First post from my new computer and boy, this turned into a bitch-fest post! Time to edit. I'm overall not so happy with this race but it was still okay, so here goes:
My first race of the year was a couple weekends ago - probably the earliest during the year that I've ever raced (with the possible exception of indoor track in high school/college). I decided on Friday that as long as I was in the Cities anyway, I might as well run the Securian Winter Half Marathon. Happily, my sister was able to bring my registration in so I didn't need to pay the race-day registration. $30 wasn't too bad for a half marathon, I figured, even if I wasn't exactly in racing form, I did still need a long run and might as well make it a higher effort since I wouldn't be getting as high of mileage as I wanted.
There was $2 parking in the ramp right at the starting line so I figured that made more sense than trying to find street parking somewhere. Luckily, I allowed myself a decent amount of time - silly me didn't think about all the one way streets and about how much time I'd spent sitting in lines of runners in cars trying to get into the single access to the parking garage . . . Then I made it into the garage and followed a few cars in front of me as we commenced circling. I started getting worried the higher we went and then as we were looping back down I noticed that cars were starting to pull into not-spots - places their car more or less fit into but weren't official parking spots. I suddenly wished I had done the same when I followed the car in front of right back to the exit. Happily, a volunteer directed us into the monthly parking where there was plenty of room. This also meant free parking since we didn't go by the gate on our way out - yay!
I still had enough time to pin my number on, tie my chip into my shoe and head up into the bathroom lines. A quick dash back into the building to warm up and there's Rick, Wayne, Karen, Guy and Jenny (who I just met then)! We chatted for a couple minutes and I glance at my watch - 3 minutes to race start, maybe I should head outside? Sure, great idea!
So I wander out and meld my way into the starting pack, which was surprisingly easy. Hmmm. A balloon for the 3:30 pace group? I think I'm a little closer to the front than I want to be. But Shane should be around here somewhere. So I look around and Lo and Behold! There's Shane! I work my way back to him just in time for the gun to go off. Though, I don't actually remember exactly how the race started - nothing nearly as awesome as a duck call, to be sure :) Shane said his plan was to start conservative and pick it up the last three miles - which sounded like a good plan. It quickly developed that our ideas of starting conservative were different though, so I let him go on ahead.
The race started with a little two mile loop around Rice Park, which is where all the ice sculptures for the winter carnival are at. It's hard to get a good look as you're running by, but was I saw looked pretty neat. It's also always fun to run a race through a public place when most of the people around have no idea what's going on. Around there, I ran into Randy around there, which was great. After that, the course is an out and back on Shepard Road and was actually kind of boring. Randy passed me by sometime out there but I could always keep him and Shane in sight.
One thing I'm rather confused about - the 5K and 10K started a few minutes behind the Half and once we got onto Shepard Road, 3 10K men went by . . . and that was it. One in the lead and two more a bit back. I did see a 4th 10K guy after they turned around (pretty obvious when they're going the other direction) but I didn't see a single other 10Ker so I was really surprised to see in the results how many people did that race. Very strange because it means the first three guys were ridiculously far ahead of anyone else. Maybe I've just never seen a 10K race from that vantage point before.
I was very surprised to see at the first water stop that they were handing out bottles of water. It made me glad to have brought my small hand held - I would have felt bad grabbing a bottle just to take a few sips and then toss it. What a waste!
It was fabulous to be able to have a longer run on nice, clear roads! I rather putzed about for the first bit, just enjoying a nice run and trying to keep the pace down. Randy and Shane were in sight the whole time, so it was nice to have some idea of how I was running in relation to people I know. I was amused because there didn't seem to be a lot of runners taking the tangent on corners and I kept watching as Shane in front of me would cut over more than anyone else. We were two of very few runners who ran tangents as opposed to staying in the right hand lane when the whole road was shut down for us.
I was rather surprised at how rolling the course was. Nothing huge but some nice long ups and downs when I was expecting a completely flat course was actually kind of nice. A couple in particular stuck out - one of the uphills made me excited for the way back and one looooong downhill made me a bit worried about the way back up it. Turns out, the way back up was so gradual that I didn't even notice I was heading back up it until I was less than two blocks from the top. Yay!
So back to the turnaround . . . I didn't think about it much as when went around it. Since it wasn't a strict out and back course, I didn't know where we'd be turning around for sure. I remember thinking that I'd be 1 1/2 or 2 miles from the turnaround and I shortly started seeing people coming back at me and was surprised. When I came to the turnaround, I was right on Shane so I was thinking about that as I rounded the barricades like everyone else and continued on my way. All of a sudden we hit the 8 mile marker (well, first off, all of a sudden Shane was off like a rocket and I was no longer just about to pass him but back to the mile marker). 8? That's strange, since we hadn't gone by mile 7 yet. Maybe someone put the wrong mile marker here? Well, that can't be right either since we should be just over halfway through mile 6 according to my mile split on my watch . . . Strange. Someone must have messed up the marker placements.
And I continue on my merry way, continuing with picking up the speed bit by bit since I'd been gaining on Shane again and I wanted to catch up with him. Then we ran by mile marker 9. Hm. Something is definitely wrong but the big question is: did we turn around wrong or are the markers just wrong? Finally we hit mile "10" where the volunteer was letting everyone know that the turnaround was wrong and we had 3.1 miles left. Huh. Lovely. It was good to know, though and it was clearly time to kick it down a gear. I caught up with Randy right before here and didn't think I'd be able to get Shane since he seemed to be running exactly the same pace as me, but suddenly, there he was. He tried to chat some but I was working pretty hard so I didn't have much to say - sorry Shane! I got him on one of the last (short and steeper) uphills, though. Which I enjoyed more than I should - it's been a while since I've beat Shane in a race!
