| Miles | Wk End'n | Run | Bike | Swim | hh:mm |
| 0 | 4-Nov | 37 | 143.8 | 2.8 | 15:08 |
| 1 | 28-Oct | 29 | 69 | 2.6 | 8:42 |
| 2 | 21-Oct | 41 | 89 | 3.5 | 11:12 |
| 3 | 14-Oct | 34 | 122 | 1 | 11:32 |
| 4 | 7-Oct | 54 | 108 | 2.8 | 13:50 |
| 5 | 30-Sep | 44 | 118 | 3.7 | 13:52 |
| 6 | 23-Sep | 27 | 172 | 2.2 | 14:05 |
| 7 | 16-Sep | 9 | 154 | 1 | 12:48 |
| 8 | 9-Sep | 24 | 49 | 1.2 | 6:44 |
| 9 | 2-Sep | 21 | 125 | 0.5 | 10:24 |
| 10 | 26-Aug | 42 | 15 | 0.7 | 7:27 |
| 11 | 19-Aug | 2 | 84 | 8:59 | |
| 12 | 12-Aug | 7 | 116.7 | 7:45 | |
| Total | 370 | 1366 | 22 | 142 | |
| Per Week | 28 | 105 | 1.7 | 10:57 | |
| Per Day | 4 | 15 | 0.2 | 1:33 |
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Ironman Florida Training Log
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Anchorage Marathon - 2012
A quick recap from Anchorage Marathon.
I wasn't going for record times but wanted good strong grit from this race. Fitness hasn't been at a high since Houston back in January, tapering wasn't ideal with a fishing trip the entire week prior with lots of beer and late nite cards, and 10 days of mostly no running ending the week prior to fishing (about half from being too busy and half from a sprained ankle) - I was figuring I was around 6:25ish mpm marathon pace. But peak fitness wasn't my goal. My goal was all about having a good strong with all I've got kinda race - I didn't get that in Boston where I felt I'd squandered the opportunity giving into weak thinking - and that mental wimpiness has been knawing at me since. I wanted that all-out race at Anchorage. And I got it. No weakness any part of the race today. Gave all I had.
Ran the highest average heartrate for a marathon at 162. That's 1.5 bpm higher than my highest in the prior 14 marathons (which happenned to be 2008's Anchorage Marathon). Whether or not HR is any indication this was my grittiest effort or not I won't debate. But it sure felt as gritty as any race I've done before - I'll take it.
9th place overall and so glad I had a recent birthday so instead of 4th in the 40-44 AG for nada. I get the gold medal in the 45-49. Cool beans. 2:55:37 finishing time - about a 1 minute negative split. Temps weren't ideal averaging mid 60s - but soo much better than Houston running - felt great.
Here's the splits:
Distance Split time Avg HR
1 6:12 150
2 6:34 162
3 6:43 162
4 6:50 162
5 6:24 162
6 6:44 161
7 7:00 162
8 6:20 159 trail
9 6:25 158 trail
10 6:38 159 trail
11 7:14 160 trail
12 6:26 159 trail
13 6:55 160 trail
14 7:49 160 trail
15 6:28 158 trail
16 6:17 161 1/2 trail
17 6:24 161
18 6:22 162
19 6:29 163
20 6:39 164
21 6:44 164
22 6:30 163
23 6:33 164
24 6:36 165
25 6:41 166
26 6:51 169
26.48 2:49 (6:01) 173 (175 max)
1st half 1:28:18 160
2nd half 1:27:19 163
2:55:37 161.6
Temps - Start/End 59°/68°F
Elevation - +672 ft, -769 ft.
A negative ~1 minutes split - my second ever negative split with the first being this same race in 2008 with a -37 second split (2nd half is a little faster with more downhill and less trails). I think the HR was raising as the temps were creaping up last 10 miles. Execute pretty much as planned - back off a touch through the trails then step it up again after they were done - easier to see that in the HR data - pace data bounces all over with hills variations start to finish. Clearly the fitness is off 4 years ago with a 10 minutes slower time - but as a race - I think I ran it about as good as I could with what I had in the tank. Course factors add about 5 minutes on this race (trails and hills) plus the temps probably added 1-2 minutes from the ideal so I'll call it a ~2:48ish equivalent flat marathon - which is about where my fitness reads were saying the prior week. Good enough for me to feel good about.
I ran this race my favorite way of running a race - no indication of pace - only HR - and like a robot just stick to the HR plan I've proven in the past I can sustain without worrying about the clock. Worked like a charm most of the way through varying terrain until last 10k or so where it felt OK to take it a bit higher. Not usually possible with most races that give constant updates along the way of the time but this race was small enough there were no splits given anywhere so I could rig the Garmin to just give me HR and distance with high/low vibrating alerts when I drifted too fast or slow - my prefered way to run these things.
Cheers!
I wasn't going for record times but wanted good strong grit from this race. Fitness hasn't been at a high since Houston back in January, tapering wasn't ideal with a fishing trip the entire week prior with lots of beer and late nite cards, and 10 days of mostly no running ending the week prior to fishing (about half from being too busy and half from a sprained ankle) - I was figuring I was around 6:25ish mpm marathon pace. But peak fitness wasn't my goal. My goal was all about having a good strong with all I've got kinda race - I didn't get that in Boston where I felt I'd squandered the opportunity giving into weak thinking - and that mental wimpiness has been knawing at me since. I wanted that all-out race at Anchorage. And I got it. No weakness any part of the race today. Gave all I had.
Ran the highest average heartrate for a marathon at 162. That's 1.5 bpm higher than my highest in the prior 14 marathons (which happenned to be 2008's Anchorage Marathon). Whether or not HR is any indication this was my grittiest effort or not I won't debate. But it sure felt as gritty as any race I've done before - I'll take it.
9th place overall and so glad I had a recent birthday so instead of 4th in the 40-44 AG for nada. I get the gold medal in the 45-49. Cool beans. 2:55:37 finishing time - about a 1 minute negative split. Temps weren't ideal averaging mid 60s - but soo much better than Houston running - felt great.
Here's the splits:
Distance Split time Avg HR
1 6:12 150
2 6:34 162
3 6:43 162
4 6:50 162
5 6:24 162
6 6:44 161
7 7:00 162
8 6:20 159 trail
9 6:25 158 trail
10 6:38 159 trail
11 7:14 160 trail
12 6:26 159 trail
13 6:55 160 trail
14 7:49 160 trail
15 6:28 158 trail
16 6:17 161 1/2 trail
17 6:24 161
18 6:22 162
19 6:29 163
20 6:39 164
21 6:44 164
22 6:30 163
23 6:33 164
24 6:36 165
25 6:41 166
26 6:51 169
26.48 2:49 (6:01) 173 (175 max)
1st half 1:28:18 160
2nd half 1:27:19 163
2:55:37 161.6
Temps - Start/End 59°/68°F
Elevation - +672 ft, -769 ft.
A negative ~1 minutes split - my second ever negative split with the first being this same race in 2008 with a -37 second split (2nd half is a little faster with more downhill and less trails). I think the HR was raising as the temps were creaping up last 10 miles. Execute pretty much as planned - back off a touch through the trails then step it up again after they were done - easier to see that in the HR data - pace data bounces all over with hills variations start to finish. Clearly the fitness is off 4 years ago with a 10 minutes slower time - but as a race - I think I ran it about as good as I could with what I had in the tank. Course factors add about 5 minutes on this race (trails and hills) plus the temps probably added 1-2 minutes from the ideal so I'll call it a ~2:48ish equivalent flat marathon - which is about where my fitness reads were saying the prior week. Good enough for me to feel good about.
I ran this race my favorite way of running a race - no indication of pace - only HR - and like a robot just stick to the HR plan I've proven in the past I can sustain without worrying about the clock. Worked like a charm most of the way through varying terrain until last 10k or so where it felt OK to take it a bit higher. Not usually possible with most races that give constant updates along the way of the time but this race was small enough there were no splits given anywhere so I could rig the Garmin to just give me HR and distance with high/low vibrating alerts when I drifted too fast or slow - my prefered way to run these things.
