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2011 DSB Year in Review

Happy new year! Last year I posted my 2010 DSB Year in Review a little earlier — as in, before the new year — but I also had a lot less going on in my life (read: I had no access to a couch in which to sit and do nothing for hours on end). I ended that post with “I am excited to see where 2011 takes us!” I sometimes lament on how I don’t understand time, and when I wrote that post I did not think for a second about writing this 2011 version, knowing exactly where 2011 took me. I’m glad to be able to say that this year was even better, which I wasn’t sure was even possible at the time.

I never could have known when I wrote last year’s recap that by the same time next year, I would have run one and two-thirds marathons, filmed an online webisode for a huge search engine, fall in love for the first time, find a great job and get quoted in the biggest newspaper in the world, to name just a few. And as always, this blog was instrumental in most of my year.

And if you are one of the 37,000 people who found my blog this past weekend from Texgate lol, I want to say welcome and also that I was advised once to work on not getting frustrated with people who are dumb, but instead to feel fortunate that I (and all of you non-idiots) have a gift that they don’t. It is a very lovely way to think about the world. That said, please send me comments or emails about stupid people you might like to see ridiculed here.

I don’t see the world in such a lovely way.

Anyway, here we go with my 2011 DSB Year in Review . . .

January

On January 1, I rang in the 2011 new year with blogger friends old and new and proclaimed that my goal for 2011 was to find a career where I am writing and doing social media related to health & fitness. I actually achieved that goal (See July ) and even though my job isn’t 100% health & fitness, I am thrilled with what I am doing and there is some fitness-related stuff going on there.

Dori and Missy NYE 2011

On January 26, I felt legitimized as a blogger who happens to love fitness when I was quoted on page 2 in the New York Times article “Full-Service Gyms Feel A Bit Flabby about getting the most out of my workouts with dedicated, boutique fitness classes.

February

On February 1, I shared my response to that NY Times article — namely that the reason people pay so much for boutique fitness classes and even join on top of already-expensive gym memberships is because these classes produce results.

After alluding to my hip injury that was preventing me from running and taking some of my favorite exercise classes, I finally explained it to everyone in a two part series: My Hip Injury – Part 1 and My Hip Injury – Part 2

Also in February, the amazing exhale spa (home of Core Fusion classes) offered me the chance to try acupuncture to help with my hip. Naturally, I accepted.

March

In early March, a doctor told me I was too pale to run a marathon. This “sports doctor” orthopedist seemed very sure of himself as he chuckled at me for even wanting to do such a thing while my hue was so fair.

And he had some bad timing, since I also started writing a weekly column called Dori’s Quest for NBC New York’s GO Healthy NY website, in which my first post was called How I Got Into The Greatest Marathon in the World.

Dori running first qualifying race for 2011 NYC Marathon

The best part of March — of every March — is my favorite time of year, my birthday, at which everyone pays attention to Dori. Everyone has to be nice to me and buy me drinks and I get to be a self-absorbed asshole on this blog and post tons of pictures of myself.

Case in point:

Dori at her birthday 2011

The other best part of March? Meeting the boy who likes sitting on the couch and doing nothing as much as I do. And he actually owns a couch so really that’s why I love him.

Dori and Andy

I promise I own more than one dress.

April

I fulfilled my dream of attending a Wendy Williams show taping, and appeared on the show on April 12 with my blogging friend Heather (formerly of Hangry Pants fame). Here we are beside Rudy Huxtable’s real life mom:

Dori and Heather at Wendy Williams

I also published two freelance articles for the incredible Blisstree.com:

And on April 26, it was time to write a blog post but I didn’t have anything to write about. Then my friend forwarded me an email and I just had to make fun of it. Publicly. It epitomized my friend’s and my saying: What is wrong with EVERYONE?! And so the most popular post in my entire blogging career — by far — was created:

Texting and Dating, or Texgate lol 2011 

Have I mentioned how much I love the internet?

May

I finally made it as a blogger after a commenter called me a self entitled c*nt.

In non-texgate news, I started running again after taking six months off from my hip injury and felt like my November NYC Marathon dream might actually be possible after all.

Dori running again

June

On June 11, Missy and I hosted a free IntenSati class as part of the Be Fit NYC initiative on how to make NYC your gym, and even though we had to change the location (it was too rainy for Central Park), lots of people came and it was a huge success as evidenced by this photo of my ass:

Dori's butt at IntenSati

And even though I guaranteed had entry to the ING NYC Marathon, I decided to also run the race as part of the Girls on the Run charity program called Solemates because, why not? For the second time (first here), my blog readers helped me raise money for an amazing cause!

July

I explained why July is my favorite month of the year (it is REAL SUMMER!) and in unrelated news my roommate moved out of our 320 square goot apartment. I still do not have a place to put things. I also fulfilled my dream of being recognized for taking the best race photographs of all time and appeared on the NYRR.org homepage!