Usually, I like to run the end of the course before the start of a race or at least take a good look at the map so I know distances left at approximate places. I hadn't done that this time at all, so I did some guessing about distances left as we rounded corners into downtown, which turned out to be pretty accurate. I did manage to remember that we finished on 6th so as we ran down 5th and I saw up a turn up head, I decided that meant only a block left after the turn and tried to pick up the pace according. Luckily, I was right!
So I finished in a half marathon PR - 1:32!! Of course, the race was over a mile short but hey . . .
I did a short cool down afterward and then wandered into the building since that was the most likely place to pick up my shiny finishers mug (and warm!). I didn't see an obvious place for it so I wandered around a bit - the place wasn't all that big but was rather crowded. I did find the table for the race shirts - a cool design but it cost an extra $20 if I wanted it! Plus it was white and I find it hard to believe that any female race director would ever pick white for a race shirts (serious male race directors - I don't want my bra to show through. Though, maybe I've just found the reason there's so many white shirts out there . . .) so I wasn't ready to turn a poorly done race into a $50 race. So I found the mug pickup - and was under-impressed again. It was white, which made sense being a winter marathon, but had a very small and blah race logo on one side with a blah advertisement on the other. The promised coupon book and winter carnival pin were not in the bag. I ended up deciding against cheering everyone else in and headed back to my sister's since I knew they were waiting for me and I didn't want to stand around outside and get cold - all my extra layers were in the car.
So overall? Not at all impressed. This was put on by a major race organizer and it's just plain not okay to have the turn around messed up - you need to have communication done better than that and this isn't this company's first race or even in the first handful of their races. On top of that, I have yet to see an official apology. No email sent out to race participates and nothing on their website (in fact, when they first posted results, they had the pace column calculated as though the race were the true distance). The only thing out there is a half-assed apology (that mostly reads as though they don't think it was a very big deal) on their facebook page. This is also the only place to find out (if you dig through posts) that the promised coupon books and pins were available to be mailed which is not a big deal for me but is for the people who had to ask if it could be mailed. Not classy. Had I been actually racing this, I would be mad but I'm more annoyed about it than anything.
Bottom line? I'm not planning on going back and will think twice about races put on by Anderson. But, it was a fun time anyway and, like I said, it was great to run on cleared roads and felt good to pick the pace up a bit.
Showing posts with label race report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race report. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
From NR - Half Voyaguer Race Report
I'm not sure why this should be surprising but I LOVED the Half Voyageur! I had an absolute blast! Thanks a billion to Gene and all the volunteers for putting on such an awesome race. All the aid stations were great and it was wonderful to have mowed trails to run on since 26 miles of unmowed would have been much less fun.
I had no idea what kind of a pace to do once we started. It was so hard to restrain from wanting to sprint around the single line of walking that happened right away! I knew things would clear up soon enough and this was 26.2 miles, so there was plenty of time and no use fretting since no one else was. Just so strange feeling, though! So once we cleared that, we headed out on a nice wide gravely trail/road for a while. It was hard, again, to figure out the right pace. I knew the trail was going to throw plenty of nasty at us and worked about to find something comfortable. I was passing a lot of people but I figured I might as well stretch my legs out a little and find a nice pace while I could even if people ended up passing me back.
There's only a couple of spots along the way that I hadn't run before and the beginning was one of them. I didn't have a very good idea of HOW we got from the zoo up to Skyline and was going along when I found myself thinking "Gee, this looks a lot like the Rolling Stone course. But it can't be, we're much too far away, still." And then we came to the river crossing and we had, in fact, been on the course! I couldn't believe how close we were to it!
I have to say, I felt like we were cheating - getting up to Skyline should have involved some MUCH steeper climbs. I was very happy to find it all relatively easy. I walked part of a hill in there that wasn't too bad (on the Rolling Stone course somewhere, I think) but decided I would walk hills over X grade with the idea that walking when I chose early on might keep me from walking when I didn't choose later on. I think it worked pretty well.
So I loved all the nasty stuff. Jarrow's Beach was great. I had nice people in front of me who let me bounce around them, so I wasn't slowed down beyond what the course does. I wasn't expecting what it was, though - it's basically a ravine that you run in. This ravine's botton is covered in large, irregular and sharp moss covered rocks that are pretty much not runable. You just sort of bounce from rock to rock while super thankful that it's not raining because it would be so super dangerous wet. Then you come out on nice flat trail before heading right back up Skyline. On unmowed snowmoblie trail. Through what would have been knee or higher deep mud had we not detoured around into the woods. Which meant cutting your own trail and getting rather scratched up. Huzzah!
In Zapp's Loop, I passed a guy in white that I would end up playing tag with quite a bit. It seemed he was a bit stronger at the uphill and I was stronger at the downhill. I lost him for good after the Power Lines (capitalized!) and didn't see him finish so I hope I just missed him since I wasn't paying close attention.
I loved the Power Lines. I was with my guy in white and a group of three other guys came up behind us and we all went through it together which made it pretty fun. I'll admit, I was worried on the first one and had to remind myself that the rest aren't as bad. How to describe the Power Lines to those who haven't run them? The first one you are more or less on all fours for and can't believe that you'll still have something like 10 miles to go after trashing your quivering quads. They are hills you wouldn't ski down. They're scary to 'run' down, though it's more of a semi-controlled falling. After what I thought was the last one, I let out a loud holler that made my friend in white looked back at me rather like I was crazy so I explained that it was the end of the Power Lines. I was wrong. When I ran the course with Lisa, Ron and Shaun earlier, we had missed the turn back in and I didn't realize there was more. My friend (damn, I wish I had asked his name), also being a newbie to the race, didn't correct me and, in fact, told me to go around him since I seemed to have energy :) I felt so bad when I came out to see one more hill to go down and up! I was sure I'd have a chance to apologize since he was stronger on the uphill but he never caught me again. So if you're reading this, friend in white with a backpack water carrier, thanks for the fun and I'm sorry to have mislead you!