Cheers!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Beach 2 Bay Relay - Corpus Christi
Beach 2 Bay Marathon:
Time forecast for the relay race split between the 6 on team “Chariots of Striders” was based on 4x5:45 mpm runners and 2x6:10-15 mpm runners = 2:34 total time for the marathon or 5:53 mpm. Line-up in order of the running was Steve Schroeder, Andrew Sharenson, John Yoder, Tommy King Jr, Garrett Rychlik, John Hill(me) - That's an awesome line-up of runners out of Houston - a very competitive team and we were looking for a podium spot in the Master's division.
It was a hot day – that pretty much sets the scene for the last 5 races in a row for me. On this particular day by the time I ran my leg (~9:30am) it was 80°F with a Dew Point around 70°F. I’m still in a bit of shell-shock from the blazing hot Boston Marathon recently but this is actually hotter – fortunately I only get to run just under 5 miles in this marathon relay instead of the whole thing like Boston. Heat and Humidity overcame 1,050 people treated for heat exhaustion compared to last year there were 60 according to news reports the next day. With 2500 teams of 6 (15,000 people) – that’s around 1 out of 15 people – amazing since we “only” ran 4-5 miles each.
Our pre-race forcasts had me getting the baton at 9:06 so I timed my pre-race 5 miles of jogging around to finish about 10 minutes before. 9:24 was when I received the handoff to start my relay after apparently a late start at leg 1 plus we were all a bit slowed by the heat vs the time forecast. I’d counted 9-10 people through the exchange before my handoff so I started this leg in either 10th or 11th place and I could not see the next guy coming so figured he was pretty far back. Here’s my splits:
5:34/163 – I kept trying to slow down – I was targeting ~5:50-6:00 for the first mile but I couldn’t seem to get that slow – there was a pretty good tailwind this mile that about matched my speed so the air felt very still (and the heat felt hotter). A kid (High School?) caught up and passed me before the end of the mile which surprised me a bit since I was so much faster than planned and didn’t see anyone close and the handoff – he must have been flying that first mile.
5:53/174 – closer to my target pace – not feeling too hard yet - I'm all alone.
6:06/177 – I was hoping to stay in the 5’s but pace is slowly slipping – getting hard.
6:15/178 – getting real hard – man it’s hot. I resist the temptation to look behind to see if anyone was chasing me down – there’s no one for a long way ahead.
5:58(pace for 0.95 miles)/180 (186 max) – last ¼ mile or so a couple team mates get me motivated to sprint it in and I’m still not so sure if there’s someone coming up from behind to sneak past me at the end so the last ¼ mile was closer to 5:00 pace.
Total 5:57 mpm/4.95 miles (per Garmin – 4.89 miles per race website).
The magic moment as I’m running full speed for the finishline --- announcer calls over the loudspeaker “First Place Master’s Team from Houston” – YESS!!!!
Our final time was 2:40 (6:07) so we all averaged ~14 sec/mile slower than plan (did I mention it was hot). That's about 1 minute faster than last year's 2nd place Master's team which 4/6 of the team was on (not me or Steve) and also about 1 minute faster than my 2nd place team back in 2008. 11th place overall with 7 open teams and 3 junior teams ahead of us leaving us 1st place Masters! Great job guys!!
Others on the team certainly mentioned the heat out there – three of us had just run Boston so we were feeling the déjà vu. Leg 1’s out and back with 2500 packed together running opposite directions on the same stretch of sand sounded especially interesting. I think I managed to get two extra beers at the finish beyond my 2 per bib allocation so all was good in the post-race party.
That’s the 4th team victory I’ve been a part of this year. The other three were Houston Marathon Team Challenge – 1st Marathon, Texas Independence Relay – 1st Overall, Bayou Bash Relay – 1st Masters. There’s something pretty sweet about winning as a team – love it! I’ve got one more team challenge next month (track meet – Shell vs Exxon are the typical rivals for top spot) – hopefully we can bring home one more victory. Chances are pretty high that report will start “It was a hot day”. I do hope to get a cool race in next month to break this streak of hot races – after my fishing trip in Alaska in June I plan to hang out a couple extra days and run the Anchorage Marathon on June 23rd – I ran that race back in 2008 and found it a fun cool race so looking to repeat and maybe I can pull out a Master’s win up there since they define a Master as 45+, something to shoot for anyway.
Cheers.
Time forecast for the relay race split between the 6 on team “Chariots of Striders” was based on 4x5:45 mpm runners and 2x6:10-15 mpm runners = 2:34 total time for the marathon or 5:53 mpm. Line-up in order of the running was Steve Schroeder, Andrew Sharenson, John Yoder, Tommy King Jr, Garrett Rychlik, John Hill(me) - That's an awesome line-up of runners out of Houston - a very competitive team and we were looking for a podium spot in the Master's division.
It was a hot day – that pretty much sets the scene for the last 5 races in a row for me. On this particular day by the time I ran my leg (~9:30am) it was 80°F with a Dew Point around 70°F. I’m still in a bit of shell-shock from the blazing hot Boston Marathon recently but this is actually hotter – fortunately I only get to run just under 5 miles in this marathon relay instead of the whole thing like Boston. Heat and Humidity overcame 1,050 people treated for heat exhaustion compared to last year there were 60 according to news reports the next day. With 2500 teams of 6 (15,000 people) – that’s around 1 out of 15 people – amazing since we “only” ran 4-5 miles each.
Our pre-race forcasts had me getting the baton at 9:06 so I timed my pre-race 5 miles of jogging around to finish about 10 minutes before. 9:24 was when I received the handoff to start my relay after apparently a late start at leg 1 plus we were all a bit slowed by the heat vs the time forecast. I’d counted 9-10 people through the exchange before my handoff so I started this leg in either 10th or 11th place and I could not see the next guy coming so figured he was pretty far back. Here’s my splits:
5:34/163 – I kept trying to slow down – I was targeting ~5:50-6:00 for the first mile but I couldn’t seem to get that slow – there was a pretty good tailwind this mile that about matched my speed so the air felt very still (and the heat felt hotter). A kid (High School?) caught up and passed me before the end of the mile which surprised me a bit since I was so much faster than planned and didn’t see anyone close and the handoff – he must have been flying that first mile.
5:53/174 – closer to my target pace – not feeling too hard yet - I'm all alone.
6:06/177 – I was hoping to stay in the 5’s but pace is slowly slipping – getting hard.
6:15/178 – getting real hard – man it’s hot. I resist the temptation to look behind to see if anyone was chasing me down – there’s no one for a long way ahead.
5:58(pace for 0.95 miles)/180 (186 max) – last ¼ mile or so a couple team mates get me motivated to sprint it in and I’m still not so sure if there’s someone coming up from behind to sneak past me at the end so the last ¼ mile was closer to 5:00 pace.
Total 5:57 mpm/4.95 miles (per Garmin – 4.89 miles per race website).
The magic moment as I’m running full speed for the finishline --- announcer calls over the loudspeaker “First Place Master’s Team from Houston” – YESS!!!!
Others on the team certainly mentioned the heat out there – three of us had just run Boston so we were feeling the déjà vu. Leg 1’s out and back with 2500 packed together running opposite directions on the same stretch of sand sounded especially interesting. I think I managed to get two extra beers at the finish beyond my 2 per bib allocation so all was good in the post-race party.
That’s the 4th team victory I’ve been a part of this year. The other three were Houston Marathon Team Challenge – 1st Marathon, Texas Independence Relay – 1st Overall, Bayou Bash Relay – 1st Masters. There’s something pretty sweet about winning as a team – love it! I’ve got one more team challenge next month (track meet – Shell vs Exxon are the typical rivals for top spot) – hopefully we can bring home one more victory. Chances are pretty high that report will start “It was a hot day”. I do hope to get a cool race in next month to break this streak of hot races – after my fishing trip in Alaska in June I plan to hang out a couple extra days and run the Anchorage Marathon on June 23rd – I ran that race back in 2008 and found it a fun cool race so looking to repeat and maybe I can pull out a Master’s win up there since they define a Master as 45+, something to shoot for anyway.
Cheers.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Boston Marathon 2012
I wrote this a few days after Boston but I've only shared it with a smaller circle of people up to now figuring after some time I would perhaps be able to be a bit less "negative" about the whole experience. I don't consider myself to be a negative person and most every race I've done poorly in I've shook it off pretty quick. A couple weeks has gone by now and I can't say I feel much different. The raw emotions of the day have diminished and I share a certain bond with other "survivors" of the 2012 Boston Marathon. I would still do it again even in hindsight mostly because of the times before and after the race - and the spectators at Boston came out in extraordinary force to help us along in this record heat ...... well here it is:
kayry vs Boston - kayry 3, Boston 1.
