I need your help!

Hey Guys,

I apologize for not being around as much as I used to be. I moved departments and I'm crazy busy all day long. I have just enough time to come on here and read a quick blog or two and maybe even write a comment. The phone's not ringing now so I'll try and make this quick.


I'm back for year two with Team in Training through the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This year it's personal because Leukemia has struck my family. For lack of a better title, I'm going to call my wife's brother's girlfriend my sister in law. They have been dating for a good 5 years and about 3 weeks ago she went to the doctor's office for dizziness and being tired all the time. They did some blood work, sent her to Shady Side hospital in Pittsburgh and it was confirmed she has Leukemia. She's 28. It sucks. She's my honored teammate and the person I am fundraising for this year.

She's been going through chemo for about 2 weeks and has another two weeks to go. Hopefully she'll get to come home after her last round to spend time with family. I'm going out there in two weeks because they are hosting a blood drive to try and find a match for a possible bone marrow transplant.

Anything you can give would help. My personal goal is $1.800 and I'm about 1/2 way there after only sending out letters and emails for one week. I'm hoping to raise a lot more than $1,800 because cancer sucks and we need to beat it.

Please look at my website for more details and how to contribute. Anything you can give, even if it's just $5, will still help the cause.

If you are interested in Team in Training and fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, send me a message and I can hook you up with the right people!

click here for my fundraising webpage

Nittany Valley 1/2 Marathon

27th annual this past Sunday and last year was the first I heard about this race, I even went to school at PSU and never heard of it. It's a very low key race with entry fees of $18 that included chip timing and a long sleeve tee shirt. Not too shabby.

Weather that day called for a high of 38 degrees but it was going to be a lot colder in Happy Valley. The nice thing about this race is the 10am start time. I'm sure a lot of the 600 entries don't live in the immediate area. Taking about 1 1/2 hours to drive up there, my buddy Keith and I left about 6:45. We were one of the first people there. I was third in line to grab my goodie bag which consisted of a reusable shopping bag (although it was an advertisement for Schick Razors). The car read 25 degrees with some snow flurries so we immediately went back to the car and sat there trying to keep warm for about an hour. 9:35 rolls around and we get out and do a warm up lap. Just bitter cold, and windy.

We lined up around 9:50 and 10:05 everyone started running. Not really a 'go' or even a bull horn siren. I ran the race last year so I was familiar with the course. My game plan was to run 7:45 - 8 minute miles the first half and pick it up a little bit the second half. My buddy Keith agreed with this plan. Mile one was 7:36. A little fast but aren't all first miles fast? Second mile was 7:06 and I could tell Keith wanted to pick it up even more. I let him go. I found out he averaged about a 7 minute mile. Dick.

The course is one giant loop out to the State College airport and back around it. The first half of the course is pretty flat but as soon as you pass the airport, the hills start. Mile 7-8.5 is all downhill. Fast. I tried to hold myself back as to not blow out my quads. I hit mile 8 right at 1 hour. I think that's a 7:30 pace.

After the long downhill, we ran along a creek for about a mile then the uphills started. I struggled up the steepest one just barely plotting along. I came to the top of the hill and tried to pick it up again. A slight downhill and we were at mile 10. I came to a makeshift water stop and saw a sign that said "Water, PBR, Lager" I opted for the PBR. The carbonation tasted great and I could have probably had more than the 3-4 oz that were in the cup but regretted it about 1/2 mile down the road. Luckily the pain went away quickly and it was just one more long uphill to go. As I said, there were about 600 ppl entered but going up that last hill there was a guy about 30 seconds in front of me and one 30 seconds behind me with one volunteer 1/2 way up clapping. Plus, the wind was right in my face. I did notice the sweat drops freezing on the brim of my hat. That's how cold it was.

The finish was about 3/4 mile from the top of the hill and I could sense the person gaining on me. I picked it up and finished strong running past JoePa's statue and thru the finish line with a new PR of 1:40.27. Last year my time was 1:51.

Having only paid $18 entry fee, I knew there were no ammenties at the finish. I grabbed two bottles of water and Keith and I went back to his car. We went to the PSU Creamery. Best ice cream ever. I purchased 3 - 1/2 gallons and a cone of ice cream for my post run snack. (one 1/2 gallon was for my sister) After devouring the ice cream we went downtown to do some PSU clothing shopping. Driving thru campus it amazed me how many new buildings there were. Huge, modern looking buildings that just towered over the smaller ones that are 100+ years old. Kinda made me sad.

I had some blister problems around mile 12 but the pressure didn't hit me till last night. Look what I found!

That got popped real quick!

And two more pictures... The new family photo shoot...


Had to put two good ones in here after that blister shot!

2nd Annual Sticks and Biscuits 5k

Wednesday night I check the weather forecast and it says "ran/snow mix" for Thursday. It's only a 5k, how could could it be?

Thursday morning the alarm went off at 6:15am. Get up, make some coffee, put some clothes on and I'm out the door to Palmyra, PA (next to Hershey) to run the 2nd annual Sticks and Biscuits 5k. I have no idea why it's named this except for the fact that it's a fundraiser for a youth hockey league. It was raining/sleeting at my house when I left around 7am but stopped as I drove east. Since our weather goes from west to easy, I knew it was only a matter of time before it would catch up.

I arrive around 7:30am, check in and get my tee shirt and timing chip. I opted to not have a glazed doughnut they were giving out but instead finished my coffee. About 20 minutes before race start the weather moved in.