Dori on NYRR

On July 11, I started training for the ING NYC Marathon — a goal I had in the works for over a year, and the biggest thing I wanted to achieve in 2011.

I also accepted a job offer, accomplishing the goal I mentioned earlier of finding a career that involved writing and social media in the wellness world. Really, I am the social media manager for a number of beauty brands (such as Hydroxatone and Sarah McNamara Beauty) but I love it and I’ve got some wellness-related items in the works there too.

I finished the month with a surprise PR in the Queens Half Marathon — my first half marathon post-injury and one I did not train or plan to run my fastest half marathon at 2:06:27 in. Because I learned I can run a sub-10 minute mile half marathon without great training, this race inspired me to do train correctly and do even better in the half marathon distance next year. I have an ambitious goal for 2012.

Dori Queens Half Marathon

August

I revealed the secret video shoot I had been alluding to on my blog for almost two months with my Bing: Friends Matter webisode filmed at Refine Method (founder Brynn Jinnett appears in the video), The Gym at Chelsea Piers and Central Park. This was all about how our friends influence our decision, and exists because of Bing’s partnership with Facebook.

While I was in the best shape of my life during that shoot (which happened in June), in August I started feeling run down and — for the first time since I fell in love with exercise in January 2010 — burnt out.  Goes to show that everyone, no matter who they are or how strong — goes through periods where motivating to work out is hard.

Luckily before that happened, I ran a strong 14 miles — the longest run of my life to date, and the first time I ran farther than the half marathon distance. And it was just a week after my half marathon PR!

Dori at 14 mile run

And in response to a reader’s question about how I stay in shape, I also explained why I don’t tell you what I eat.

Also in August I was the subject of an interview with my friend Ben Waldman of Motivate Your Ass for NBC New York for his column called Extraordinary Motivation.

September

I ran 15 miles for the first time in my life, and I ran it by myself, which is highly unusual for me with crazy long distances.  I also decided to stop writing for NBC New York’s GO Healthy NY blog because I had less time with my new job.

I ran the 18 Mile Marathon Tune-Up — a race I ran past the year before and knew it would one day be me — where it would appear I outran death:

Dori and Masked Runner    Dori and Masked Runner 2

October

Surprise! I ran 20 miles for the first time — and felt great — on a day I had 19 on my schedule.

Dori's first 20

And then I ran my planned 20 miler!  With no route planned, Z and I ended up at LaGuardia Airport and Riker’s Island. Those two 20-mile runs both went so great, and I felt so strong both during and after, that I knew I could run 26.2. All doubt about the distance vanished and I felt confident.

20 miler route

November

After a year of qualifying through the NYRR 9+1 program, four months of training, lots of anticipation, excitement and anxiety, and thinking/talking about nothing else for months, it was finally time for the ING NYC Marathon on November 6. Like many things we plan, the race didn’t go as I expected. After suffering indescribable, freak upper-GI pain for a good nine miles, I made the extremely heartbreaking, difficult decision to leave the race at mile 18.

Dori running ING NYC Marathon

A week later, I surprised most people when I announced that I finished the SunTrust Richmond Marathon in 4:33:29! I completed my first marathon on November 11, 2011 – a good 20 minutes faster than I thought I’d finish. I was so happy and thankful that everything worked out the way it did.

Running that race was the greatest four hours of my life and I still wish I was back inside of it.

Dori at Richmond Marathon    Dori finishing Richmond Marathon

On November 22, I announced I was axing Tuesday Blags and instead going to blog when I felt like it. So far, I’ve failed miserably. Happy Tuesday!

December

On December 6, I reflected on what my two years of loving exercise has taught me about myself, which may all have canceled  each other out by points such as “I am lazy” and “I am an underachiever” juxtaposed with “I like pushing myself” and “I am tough on myself.”

I went to my new(ish) job’s holiday party on December 8 which validated my decision to accept said job when I saw they brought in both a caricature artist and a photo booth.

Dori and Andy caricature

My last post of 2011 was a long-winded explanation of my workout goals for 2012. The short-winded version? I’m only going to take classes I know are excellent or actually want to take, and I am not going to try new classes (either out of curiosity or for review) unless I really, really want to.

And lastly, in December, I received the most thoughtful, meaningful, best present of my life when my brother and sister-in-law sent me this word cloud from my own blog to commemorate my marathon finish. It looks like a sneaker and is fascinating:

So, yeah. I’d say 2011 was pretty great. I ran 585 miles, took more Refine Method and Core Fusion Cardio classes than I can count, ran a marathon, fell in love with a sweet boy with a couch and got an amazing job. I’m in worse shape physically than I was at this time last year, but now that I’m back into taking classes I think things will turn around. And throughout this past year — especially after I was a wreck from my DNF in the NYC Marathon and after I was elated from completing the Richmond Marathon — the support from your comments and emails helped me get through everything. When you’re happy for me, I feel happier for myself. When you commiserate with me, I feel better knowing I’m not alone.