I'm prompted after finishing this year to ask such basic questions like why do I race these things. I really struggled answering that question for this race. I thought as long ago as January of bailing
on this race because I could not find my inspiration for it. This is my 4th Boston and the first 3 had me in love with this race. 2007 was the nor'easter storm year and my first Boston ever - what's not to be excited about for that and I was near tears crossing that finish at 3:01:01 - I get nostalgic with the thought of that perfect race on many levles. 2nd Boston 2008 was the year to kick butt on Lance Armstrong who'd been in my crosshairs for 6 months and three marathons - despite not quite the perfect race it was so awesome to beat him by more than a mile at 2:42:36. 2010 was a 26.2 mile party celebrating a LONG time on the sideline finally back running after ever so long logging mostly zero's for over a year and the Boston finishers medal after about 6 weeks of ramping up from zero and 150 miles of biking the MS150 the two days prior - the 3:10 at the finish was pure delight saying I can run again with near that same 2007 feel to it - a perfect experience.
With that backdrop 2012 had little hope to living up. I grasped for some motivation but there was no goal for this race that seemed could live up to the past. After a great effort at Houston in January achieving most all I wanted from coming back again from a shorter outage in early 2011 I looked ahead to Boston and kept asking myself what was my motivation for Boston? This is my 17th marathon (or more) event and I've always had some (sometimes lofty) goal that gave me inspiration and a lazar locked drive to train and race but it just wasn't there this time around. A few weeks after Houston I jump into a 50 miler because that inspired me more than training for Boston even
though I knew it would sabotage some of my Boston potential. A couple weeks before Boston I took on the challenge to try my best to help a team win Texas Independence Relay with disregard to whether that helped or hurt Boston - and we won which was awesome! For Boston I was grasping for straws. Training seemed to start coming together towards the last few weeks despite all efforts to sabotage it and I started to dream of a great race in Boston - some fire for this race was finally starting to grow - I know that running a all out effort race is in itself rewarding and picking off what seemed like low hanging fruit - the 2008 time of 2:42:36 - seemed within my grasp.
Then the forecasts starting 10 days out move from pretty good (50s) to not so bad (dry low 60s) to could be worse (dry low 70s) to this is going to suck (80s). You might think living in Texas that I'd be good at running in the heat but any who have raced against me in the heat know I'm easy pick'ns especially as the distances get longer. I'm not really certain if that a physiological disadvantage because I'm a pretty heavy sweater - or mental because I feel little inspiration when it's hot to do well - it literally seems to sucks the running life out of me much more times than not - or more likely a combination of both. But living in Houston I do race much more than I'd like in the heat and I know exactly how tactically to get top performance out of a race like that - but knowing and doing are quite different things. It's hard - any marathon all out is hard - but adding the heat is a very different kind of hard. I've read a lot of race reports of hot Chicago races or even things like Badwater and it does
nothing for me - there is not the slightest desire to do that. Maybe because I suffer in the heat so much living in Houston that I know that suffering all to well and don't like it. But here I am - 10 am at Boston with the announcer claiming it's already 80°F, I'm sweating and the race hasn't started yet.
Race plan - Pre-Hydrate, electrolyte load and fuel load as I would for any other marathon to be maxed out at the startline. Hydrate ~24 oz/hr - no less - a little more OK but only a little. Stay wet as much as
possible with dumping water on head, legs, neck, arms - everywhere - so the evaporation can cool you off. And keep the Heartrate from going too much higher than it would in a cooler marathon (~160 bpm for me). Pretty straight forward. I had my garmin set to vibrate when my HR hit 162 to keep things controlled - especially for the first half - I'd be OK with it buzzing continual for the last several miles if I felt the inspiration to go harder but early on the plan was to be controlled.
Here's how the splits played out:
1 6.05 152,
2 6.19 159,
3 6.30 159,
4 6.30 159,
5 7.03 159,
Pace is dropping but keeping the HR about where I want it to be - maybe a hair on the low side. Slower than I expected even accounting for the heat. As much downhill as there is in that first stretch and knowing how my recent HR vs pace goes in the Houston heat I was expecting faster. Sometimes I've seen races where the pace picks up for same HR after a few miles so maybe the speed will come.
6 6.49 158,
7 6.46 159,
8 6.52 157,
9 6.50 156,
10 6.59 155,
Paces still are pretty darn low and motivation to push is kinda dropping off too. I'm thinking back to warm 100% humidity day just a few weeks prior running 6:50s at about 150 HR and something here is just off - not going to be my day.
11 6.58 156,
12 6.46 154,
13 6.54 154,
14 7.33 154,
Major race highlight as my Cousin at family who live in Wellselly bring pitchers of cool water to dump all over me and a bunch of ice to cool me off with and smiling faces to encourage me - I'm really feeling cooled off for a few miles after that - loved it!
15 6.56 157,
16 6.31 152, (downhill)
17 7.12 155,
18 7.20 154,
19 7.06 151,
20 7.39 149,
21 7.55 153, (heartbreak hill)
21 2.39 .17 136,
I added a split here as I walked from my Garmin's 21 mile marker to the course 21 mile marker and tried to motivate myself to charge the last 5 miles. I thought I'd kinda banked a little energy with some low HR running up the Newton hills
22 5.55 157,
Charging down the hill - watch is vibrating as I'm over 162 for much of the mile - feeling like I'm going to salvage something from this race.
23 7.18 156, With some walking
24 6.58 154, With some walking
25 7.49 152, With some walking
26 6.57 156, With some walking
Major Highlight that can never be bad no matter how the first 25 miles
goes.......right on Hertford.....left on Boylson.
26.2 1.54 .33 163 (5:45 mpm pace - tried to bet the clock rolling to
3:05 chip time - almost beat it)
Total 3:05:00 (Garmin 26.5)
Ok - Boston will always have it's moments - it's a great race. Before and after the race there were many great moments with friends both from Houston, Kingwood and all over the country and some family up in Wellesley - see pictures below. Although all that was great I found myself really missing having my wife there for all those moments this year as she has been for prior Bostons - she's been lucky for me when she comes - but look what happens when she doesn't. Moving all those great moments to the side and only refering to the race - the final tally to me is that this was without a close second:
The worst race ever - of any distance!
I don't know how to say that strong enough. I can't seem to find anything redeeming in this race. I've searched for something I could say that had some meaning "at least ______" but I can find nothing to fill in that blank. Of course many did much worse and many even could finish with medical issues and dehydration so I suppose I could say at least it wasn't THAT bad - but that's a pretty low bar - I'm in shape and heat acclimated and know how to handle the heat - there was little risk of that for me. One think I can say - Boston yet again generates very strong emotions. My emotions are almost as strong to the negative as 2007 and 2010 were to the positive. I've been on the verge of tears for days now for this race and even had to stop and shed a few tears as I was writing this last paragraph. Boston kicked my ass and that coming from a race I've come to love - hurts somehow extra. The feelings whether positive or negative certainly makes me feel alive - I learn a lot about myself running these things whether the outcome is positive or negative. That's why I run these things - it doesn't always have to be a win to still be a deeply memorable experience - even a loss is way better than not playing at all. I have no idea when I'll do this race again but I can't see ending on that note - and whenever I overwrite this experience with another I'm certain yet again Boston will deliver some very strong emotional reaction.....I love this race.
Here's a few pictures:
My cousin Doug and family who live in Welleseley and cooled me off big time at the 1/2 way.
The Houston Striders Gang - got to hang out with them for Saturday Night dinner and the bus ride up to Hopkinton.
The Kingwood Gang - we had our own Pasta Party on Sunday Night (I don't think I've ever tasted such good Spagetti).
Sunbathing in Hopkinton before the race. Prior years we'd be bundled up near freezing.
The Running Friends facebook group.
After the Marathon was done - I needed constant beer to get out of my rut - hanging with my roommate Jeff (sitting) and a few of his friends.
Fast forward a few hours - and time for more beer with the Running Friends facebook group - cool people. You can see I'm such a sore looser I won't even wear the finishers medal and shirt like others but rather pick my CIM shirt and ironman hat - races I had more fond memories from. I finally wore that shirt at a Relay race yesterday so I guess the sores are healing.
