So after considering it each of the last two Januarys, I’m finally going to give Health Month a go. What is Health Month? Glad you asked! You can read all the details on the Facebook group but the high level rules are as follows:

No Alcohol
No Smoking
No Caffeine (Exception: Unsweetened Green Tea)
No Illegal Drugs
No “Big Breads” or Refined flour (Exception: Whole Grains)
No Meat (exceptions: Fish, Chicken, Lean/Uncured Pork)
No Pasta (Exception: Whole Grain Pasta in Small Amounts)
No Dairy, Butter, Margarine, Cheese (Exception: Yogurt with no added sugar or sweeteners)
No refined Sugars
No Artificial Sweeteners
No Fried Food
No Fast Food
Very Limited amounts of salt, olive oil, salad dressing
No Rice (Exception: Brown Rice)
Exercise 2-3 times a week
Add 1 Custom self-improvement pledge
Monitor your weight, mood, etc., and report back to others / blog it.

You get one amnesty day from ONE rule, not all of them.

The start date is midnight on Sunday January 4th, and the end date is midnight on Sunday February 1st. Feel free to start earlier or end later if you want.

Take on something that’s challenging. I believe that the spirit of the month is to take on a few new behaviors that are totally contrary to your normal routine. So, even if you think you can’t survive without coffee in the morning, give it a try for the first week, and drink a green tea when you have a bad headache. It might not be as bad as you think. Our habits aren’t as immutable as they might seem, and getting out of your routine can be remarkably refreshing. You can always go back after the month is over (the first coffee after Health Month is amazing), but you’ll have the added benefit of knowing that you can survive without something you thought you couldn’t before.

What tools will I use to track data?
I’ll be leveraging the data that I’m capturing with my new FitBit to track calories in/out, exercise, sleep, weight, etc. I’m only getting started with the FitBit (and plan to write a review after this month) but so far I’m liking it and I’m really excited to see how my data looks in aggregate over time in nice-looking charts like these:

I’ll also be using Runkeeper to track the running I do during this time. After being a long time Nike+ devotee (with over 1,000 miles clocked), I’ve recently made the switch to Runkeeper and I think I’m here to stay. I’m also in the midst of a post about why I made the switch that I hope to have ready in the next week or so. If you’re on Runkeeper, you can add me as a friend here.

I may occasionally post updates to this blog throughout the month but I’ll definitely post a recap at the end to capture how it all went.

What am I hoping to get out of this?
My main goals are threefold:

1) to see how putting healthy things in my body for 30 days straight makes me feel
2) to see if I can carry over any of these habits beyond Health Month or make me reconsider habits I currently accept as normal
2) to hopefully kickstart a little weight loss as I’ve put on about 10-12 pounds since I hurt my should in August 2008. Now that surgery is behind me, I’m ready to go. Also, with the baby due in March, I feel like I have a small window of opportunity to whip myself into shape before my focus changes.

What do I think will be the hardest?
Right off the bat, my gut (literally) tells me these will be the hardest:

1) No coffee – Normally I consume the following on a daily basis: 2 espressos first thing in the morning, a large coffee on the way to work, 1-2 coffees in the afternoon. Going from that to green tea will be tough because I’ll miss the caffeine but also because I enjoy the whole coffee routine.

2) Eating out – It’s very easy to stick by the rules when we’re making food for ourselves at home but at restaurants it’s going to take a bit of work. As someone who also really enjoys the theater of eating, this is going to be difficult.

Those are really the two I think I have to look out for. Apart from that I think
I should be ok but only time will tell.

Anyway, if you want to learn more about Health Month or join the Facebook group, go here.

See you in February!

a

There’s nothing I can add. You can find the recipe here.

Makes me really appreciate having run NYC with Karen last year and makes me really want to run another one.

Check the whole post here.

Were sports jinxing a real thing, taking pre-orders on a book called “19-0″ as well as trying to trademark “19-0″ might make the list for the top 5 biggest jinxes ever. But hey, at least their coach didn’t leave his players on the field at the end of the game.

Update: Capitalism waits for no one. Order your “18-1″ tees today!

Idea: Live-streaming audio of sarcastic, cynical duo doing their own commentary for major sporting events. Mute TV, play stream instead.
– John Gruber via Twitter

John Gruber of Daring Fireball echoes an idea that Nuti and I have been bandying about since we first moved to the city after college (circa 1998). Now that bandwidth is finally catching up, ideally eliminating the lag that would undermine such an effort, this is becoming a reality. Sadly, it seems like such a no-brainer that I assume someone must be doing this already.

I wanted Alex to write the marathon post since it was his first marathon and I thought he would give you a fun perspective, but he’s been so swamped at work lately, it doesn’t seem like that’ll happen anytime soon. So here goes:

We finished the marathon! Yay! Which you probably already know from browsing flickr. This is us crossing the finish line. I love, love, love this photo. We look ridiculous—probably because I made Alex practice this finish with me for the last five months.

Now that you have all breathed a sigh of relief that we finished, let’s rewind to the early, early morning the day of the marathon.

We woke up around 4:45 a.m. so that we could catch a bus organized by the Brooklyn Road Runner’s club from our neighborhood. The bus left Park Slope around 5:30 and arrived at Fort Wadsworth at 6:15. We must have been with the first 100 runners of 38,000 that arrived because the place was empty.

