Excited to pick up some merchandise to commemorate your marathon or relay experience? We’ve got some great new items and some old favorites this year. Below you’ll find a sampling of some of this year’s merchandise. And don’t forget to stop by and purchase a commemorative poster and have it signed by the artist, dug Nap!

Make sure to stop by the Official Marathon Merchandise area at the Sport & Fitness EXPO for the complete line of 2012 merchandise. We’ll be there Friday and Saturday, and then down at the Waterfront Park Finish Area on Sunday. Shop early for best selection!

Welcome to Marathon May! Every day from now through the Marathon (and perhaps even a few days beyond) we’ll share a new race-related FAQ here on the blog, our Facebook page and via Twitter feed. Got a question you think we should cover? Post it here, on FB or on Twitter and we’ll get right back to you.
Q: Do you offer runner tracking or on-line live results?

A: YES!

RunVermont is proud to announce the availability of Athlete Tracking and Live Results for the 24^th Annual KeyBank Vermont City Marathon!  Here’s how it all works…

All services are complimentary

Athlete Tracking

Subscribe to have real-time split and finish line data sent directly to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Designate up to 5 phone numbers to receive text messages.

• Available for: Marathon participants only
• How to subscribe: A unique URL/subscription code will be sent to all registered Marathon participants on Wed, May 16. If you have any technical concerns or do not receive an email and you are a registered full marathon participant, please contact support@bazusports.com.

Live Results

View leader positions, search for athletes, view pace, splits, finish line times, age group placing and overall results.

• Available for: all Marathoners and relay teams
• How to access: Bookmark and visit this website and search by bib number, name (marathoners) and team name.

Athlete Video

View individual athletes crossing the finish line. Searchable by bib number, name (marathoners) and team name.

• Available for: all participants
• How to access: How to access: Bookmark and visit this website and search by bib number, name (marathoners) and team name. Video available by clicking on participant name beginning Monday, May 28.

On-Site results

View finish results including age group placement, finish time and pace. Results are searchable by bib number, athlete name and team name.

• Available for: All participants.
• How to access: Visit the Verizon Wireless Results Zone in the northern field of Waterfront Park.

Congrats to Maureen P. and Mark W. who both a gift pack from Udderly Smooth as part of last week’s GIVEAWAY Tuesday.  I have to say, it’s kinda fun giving stuff away two times a week.  If you haven’t done so yet, be sure to enter last week’s THURSDAY giveaway for an iPOD nano, compliments of Travelers Insurance.

Today we’re writing with news of three great events going on simultaneously during race weekend. We have a coupon for one event and we’re giving away tickets  to another.

Vermont Open Studio Weekend – Celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Vermont Crafts Council’s Open Studio. Over 263 artisans and 224 locations statewide welcome Vermonters and visitors alike to learn how art and craft is made at the studios of glass blowers, jewelers, printmakers, potters, furniture makers, weavers, ironworkers, painters, sculptors, quilt makers and wood carvers. Many galleries will also host gallery talks and feature special exhibits in conjunction with Vermont Open Studio Weekend. A free map booklet with directions to participating craft studio sites is available at Vermont Information Centers, from individual studios and galleries, or online.

ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center features “Our Body: The Universe Within” – If you haven’t visited the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center yet, and even if you have, now is the time to go! ECHO is the proud host of the internationally acclaimed exhibit Our Body: The Universe Within. “Our Body” is a fascinating, artful and educational exhibit consisting of actual human bodies and organs. Appropriate for all ages (with parental guidance), this exhibit literally goes “under the skin”, revealing the mysteries of the human anatomy and allows you the insight to the inside; giving you a true look at the inner workings of the extraordinary human body.

The exhibit consists of six galleries of actual human specimens in a logical presentation of the biological systems of the human body: Musculoskeletal, Head and Nervous, Urinary/Reproductive (including a unit on prenatal), Digestive, Respiratory, and Cardiovascular. The exhibition was designed to educate, enlighten, and allow all who attend to understand the complexities of the human body and to see how each system functions and relates to all the other systems. As a way to orient the visitor, the exhibit opens with a display of the history of anatomy throughout the ages from the earliest drawings to the present-day process of plastination.