More beer - next day Neil and I went to lunch at Cheers. Although no one there knew my name - it was pretty cool that most all in the photos above did - some really nice times hanging with all!
And always magical moments no matter how the first part of the race goes - moments of dreams.
kayry vs Boston - kayry 3, Boston 1.
I'm prompted after finishing this year to ask such basic questions like why do I race these things. I really struggled answering that question for this race. I thought as long ago as January of bailing
on this race because I could not find my inspiration for it. This is my 4th Boston and the first 3 had me in love with this race. 2007 was the nor'easter storm year and my first Boston ever - what's not to be excited about for that and I was near tears crossing that finish at 3:01:01 - I get nostalgic with the thought of that perfect race on many levles. 2nd Boston 2008 was the year to kick butt on Lance Armstrong who'd been in my crosshairs for 6 months and three marathons - despite not quite the perfect race it was so awesome to beat him by more than a mile at 2:42:36. 2010 was a 26.2 mile party celebrating a LONG time on the sideline finally back running after ever so long logging mostly zero's for over a year and the Boston finishers medal after about 6 weeks of ramping up from zero and 150 miles of biking the MS150 the two days prior - the 3:10 at the finish was pure delight saying I can run again with near that same 2007 feel to it - a perfect experience.
With that backdrop 2012 had little hope to living up. I grasped for some motivation but there was no goal for this race that seemed could live up to the past. After a great effort at Houston in January achieving most all I wanted from coming back again from a shorter outage in early 2011 I looked ahead to Boston and kept asking myself what was my motivation for Boston? This is my 17th marathon (or more) event and I've always had some (sometimes lofty) goal that gave me inspiration and a lazar locked drive to train and race but it just wasn't there this time around. A few weeks after Houston I jump into a 50 miler because that inspired me more than training for Boston even
though I knew it would sabotage some of my Boston potential. A couple weeks before Boston I took on the challenge to try my best to help a team win Texas Independence Relay with disregard to whether that helped or hurt Boston - and we won which was awesome! For Boston I was grasping for straws. Training seemed to start coming together towards the last few weeks despite all efforts to sabotage it and I started to dream of a great race in Boston - some fire for this race was finally starting to grow - I know that running a all out effort race is in itself rewarding and picking off what seemed like low hanging fruit - the 2008 time of 2:42:36 - seemed within my grasp.
Then the forecasts starting 10 days out move from pretty good (50s) to not so bad (dry low 60s) to could be worse (dry low 70s) to this is going to suck (80s). You might think living in Texas that I'd be good at running in the heat but any who have raced against me in the heat know I'm easy pick'ns especially as the distances get longer. I'm not really certain if that a physiological disadvantage because I'm a pretty heavy sweater - or mental because I feel little inspiration when it's hot to do well - it literally seems to sucks the running life out of me much more times than not - or more likely a combination of both. But living in Houston I do race much more than I'd like in the heat and I know exactly how tactically to get top performance out of a race like that - but knowing and doing are quite different things. It's hard - any marathon all out is hard - but adding the heat is a very different kind of hard. I've read a lot of race reports of hot Chicago races or even things like Badwater and it does
nothing for me - there is not the slightest desire to do that. Maybe because I suffer in the heat so much living in Houston that I know that suffering all to well and don't like it. But here I am - 10 am at Boston with the announcer claiming it's already 80°F, I'm sweating and the race hasn't started yet.
Race plan - Pre-Hydrate, electrolyte load and fuel load as I would for any other marathon to be maxed out at the startline. Hydrate ~24 oz/hr - no less - a little more OK but only a little. Stay wet as much as
possible with dumping water on head, legs, neck, arms - everywhere - so the evaporation can cool you off. And keep the Heartrate from going too much higher than it would in a cooler marathon (~160 bpm for me). Pretty straight forward. I had my garmin set to vibrate when my HR hit 162 to keep things controlled - especially for the first half - I'd be OK with it buzzing continual for the last several miles if I felt the inspiration to go harder but early on the plan was to be controlled.
Here's how the splits played out:
1 6.05 152,
2 6.19 159,
3 6.30 159,
4 6.30 159,
5 7.03 159,
Pace is dropping but keeping the HR about where I want it to be - maybe a hair on the low side. Slower than I expected even accounting for the heat. As much downhill as there is in that first stretch and knowing how my recent HR vs pace goes in the Houston heat I was expecting faster. Sometimes I've seen races where the pace picks up for same HR after a few miles so maybe the speed will come.
6 6.49 158,
7 6.46 159,
8 6.52 157,
9 6.50 156,
10 6.59 155,
Paces still are pretty darn low and motivation to push is kinda dropping off too. I'm thinking back to warm 100% humidity day just a few weeks prior running 6:50s at about 150 HR and something here is just off - not going to be my day.
11 6.58 156,
12 6.46 154,
13 6.54 154,
14 7.33 154,
Major race highlight as my Cousin at family who live in Wellselly bring pitchers of cool water to dump all over me and a bunch of ice to cool me off with and smiling faces to encourage me - I'm really feeling cooled off for a few miles after that - loved it!
15 6.56 157,
16 6.31 152, (downhill)
17 7.12 155,
18 7.20 154,
19 7.06 151,
20 7.39 149,
21 7.55 153, (heartbreak hill)
21 2.39 .17 136,
I added a split here as I walked from my Garmin's 21 mile marker to the course 21 mile marker and tried to motivate myself to charge the last 5 miles. I thought I'd kinda banked a little energy with some low HR running up the Newton hills
22 5.55 157,
Charging down the hill - watch is vibrating as I'm over 162 for much of the mile - feeling like I'm going to salvage something from this race.
23 7.18 156, With some walking
24 6.58 154, With some walking
25 7.49 152, With some walking
26 6.57 156, With some walking
Major Highlight that can never be bad no matter how the first 25 miles
goes.......right on Hertford.....left on Boylson.
26.2 1.54 .33 163 (5:45 mpm pace - tried to bet the clock rolling to
3:05 chip time - almost beat it)
Total 3:05:00 (Garmin 26.5)
Ok - Boston will always have it's moments - it's a great race. Before and after the race there were many great moments with friends both from Houston, Kingwood and all over the country and some family up in Wellesley - see pictures below. Although all that was great I found myself really missing having my wife there for all those moments this year as she has been for prior Bostons - she's been lucky for me when she comes - but look what happens when she doesn't. Moving all those great moments to the side and only refering to the race - the final tally to me is that this was without a close second:
The worst race ever - of any distance!
I don't know how to say that strong enough. I can't seem to find anything redeeming in this race. I've searched for something I could say that had some meaning "at least ______" but I can find nothing to fill in that blank. Of course many did much worse and many even could finish with medical issues and dehydration so I suppose I could say at least it wasn't THAT bad - but that's a pretty low bar - I'm in shape and heat acclimated and know how to handle the heat - there was little risk of that for me. One think I can say - Boston yet again generates very strong emotions. My emotions are almost as strong to the negative as 2007 and 2010 were to the positive. I've been on the verge of tears for days now for this race and even had to stop and shed a few tears as I was writing this last paragraph. Boston kicked my ass and that coming from a race I've come to love - hurts somehow extra. The feelings whether positive or negative certainly makes me feel alive - I learn a lot about myself running these things whether the outcome is positive or negative. That's why I run these things - it doesn't always have to be a win to still be a deeply memorable experience - even a loss is way better than not playing at all. I have no idea when I'll do this race again but I can't see ending on that note - and whenever I overwrite this experience with another I'm certain yet again Boston will deliver some very strong emotional reaction.....I love this race.
Here's a few pictures:
My cousin Doug and family who live in Welleseley and cooled me off big time at the 1/2 way.
The Houston Striders Gang - got to hang out with them for Saturday Night dinner and the bus ride up to Hopkinton.
The Kingwood Gang - we had our own Pasta Party on Sunday Night (I don't think I've ever tasted such good Spagetti).
Sunbathing in Hopkinton before the race. Prior years we'd be bundled up near freezing.
The Running Friends facebook group.
After the Marathon was done - I needed constant beer to get out of my rut - hanging with my roommate Jeff (sitting) and a few of his friends.
Fast forward a few hours - and time for more beer with the Running Friends facebook group - cool people. You can see I'm such a sore looser I won't even wear the finishers medal and shirt like others but rather pick my CIM shirt and ironman hat - races I had more fond memories from. I finally wore that shirt at a Relay race yesterday so I guess the sores are healing.