Coming up that last Power Line hill, I had a Northwoods teamie tell me I was in third! Third! I wasn't even thinking about placement (beyond being excited when passing a woman on the way up Zapp's Loop) so I was shocked to hear it. I decided to be happy but try not to dwell on it and keep doing my thing.
Here I am at the Grand Portage aid station (just after the Power Lines) saying "Did you say frozen grapes?!" They were amazing, by the way. How Eve managed to keep them frozen is a mystery but I loved them! I had decided to throw water on my head at this station after the heat of the Power Lines (no shade!) only to have the grapes make me forget :)
I didn't mind the miles and miles of up after the Grand Portage aid station too much. It was very pretty and I tried to focus on making the conscious decision to walk instead of letting the course beat me into walking without noticing. Coming into the next aid station, I knew I needed some sort of salty stuff. I tried a cracker but it wasn't good so I just poured some salt straight into my hand and licked it up. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. More frozen grapes.
I think I was mentally the worst off on the ski trails right before coming onto the Munger the first time - something about a ski trail makes a slow pace feel so much slower and more painful. I felt like I was putzing along and barely moving and luckily came up on Shane then. I was sad to see him since it meant he wasn't having a good day but it was nice to know that other runners struggling at that point, too.
Then came Forbay's Lake! Right after entering the trail on the other side of the road, I felt like throwing up. I was 100% sure I was going to - the saliva in the mouth, the fake heat, all of it! But nothing. I tried to run but it just jiggled everything and was miserable. That whole section the ski trails was rough - I could barely run downhill and was excited for uphill since that meant I had 'permission' to walk. It was in here that a woman went by me, putting me in 4th. I think she might have passed me even had I not been nauseous, though, because she was moving pretty strong. I think her name was Amanda? We chatted back on Jarrow's Beach and she's super nice. Sadly, I was not very coherent as she went by me here but I at least managed a "good job" I tried to take a gel but it just wasn't happening which makes me think maybe my body was over-carbed? I've read that taking in more than your stomach can handle can cause you to feel like hurling. I think I need to scale back to every 45 or 50 minutes instead of every 40. I found Kyle as my stomach was settling back down right before Jay Cooke but I handed off my opened gel since I didn't want any anymore. I still had a couple in reserve, so I figured I'd be fine.
Well, I probably should have made myself take another gel because those last 3 1/2 miles were sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long. Holy man. Well, I thought it was only 3 miles so that made it worse, too. In hind sight, I think a good deal of my stumbling about was a sign of needing more food and I ended up with 2 left over gels not counting the one I didn't really take when I should have only had one left over (I threw in an extra in case something happened and I was out on the trail much longer that I anticipated). Which means I should have taken one somewhere and completely forgot. It turns out to be harder than expected to keep track of taking fuel when you don't have a water station every couple of miles to base it off of. I think I added up my 40 minutes wrong somewhere in there, too, which is rather embarrassing to think about. Perhaps setting my watch timer to go off isn't such a bad idea.
So those last 3 1/2 miles had lots of stumbling and trying to run in between rocks and roots. Thinking to myself "Okay. 5th woman is running right now. YOU have to run." Which is the only time I was at all trying to be competitive. In fact, right before Seven Bridges (about half way in), I ended up in-between my guy in white and another women (guess I was second woman at that point) and I realized "Hey. This is making me race and I don't want to race right now. I want to enjoy this." So I let her go by and had a great time by myself on the trails. In fact, with a rare exception, every time I started hurting I took a look around and remembered how awesome trail running is and it helped me enjoy again.
I came in smiling (with eyes closed, of course!) and collected my awesome 4th woman mug. Also! A women kitty-corner from the finish had her hose hooked up to a shower head-like attachment and was letting runners take showers, which was fantastic. I really had wanted to go swimming as I was stumbling along next to the river but this was pretty good too.
Only one complaint about this race! Shirt size options were large and extra-large. I tried in vain to shrink my shirt so I might have to turn it into a bag.
I'll be back next year for sure! I was so happy the whole time that I decided to do it. I'm afraid I might be hooked on longer trail races!
I had no idea what kind of a pace to do once we started. It was so hard to restrain from wanting to sprint around the single line of walking that happened right away! I knew things would clear up soon enough and this was 26.2 miles, so there was plenty of time and no use fretting since no one else was. Just so strange feeling, though! So once we cleared that, we headed out on a nice wide gravely trail/road for a while. It was hard, again, to figure out the right pace. I knew the trail was going to throw plenty of nasty at us and worked about to find something comfortable. I was passing a lot of people but I figured I might as well stretch my legs out a little and find a nice pace while I could even if people ended up passing me back.
There's only a couple of spots along the way that I hadn't run before and the beginning was one of them. I didn't have a very good idea of HOW we got from the zoo up to Skyline and was going along when I found myself thinking "Gee, this looks a lot like the Rolling Stone course. But it can't be, we're much too far away, still." And then we came to the river crossing and we had, in fact, been on the course! I couldn't believe how close we were to it!
I have to say, I felt like we were cheating - getting up to Skyline should have involved some MUCH steeper climbs. I was very happy to find it all relatively easy. I walked part of a hill in there that wasn't too bad (on the Rolling Stone course somewhere, I think) but decided I would walk hills over X grade with the idea that walking when I chose early on might keep me from walking when I didn't choose later on. I think it worked pretty well.