In addition to the Our Body exhibit, ECHO’s permanent exhibits include the multimedia Awesome Forces Theater, a water-play space for kids to build dams and float boats, and an Atlantic tide pool touch tank with Periwinkle snails, Horseshoe crabs, Sea stars, Anemones, and Urchins. Young visitors may enjoy the working miniature lighthouse or pop in on a Painted turtle in Discovery Place, while other kids may control a high-tech underwater adventure as they get a glimpse of the replica historic General Butler shipwreck. More recent permanent exhibits include Voices For The Lake,  INDIGENOUS EXPRESSIONS: Native Peoples of the Lake Champlain Basin, Be a Watershed Basin Reporter TV studio, FrogWorld, and the Beluga Whale Dig. From Abenaki storytelling to the dynamics of Lake Champlain’s underwater wave, the ECHO adventure immerses guests in the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of past and present life in the Basin.

Excited to go? It’s even better with this $2-off coupon.

Green Mountain Comedy Festival – The Green Mountain Comedy Festival brings joy and laughter to Vermont each year by producing an exciting series of hilarious, affordable comedy shows that feature Vermont comedians. Now in its fourth year, the GMCF is going to be bigger and better than ever! The festival takes place from Monday, May 21 to Sunday, May 27.

This fun week of uproarious comedy features nearly 100 standup & improv comics in over 20 performances at venues throughout the Green Mountain State. It’s been a long, weird winter and for runners, it’s been filled with lots of hard training. Humor brings people together, inspires creativity, provokes thought and relieves stress. So get out there this and have some laughs!

We’re giving away 2 tickets to any Green Mountain Comedy Festival Performance!

To Enter:

Tell us what makes you laugh.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to claim extra entries for Tweeting or FB’ing the GIVEAWAY, you must follow the rules below. Thank you!

The GIVEAWAY closes at 11:59pm Monday, May 21; we’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, May 22.

* If you’re a follower of The Run Down, tell us so in an additional comment. (If you’re not a follower, subscribe using the RSS feed on top right of the blog and then leave a comment telling us you did it.)

* Tweet about the giveaway using hashtags #rvt and/or #vcm and leave one additional comment.

That’s right; you have the opportunity to get 4 entries into this giveaway!  (If you choose to take advantage of the extra entries be sure to submit an additional comment for each one.)

Welcome to Marathon May! Every day from now through the Marathon (and perhaps even a few days beyond) we’ll share a new race-related FAQ here on the blog, our Facebook page and via Twitter feed. Got a question you think we should cover? Post it here, on FB or on Twitter and we’ll get right back to you.

Q: Where can I park downtown on race morning? What is the best way to get to Church St for Sunday brunch (and to watch the runners of course!) at 10:00am? I see some vehicles on streets that you said were closed. Why can’t I drive on those streets?

A: We have the answers to all these questions and many, many more on this page of our website.  In addition, here is a street closure map and a our traffic advisory document that outlines more specifically when individual streets open and close.  If you have a traffic-related question we didn’t answer, we want to know, so leave us a note below and we’ll get back to you right away!

At group run on Sunday, I met two novice marathoners who were starting to get very nervous about what faces them in less than two weeks. They wanted reassurance and advice on surviving 26.2, and what I told them probably bears repeating here.

First, break the distance into manageable chunks. 26.2 miles seems insurmountable whether it’s your first or 50^th marathon. For local runners, 26 miles is the distance from Waterbury to Burlington on I-89 and thinking about it that way is a surefire way to unravel oneself. Try breaking the marathon up into pieces that you know you can manage. In the past, I’ve approached it as 4 six-mile pieces with a little extra at the end. I know I can run 6 miles even on a bad day and this helped me to survive. Other people take it mile by mile or half marathon by half marathon. However you decide to break it up, just run the mile that you’re in and have confidence that you’ll get through the next mile as well. Sometimes it can help to remind yourself of a run of equivalent distance that you’ve done hundreds of times; for example, at mile 20 you might begin to think about your neighborhood 6 miler and how effortless that is for you.

Second, enjoy the experience. One of the great things about the KBVCM course is that there are spectators aplenty and in all the right places and when there aren’t spectators, there are hundreds of other runners around. On the Beltline, for example, the out and back nature means you’ll get to see the leaders blast by and all of your friends and neighbors. On Battery, you’ll hardly notice the hill as spectators and drummers alike push you up and over. In the neighborhoods in the North End, you’ll have kids and families cheering for you like you’re their own family member. And this year, we’ll all have our names on our bibs. Trust me that nothing feels better (and pushes you onward) like having someone call you by name.