More beer - next day Neil and I went to lunch at Cheers. Although no one there knew my name - it was pretty cool that most all in the photos above did - some really nice times hanging with all!
And always magical moments no matter how the first part of the race goes - moments of dreams.
Time to turn the page - this was my 17th marathon or more completed and I don't have another goal marathon in the foreseable future (at least for 12 months) so kinda a bummer to end this marathon chapter like this - but not all endings are happy - sometimes you just gotta turn the page anyway and look forward to the next adventure. The next target for me is IM Florida on November 2nd - gotta get my swim and bike legs working again.
CHEERS!!!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Texas Independence Relay
Team: More Pain Please!!
Results: Overall Win!!
There is no "I" in Team.
Running is certainly usually an individual sport but here we are - twelve of us out to try to be the fastest team to run from Bastrop, TX to the San Jacinto Monument 203 miles away. Much of the race I liked to think was generally around the "Runaway Scrape" back in 1836 where Sam Houston's Texas Army fled from the pursuing larger Mexican Army that Santa Ana led to their ultimate demise at the battle for Texas independence where the San Jacinto Monument now sits today. We had our own "Runaway Scrape" to do as the #1 seeded "Dollz n Towel Boys"(DNTB) started the journey just 5 minutes after us and we wanted to keep that pursuing team in our rear view mirror - more than 5 minutes back at the finishline and we win with the fastest net time.
2:15pm on 3/31/2012 - the race is on.
There's a little history between these teams as both were contenders in the 2011 race although neither the DNTB nor MPP came away victorious despite both setting course records over prior years. DNTB finished 2nd and MPP finished 4th with a roughly 11 sec/mile advantage to the DNTB team - but neither the 1st nor the 3rd place team showed up in 2012 so the contenders for this year were pretty clearly down to these two - DNTB is a predominately Dallas team and MPP is a predominately Houston Team - of course there is always Houston/Dallas rivalry so here we go - like the Texans against the Cowboys.
Team MPP:
Team DNTB:
Team Captain, Jace, largely retained the 2011 team although there were 3 new runners recruited to be a part of the team to replace runners that couldn't repeat and then a last minute replacement for a 4th runner that finally faced reality that his sore achillies was just not going to let him run the race and stepped instead into the drivers seat for one of the vans (Thanks Ian!!). I was one of the new recruits and didn't really know anyone on the team except a couple I'd seen at a couple races - as I understand someone (John Spiller I believe) came up with my name from meeting me at a race, another (Tom) did some google searching, found my blog which has a facebook link then sent me a facebook message inviting me on the team. I was initially reluctant with the Boston Marathon 2 weeks later but after a week or so of thought I was intrigued to be on what I saw as a kinda-sorta competitive team - I must admit a 4th place team wasn't really so impressive to me but what the heck - might be fun.
A few weeks before the race I send Jace an email asking if there was any draft plan out there for this race so I could get an idea of what kinda workload I was piling into my weekend 2 weeks before what to me was a more important race - Boston Marathon 2012. I told him I'd probably be sandbagging just a little so I didn't wear myself out too bad for Boston but still figured I'd deliver a better than team average 6:00-6:15 pace on my legs - to which I received a reply "That's disappointing" - which initially pissed me off and got me to the edge of bailing on this group strangers. But after a couple email exchanges I came to understand better that Jace had put a lot into forming a "contender" team vs what I'd kinda viewed up to then as a 2nd tier team. My attitude shifted more as I met a few of the guys in a pre-planning meeting - pretty cool guys - and some pretty fast too - I'm closer to the midpoint of the team than the top - and according to the official seeding our team is rated 2nd fastest team on the field according to what runners put down in their race entry - only one team to beat - the little Competitive Jerk in me is starting to get fired up about our chances. I finally come around - this is worth giving my all - 110% effort - and move Boston down in the priorities - I can quite possibly have a great race there too - who knows maybe even better - but going for a win at TIR was an inspiring goal.
Jace really formed a great team and organized us well working out the best potential time balancing the variables to two vans of runners. Initially the plan was somewhat straight forward with a pretty much straight 12 person rotation of 36 legs then the fastest 4 doing the last 4 legs but with the last minute swap out changing Ian for a replacement that had certain conditions/restraints made that simple plan more complex. Our 12th man - Jose Lara was committed to running a 5k race on Saturday Morning in Houston and agreed to meet up with the team Sunday morning as we rolled into Houston - knock out back2back legs for 11 miles - rest a couple hours - then run the final leg to finish out the race. That made us an 11 person rotation for a couple cycles then a bit of a mix around for much of the second half of the race to work the legs in. Although not so simple - still a great plan to maximize our potential with 4 out of 5 of our fastest runners running 4 legs (Jose was fast guy not doing 4 because he had the 5k race too) and the other 8 running 3 legs for the total 40 legs. I just barely made the cut to be one of the 4 leg runners.
Van #1 - Ian (Driver) - runners (in order of first rotation): Dan, Sydney, Stephen, Evan, Tom and John H.(me) - on paper were were the slightly faster van by ~10sec/mile on averages.
Van #2 - Charles(Driver) - runners: Nikki, Claudio, Jace, Geoff, John S.
Here's how it all played out:
In the final ~30 miles it looks like the DNTB team slowed down with the last official split coming in around 30 sec/mile slower than they'd been doing the first 170 miles - seems like they'd eased up knowing we were out of reach. Jose Lara sealed the deal. He'd run his 5k race on Saturday (which he WON at 15:56) then knocked down his 2 leg 11 miler at 5:50 pace Sunday Morning then closed out the race at the hottest part of the Sunday Race with 6 mpm for the final 5. I heard the DNTB runners that were standing at the exchange where he didn't hand-off were kinda stunned how fast this guy was and he didn't even hand-off - so nice to have the fresh legs closer Sunday Morning.
Although 164 teams started this race with some starting as early as 6 am Saturday more than 8 hours ahead of us - we passed them all. The evidence along the way was the portajohns - very used at the aid stations initially - cleaner and cleaner as we went to the point I had to unwrap the toilet paper at the end.
10:53 there are 13 people (including 2 drivers) on the finishline waiting for Jose to finish out this race (really - there wasn't another sole out there - we'd even beat the official timekeeper to the finishline).
Jose seals the deal winning his 2nd race in two days. And we are done. Yeah it was kinda like Sam Houston getting pursued by Santa Ana - in the end Sam Houston kicked a$$ and won the Texas Independence and in the end we did the same. Very happy to have come away with the victory - but also just a little tired - occasional spurts of cheers and hurrays were intermixed with a bit of a weary shuffle through the post race festivities.
There's a post race epilogue - victory walk to the San Jacinto monument we shuffle along through and a party set-up of sorts at the monument
- which I can imagine becomes rather rip-roaring after there are more than a single team at the finish. For about 30 minutes we go through the motions posing for pictures,
congratulating each other, eating free pizza, accepting a few accolades by the volunteers at the finishline the we wonder back to the vans. As we head to the vans the DNTB's are doing epilogue journey to the monument and we all kinda naturally form a line giving high fives to all with a "good race" good sportsmanlike gesture as we head to the vans and they head to their pizza. If it wasn't so hot out and I wasn't so eager to fall on a pillow somewhere it would have been kinda fun to swap stories for a while. Home bound where after a quick shower I fall on my pillow and hours and hours fall away then have a quiet margarita with my wife to toast the victory.
Several Thanks to go around:
Van#1
Ian - thanks for driving - initially terrifying but eventually you won me over - take care of your achilles!
Tom - Thanks for inviting me to join the team - turned out to be a lot of fun! Your motivating cheering with a few hundred meters to go was great to get a couple good finishing kicks out of me - I really appreciated that and you look like a professional traffic cop out there stopping cars too.
Sydney - you're an amazing gal to put up with 6 smelly sweaty guys all day - and man did you kill your legs - Jace had you down for way too slow.
Dan - Thanks for organizing the van and getting all the stuff and letting us all crash at your pad for a couple hours - that was priceless. You are one FAST dude! Good luck in Chicago - sub2:40 seems a cake-walk for you.
Evan - you're the far traveller among us - hope your trip back to San Francisco went smooth - I'm still considering Bay2Breakers despite your not so inspiring words about it - clearly it's a 4fun kinda race. Man you rocked your legs!