So I loved all the nasty stuff. Jarrow's Beach was great. I had nice people in front of me who let me bounce around them, so I wasn't slowed down beyond what the course does. I wasn't expecting what it was, though - it's basically a ravine that you run in. This ravine's botton is covered in large, irregular and sharp moss covered rocks that are pretty much not runable. You just sort of bounce from rock to rock while super thankful that it's not raining because it would be so super dangerous wet. Then you come out on nice flat trail before heading right back up Skyline. On unmowed snowmoblie trail. Through what would have been knee or higher deep mud had we not detoured around into the woods. Which meant cutting your own trail and getting rather scratched up. Huzzah!
In Zapp's Loop, I passed a guy in white that I would end up playing tag with quite a bit. It seemed he was a bit stronger at the uphill and I was stronger at the downhill. I lost him for good after the Power Lines (capitalized!) and didn't see him finish so I hope I just missed him since I wasn't paying close attention.
I loved the Power Lines. I was with my guy in white and a group of three other guys came up behind us and we all went through it together which made it pretty fun. I'll admit, I was worried on the first one and had to remind myself that the rest aren't as bad. How to describe the Power Lines to those who haven't run them? The first one you are more or less on all fours for and can't believe that you'll still have something like 10 miles to go after trashing your quivering quads. They are hills you wouldn't ski down. They're scary to 'run' down, though it's more of a semi-controlled falling. After what I thought was the last one, I let out a loud holler that made my friend in white looked back at me rather like I was crazy so I explained that it was the end of the Power Lines. I was wrong. When I ran the course with Lisa, Ron and Shaun earlier, we had missed the turn back in and I didn't realize there was more. My friend (damn, I wish I had asked his name), also being a newbie to the race, didn't correct me and, in fact, told me to go around him since I seemed to have energy :) I felt so bad when I came out to see one more hill to go down and up! I was sure I'd have a chance to apologize since he was stronger on the uphill but he never caught me again. So if you're reading this, friend in white with a backpack water carrier, thanks for the fun and I'm sorry to have mislead you!
Coming up that last Power Line hill, I had a Northwoods teamie tell me I was in third! Third! I wasn't even thinking about placement (beyond being excited when passing a woman on the way up Zapp's Loop) so I was shocked to hear it. I decided to be happy but try not to dwell on it and keep doing my thing.
Here I am at the Grand Portage aid station (just after the Power Lines) saying "Did you say frozen grapes?!" They were amazing, by the way. How Eve managed to keep them frozen is a mystery but I loved them! I had decided to throw water on my head at this station after the heat of the Power Lines (no shade!) only to have the grapes make me forget :)
I didn't mind the miles and miles of up after the Grand Portage aid station too much. It was very pretty and I tried to focus on making the conscious decision to walk instead of letting the course beat me into walking without noticing. Coming into the next aid station, I knew I needed some sort of salty stuff. I tried a cracker but it wasn't good so I just poured some salt straight into my hand and licked it up. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. More frozen grapes.
I think I was mentally the worst off on the ski trails right before coming onto the Munger the first time - something about a ski trail makes a slow pace feel so much slower and more painful. I felt like I was putzing along and barely moving and luckily came up on Shane then. I was sad to see him since it meant he wasn't having a good day but it was nice to know that other runners struggling at that point, too.
Then came Forbay's Lake! Right after entering the trail on the other side of the road, I felt like throwing up. I was 100% sure I was going to - the saliva in the mouth, the fake heat, all of it! But nothing. I tried to run but it just jiggled everything and was miserable. That whole section the ski trails was rough - I could barely run downhill and was excited for uphill since that meant I had 'permission' to walk. It was in here that a woman went by me, putting me in 4th. I think she might have passed me even had I not been nauseous, though, because she was moving pretty strong. I think her name was Amanda? We chatted back on Jarrow's Beach and she's super nice. Sadly, I was not very coherent as she went by me here but I at least managed a "good job" I tried to take a gel but it just wasn't happening which makes me think maybe my body was over-carbed? I've read that taking in more than your stomach can handle can cause you to feel like hurling. I think I need to scale back to every 45 or 50 minutes instead of every 40. I found Kyle as my stomach was settling back down right before Jay Cooke but I handed off my opened gel since I didn't want any anymore. I still had a couple in reserve, so I figured I'd be fine.
Well, I probably should have made myself take another gel because those last 3 1/2 miles were sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long. Holy man. Well, I thought it was only 3 miles so that made it worse, too. In hind sight, I think a good deal of my stumbling about was a sign of needing more food and I ended up with 2 left over gels not counting the one I didn't really take when I should have only had one left over (I threw in an extra in case something happened and I was out on the trail much longer that I anticipated). Which means I should have taken one somewhere and completely forgot. It turns out to be harder than expected to keep track of taking fuel when you don't have a water station every couple of miles to base it off of. I think I added up my 40 minutes wrong somewhere in there, too, which is rather embarrassing to think about. Perhaps setting my watch timer to go off isn't such a bad idea.
So those last 3 1/2 miles had lots of stumbling and trying to run in between rocks and roots. Thinking to myself "Okay. 5th woman is running right now. YOU have to run." Which is the only time I was at all trying to be competitive. In fact, right before Seven Bridges (about half way in), I ended up in-between my guy in white and another women (guess I was second woman at that point) and I realized "Hey. This is making me race and I don't want to race right now. I want to enjoy this." So I let her go by and had a great time by myself on the trails. In fact, with a rare exception, every time I started hurting I took a look around and remembered how awesome trail running is and it helped me enjoy again.
