my whole Chicago marathon experience. J___ looked straight at me and shook his head. “Wrong direction.” I looked at him strangely, so he clarified, “What A___ did today? 3:05? You can do that—if you want to.”

A___ was one of my teammates, whom J___ trained remotely since she lived in Connecticut. That very day, she had run the Hartford marathon in an amazing time of 3 hours and 5 minutes. I couldn’t believe J___ was telling me I could do that. Me? Really

Really, though, any shocked questions were just superficial thoughts. Inside my real brain, inside my heart of hearts, 3:05 had just become my new goal. If he thought I could do it, and I trusted him to know what I could or couldn’t do, then that was exactly what I’d go out there and try to do.

I immediately logged onto my computer and looked up A___’s Hartford Marathon results. From what I could tell, she averaged a pace of 7:06/mile. 7:06. That’s what I had to do. Oh boy.

Fast forward to the start line. This was a race of firsts, and one of those firsts left my hands empty, nervously clenching and unclenching. I had no iPod. This was the first marathon I would run without music. The lack of music didn’t make me nervous, because I had been training without music for most of my long runs, but it felt strange not to be holding anything. Plus, on top of that, I kept looking at my stupid Garmin watch, trying to make sure it didn’t go to sleep after it had finally picked up satellite signal. But then the national anthem started playing and I stopped paying attention—just like I have in so many other races. And by the time I looked down again, it was because I needed to start my watch because my foot was about to cross the first timing mat . . . and the thing had conked out.

Are you kidding me??? I thought. After all that, I’m going to have to run this whole race trying to calculate my pace times off of the course clocks? This time, however, the Garmin gods were on my side. I pushed the button to pick up satellite signal again, and in about fifteen seconds the watch clicked in. This was going to be my day.

The first few miles flew by. There were so many spectators that I had to start an internal chant to keep from being swept up in the fervor and excitement of the race. Relax. Relax. Relax. I felt good, but I needed to keep feeling good, and that meant controlling my pace, even though my body felt primed to go.

In our previous evening’s talk, J___  had indicated that I should take the first 5 miles easy and then settle into a rhythm for the next 8. At mile 13, I was to “throw down” a hard mile, and then ease up again and focus on picking up the pace in the first minute of every mile for the next 7 miles. At that point, there would only be five miles left. “And then,” he told me, shrugging, “it’s just how much you want it.”

The first 13 miles were honestly a cakewalk. All I had to do was count to five (“Five easy miles”) and then count to eight (“Lock in for the next eight”). I felt euphoric because the whole time, I could tell that my body had more to give. For that hard 14^th mile, the one J___ had told me to “throw down fast,” I cruised past runners, dreamily wondering if I could keep this pace up for the rest of the race. But I knew that was a pipe dream—I was only halfway done, and New York had taught me that those last six miles can feel like sixty—so I eased back up at the 14 mile marker and ate some of my jellybeans (which, while delicious and a much more palatable consistency than gel, require inconvenient amounts of chewing before ingestion).

Counting down the next 7 miles—and their corresponding 1-minute pickups, as assigned by J___—was a bit harder, because changing speeds mid-race is just . . . well it’s hard. It takes discipline. Fortunately, this was something I had done in workouts leading up to the race, so I was used to telling my legs to shut up and move.

And then there were five. Five measly miles. “At this point, it’s how much you want it,” J___ had told me the night before. And not only did I want it, I knew I had it. I had time in the bank, because I had averaged between 6:55-7:05/mile up until this point in the race, and somehow I still didn’t feel like death. I pushed the pace as hard as I dared, and at mile 25, when I saw J___ and his megaphone on the roadside, shouting at me to “just hang on,” I stopped wondering if I should keep holding back. Now was not the time to think. Now was the time to run.

The last 800m were excruciating. But the last 800m of any race are excruciating. The finish line is so close and yet so far. Your legs ache and your lungs strain and you know you’re almost there but the pain isn’t over yet, so you can’t let up. Shut up legs. Shut up legs. Shut up legs.

And then I was there. Across the finish line. I had envisioned this moment back at mile three, at mile eight, at nearly every mile in the first half of the race when I realized that I was running at sub-7:10 pace and I wasn’t even tired. Would I cry? Would I laugh? How would it feel? In those 3 hours, 3 minutes, and 42 seconds of running, I think I cycled through every single one of those emotions. I had played them all out, and so they were no longer available to me. I just felt done. And I was.

I had done it.

Race Length	Finishing Time	Average Pace	Overall Place	Gender Place	Age Group Place (F25-29)
26.2 mi	3:03:42	7:01/mile	1,300 / 40,567	156 / 18,390	55 / 3,987

Training for the Chicago Marathon: A Season in Review

They say it’s the journey that counts, so I decided to write this post before the Chicago Marathon, not after. Yes this race matters to me—it matters to me a lot—but it’s important to look back on all the work I put in and remember that I enjoyed (most of) it.