Finally, create a power item. Whether it’s a mantra, a quote, a song lyric or a physical item, use the next two weeks of taper to come up with something that you can use when the going gets tough. In my first marathon, I dedicated the last ten miles to particular people and ran those miles with memories of them floating through my head. In Boston, I repeated the word “grit” to myself from mile 16 to the end and wore a ring from my grandmother. This year my plan is to write the words “Dig Deep” on my forearm above my watch. It may sound cheesy, but in miles when you’re exhausted and your brain is shutting down, something simple and comforting can make all the difference.

Meet 31 year old Barbara Gildea from Quincy, MA…..

I run because of the Moment.

The Moment does not come every run. The Moment comes on race days or good days or days where I find myself outside my comfort zone. I know that every day and every run will not have a Moment. But I run every day because I know that a Moment is lurking. I run for that Moment, every day.

#6455 My Determined Face!

Sometimes the Moment comes during a race. 

This past May, I ran a half marathon in Central Park, New York. I had a conservative goal in mind. My training was solid, but not ideal. I didn’t expect to run a PR (2:06) and would have been perfectly happy finishing in a comfortable 2:15-2:20 window.

Or, I could follow the little bracelet on my arm that listed the splits to run a 2:10. A respectable, challenging pace of 9:55 minutes per mile. 

It was a chase from the very beginning. My first mile was 10:48, almost a full minute off the pace I hoped for. I considered tossing the bracelet, but instead remembered the splits were only one possible goal for the day. It couldn’t hurt to keep it on and see what developed. Sure enough, slowly but surely over the course of the next 6 miles, I watched as my mile splits drifted closer to the times listed on the bracelet. 

By mile 8, I had what my husband later called my “determined” face on… I sensed that I could run the time I wanted, if I had the will and the legs to get me there.

I kept chasing and each mile dropped away. By the time I finished mile 12 and began mile 13, I was only 6 seconds behind my goal pace. The first half of the last mile was a dream; the course loops around Central Park, so the last mile is the same as the first: packed with spectators and music blasting for a full half mile. With what I refer to as the Fresh Prince of Bell-Air Song (Apache by the Sugarhill Gang) pumping fresh energy into my spirit as I coasted down the hill, I was invincible.

And then I hit the Moment.

The road curved again, and up a hill we went. The road narrowed and runners pressed in from all sides. My heart dropped, my legs grew heavy, and suddenly I knew that I couldn’t possibly run this pace until the end. That I should slow down. That I should stop. That I just couldn’t put one more foot down.

But I did. With the phrase “just don’t let the wheels comes off” echoing vaguely in my head, I willed myself to hold, to just hold, for the last half mile, and the terribly trying last .1 of the 13.1.

A woman passed me within sight of the finish line. I focused on her back, matched my pace to hers and gave it everything I had. 2:09:15. Joy!

I hit the Moment, and I endured.

 Sometimes the Moment is quieter.

In 2008, a friend was running the Ironman in Lake Placid, and my husband and I went up to watch. We got in late, well past midnight, but didn’t want to miss the early start—or go without the runs we had scheduled in our own training plans.

With a few hours sleep, we got up in the blackness before dawn and headed out.

I’ll never forget just how beautiful that morning was. Watching the sun rise over the mountains and reflect in the rolling waters of the lake, I felt a deepest calm. I heard the birds wake and call, watched the fisherman out early on the bridges, and ran up and down the steepest hills too engrossed in the sights, sounds and smells to notice any weariness in my legs.

The run that morning allowed me to experience the wonder of nature in a way I never had before—that was a Moment.

Often a Moment can be as unexpected as it is routine.

One morning, not so very long ago, I headed on an average run, early enough that the roads were silent and the houses dark, most people having not begun their days. 

As I ran on an easy four-mile there-and-back again route along a road next to a beach, I thought not for the first time how lucky I was to be out and about before most people have even hit their first snooze.

Judging it was time, I turned around. I gasped.

The sun had not yet risen, but dawn had placed her rosy fingers across the sky in spectacular fashion. The wispy lower clouds reflected a brilliant yellow, a glowing halo just waiting for the sun to appear. The denser higher clouds were wearing an electric pink, so bright it shone like a neon sign across the sky. A long trail of muted rose flickered across the water to end at my feet, welcoming me to abandon my path and run straight over the ocean into the rising sun.