The race started at 8:15am and was basically an out and back course through a neighborhood. Of course when the gun went off there were no mats so everyone's chip started at the same time. And... I forgot to start my GPS till about a minute in. I was wearing shorts and a tee shirt with my running gloves. There were an estimated 600 people so it wasn't a small race. I went out fast. It felt good considering I lifted weights the day before.

I couldn't even tell you my splits because my GPS was a little off. I probably hit the first mile in about 6:30. They didn't have another split on the course till mile 2.5 which the kid yelled out 15:42 I think. There were so many turns on the course I tried to run as many tangents as I could but with the out and back style, I was dodging other people after the turn around. I kicked it into the finish beating the two people I was jockeying with the entire race and saw 19:19 as I crossed the finish line. A new PR (although everyone I talked to after the race said it was short). I hung around for the awards and it was kinda unorganized. I waited about 45 minutes from the time I finished till some lady came into the ice rink and shouted out names and numbers for the age groups... not even finishing times. With a time of 19:19, I thought I had a podium. Nope. The winners got pie anyway. I already had some with my name on it at my Aunt's house.

I just checked the results on line and I was 10th in my age group with an official time of 19:21 (6:15/mile). I guess the good news is there were 75 people in my age group. An interesting side note... the guy that won the race was disqualified. He seemed like a ringer. The real winner had a time of 15:34. Crazy fast.

On other news, the new boy Orion is doing fantastic. My mother in law left us Thanksgiving morning to go back to her family in Pittsburgh. My wife is doing an amazing job as a new mom. He's only peed on me twice where I had to change shirts. Stupid Huggies diapers are GOING BACK TO TARGET! My mother in law is already planning on making the 4 hour drive this weekend to see him again. I knew she couldn't stay away long.

Orion is finally here!

Sunday morning (well, last Sunday), we were at Target getting a few things and my wife has these stomach pains. Goes to the bathroom and tells me she thinks her mucus plug just came out. Oh shit. She's having contractions throughout the day, very inconstant. 15 minutes apart, 20 minutes, then 8 minutes. Around midnight she calls the doctor and he basically says tough it out as long as you can and come in when you are ready. 3am rolls around and she cannot sleep anymore so we go into the hospital. They check her out, 3cm 80% effaced. They make us walk the halls of the L&D floor for about an hour and a half and check her again. Still the same. They gave her two options: Go home or take some drugs so she can sleep. She took the drugs.

10am rolls around and they check her. 5cm. Woo Hoo, making progress. We finally get admitted, our own room, then the pain begins. She went a solid 12 hours with no pain meds until she was 9cm dilated and she just couldn't take it anymore. They gave her an epidural, and an hour later it was time to push. 11:09pm he finally popped out! I saw the whole thing! (I was also watching the Eagles MNF destroy the Redskins!) Before she started pushing I told her "Honey, I know your in a lot of pain, but you would mind if I put the game on mute just so I can stay updated?" Kinda dick? Not really. I didn't leave her side for almost 24 hours! Even while she was soaking in the tub at the hospital, I was next to her (reading a magazine)

So with out further adu. Orion Peter Fogelman 8lbs 11oz 21" long

No baby yet

Everything is in a frozen state as the official due date has come and gone and no baby yet. I'm just going to post some pictures of some of the sock monkeys my mother in law and sister in law made for Baby Foges. These are basically stuffed socks with buttons, stitching, and imagination.

the gang, just hanging out

someone said this will look like me in 10 yrs

pretty sweet lion!

monkey hanging out

Roo!

We have about 20 of these for the baby. I think they are pretty sweet. My inlaws are so freakin' creative. I hope Baby Foges gets some of that!

Oh and by the way, if you don't follow DC Rainmaker, do it. He has some great posts and also gives away free stuff!

30?!?

Tomorrow is the big 3-0. I really thought I would be dead or in jail by this point, but in a surprising twist, I actually grew up. Homeowner, reliable job, baby due in 6 days. Things have changed a lot from college where it was drinking, smoking and doing drugs (not the bad kind, just weed) on a daily basis.

Moving back to PA changed my life in a good way. I realized that I was overweight and saw all the other people around me were overweight and did not want to end up like that. I really buckled down, counted my calories, ate only whole, healthy foods and lost the 65 pounds that was weighing me down. Who knew that diet and exercise actually worked!


Living in CO, I never realized I was overweight. Everyone is so active there. I was extremely active as well, but still ate like crap. I drove to the mountains almost every weekend to ski, rode my bike around Denver's beautiful paved trails and even tried to climb Mt Evans one time. I only made it 1/4 of the way up.


I can pretty much say with certainty that I am in the best shape of my life these days. Completed my first marathon about a month ago with several more on the horizon for next year. Olympic Tris this summer moving up to 70.3 distance next summer. Maybe even an Ultra Marathon 50k trail run thrown in.

I had an internal interview this morning for a different department as well. It is a lateral move but the ladder goes much higher than where I currently am. I'm in a pretty good mood!

I'm an uncle!

My twin sister gave birth Monday morning at 1:40am to a 9.5lb 21.5" baby boy named Jed. They are doing awesome. Sister is coming home from the hosptial today. She really wanted a halloween baby but 11/1/10 is pretty cool also. We turn 30 in 4 days and only 9 more days till I'm a proud papa.

Because she gave birth at PSU Hershey Medical Center, I had to get a pic of me with the Lion Shrine! WE ARE PENN STATE!