In no particular order, here’s a list of superlatives that offer a snapshot review of my training season:

Best Workout

In September, J___ gave me 5 x 1 mile 6:40, 6:30, 6:20, 6:10, 6:10. I nailed it within a second of every pace until the 6:10s . . . which I ran more like 6:05s. I have never hit a workout—alone—so spot on.

Worst Workout

I don’t remember the exact details, but there was a workout in the spring where I had to run 4 miles straight at some particular pace, and I got so frustrated after putting in what felt like sprint-level effort and missing the first two miles by nearly 15 seconds (each!) that I stopped and rested for two minutes before the third mile and then again before the fourth.  It felt like failure—well, it was failure—and failure is the worst.

Most Complicated Workout

On a track, in meters: 200-200-200-400-200-600-200-800-200-800-200-600-200-400-200-200. Oh and there were 200m recovery jogs between each of these. Dizzy yet?

Biggest Inspiration

Watching M___ run Boston literally like a machine: she ran textbook negative splits to finish well below 3:10. Incredible.

Biggest Sacrifice

Leaving my Thursday night writing group in order to attend running sessions at the track. Of course I made better friends with the Thursday night runners, which was awesome, but I miss my writing friends. Scheduling sucks.

Most Surprising Discovery

I’ll probably regret putting this in writing, but I actually like track workouts. (I think???) So long as my teammates are around of course!

Most Annoying Discovery

I need sleep—a lot of sleep. The higher my mileage climbed, the earlier I wanted to go (and often did go) to bed. Also, I don’t get super hungry during peak weeks; no, I get super hungry during taper weeks. How does that make sense?!

Proudest Accomplishment

I think this one’s a tie. On one hand, this was my first season of doubles, and I am proud to say that I didn’t skip a single one! (For those of you who might not know what a “double” is, your guess was probably right: it’s running twice in one day.) But I’m a pretty by-the-book person—if a coach tells me to do something, I intend to go do it as to-the-letter as I can—so I guess that’s not truly my proudest accomplishment. Therefore, I guess I’d have to say I am most proud of running 65 miles in one week . . . three times! Never in my life did I think I’d do that. Who knows what might come next!

On Losing

In running, we all say we're running against ourselves--against the clock. And quite honestly, I think most of us do this, and we do it well. We get our biggest thrills from dropping time from our last PR because, in our hearts of hearts, we know that most of us--not all, but most--aren't going to actually win any races, and if we do, it's just because the "faster folks" didn't show up. Very very few of us ever dream of becoming Olympic or professional runners, and even fewer of us actually become them.

So as a whole, I applaud runners for setting their sights on individualized goals, achieving them, and finding true pride and pleasure in those achievements. After all, the only people who really care if we run thirteen-point-one miles ten seconds faster than the last time we ran thirteen-point-one miles it is . . . well . . . us.

However.

Running is a race. And yes, you can race yourself, race the clock, and try to get faster, but you're only really trying to get faster to beat other people. That's what races are: events where everyone is trying to run faster than everyone else. Therefore, no matter how much time you may have dropped, no matter how big your PR, it still sucks to lose to someone you think you could or should have beaten. No amount of "hooray, I ran faster today" can assuage that.

Or at least that's how I feel.

This past weekend, I ran the Michelob Ultra Boston 13.1. Beforehand, my personal goal was to break 1:28. This was a goal I had set--but failed to achieve--back in the spring. Now, it was five months of grueling training later, and I was ready to go out there and do it. My coach's goal for me was to "execute," by which he meant to do everything right: to run the paces that I meant to run at the miles I meant to run them, to eat right, to hydrate right, and to keep my head on straight, all as practice for the Chicago Marathon, which is my true Goal Race, next month.

I knew, of course, that if I did all of these things correctly, I should break 1:28. And so I did. I PRed.

But if I don't sound happy about that, it's because I'm not. Well, I'm happy I PRed. Who wouldn't be? But I'm downright pissed that I came in 4th woman overall.

Let me explain.

While biding my time at the start line, a young woman standing beside me struck up a conversation. Where are you from? Are you here with anyone? Have you run a half marathon before? The usual runner's version of "Hello, my name is." She said she'd run three half marathons and was aiming to break 1:30. What was my goal time? Nervous about telling someone who was clearly in my "corral" (this race was too small for real corrals, so we all just seeded ourselves) precisely what time I wanted to run, I just said "Me too."

As it turns out, we both were lying.

When the gun went off, we simultaneously crossed the starting line and ran stride-for-stride for about . . . ten paces. Then, she took off. Ah, I thought. One of those. I figured I'd see her at the halfway point, struggling along, looking for all the world like she wanted to quit. And I did see her at the halfway point, but only because it was a partial out-and-back; she was at least a quarter mile ahead of me, having already turned around and running in the opposite direction. She looked strong and fast and professional with her fancy compression socks and matching headband. Damn it, I thought.

