Coming back from vacation wasn't fun at all... work was pretty busy in Oct-Nov and as a result a lot of personal things suffered. Point in case: my blog.

 

One thing I tried very hard to mantain was my training plan for the Seattle Half Marathon. Luckly I was able to finish strong and ran the race two weeks ago.

 

The Seattle Half is very hilly (you know what I mean if you have ever been to Seattle downtown) but the weather was good that day. My result was a little better than I expected (1:58). I thought I'd be around 2:10 but the intense training sessions around my neighborhood, Education Hill (yes, a lot of hills), paid off nicely. You can check the official results here.

 

Some good friends were there with me: Gustavo Nascimento, Alex Pombo and Diego Dagum. The good news is that they all finished... The bad? Well, Diego, the Argentine, came first among us (just kidding, my friend).

 

Here are some pictures taken after the race:

 

 

Marcelo (left), Gustavo (center), Alex Pombo (right)

 

Happy with the medal!

 

That's it! I promise to share more details about this race including my playlist soon.

Vacations are going very well! Great food, amazing sightseeing... more to come when I'm back next week (including beautiful pictures taken by Maira). In the meantime, I've managed to squeeze a couple of running sessions around the Colliseo in Rome... unforgettable experience!

Maira and I are in Europe for our annual vacation. It's my plan to run at least once in each city we visit.

The first is step is done: Dublin. Last Saturday, just a few hours after stepping off the plan, I went to Phoenix Park with my cousing Vitor and ran an 8-miler under a beatiful irish sky - unheard of! What a great day to start a vacation!

Next stop: Rome and more running to come... if all that pasta & vino don't stop me.

Tomorrow 10AM (yes, Sunday morning) Juliano, Alex Pombo and I will kickoff our weekly long runs in preparation for the Seattle Half Marathon. We're doing a hill training in the Education Hill area. Here is the course:

 

 

Want to join us? We're meeting at the Starbucks on Avondale Road and NE 116th st at 10AM. 

Maira and I spent the last weekend (Labor Day holiday) in Portland. What a great weekend it was!

We always wanted to visit Portland and when we found out that Nike added it to the Human Race we didn’t think twice.

Portland is not far away from Seattle (around 175 miles) and apart from minor delays in the Olympia metro area the trip was painless. We decided to stay in a nice hotel in downtown (Monaco Hotel) to have quick access to the key attractions: shopping and food J

Seriously, the weather wasn’t great so we spent most of the time in the city. You can check out some pictures here. Nature is abundant there but the Columbia River Gorge, Rose Garden, and Mount Hood will have to wait for the next visit.

Now, a little bit about the race. The Nike Human Race is a pretty cool idea. It’s a 10K race that happens at the same day in more than 25 cities worldwide. You basically register yourself to run in one place but your results are stacked against participants from around the world. In 2008, these are some of the cities that hosted the Human Race: Melbourne, São Paulo, Shanghai, Taipei, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Rome, London, Munich, New York, Chicago, Austin, Vancouver, and, of course, Portland.

The race took place in the Nike Headquarters in Beaverton which looks like Microsoft’s main campus and I have to say it’s a very enjoyable place. The race started 8AM (why so early for Christ's sake???) in the Ronaldo Field. Yes, it pays homage to the great Brazilian soccer player Ronaldo Nazario.

Close to 4,000 runners participated in this 10K. The course was very flat (easy) and during the race the weather was quite nice (sunny / 65 F). I finished the race in a 52’33’’ (my personal best so far) and my position was 41,352 in the worldwide ranking. With that, I completed the first milestone in my plan to run the Vancouver Marathon in May 2009! The next step is the Seattle Half-Marathon in Nov.

But this race was about Maira's performance. This was the first time she ran 10K in her entire life and before the race she was quite apprehensive. Good news! Not only she finished the race but also she did it in a very strong way running until the end. Her time was 1:20’33’’ (position 118,399).

During the recovery, we ended up being interviewed by a journalist and our photos were taken for the official race book (supposedly). Closing the action, Nada Surf performed a nice concert for the participants and their invitees.

And that is pretty much all it! Enjoy some pictures (quality not great as they were taken from a cell phone).

  

  

 

 

Quick update: last weekend Maira and I ran the Nike Human Race 10K in Portland. It was a great race! I finished in a little over 52min but the great winner of the weekend was Maira who ran a 10K race for the first time and finished strongly in 1h20min! Way to go! More to come on this weekend soon... stay tuned!