I could not have achieved many of my 2011 accomplishments without this blog and without your support.

I still don’t know what will happen with DSB and my posting frequency, but I can’t imagine not having this record of every month of my life so I’m sure I’ll figure something out. I’ve got great things coming up in 2012 and as always, I’m excited to share it as it happens here.

Marathon Week Is Here — Now I Tell You The Hard Parts

Before I get into this post, I wanted to mention that I forgot to write about the best part of the Staten Island Half Marathon when I first posted my recap — I saw a person shortly after Mile 1 with a sign that said:

May the odds be EVER in your favor.

I got excited. Really excited to see a Hunger Games inspired sign. I yelled out to the person with the sign: “KATNISS!!!!!!!” He was impressed.

So, I’ve written a lot of really positive, upbeat posts about my marathon training runs lately. For the most part, my long runs were more successful — and not as hard — as I thought they’d be. But I only blog once a week and I choose what to share, so of course I share the best parts. And I think I made training for a marathon seem a little too easy. I don’t think I accurately portrayed just how hard and time-consuming training was, or how much I struggled and had to overcome to get to where I am right now: Five days away from running the ING NYC Marathon.

Of course, nothing is ever completely smooth for anyone during training, but here are some of the struggles I faced during the past five months of marathon training:

Hip injury – You might remember that last year I experienced a hip injury (read about it here and here) that was likely a labral tear. Also, a doctor told me I am too pale to run a marathon. I took six months off of running and went to physical therapy. My physical therapist did not think I would be able to run the marathon. Eventually I started running again, but when I took a new fitness class that irritated my hip and caused me to skip the NYRR Celebrate Israel Run in June, I doubted whether I’d be able to train for the marathon. Luckily, I didn’t seem to permanently re-injure my hip that day and by the time I started training it felt much better. I was wary, and expected the hip pain to return through training and possibly (even likely) prevent me from running the marathon

Drastic reduction in appetite – About three weeks before July 10 (the day I started training) I noticed my appetite was off. I was not nearly as hungry as I normally am, I felt overstuffed from eating a few bites and I started getting concerned about how I could train for a marathon when I could not eat the way I knew I should. This never happened to me before; in fact, one of the earliest signs of my illness was being constantly starving. A few weeks after I started training, I saw a doctor. She was not helpful (she said nothing was wrong and assigned me emotional exercises). I would go on a long run and feel no hunger afterwards at all. For some that is normal but for me, I am always ravenous after a long run. I saw a sports nutritionist who recommended I eat foods that I already know I can’t eat with my chronic GI illness. And after an expensive endoscopy that showed nothing was wrong, I eventually began to get my hunger back.

Unbearable GI pain – Despite the appetite issues, my training was going great. I had an incredible PR in the Queens Half Marathon, an amazing 14 mile run the week after and felt so strong. Then I began having some intense stomach pain that got so bad that I suffered through my City Streets long run, and cut the distance short. While I have had my GI illness for four years now, it has never affected my running so significantly. I took an entire week off of training. Even when I wasn’t in pain, I felt really weak. The thought of any exercise seemed like the torture. In fact, this was the first time since I started the Core Fusion Challenge on January 2, 2010 that I lost all interest in exercise. I couldn’t imagine feeling strong again. I couldn’t believe that just a couple of weeks before I PRd a half marathon and ran an immensely successful 14-mile PDR run. All I wanted to do was sleep. And for the first time since my hip got better, I began to doubt my ability to train for this marathon. I also found it ironic that I thought for so long that my hip pain would derail me, but never considered it my chronically ill stomach might be what did me in

The lowest part of the back of my leg pain – I don’t know what caused the pain that sprung up during the Staten Island Half Marathon. It hurt a little during the race, and when I tried to walk down the steps of the Staten Island Ferry terminal back in Manhattan, the pain was really intense. I was nervous, and even more so when it still hurt the next day at work. Going down stairs was the worst, but the pain was fairly constant. After some rest it went away, but came back during a short run. It went away again following another day of rest. The next weekend, I had my final 20 mile run — the peak of my training. I was worried about my leg but luckily the pain did not start until about the 10 mile point and it remained dull. The next day I had that fantastic-yet-painful sports massage and that massage HURT. I was tight. Really tight. But after, that pain behind the lowest part of my leg disappeared. Danielle DeMaio fixed it. It was like nothing was ever wrong — all my runs since then (shorter midweek runs and 12- and 8-mile long runs) were 100% pain free. It seems the pain was caused by muscle tightness because that massage cured me.