But I was going to run my race, and I knew if I tried to catch up to her, I'd risk being fried by the end.  So I continued to repeat what I had already chosen as my race mantra at mile 0.5: execute. Execute, execute, execute.

And execute I did. My first mile was 6:48, right where I meant for it to be. Miles 2 and 3 were a bit on the fast side, but I knew these were the miles I needed to use to lock into a pace for the majority of the race, so I was feeling skittish. Miles 4 through 6 were straight into a headwind along the coast--never good for one's mental state. Then the turnaround came, and I had been counting the women who were running toward me. I was 5th. Fifth, I thought to myself. That's not bad at all. That's actually pretty great. Sounds even better than Top Ten. The positive thoughts were flowing because miles 7 and 8 were back down the coast, the wind was gone, and in the stream of people flowing toward the turnaround, the occasional woman would smile at me and yell, "Way to go," or, "Looking strong."I did my best to smile back.

Around mile 7.5, I realized that we were passing the turnoff where we had arrived at the coast. Great! I thought. Presumably this meant that we'd be running with the wind all the way down the coast, and then probably turn off somewhere to get back to the racetrack. But then I saw the first place man coming toward me. His face looked like agony--agony I soon felt myself when I turned around yet again and started back into the wind. (I really ought to study race maps more closely.)

As if it weren't mentally grueling enough to try and keep a 6:40 pace while battling headwind, I was getting passed. Fortunately only by men, but it was disheartening to keep hearing footsteps approaching behind me and knowing that I'd soon be seeing the back of another runner. One tall very pale guy tried to strike up a conversation as he came up beside me, but I just couldn't do it, especially after he told me that he, too, had set out to break 1:30. (What was it with these people!?) He soon realized that I was not in any shape to converse and sprinted away.

At mile ten, it was time to, in the words of my coach, "Get down to business." I was pleasantly surprised to discover I did, in fact, have another gear. It wasn't a ton faster, but I could tell that I was picking up the pace, and that got my adrenaline going. Only three miles left, I started pep-talking myself. A 5k. That's all. Mile 11 was a handwritten sign, and mile 12 didn't have any sign at all.

Then it was mile 13. Go time.

There had been a woman wearing a green singlet in front of me for a good chunk of the race, but she was long gone, as was the winner, who must have been almost a mile ahead of me at the turnaround. I noticed I was coming up on the short woman in powder blue who had held second place, and miraculously, in front of her, I saw those socks. It was the girl from the start!

I picked up the pace yet again, but with a warning from my coach in the back of my head: Don't kick unless you can maintain it.

I passed the woman in powder blue, who--based on her gaspy breathing--clearly did not have a "final mile gear." Now it was just me and this other girl, and her turnover didn't look as fast as mine. I could catch her!

Don't kick unless you can maintain it.

I now had about half a mile left, and I was gaining, but I wasn't sure if I'd catch her in time. Come on, Allison, I coached myself. You've got this.

We were approaching the back of racetrack where the whole event had started. There couldn't be much distance left. A series of cones were arranged in a curve, which led up to the middle of the parking lot where the big bright blue Michelob Ultra finish line stood, beckoning. When we got to the cones, I kicked. This was it.

I rounded the bend on her heels, knowing that swinging out wide would cost me, and then I closed in beside her. The finish line was right there. I was in front, I had to be, by a stride or two. But then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur and heard her footfalls speed up. Suddenly she was right there beside me, and we crossed the finish line, and I genuinely didn't know which one of us had made it there first. But for some reason, in my gut, I knew she had won. This girl had beaten me.

And it's true. She had. Based on whatever judging happens at these sorts of casual racing events, her time--identical to mine--was ranked 3rd. I was fourth. I lost.

If I'm honest, even after a few days of congratulatory texts, phone calls, and Facebook posts for my Pr performance, I'm still smarting from the loss. It was right there. Third place. If only I had kicked later or pushed harder or leaned, I could have had it. A Podium Place. And sure, this wasn't an "important" race--it wouldn't qualify me for any Olympic Trials or win me any money--but I was right there neck-and-neck with a girl I could have beaten, and I lost.

I really hate losing.

Suffice to say, the Chicago Marathon--my true goal race--is next month, and if it comes down to a final straightaway, and it's me and another girl who may or may not have lied about her goal time in a perfectly amiable conversation at the start line . . . I won't be losing again.

Michelob ULTRA Boston 13.1

Race Length	Finishing Time	Average Pace	Overall Place	Gender Place	Age Group Place (F25-29)
13.1 mi	1:27:21	6:41/mile	25 / 1,474	4 / 869	1 / 243