I came in smiling (with eyes closed, of course!) and collected my awesome 4th woman mug. Also! A women kitty-corner from the finish had her hose hooked up to a shower head-like attachment and was letting runners take showers, which was fantastic. I really had wanted to go swimming as I was stumbling along next to the river but this was pretty good too.
Only one complaint about this race! Shirt size options were large and extra-large. I tried in vain to shrink my shirt so I might have to turn it into a bag.
I'll be back next year for sure! I was so happy the whole time that I decided to do it. I'm afraid I might be hooked on longer trail races!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
From NR: Finally, my Grandma's Report!
Hmmm. It's been a while again, hasn't it? This was a harder race report to write - I don't think I've been more disappointed immediately after a race. Don't worry, though, I'm not dwelling much, now and I know some good things came out of it this year.
So . . . let's start with the good things:
~ No matter how miserable I was feeling, the individual miles never dragged. I never felt as though I was making no progress.
~ While walking definitely occurred, never for very long and I ran the entire last 3 miles.
~ I have never felt stronger at a Grandma's finish.
~ Despite feeling as though there was NO possible way to take another gel and not throw it right back up, I ate every one on schedule and had no problems at all with them. Which means I've finally found fuel that will work no matter the weather conditions - huzzah!
~ I met an awesome runner around 16 or 17 who chatted with me (well, mostly TO me since I couldn't talk much, but I really appreciated it!) for a few miles. I finally let her go just as we were getting into town so I hope she did what she wanted.
~ I recovered at the finish (and after the race) fairly quickly.
On to race day:
I woke up Saturday morning at the campground and . . . I could see the lake! I did a little dance - seeing the lake means the humidity isn't so ridiculous. Non-ridiculous humidity was something I could handle. Time for food. Now, I don't think I've talked about all my experimenting for race day breakfast this training go-round. The last couple of years, my stomach/nerves seem to have gotten worse and worse - on race day morning, I can barely eat anything be it a marathon or a 5K. Now, it's okay to just get down a piece of toast for a 5K but it's not such a good idea for longer races and I've been trying to figure out what my stomach might tolerate come race morning. I've been doing Malt-O-Meal the last couple of years but, again, come race morning I can only get down about half of what I usually eat. Plus there's the whole - 'oh shit! My hotel room doesn't have a microwave!' problem. I'd read some things about meal replacement beverages being a good thing to try, so I experimented with a couple varieties and found that strawberry flavored Boost works great! Plus - it requires no prep so it's stress free and easily packable. Come race morning, I had no problem drinking it all down - great news!
I had laid out all my race clothes the night before and brought them out for dressing. Hmmmmm. Where are my pace bands? I printed them off, grabbed the tape to laminate them and I'm sure they made it in my bag. Hmmmmm. Can't find them anywhere. Okay. No problem. I know I need to run 8:12s for a 3:35 and even 8s for a 3:30 so I know where abouts I need to be without the band.
I had been thinking about having my parents just drop me off on the side of the highway across from the starting area. I get so annoyed waiting for the buses to slowly drive down to the drop off area. It takes a couple of minutes to get to the starting area from the pickup spot and then it takes 15 minutes to hang out there waiting until they let us off. Really, though, I get on the first bus out of the Super One lot in Two Harbors so there's plenty of time so I decided to follow the rules and take the bus. Good Sam.
Time to jump right into the porta-potty line. Get to the front, take my turn and head right back to the back of the line. I figured I didn't have anything better to do :) Connie joined the line next to me and slightly behind. Showing my usual flair for picking the worst line, Connie got through her line several minutes before me. In fact, when I hard the Star Spangled Banner going on, I decided to ditch the line and head to the start so I wouldn't miss the jet fly-over. Going by the number of people still in line, I'm not sure how they all made it through before the start. Since it was lower humidity and the sun was hiding at the start with some threatening looking clouds, I decided against the small water bottle I brought. I think that was a good decision - I didn't have to carry it around and I never really needed it. It's super comfortable but why carry what you don't need to, right? So all I needed to carry was my homemade gel pouch in my left hand. I shall update with details later!
My "stars align" goal was 3:30 and lining up at the start, I was pretty confident. I felt good, the weather looked great and I might as well just start at that pace and see what happens and how long it felt good. I think it probably would have been smarter to stick to 3:35 pace from the beginning (a difference of about 12 seconds/mile) but who knows what that would have changed. I wanted to hang out just behind the 3:30 pace balloons but could only find the 3:40 pacers in the starting crowd. I found a nice open spot a decent amount in front of them, though, and ran into Connie again. It was nice to be next to a friend at the start.
Off goes the starting horn and away we go!
My first couple miles are a little fast and I realize I'm catching up to the 3:30 balloons faster than I should so I back off a bit. I find my pace and hang out just behind the wall of people that make up the 3:30 group. Things go along pretty smoothly, actually: 7:47, 7:53, 7:56, 8:02, 8:02, 8:08, 8:03, 8:14, 8:18, 8:07. I'm comfortable where I'm at and feel strong. Then, all of a sudden, comes mile 11. Nothing too traumatic, I just suddenly look up and realize the balloons look further ahead of me and my watch is saying 8:31. Strange. The next mile - not any better. Suddenly, my body is acting strange and not responding. I tried not to really panic, since it was early on but I was nauseous and finding it hard to breathe and so it would continue for most of the rest of the race.