I’ve always loved music, all kinds of music. OK, not ALL kinds. I have a clear preference for classic rock, pop rock, and surf music.

Music has been part of the most important moments of my life. I was that guy who carried a walkman (I’m really getting old!) or CD player everywhere. So when the portable players came along it was like a dream came true.

Truth is, without a good playlist I don’t know if I could run 15 minutes. I think I’ve never even tried. A good playlist is like “emotional caffeine” when I’m running.

My playlists are part of the reason I started running and why I keep running. After all, it’s my time off. It’s my way to blow steam. Release the stress. Recharge the batteries.

This is my favorite playlist for 5K races. Total time is a little over 27 minutes and the order is important for me. I love to finish with Read My Mind from The Killers. They have great songs for running. Sometimes I skip Alright in order to finish with my favorite song. My performance also gets a boost with Move Along, Take Me Out and Thanks for the Memory. I don’t know why. It’s not rational. It’s the “emotional caffeine” at its best. Enjoy!

• Amazing / Seal (3:02)
• Mr. Brightside / The Killers (3:42)
• Move Along / The All-American Rejects (3:58)
• Thanks For The Memories / Fall Out Boy (3:26)
• Somebody Told Me / The Killers (3:17)
• Take Me Out / Franz Ferdinand (3:13)
• Alright / Supergrass (3:03)
• Read My Mind / The Killers (4:07)

If you have a chance to try this playlist out, tell me what you think. If you have your own playlist for 5K races let me know... I'd love to know what you listen to while you run.

Cheers,

Marcelo.

So here it is. I decided to share with all of you the training schedule for my first objective: finish the 2008 Seattle Half-Marathon (Nov 30th).

 

This program is based on Jeff Galloway's method which seems to be proven as the guy ran more than 100 marathons throughout his life... pretty impressive, hein?

 

Seattle Half Marathon Training Schedule
Week	Week of	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1	25-Aug	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	6.5 miles
2	1-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	7 miles
3	8-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	8 miles
4	15-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	off	run 30-45 min	off	off	3 miles
5	22-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	off	run 30-45 min	off	off	5 miles
6	29-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	7 miles
7	6-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	9 miles
8	13-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	11 miles
9	20-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	13 miles
10	27-Sep	off	run 30-45 min	off	run 30-45 min	off	off	3 miles
11	3-Nov	off	run 30-45 min	off	run 30-45 min	off	off	5 miles
12	10-Nov	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	14 miles
13	17-Nov	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	6.5 miles
14	24-Nov	off	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	run 30-45 min	walk/xt 40 min	off	Half Marathon

 

My dear friends,

 

It’s really interesting how some decisions are made.

 

Last night, I was playing couch potato with Maira (my wife) and watching the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games when I reached out to book called “Marathon: You can do it!” that I borrowed from my friend Juliano Tubino. I had no intention to run a marathon or even read the book – seriously – but Juliano sold me on the idea of taking it and I didn’t want to be impolite.

 

Motivated by a surprisingly good result in the Covey Run 10K in Woodinville two weeks ago (I know 54min is not great but it was enough to make me happy… after all it was my first 10K) I started reading the book around 10PM. After 3 hours I finished it and I couldn’t sleep… the adrenalin was running through my veins. Would it be possible to prepare for a marathon in just a few months? I’ve never thought about it and suddenly the idea seemed real.

 

When I got to work this morning I went to talk to Juliano and in less than 1 hour we had all figured out: training plan, race schedule, online resources, etc. We also enlisted Alex Pombo, another Brazilian friend who alos likes to run. Apparently, if you have a group of people running with you, the job is easier and the whole thing seems less crazy that it really is!

 

And that’s why I decided to write about this adventure in my personal blog. Maira does such a great keeping our “family blog” updated that I wouldn’t dare touch it. My professional blog is not the place for this sort of thing either.

 

So, in the upcoming months, I hope to tell you some interesting stories about the trainings, the playlists, the trips and the people that will be part of this journey…

 

… 1st stop: Nike Human Race Portland 10K, Aug 31st 2008

… 2nd stop: Seattle Half-Marathon, Nov 20th 2008

… 3rd stop: Vancouver Marathon, May 3rd 2009

 

In my (pipe) dreams: New York, Honolulu and Boston… (yes, Boston… you can laugh now if you want).