It was the kind of breathtakingly beautiful sunrise that seems reserved for fall.

Without my average everyday run, I would have been in bed myself, missing this this transcendentally beautiful Moment.

And sometimes… the Moment coincides with a marathon and something truly amazing occurs.

When I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2008, it was a distressingly hot day and all the runners were feeling it. We passed a bank and the clock blinked the temperature —88°! 88°!— and the crowd groaned as one. 

I was at the water stop near mile 24. I had dutifully run through the previous water stops, grabbing and drinking without losing a stride. At 24, I was desperate for a moment of relief and slowly walked through, taking cup after cup of water and pouring it over my head and into my mouth. Free of the stop, I attempted to start running again, and I couldn’t. 

My mind was sending “run” signals to my legs but nothing was happening. I wanted to go, but I couldn’t seem to move past the jerky walk I was managing.

Finally, I hopped onto to one leg, staggered a bit; hopped onto the other leg, staggered a bit; and awkwardly began to lunge up the road, more falling than running, but getting each foot underneath me. A few 100 meters later, I was running again.

And crying. Because that was the Moment I won. The Moment I beat the marathon.

Running is a place where will can triumph over doubt. 

Running offers a moment of silence to experience the wonders of everyday life.

Running makes ice baths seem like a good idea, food taste better, and hot showers seem miraculous.

Running brings the Moment.

 And so, I run.

Welcome to Marathon May! Every day from now through the Marathon (and perhaps even a few days beyond) we’ll share a new race-related FAQ here on the blog, our Facebook page and via Twitter feed. Got a question you think we should cover? Post it here, on FB or on Twitter and we’ll get right back to you.
Q: Do you have a pasta dinner? Will the food be any good? Is there a speaker?

A: Yes, absolutely, you bet. Our community pasta dinner is back and better than ever.

Where: Champlain College Dining Hall

When: Open seating, 6:00-7:30pm. Speaker: 6:30pm.

What’s for dinner: Roma Italian all-you-can-eat pasta buffet which includes: mixed green salad with Italian dressing and antipasto; choice of pasta with marinara or meat sauce; bread-sticks, shredded Parmesan cheese, dessert bars, and your choice of a beverage.  Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options available.

How much: Ticket costs are $22 adults, kids 12 and under $15 until Thursday, May 24. Purchase tickets online here. If not sold out, tickets can be purchased at the Sport & Fitness Expo marathon weekend for $28.

Who’s talking: Kasie Enman, 2011 World Mountain Running Championships Gold Medalist and Vermont Resident.

Who benefits: A percentage of each ticket goes to support local families through The Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Welcome to Marathon May! Every day from now through the Marathon (and perhaps even a few days beyond) we’ll share a new race-related FAQ here on the blog, our Facebook page and via Twitter feed. Got a question you think we should cover? Post it here, on FB or on Twitter and we’ll get right back to you.

Q: So, how does one grab a cup of water from a water station and manage to drink from it while running?

A:  We’re not telling. Just kidding. We’ll take it one step further…we’ll show you.

And in case you’re curious , this is where aid stations are located on the course:

Welcome to Marathon May! Every day from now through the Marathon (and perhaps even a few days beyond) we’ll share a new race-related FAQ here on the blog, our Facebook page and via Twitter feed. Got a question you think we should cover? Post it here, on FB or on Twitter and we’ll get right back to you.

Q: Have course and park maps been finalized for 2012?

A: They sure have! Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the following maps accurately depict where you’ll experience on race day.

2012 Course Map

2012 Battery Park (Start Area) Map

2012 Oakledge Park (2-Person Exchange) Map

2012 Waterfront Park (Finish Area) Map

Welcome to Marathon May! Every day from now through the Marathon (and perhaps even a few days beyond) we’ll share a new race-related FAQ here on the blog, our Facebook page and via Twitter feed. Got a question you think we should cover? Post it here, on FB or on Twitter and we’ll get right back to you.

Q: EEEEK! I know all the info on my team was relay team was due yesterday but I forgot. Is it too late?  OR…We have to make a last minute change to a relay team, how do we do it?

No worries. Simply download this form and fill it out completely and bring it with you to Race Pack Pick-Up at the EXPO. We’ll make any necessary changes right then and there. Changes can include dropping team members, adding members and changing team captains. Just please be sure to have the form complete when you arrive.