Stephen - Thanks for teaching me a little on how to do 100 mile races - hope my rattling you with questions wasn't offputting - I really appreciated your experience. And as I said out there - your marathon time is way too slow - no way your only a 2:45 marathoner the way you dominated your legs - you're certainly way faster than me. Good luck at IM Texas next month! And I hope to see you at Rocky Raccoon 100 next year - maybe we can do a training run or two together before so I can learn a few more secrets to success.
Captain Jace - Well Done! You deserve several victory laps alone for assembling the winning team. It was really a pleasure to be on your team!
Sorry I missed the opportunies to visit with the rest of the Van#2 people much. Thanks to Charles for taking lots of pictures!!
Of course to all the Race organizers and volunteers along the way - you put on an awesome race overcome some major obsticals along the way - awesome job!!
Way to go Team: "More Pain Please!!"
Results: Overall Win!!
There is no "I" in Team.
Running is certainly usually an individual sport but here we are - twelve of us out to try to be the fastest team to run from Bastrop, TX to the San Jacinto Monument 203 miles away. Much of the race I liked to think was generally around the "Runaway Scrape" back in 1836 where Sam Houston's Texas Army fled from the pursuing larger Mexican Army that Santa Ana led to their ultimate demise at the battle for Texas independence where the San Jacinto Monument now sits today. We had our own "Runaway Scrape" to do as the #1 seeded "Dollz n Towel Boys"(DNTB) started the journey just 5 minutes after us and we wanted to keep that pursuing team in our rear view mirror - more than 5 minutes back at the finishline and we win with the fastest net time.
2:15pm on 3/31/2012 - the race is on.
There's a little history between these teams as both were contenders in the 2011 race although neither the DNTB nor MPP came away victorious despite both setting course records over prior years. DNTB finished 2nd and MPP finished 4th with a roughly 11 sec/mile advantage to the DNTB team - but neither the 1st nor the 3rd place team showed up in 2012 so the contenders for this year were pretty clearly down to these two - DNTB is a predominately Dallas team and MPP is a predominately Houston Team - of course there is always Houston/Dallas rivalry so here we go - like the Texans against the Cowboys.
Team MPP:
Team DNTB:
Team Captain, Jace, largely retained the 2011 team although there were 3 new runners recruited to be a part of the team to replace runners that couldn't repeat and then a last minute replacement for a 4th runner that finally faced reality that his sore achillies was just not going to let him run the race and stepped instead into the drivers seat for one of the vans (Thanks Ian!!). I was one of the new recruits and didn't really know anyone on the team except a couple I'd seen at a couple races - as I understand someone (John Spiller I believe) came up with my name from meeting me at a race, another (Tom) did some google searching, found my blog which has a facebook link then sent me a facebook message inviting me on the team. I was initially reluctant with the Boston Marathon 2 weeks later but after a week or so of thought I was intrigued to be on what I saw as a kinda-sorta competitive team - I must admit a 4th place team wasn't really so impressive to me but what the heck - might be fun.
A few weeks before the race I send Jace an email asking if there was any draft plan out there for this race so I could get an idea of what kinda workload I was piling into my weekend 2 weeks before what to me was a more important race - Boston Marathon 2012. I told him I'd probably be sandbagging just a little so I didn't wear myself out too bad for Boston but still figured I'd deliver a better than team average 6:00-6:15 pace on my legs - to which I received a reply "That's disappointing" - which initially pissed me off and got me to the edge of bailing on this group strangers. But after a couple email exchanges I came to understand better that Jace had put a lot into forming a "contender" team vs what I'd kinda viewed up to then as a 2nd tier team. My attitude shifted more as I met a few of the guys in a pre-planning meeting - pretty cool guys - and some pretty fast too - I'm closer to the midpoint of the team than the top - and according to the official seeding our team is rated 2nd fastest team on the field according to what runners put down in their race entry - only one team to beat - the little Competitive Jerk in me is starting to get fired up about our chances. I finally come around - this is worth giving my all - 110% effort - and move Boston down in the priorities - I can quite possibly have a great race there too - who knows maybe even better - but going for a win at TIR was an inspiring goal.
Jace really formed a great team and organized us well working out the best potential time balancing the variables to two vans of runners. Initially the plan was somewhat straight forward with a pretty much straight 12 person rotation of 36 legs then the fastest 4 doing the last 4 legs but with the last minute swap out changing Ian for a replacement that had certain conditions/restraints made that simple plan more complex. Our 12th man - Jose Lara was committed to running a 5k race on Saturday Morning in Houston and agreed to meet up with the team Sunday morning as we rolled into Houston - knock out back2back legs for 11 miles - rest a couple hours - then run the final leg to finish out the race. That made us an 11 person rotation for a couple cycles then a bit of a mix around for much of the second half of the race to work the legs in. Although not so simple - still a great plan to maximize our potential with 4 out of 5 of our fastest runners running 4 legs (Jose was fast guy not doing 4 because he had the 5k race too) and the other 8 running 3 legs for the total 40 legs. I just barely made the cut to be one of the 4 leg runners.
Van #1 - Ian (Driver) - runners (in order of first rotation): Dan, Sydney, Stephen, Evan, Tom and John H.(me) - on paper were were the slightly faster van by ~10sec/mile on averages.
Van #2 - Charles(Driver) - runners: Nikki, Claudio, Jace, Geoff, John S.
Here's how it all played out:
| Legs | Miles | Split Pace | Total | Pace | Lead over Dollz n Towel Boys | Split Conditions (aka excuses) | |
| Team | 1-5 | 22.33 | 22.33 | 6:00 | Very hot/humid/LSO(life sucking orb - aka direct sun w/o shade or clouds) into the wind with some hilly legs. | ||
| Me | 6 | 4.94 | 6:12 | 27.27 | 6:02 | 8min @Leg 8 | very hot/humid, LSO, strong headwind (15mph), net uphill, 2 miles of it on dusty dirt road about like running on an inch of sand. Not so tasty as cars go by. Translation - it sucked - but I ran my heart out anyway. |
| Team | 7-16 | 50.84 | 6:10 | 78.11 | 6:07 | 3min @Leg 14 | After Leg 9 cuts crosswind - Cut out the LSO at sunset around Leg 11ish |
| Me | 17 | 4.55 | 5:58 | 82.66 | 6:07 | 11min @leg17 | Cooler though still humid, down to ~10mph headwind, net uphill. |
| Team | 18-26 | 47.75 | 6:05 | 130.4 | 6:07 | -3min @leg23 as one of ours got cramped. | One more leg of headwind then crosswind for the rest. |
| Me | 27 | 6.41 | 5:53 | 136.8 | 6:06 | Still cooler though still humid, crosswind and flat - Best running conditions of the day for me. | |
| Team | 28-38 | 56.1 | 6:15 | 192.9 | 6:09 | 10min @leg35 | Mostly crosswind - A couple legs on trails - humidity peaks at sunrise around leg 33ish. Heat of the day builds as the LSO moves up. |
| Me | 39 | 3.3 | 6:06 | 196.2 | 6:09 | very hot/humid, LSO, flat | |
| Team | 40 | 5.32 | 5:59 | 201.5 | 6:08 | 25min @finish or about 8 sec/mile | very hot/humid, LSO, flat on busy road. |
| Total | Mine | 19.2 | 6:01 | ||||
| Team | The Rest | 182.3 | 6:09 |
In the final ~30 miles it looks like the DNTB team slowed down with the last official split coming in around 30 sec/mile slower than they'd been doing the first 170 miles - seems like they'd eased up knowing we were out of reach. Jose Lara sealed the deal. He'd run his 5k race on Saturday (which he WON at 15:56) then knocked down his 2 leg 11 miler at 5:50 pace Sunday Morning then closed out the race at the hottest part of the Sunday Race with 6 mpm for the final 5. I heard the DNTB runners that were standing at the exchange where he didn't hand-off were kinda stunned how fast this guy was and he didn't even hand-off - so nice to have the fresh legs closer Sunday Morning.
Although 164 teams started this race with some starting as early as 6 am Saturday more than 8 hours ahead of us - we passed them all. The evidence along the way was the portajohns - very used at the aid stations initially - cleaner and cleaner as we went to the point I had to unwrap the toilet paper at the end.
10:53 there are 13 people (including 2 drivers) on the finishline waiting for Jose to finish out this race (really - there wasn't another sole out there - we'd even beat the official timekeeper to the finishline).