It was really, really frustrating. I felt as though my body was acting like it was hot and humid out and here it was, a perfectly lovely day. Okay, it wasn't PERFECT weather, but it was pretty damn nice and loads better than it has been in the past so what was up? I'm not sure at all and I don't like it. This is my first marathon that went wrong where I haven't been to pinpoint exactly WHAT went wrong. I was frustrated with myself and disappointed at my inability to get it back in as I fell further and further back. I've had plenty of training runs where there's some iffy miles that I just have to plow through and then I come out the other end of it just fine. Well, I didn't seem to be able to plow through this very strongly at all and wasn't feeling any better and was reduced to just plugging along. The outsides of both my knees were extremely sore the rest of the day, probably due to the strange shuffle I was doing.
One thing that was nice was making it to Lemon Drop (after being disappointed again by the orange slices right beforehand) only to easily run my way up it thinking how it wasn't much of a hill at all. Then, at about 3 miles left (a bit after Lemon Drop), I was 99% sure that puking was finally going to happen (this is also where I confess to thinking about taking one of those offered beer samples on London Road, just to make myself hurl and get it over with. Happily, I resisted the momentary urge!). I moved to the side and assumed the Stance (you know what I'm talking about!) but it was not to be. Okay, back into I go and then ran every step of the last three miles a million times stronger then I had been.
It's pretty fun to do those last miles while feeling not completely miserable - the crowds are massive, the downhill is so nice and I was passing tons and tons of people. However, I was pissed that I was suddenly able to go and worried that the stronger feeling wouldn't last long but decided that at this point, the plan was to go as strong as possible until I couldn't. As it turned out, I could push it good all the way in. I couldn't believe it when I got a nasty, nasty sideache less than half a mile from the finish, though. But, really, I think the only surprising part now is that I didn't get one before with all the difficulty breathing I was having. Well. Who cares if you can't breathe, there's half a mile left. I had long been promising myself that at the finish I could finally let myself hurl and let myself cry so I might as well add letting myself double over to gasp for breath to that. Happily at the finish, there was no hurling and no doubling over. I did have Tonya to hang on for a minute, though.
So the Grandma's curse stands. I'm not happy with a 4:07 when I wanted a 3:35 but this was my fastest Grandma's so far so maybe I'm chipping away at the curse little by little. Maybe next time around I'll smash through it! Right now, I'm a bit peeved that I have do a fall marathon, now, if I want to do Boston next spring. I was starting to think about Moose Mountain but I think that's a bad idea if I have to do a road marathon, too. My original backup was Fox Cities but . . . it's a lot more expensive then just doing Whistlestop. So, despite it being the weekend before Wild Duluth, I think that's going to be my plan. But we all know how well I make decisions . . .
So . . . let's start with the good things:
~ No matter how miserable I was feeling, the individual miles never dragged. I never felt as though I was making no progress.
~ While walking definitely occurred, never for very long and I ran the entire last 3 miles.
~ I have never felt stronger at a Grandma's finish.
~ Despite feeling as though there was NO possible way to take another gel and not throw it right back up, I ate every one on schedule and had no problems at all with them. Which means I've finally found fuel that will work no matter the weather conditions - huzzah!
~ I met an awesome runner around 16 or 17 who chatted with me (well, mostly TO me since I couldn't talk much, but I really appreciated it!) for a few miles. I finally let her go just as we were getting into town so I hope she did what she wanted.
~ I recovered at the finish (and after the race) fairly quickly.
On to race day:
I woke up Saturday morning at the campground and . . . I could see the lake! I did a little dance - seeing the lake means the humidity isn't so ridiculous. Non-ridiculous humidity was something I could handle. Time for food. Now, I don't think I've talked about all my experimenting for race day breakfast this training go-round. The last couple of years, my stomach/nerves seem to have gotten worse and worse - on race day morning, I can barely eat anything be it a marathon or a 5K. Now, it's okay to just get down a piece of toast for a 5K but it's not such a good idea for longer races and I've been trying to figure out what my stomach might tolerate come race morning. I've been doing Malt-O-Meal the last couple of years but, again, come race morning I can only get down about half of what I usually eat. Plus there's the whole - 'oh shit! My hotel room doesn't have a microwave!' problem. I'd read some things about meal replacement beverages being a good thing to try, so I experimented with a couple varieties and found that strawberry flavored Boost works great! Plus - it requires no prep so it's stress free and easily packable. Come race morning, I had no problem drinking it all down - great news!
I had laid out all my race clothes the night before and brought them out for dressing. Hmmmmm. Where are my pace bands? I printed them off, grabbed the tape to laminate them and I'm sure they made it in my bag. Hmmmmm. Can't find them anywhere. Okay. No problem. I know I need to run 8:12s for a 3:35 and even 8s for a 3:30 so I know where abouts I need to be without the band.
I had been thinking about having my parents just drop me off on the side of the highway across from the starting area. I get so annoyed waiting for the buses to slowly drive down to the drop off area. It takes a couple of minutes to get to the starting area from the pickup spot and then it takes 15 minutes to hang out there waiting until they let us off. Really, though, I get on the first bus out of the Super One lot in Two Harbors so there's plenty of time so I decided to follow the rules and take the bus. Good Sam.
Time to jump right into the porta-potty line. Get to the front, take my turn and head right back to the back of the line. I figured I didn't have anything better to do :) Connie joined the line next to me and slightly behind. Showing my usual flair for picking the worst line, Connie got through her line several minutes before me. In fact, when I hard the Star Spangled Banner going on, I decided to ditch the line and head to the start so I wouldn't miss the jet fly-over. Going by the number of people still in line, I'm not sure how they all made it through before the start. Since it was lower humidity and the sun was hiding at the start with some threatening looking clouds, I decided against the small water bottle I brought. I think that was a good decision - I didn't have to carry it around and I never really needed it. It's super comfortable but why carry what you don't need to, right? So all I needed to carry was my homemade gel pouch in my left hand. I shall update with details later!