We found our starting corral (BLUE!), set up camp with a painting drop cloth and a blanket and rested up for a bit. When we woke up about 30 minutes later, it looked like a cross between 28 days later and Woodstock. People were everywhere, wearing some of the most unusual getups one could imagine.

Around 9 a.m., an hour before race time, people started really getting ready for the run. We lubed up our toes and the rest of our bodies with Vaseline in hopes to avoid blisters and chaffing (too gross for the blog?).

And then we headed to our corral’s start area. Here are all our blue running friends.

This is when things started to get really exciting. Everyone’s ripping off their warm clothes and stripping down to shorts and tanks. I’ve never seen so much wasted clothing in my life. I was happy to find out that thousands of pounds of clothes are cleaned and donated. Alex, being the classy guy he is, found a discarded tin of Vaseline for some last minute lubing.

The next thing we knew, the cannon went off and we were starting. It took us about eight minutes or so to get to the starting line. We had to run through the toll booth area on the Verrazano bridge first, which is a very strange concept when on foot. Here we are ready to go!

Alex brought a disposable camera along for the run, which was great because he captured a bunch of the moments along the race like:

On the Verrazano Bridge. Alex took a leak here that he described as “breathtaking.”

Bay Ridge. We spotted our first fan and two-time marathoner, Rob Schellberg here.

Down to Park Slope. Hey look, it’s the Human Hair Happy Hour Folks: Sara, Freya, Daya, Micah, Katie and Murph! Thanks for the signs, Sara and Daya! A few more strides down and we spotted Rob and Sarah. Check out this video Murph took of us!

Near Park Place with spotted Momma Vicky with her skyscraper sign.

Through Fort Greene we found these awesome signs, courtesy of Dennis and Kevin. Photo by Yougna who was busy taking this picture so we missed her . The crowds in Fort Greene were awesome and super loud. Choirs from the neighboring churches were singing on their church steps. The energy from the city was really amazing.

Around mile 12 we met up with Marisa, Vinny and Gabe who brought along our mid-race salt packets, gels, starburst and a towel and took a stretching break and then crossed over the Pulaski Bridge. Check out how crowded it still is at mile 13!

Ah, the hated 59th street bridge. I could safely say we were still feeling groovy at this point, but it took a long time to get around other runners. The NYC marathon is a big race, everyone knows that, but I don’t think we realized how hard it would be to navigate space for the two of us on the road. We were constantly looking back over our shoulders to make sure we had both found a way to pass a group of runners (aww!).

On to first Avenue at mile 16 (10 more to go!) we spotted the Bonnas and the Cummings. This was our last planned family lookout. That, paired with the 16 miles we already finished, made the upcoming miles start to feel a bit less exciting… We headed up 1st Ave for about 4 miles. I think we were doing fine, chugging along; Alex worked through a foot cramp with multiple salt packets. A few of his work friends spied us (thanks, Susie!) and one was even working the water station at mile 18, which was awesome (thanks, Joseph!) We made our way into the Bronx for a mile, rocked out to some Eye of the Tiger and then headed back to Manhattan for the final 6 mile push.

This is where it started to get really tough (and frankly a bit blurry). I think no matter how hard you train, the last six miles are going to be hard. Your body just keeps making the same motion over and over again and your joints start to ache. As we made our way down 5th avenue we just kept saying to each other, “this is only as far as two loops in the park” and “one loop in the park to go!” When we finally made it into Central Park with about three miles left, three miles feels like eternity.

But then we spot this guy with his awesome sign (we saw him twice before in the race – first in Bay Ridge, then in Greenpoint. Alex posted about it on our blog and the guy responded! Check the comments), and you know you have to keep going. Also, there are so many spectators, there really isn’t a place to stop at this point.

Look how crowded it was at the last few hundred meters!

And finally, we finished!! In 4 hours and 33 minutes.

And then we had to walk. And walk. And walk. With these ridiculous mylar blankets on.

And finally, after about 30 minutes of walking, we gathered our belongings and were happy to take a photo courtesy of the UPS guy.

We collected our families on the West Side of the park and changed into some awesome toe socks and flip flops.

Here’s Sasha rocking our medals. This poor dog.

Thanks to everyone for all your incredible support over the last few months and for coming out on race day to cheer us on! It was a great day and I’m so happy we did it (and finished)! Now if you’ll excuse me, we need to go fill out our application for the Amazing Race.

Check out all the photos here.

I also want to thank this guy, who we saw in Bay Ridge right when we got off the Verrazano, in Greenpoint (above) and in Central Park (below) with about 2 miles to go.

Original photo from here.

For representing so hard in Fort Green yesterday.

For coming out on 4th avenue with these awesome signs! Murph has a good little video that I’ll try and secure.

Check out this nifty custom map of the New York City Marathon route through the city. Use it to see where you’re going to catch the race with your bagels on Sunday morning. Stay tuned for further updates as to where you might catch Karen and I along the way.

PS: Don’t forget to turn your clocks back on Saturday night! (or if you’re like our friend Sara, make sure you remove the “+1″ note from your clock.)

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