Jose seals the deal winning his 2nd race in two days. And we are done. Yeah it was kinda like Sam Houston getting pursued by Santa Ana - in the end Sam Houston kicked a$$ and won the Texas Independence and in the end we did the same. Very happy to have come away with the victory - but also just a little tired - occasional spurts of cheers and hurrays were intermixed with a bit of a weary shuffle through the post race festivities.
There's a post race epilogue - victory walk to the San Jacinto monument we shuffle along through and a party set-up of sorts at the monument
- which I can imagine becomes rather rip-roaring after there are more than a single team at the finish. For about 30 minutes we go through the motions posing for pictures,
congratulating each other, eating free pizza, accepting a few accolades by the volunteers at the finishline the we wonder back to the vans. As we head to the vans the DNTB's are doing epilogue journey to the monument and we all kinda naturally form a line giving high fives to all with a "good race" good sportsmanlike gesture as we head to the vans and they head to their pizza. If it wasn't so hot out and I wasn't so eager to fall on a pillow somewhere it would have been kinda fun to swap stories for a while. Home bound where after a quick shower I fall on my pillow and hours and hours fall away then have a quiet margarita with my wife to toast the victory.
Several Thanks to go around:
Van#1
Ian - thanks for driving - initially terrifying but eventually you won me over - take care of your achilles!
Tom - Thanks for inviting me to join the team - turned out to be a lot of fun! Your motivating cheering with a few hundred meters to go was great to get a couple good finishing kicks out of me - I really appreciated that and you look like a professional traffic cop out there stopping cars too.
Sydney - you're an amazing gal to put up with 6 smelly sweaty guys all day - and man did you kill your legs - Jace had you down for way too slow.
Dan - Thanks for organizing the van and getting all the stuff and letting us all crash at your pad for a couple hours - that was priceless. You are one FAST dude! Good luck in Chicago - sub2:40 seems a cake-walk for you.
Evan - you're the far traveller among us - hope your trip back to San Francisco went smooth - I'm still considering Bay2Breakers despite your not so inspiring words about it - clearly it's a 4fun kinda race. Man you rocked your legs!
Stephen - Thanks for teaching me a little on how to do 100 mile races - hope my rattling you with questions wasn't offputting - I really appreciated your experience. And as I said out there - your marathon time is way too slow - no way your only a 2:45 marathoner the way you dominated your legs - you're certainly way faster than me. Good luck at IM Texas next month! And I hope to see you at Rocky Raccoon 100 next year - maybe we can do a training run or two together before so I can learn a few more secrets to success.
Captain Jace - Well Done! You deserve several victory laps alone for assembling the winning team. It was really a pleasure to be on your team!
Sorry I missed the opportunies to visit with the rest of the Van#2 people much. Thanks to Charles for taking lots of pictures!!
Of course to all the Race organizers and volunteers along the way - you put on an awesome race overcome some major obsticals along the way - awesome job!!
Way to go Team: "More Pain Please!!"
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Tired legs 8k PR
Tired legs 8k. I was looking for motivation to finish a hard workout because I've been kind wimping out lately (except Tuesday's Progressive - that one I pushed to the end) so I planned to use this 8k race as an incentive for a good fast finish longrun. Timed my start to allow 15@7mpm to get me to the startline exactly on time and got back a little early by running a little faster. My (brand new 310xt) garmin lost battery at mile 11 (btw - don't trust a brand new watch that says 50% charged if you haven't charged it yourself yet). I've been running pretty slow the last several months and even though my HR vs Pace seems to be indicating I'm in pretty good shape - the faster paces just feel too fast so I was hoping a short race would help MP not feel so fast:
Splits ended up 5:40 average first two, 6:10(with a turnaround), 5:40, 5:36(0.97 miles).
The "Race" was a lot of fun - good back and forth with several - chased down 4 in the final mile and ended up 5th overall, 2nd master with a finish of 28:46 (11 second PR - yeah my 8k PR was pretty soft). Weather was terrible - 62°F with 60°F Dew Point - but somehow after 15 miles in it I was pretty used to the humidity level by race time and it didn't seem to affect me much. Fun time and good confidence boost for this last few week to Boston.
I'm figuring I'm around 2:42ish fitness now - need a little cussion on that for Boston to be confident I can get my goal time 2:42.5 but at least it's starting to enter the realm of "feasible".
Splits ended up 5:40 average first two, 6:10(with a turnaround), 5:40, 5:36(0.97 miles).
The "Race" was a lot of fun - good back and forth with several - chased down 4 in the final mile and ended up 5th overall, 2nd master with a finish of 28:46 (11 second PR - yeah my 8k PR was pretty soft). Weather was terrible - 62°F with 60°F Dew Point - but somehow after 15 miles in it I was pretty used to the humidity level by race time and it didn't seem to affect me much. Fun time and good confidence boost for this last few week to Boston.
I'm figuring I'm around 2:42ish fitness now - need a little cussion on that for Boston to be confident I can get my goal time 2:42.5 but at least it's starting to enter the realm of "feasible".
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Rocky Raccoon 50M
An impulse race I decided to do about a week ago although the idea was planted just before the Houston Marathon. Although the race was full, Victor Aguirre at the Saturday dinner before Houston mentioned that full might not actually mean full and a week or so after Houston I contacted Victor about how to possibly get in. He put me in contact with the RD - Joe - who put me on the waitlist initially saying my chances were "thin" - but then after ~100 people pulled from the race I moved up to 16th place on the wait list with a week to go - then the forecast turned a bit sour so the DNS rate went up - and I found out about 30 minutes before the race started that there was space and got in :cool:.
My reasoning for doing this race was I needed a WS100 qualifier sometime before the November deadline. IM Florida is my goal race for the year in November so I didn't want to do the race anytime near that as it would screw up a couple weeks of training. I wasn't quite feeling jazzed yet to jump into training hard for Boston Marathon in April rather enjoying my kinda lazy recovering since Houston - so I figured I'd go ahead and knock out my qualifier - a pedestrian sub11 hours (13+ mpm) is all that's required - and then I'd get to spend another lazy week or so after that recovering. So my main goals for Rocky Raccoon developed into 1) get WS100 qualifier and 2) NOT get sick
This was the radar picture I woke up to with that front moving downward. I drove up from Houston before the race and that red stuff was some impressive downpour and lightning show driving through it. The storming as I approached Huntsville driving up there was intense - the close striking lightning burned into my retina and I could re-see it for miles with every blink.
And the lake where where I went swimming after the race:
My reasoning for doing this race was I needed a WS100 qualifier sometime before the November deadline. IM Florida is my goal race for the year in November so I didn't want to do the race anytime near that as it would screw up a couple weeks of training. I wasn't quite feeling jazzed yet to jump into training hard for Boston Marathon in April rather enjoying my kinda lazy recovering since Houston - so I figured I'd go ahead and knock out my qualifier - a pedestrian sub11 hours (13+ mpm) is all that's required - and then I'd get to spend another lazy week or so after that recovering. So my main goals for Rocky Raccoon developed into 1) get WS100 qualifier and 2) NOT get sick
This was the radar picture I woke up to with that front moving downward. I drove up from Houston before the race and that red stuff was some impressive downpour and lightning show driving through it. The storming as I approached Huntsville driving up there was intense - the close striking lightning burned into my retina and I could re-see it for miles with every blink.
Fortunately the red part moved through the race area and by the 7am start we were in the green stuff just on the other side of it. The 100 milers started an hour earlier and had some worse stuff to start out in. Lots and lots of mud all over the course. The rain was refreshingly welcome to cool off the 60+ humid start to the race and after it passed it brought the cold front that dropped the humidity down and made it pretty comfortable.
I made lots of mistakes on my first 50 miler and got lots of great advise in reply and I reviewed all that advice the day before the race to put my running strategy together (several tips from Dennis Hoagland) It was too late to do anything better in training so I focused just on race day execution improvements. A few key things:
- TWO hand hold bottles instead of one - last time I used one and kept refilling it with high density calories to fuel the run. Eventually I ended up with too rich a calorie concentration in my stomach and I had no way to dilute it down so everything I took in just collected in my stomach until I threw it up. Without passing the fluids I ended up dehydrated and the only electrolytes I had were mixed into the fuel so I wasn't getting that either. With a 2nd bottle with water - at the slightest hit of any belly unease I'd take some water to dilute things a bit.