My "stars align" goal was 3:30 and lining up at the start, I was pretty confident. I felt good, the weather looked great and I might as well just start at that pace and see what happens and how long it felt good. I think it probably would have been smarter to stick to 3:35 pace from the beginning (a difference of about 12 seconds/mile) but who knows what that would have changed. I wanted to hang out just behind the 3:30 pace balloons but could only find the 3:40 pacers in the starting crowd. I found a nice open spot a decent amount in front of them, though, and ran into Connie again. It was nice to be next to a friend at the start.
Off goes the starting horn and away we go!
My first couple miles are a little fast and I realize I'm catching up to the 3:30 balloons faster than I should so I back off a bit. I find my pace and hang out just behind the wall of people that make up the 3:30 group. Things go along pretty smoothly, actually: 7:47, 7:53, 7:56, 8:02, 8:02, 8:08, 8:03, 8:14, 8:18, 8:07. I'm comfortable where I'm at and feel strong. Then, all of a sudden, comes mile 11. Nothing too traumatic, I just suddenly look up and realize the balloons look further ahead of me and my watch is saying 8:31. Strange. The next mile - not any better. Suddenly, my body is acting strange and not responding. I tried not to really panic, since it was early on but I was nauseous and finding it hard to breathe and so it would continue for most of the rest of the race.
It was really, really frustrating. I felt as though my body was acting like it was hot and humid out and here it was, a perfectly lovely day. Okay, it wasn't PERFECT weather, but it was pretty damn nice and loads better than it has been in the past so what was up? I'm not sure at all and I don't like it. This is my first marathon that went wrong where I haven't been to pinpoint exactly WHAT went wrong. I was frustrated with myself and disappointed at my inability to get it back in as I fell further and further back. I've had plenty of training runs where there's some iffy miles that I just have to plow through and then I come out the other end of it just fine. Well, I didn't seem to be able to plow through this very strongly at all and wasn't feeling any better and was reduced to just plugging along. The outsides of both my knees were extremely sore the rest of the day, probably due to the strange shuffle I was doing.
One thing that was nice was making it to Lemon Drop (after being disappointed again by the orange slices right beforehand) only to easily run my way up it thinking how it wasn't much of a hill at all. Then, at about 3 miles left (a bit after Lemon Drop), I was 99% sure that puking was finally going to happen (this is also where I confess to thinking about taking one of those offered beer samples on London Road, just to make myself hurl and get it over with. Happily, I resisted the momentary urge!). I moved to the side and assumed the Stance (you know what I'm talking about!) but it was not to be. Okay, back into I go and then ran every step of the last three miles a million times stronger then I had been.
It's pretty fun to do those last miles while feeling not completely miserable - the crowds are massive, the downhill is so nice and I was passing tons and tons of people. However, I was pissed that I was suddenly able to go and worried that the stronger feeling wouldn't last long but decided that at this point, the plan was to go as strong as possible until I couldn't. As it turned out, I could push it good all the way in. I couldn't believe it when I got a nasty, nasty sideache less than half a mile from the finish, though. But, really, I think the only surprising part now is that I didn't get one before with all the difficulty breathing I was having. Well. Who cares if you can't breathe, there's half a mile left. I had long been promising myself that at the finish I could finally let myself hurl and let myself cry so I might as well add letting myself double over to gasp for breath to that. Happily at the finish, there was no hurling and no doubling over. I did have Tonya to hang on for a minute, though.
So the Grandma's curse stands. I'm not happy with a 4:07 when I wanted a 3:35 but this was my fastest Grandma's so far so maybe I'm chipping away at the curse little by little. Maybe next time around I'll smash through it! Right now, I'm a bit peeved that I have do a fall marathon, now, if I want to do Boston next spring. I was starting to think about Moose Mountain but I think that's a bad idea if I have to do a road marathon, too. My original backup was Fox Cities but . . . it's a lot more expensive then just doing Whistlestop. So, despite it being the weekend before Wild Duluth, I think that's going to be my plan. But we all know how well I make decisions . . .
Sunday, December 6, 2009
From NR - Bridge to Peace 5K race report
It was a beautiful day for a Lakewalk race on Saturday! I had been waffling a bit about the race (Bridge to Peace 5K) - which is why I was making sure to tell as many people as possible that I was going. That way it's harder to back out :) I didn't feel in good shape for a 5K. It was going to be cold. I wanted to sleep in. I wanted to go climbing the night before. Lots of excuses waiting to be used. But I knew this was a cause I really wanted to give some money to (they raised over $5000 last year) and I did want to do a 'last race' for the year so I made sure to be ready the night before.
I woke up a little worried about the cold, seeing that it would be a balmy 10 degrees and I couldn't decide what to wear. I threw on tights and then pants over that so that I'd have the option of either one. I've been running in 20 degree weather with two long sleeves and I usually have to push one of the sleeves up, so I decided on two long sleeves under my racing jersey. A hat and gloves most definitely. I've been enjoying having warm hands this year, so far - I've headed out the door with gloves several times in weather when I would have just left them behind last year. It's nice to have warm hands!
When I got down to the lakewalk - it was lovely. A little warmer than my house, no wind and quite a comfortable temperature once you got moving. We showed up much too early - I was hoping to get there right at registration opening in the hopes of getting a shirt. Well, turns out anyone who registered after November 27 didn't get a shirt on race day so there was no luck for me on race morning. But they're doing a second printing, which I think is great so I'll get my shirt next week. Then I'll do what I was planning on doing last year and do a picture of all my race shirts for the year!