Stopping my favorite workouts – When I was looking into a marathon training plan, I put a tweet out there asking for a plan with three days a week of running that would let me keep time for Refine Method and Core Fusion Cardio. The wonderful Stacy of Stacy’s Bootcamp sent me a plan that looked perfect. Refine Method once a week, Core Fusion (Cardio or Yoga – my hip was not ready for regular) once a week, and I figured the two rest days seemed excessive and I could turn one into yoga sometimes. Ha! Because I cut back on class so much, after that one time a week I did take Refine, my legs would be sore after. I hadn’t been sore in forever because I worked out so often, so I didn’t realize that would become an issue. And that it would affect my running. One day, I was signed up for a Monday night Refine. That morning, I had a pit in my stomach. I knew I would be too sore and I was worried about my eight-miler the next day and my longer run over the weekend. I canceled class and I realized then that I would not be back until after the marathon.

I am not nearly as strong as I was when I filmed the Bing: Friends Matter video in June (when I felt my strongest), and I know that when I go back it will not be the same. The classes will be harder, and it will take work and time to get my strength back where I want it. I have to let go of my ego and remember that I won’t be at the “top of the class” anymore. As for the physical changes from cutting back, yes, I see them and I feel them. I don’t want to let this bother me more than it already is and when I get back to class, I don’t plan to go back to the same frequency I had been going before. My priorities changed.

A new relationship – Andy and I started dating at the end of March, so when things began getting more serious, it was right around the time my training was getting underway. I wanted to spend more time with him, which meant less time for non-running workouts. That meant that not only was Refine out, Core Fusion Cardio/Core Fusion Yoga was usually out too. I was able to do Core Fusion Cardio without any leg soreness because it’s easy to make that class all about the upper body, but I just didn’t have the time to physically get TO the class. Spending time with Andy came with spending time with cookies, so there’s that. We like cookies. Do I wish I cross-trained more? Yes. Do I regret my decision? Not at all.

All that said, marathon training has been as perfect as it can be. Training is not training if there are no struggles. I gave up my free time; I gave up brunch with my friends; I gave up drinks with Andy’s friends (they must think I am lame); I gave up my weekends and my mornings and I am so, so happy I had the chance to give this all up.

My very first NBC New York – GO Healthy New York post was called How I Got Into The Greatest Marathon In The World. When I wrote that, the marathon did not feel like a real thing. It was March. I was still 27. I was not working at my current job and I had not yet met my boyfriend. My life changed so much between that article and now. Writing about qualifying for the marathon and actually running it have a lifetime between them.

On that note, can someone please explain time to me? I don’t get how last year I volunteered at the expo and spectated the marathon, I screamed and cheered every single name I saw on the runners’ shirts, knowing it would be me the next year. The 2011 ING NYC Marathon race seemed so far away it was not real. I started training and the race still seemed so far away it was not real. Now the race is this weekend? How.

Dori volunteering at NYC Marathon Expo
[Me and my friend Missy at last year’s ING NYC Marathon Expo]

With that said. . . thank you for all your incredible support leading up to this weekend. It did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. You can follow my progress throughout the marathon (bib # 52322) with this this website, this  iPhone app, this Android app (just be sure to enter my info) or, even better, on Twitter. Andy will be LIVE TWEETING the marathon from my account (thanks Ali for the idea!) — what he sees, what he thinks while he sees the things he sees, my progress, seeing me at two spots (hopefully) and his overall funny thoughts. I can guarantee a chuckle.

ING NYC Marathon View from 61 and 1 Manhattan
[My view last year]

I think I am most excited for running in the spot pictured above. I’ve lived in the same apartment for almost six years. How many people can say they ran a marathon on their own street, seeing the sights they’ve seen every single day for six years? I was just at Starbucks on 60th and 1st, right on the marathon route (you can actually see it in the photo) at 6:30 this morning. I just finished my 3 mile run and a guy in front of me asked if I am running on Sunday. “Yeah, I am.” “First time?” He asked. “Yep.” “Me too.”

Obviously we chatted about tapering, about this 16th-almost-17th mile and we wished each other luck. Does any other sport share such a camaraderie?

One last thing. If you are spectating on Sunday, my plan is to wear a black tank top with DORI printed in hot pink, over a gray long sleeved shirt. Gray crops, purple leg compression sleeves and a headband that is bright and swirly and extremely colorful. Look for me! Did I mention how nervous I am? Or that I’m having trouble sleeping and focusing? I’m excited too. But, wow. This week feels more intense than I thought. I started running in June 2009 as a way to exercise outside when it is nice out . . . I never expected a marathon to be the result of this idea.

I had a dream the other night that I ran the marathon in 4:52 (would be phenomenal if this turned out to be true) but had absolutely no memory of Brooklyn or First Avenues — the best parts.

Again, thank you. The next time you hear from me, I will have completed my first (and only) ING NYC Marathon!

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