- Starting 1/2 way add ginger to some - melt in your mouth fuel to help settle the stomach.
- S-Cap at every aid station that worked out to ~2/hr.
- Take it slow - I was concerned I sweat so much more than I could consume water and dehydration was inevitable if I went too fast. So I was determined to go slow enough that I could keep hydrated. Byron Lane cautioned me not to run TOO slow as I was not adapted well for slow running with my training for a marathon so I tried to keep the HR in the 140-145 recovery kinda running range where I'd done some running.
For dealing with the mud/rain - my first time of any significant distance I asked for input from several and cobled together a plan of sorts - this is how that particular aspect played out (copy pasted from somewhere else so I don't have to re-write:
First lap was a steady rain - I lathered my feet with Hydropel and wore thin Injinji (toe) socks with ankle length socks over them - didn't change socks or shoes and ended up with no blisters. ...The mud was so deep in spots (6+inches) I started getting concerned it would grab hold of my shoes and I'd accidently pull out of them to be left with only socks - and that actually almost happen a couple times so I learned to curl my toes as I stomped through the mud to be sure to not loose my shoes. I did change my shirt after the first lap as the rain seemed to have stopped - a dry shirt was refreshing. The only "raw" spot developed under the HRM - this premium garmin HRM ends up drilling little holes near probes after 50 miles - white shirt showed just a little blood spot but at least it wasn't the nips ;) - and I barely noticed it until done. I decided to risk no glasses the first lap and that was a bit touch and go as it started close to dark and I struggled to see the roots on the trail - had to keep good space to the next guy and focus hard on the blurry ground to avoid ankle twists - but I think that was still better than water covered glasses - 2nd lap I got my glasses which worked well until about 10 miles to go on the 3rd lap when the rain started again - I could see better without the glasses especially since it was light so I took them off again until the rain stopped an hour or so later. I started with a hat thinking that might help with the rain but I ditched it the first aid station preferring the cooling rain on my head. Rinsing off in the cool water lake and cleaning the socks/shoes/legs was a must before getting in my car :).
A few photo's stolen (shamelessly) from others - some memorable stretches of the course:
And the lake where where I went swimming after the race:
The race:
My standard pre-racing fueling with 2x16 oz ultrafuel 3 hrs pre-race
Loop 1 - Start with 24 oz Perpetuem (cafe late flavor) and 24 oz water in hand bottles + 2 Gu (Mocha) and some kinda power blocks. First hour I consumed the Perpetuem and the next 1.5 hrs to finish the loop I consumed the 24 oz water + 1/2 bottle refill and both gu and 1/2 the 160 calorie bag of blocks.
I ended up running much of this first loop with a guy who's wife was out running the 100 miler as is apparently pretty awesome. We ran together for a while and chatted then happened to catch his wife who started an hour earlier but also had an extra 3.5 miles per loop - I looked hr up later and although she was way behind the leaders at that point by mile 80 she had 2nd place pretty well locked up - then something must have happen the last loop - as of now she's not showing in yet with 30+ women already in - hope she's OK. Found out later she got lost at mile 99 (after climbing from ~10th to 2nd place F) - ran 4-5 miles the wrong way and ended up dropping - I feel sick.
Loop 2 - Start with 24 oz Perpetuem (cafe late flavor) and 24 oz water in hand bottles + the rest of the bag of blocks plus an ziplock bag of more blocks with ginger mixed in. First hour I consumed the Perpetuem then did 45 minutes at 5 minutes each block with the ginger on it - finished off the other bag of blocks plus 1/2 bottle Gatorade from the aid station and a little more water too.
Since the rain stopped I grabbed my ipod shuffle and glasses for this loop and it was nice to be able to look around and see the scenery as well as have some music to help pass the time. I'd also downloaded some podcasts from ultrarunnerpodcast.com and listen to a couple hours of that. One of the podcasts happen to be from a few weeks ago with Ian Sherman who set the course record here last year and was here to do it again so that was really neat to listen to him talk about Rocky Raccoon while I was racing Rocky Raccoon. The ipod made me pretty in my own world and I didn't chat with anyone this time around - which was a kinda fine solitude. At one point I kinda needed a portajohn and an empty lonely one in the middle of no where kinda just appeared - what good fortune. Also it turned out that last minute thought to put some TP in the Ziploc with my cellphone turned out to be good fortune as well ;). Rest of the loop finishes without much incident.
Loop 3 - Start with 24 oz Perpetuem (cafe late flavor) and 24 oz water in hand bottles + 2 Gu's - Mocha and Double Espresso flavor plus a Ziploc bag of more blocks with ginger mixed in. First hour I consumed the Perpetuem then did the GU's looking forward to the Caffeine boost then did a few of the block with the ginger on it - finished off water and refilled and sipped some of that down before the finish.
I'm still feeling remarkable good - I just keep plowing along - the mind is getting too tired to focus on podcasts so I switch to brainless music occasionally turning it up to drown out some body aches. It starts raining again about 1/2 hr in and I'm wondering if my ipod will survive - I keep it clipped to my watch band with the ports pointed down and I decide I'll risk it rather than stop and put it in my Ziploc with the phone - it rained about an hour and the ipod still works so I guess I lucked out there. I'm starting to watch the miles go a bit impatiently one by one but I'm still relatively OK. The last 10k seemed to take some extra effort to keep moving - I'd gone the whole way without walking and under 10 mpm for each split (except the one with the pitstop) and I didn't want to give up either of those streaks so when the pace started to climb over 10 mpm I dug a little deeper to push it back into the 9:xx. Finally I get to the finish.
Finish - I cross the finish mat and stop - give myself a cheer with prompted a few others to give me a cheer too. Joe - the RD congratulates me - a few ladies call me over to a table but initially I don't feel like moving - finally I get the motivation to hobble over there and get my finishing medal and one of the ladies also gives me a 5th Male award - I'm nearly shocked that there could have only been 4 people in front of me - I couldn't stop smiling for quite a while - what a great feeling - there is nothing so awesome as an unexpected award :).
Splits between Aid Stations (almost - I hit the button late a few times):
Loop . . . .. . . . .Split. . . . .pace. . . . . .AHR. . . . .
1 (2:34). 1 . . . . .3.05. . . . .9:00.7. . . . .148. . . . .
. . . . . 2 . . . . .2.92. . . . .9:03.1. . . . .145. . . . .
. . . . . 3 . . . . .2.85. . . . .9:17.1. . . . .137. . . . .
. . . . . 4 . . . . .3.39. . . . .9:00.3. . . . .141. . . . .
. . . . . 5 . . . . .4.29. . . . .9:59.8. . . . .143. . . . .w/5 minute stop change shirt, reload bottles
End of 1st loop I'm in 21st place in the 50M
2 (2:34). 1 . . . . .3.42. . . . .8:36.6. . . . .147. . . . .
. . . . . 2 . . . . .2.57. . . . .8:48.3. . . . .146. . . . .
. . . . . 3 . . . . .2.8 . . . . .9:14.3. . . . .144. . . . .
. . . . . 4 . . . . .3.47. . . . 10:12.1. . . . .144. . . . .w/3 minute stop, pitstop
. . . . . 5 . . . . .4.23. . . . .9:34.6. . . . .145. . . . .w/2 minute stop, reload bottles
End of 2nd loop I'm in 15th place with (-1) Drop after loop1, (-6) Passed, (+1) Passed me.
3 (2:38). 1 . . . . .3.01. . . . .9:38.6. . . . .146. . . . .
. . . . . 2 . . . . .2.86. . . . .9:45.7. . . . .146. . . . .
. . . . . 3 . . . . .2.76. . . . .9:55.0. . . . .143. . . . .
. . . . . 4 . . . . .3.36. . . . .9:41.9. . . . .144. . . . .
. . . . . 5 . . . . .4.29. . . . .9:55.7. . . . .141. . . . .
Total . . . . . . . 49.27. . . . .9:29.0. . . . .143
End of 3rd loop I'm in 5th place with (-3) Drop after loop2, (-7) Passed.
366 Starters, 259 Finishers.
Not so bad a race for doing it on a whim - 7:46 was the final time - my only other Ultra - also a 50 miler happened to be 9:46 so I get to say I got a 2 hour PR which I've certainly never said before - although I'd kinda like to say that again in November (IMFL).
Cheers..
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