I decided during the warmup with Leslie to keep my pants on for the race. There was just enough wind to seem to cut through layers and I wanted my legs to be warm so it seemed smart to keep them on. Until the starting line, anyway. Then I started realizing that I was rather warm just standing around with my race clothes on and the extra layer sure felt heavy so I decided at the last minute (about the time the starter said 30 seconds to start) to take off my pants and just do tights. A great decision! I would have been much too hot in both.
It was a pretty good race overall despite not feeling like I was in decent 5K shape. My mental game should be the same regardless of the pace I'm running so I tried to focus on being positive and staying even/not relaxing the pace. I ran almost exact even 7 minute splits so that must have worked! I figured I couldn't hope to be faster then in the 21:00s somewhere and I was on the upper end of that, so all was good. I had some people around to keep me going - I was 4th female for a while in the middle of the race and was able to keep my eye on gaining on #3 and catching her with a little under a mile to go. There were a couple of out and back spots on the course, too, which is always fun for seeing and cheering on everyone else and getting some extra encouragement!
I find myself often frustrated by staying the same distance behind someone in front of me - in this case the #2 woman. She started out faster than me and then we settled into our paces and she didn't gain any ground. I started gaining some on her the second mile and then she gained it back at the end of the 3rd mile so I wish I had just been with her and we would have been able to push each other. Not that I was really wanting a hard race but it's always annoying to see someone right up there the whole time and so you wonder if you should just kick it up for a minute to catch up since you're going the same pace. So - is this an indicator that I should start out harder? Sometimes I feel as though I start out too hard already - there's no point in jumping in front of everyone just to have them needing to get around you in the next 200 meters anyway. So maybe I just need to hold that starting pace for a little longer before settling in. Or maybe one of these races, I need to give a surge a try and see what it does to me. Clearly something I'll need to work on as I tackle my 5K goal this coming year.
So overall, I definitely recommend this race for next year! Lots of happy volunteers made this go off great. There was someone at the railroad crossing, sweeping off the snow and making sure to tell everyone that the rubber was slippery! Mile markers were great, especially with the turnarounds - it was nice to know right where you were. The finishing treats were especially yummy, too - lots of homemade bars and cookies as well as some cheese and oranges for more healthy snacking. Sadly, I wasn't able to stick around for awards, though - I had to get home and showered before work. Hopefully I'll be back for next year.
I woke up a little worried about the cold, seeing that it would be a balmy 10 degrees and I couldn't decide what to wear. I threw on tights and then pants over that so that I'd have the option of either one. I've been running in 20 degree weather with two long sleeves and I usually have to push one of the sleeves up, so I decided on two long sleeves under my racing jersey. A hat and gloves most definitely. I've been enjoying having warm hands this year, so far - I've headed out the door with gloves several times in weather when I would have just left them behind last year. It's nice to have warm hands!
When I got down to the lakewalk - it was lovely. A little warmer than my house, no wind and quite a comfortable temperature once you got moving. We showed up much too early - I was hoping to get there right at registration opening in the hopes of getting a shirt. Well, turns out anyone who registered after November 27 didn't get a shirt on race day so there was no luck for me on race morning. But they're doing a second printing, which I think is great so I'll get my shirt next week. Then I'll do what I was planning on doing last year and do a picture of all my race shirts for the year!
I decided during the warmup with Leslie to keep my pants on for the race. There was just enough wind to seem to cut through layers and I wanted my legs to be warm so it seemed smart to keep them on. Until the starting line, anyway. Then I started realizing that I was rather warm just standing around with my race clothes on and the extra layer sure felt heavy so I decided at the last minute (about the time the starter said 30 seconds to start) to take off my pants and just do tights. A great decision! I would have been much too hot in both.
It was a pretty good race overall despite not feeling like I was in decent 5K shape. My mental game should be the same regardless of the pace I'm running so I tried to focus on being positive and staying even/not relaxing the pace. I ran almost exact even 7 minute splits so that must have worked! I figured I couldn't hope to be faster then in the 21:00s somewhere and I was on the upper end of that, so all was good. I had some people around to keep me going - I was 4th female for a while in the middle of the race and was able to keep my eye on gaining on #3 and catching her with a little under a mile to go. There were a couple of out and back spots on the course, too, which is always fun for seeing and cheering on everyone else and getting some extra encouragement!
I find myself often frustrated by staying the same distance behind someone in front of me - in this case the #2 woman. She started out faster than me and then we settled into our paces and she didn't gain any ground. I started gaining some on her the second mile and then she gained it back at the end of the 3rd mile so I wish I had just been with her and we would have been able to push each other. Not that I was really wanting a hard race but it's always annoying to see someone right up there the whole time and so you wonder if you should just kick it up for a minute to catch up since you're going the same pace. So - is this an indicator that I should start out harder? Sometimes I feel as though I start out too hard already - there's no point in jumping in front of everyone just to have them needing to get around you in the next 200 meters anyway. So maybe I just need to hold that starting pace for a little longer before settling in. Or maybe one of these races, I need to give a surge a try and see what it does to me. Clearly something I'll need to work on as I tackle my 5K goal this coming year.
So overall, I definitely recommend this race for next year! Lots of happy volunteers made this go off great. There was someone at the railroad crossing, sweeping off the snow and making sure to tell everyone that the rubber was slippery! Mile markers were great, especially with the turnarounds - it was nice to know right where you were. The finishing treats were especially yummy, too - lots of homemade bars and cookies as well as some cheese and oranges for more healthy snacking. Sadly, I wasn't able to stick around for awards, though - I had to get home and showered before work. Hopefully I'll be back for next year.
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