Freedom Run

I woke up Saturday morning with a headache, a sore throat, and I was congested. Sounds like a fine time to jump in the car for a 90 minute round trip for a 5k right? I didn't plan on racing but got the urge Friday night, so I found a race in Sanford. Starts at 10am and I woke up about 7:30. Jumped in the car and headed down the road. Starting my warm up, I decided that it was called the freedom run, because I was going to be free from a good time. (Side note, I just got dealt 2/7 off suit in my poker game. That should be an auto misdeal right?). On the warm up, I was sluggish, my legs would not move and I was still trying to to clear my nose and throat. But I was here, I had paid, might as well run right? When the race went off the young guns immediately started running 5 minute pace. Knowing no one in this crowd was going to run 15:30, I stayed back. But I just didn't feel good, every stride felt very forced, I could not find my comfort zone. I reached the mile mark at 5:28. Not bad, but I now have an uphill 2nd mile. I was in 3rd place, about 12 seconds back of the 2 leaders, having just passed one guy. That guy passed me back as we got to the bottom of the hill and headed up. By the turn around, I was exhausted and had little interest in running. But I needed to get a baseline on my fitness which is the only reason I was here. Mile 2 was an uninspired 5:52. But I knew I had a majority of the final mile downhill. So I picked it up. The guy that passed me at the mile, was now leading with the 2 young guys coming back to me. With 1/4 mile to go, I was in striking distance of 2nd and third and started my "kick". Which may have qualified as the weakest "kick" in the history of 5k's. I pulled even with 3rd place with 300 meters to go but I was done. With 150 to go, I fell back and finished at 17:24, 6 seconds out of 2nd and 3 seconds out of third. But I was very pleased with the effort given my injury time. I think come April, I will be ready to run hard again and come May, I will be back in Tri shape! Oh yeah

Little River 10 miler (a little late)

I am not in shape and wasn't ready to run this race.  But I figured I suffered through 14 miles and much blood and blisters to get through Run at the Rock, might as well do this. Plus I was racing for FS Series and there were only 4 of us, so I had to run and finish. SO I tried to get up for this race, here is the extent of my motivation when the alarm clock went off.

So after crawling out of my slumber, I tripped down the stairs and downed what mountain dew I had left in the fridge. (Which just happened to be a 2 litter minus one glass). After that and a PB&J Bagel, I was ready to go, or Dave had showed up to pick me up, one of the two. Once we got there, I decided I needed a good warm up, so I cranked the seat heater up as high as it would go and sat in the car. After I was good and warmed up, it was time for the cool down, so I walked from the car to pickup my number. Cool down was a success. After 20 more minutes of debating, Dave and I went for a run in the woods to preview the first part of the race. For some reason my head still wasn't in the race and I was not exactly sure what I needed to wear. So I put my racing shoes and gloves on and started walking to the line, then I remembered I needed to take my long pants off, put on my long sleeve shirt and race singlet, and head band. Ok now I am really ready. Off to the line, Ugghhh, I guess a number would be good for identification purposes when I pass out in the woods, back to the car. Ok now I am ready.... blister spot on heel hurts. Guess I need to find vaseline and band aid pretty quick. So I ran around asking all the race officials. Everyone seem to think everyone else had the first aid kit. Mental note, don't get injured here, no one has a first aid kit. Finally I found a band aid and made it to the starting line with 2 minutes to spare. Now for the strategy. Start slow? Fast? Medium? What about my limit, I know I am going to crash around 45-50 minutes. That is the extent of my endurance right now. So the gun goes off and I just start talking to Jason. We converse about how serious everyone else is, having fun because it is supposed to be fun, who is dumber a guy that starts out to fast or the dumb ass that knows a guy is starting to fast and follows him anyway (names and race omitted to protect identities. Although I will say in said race, I may have been the guy that started too fast). Next thing I know other than David Roche (super fast shirtless douchebag (ok, he is a nice guy I am just kidding), Jason and I are leading the rest of the pack. Not sure how that happened but I will roll with it. About 18 minutes in, Jason left me to go chase down a high school kid. I opted to stay back and try not to really bonk the last 3 miles. The next few miles are basically, turn right, turn left, right, left, yada yada, Still holding 4th place though so I am feeling good. I look down at my watch and I see what I already knew, danger zone. 44 minutes. On one of the switchbacks, I was trying to see if I could see Dave and shout some support at him, and forgot a little detail like lifting my feet. So I took a face first slide. BUT, I tucked my head and rolled and in one graceful move, I was back on my feet without losing my position. At this point I feel like this guy.

But shortly after that I guess the other guys knew I was toast and one after the other I got the dreaded "on your left". And I dropped back to somewhere in the 7-9 range. Now all I can think about is getting to the finish, lift my feet and OUCH my heel hurts. It feels like the vaseline and band aid are not helping. Pre race I had decided that at 50 minutes, I would be in a 10 minute all out surge and hold on. That plan was out the window, the new plan was now. 1. Don't pass out 2. Don't walk. 3. Find a happy place, find a happy place. I finally cross the trail meaning I have about 3-4 minutes left. Yet I decide there is no reason to push it. Some guy goes by me and I wish him luck. When I pop out the woods and make the turn for home, there is one guy in front of me. Knowing that I have less than 60 seconds left, I put in a mini surge to over take him. To my surprise I cross the line in 1:12:28, which is actually a PR for this course for me. That means 3 straight years I have managed to not be in shape in January. You would think I would do something about that? But I had fun and got some exercise so it is all good. And team FS Series won the team competition so my efforts were not in vain! Oh yeah. After the race I felt like this guy.  But maybe that was because of all the people pointing at me and laughing? Hmmmmm

Back in the saddle

I am trying to officially kick off my training for next season. I am trying to get my base fitness up and of course as soon as I started I got sick :( So now I am trying to get over the fatigue right now and back into a rhythm. I am running only until Jan 15 (day after little river). Then I will start a full time schedule of running, biking and  even (gasp) swimming. My goal is to get a March half marathon, a few early season Tri's and then A race White Lake. After that, nonthing specific, but I want to get a few more tri's plus one more half, in and then a late fall marathon. If I stay healthy all year and race well, I am targeting a late season Ironman in 2013. I also plan to start blogging regularly again. Might even throw some non racing posts in there. I am debating on whether or no to write a long winded non racing related post now or not. Good Luck to all in the New Year!

Run (ish) at the Rock

Courtesy of Thunder Road

I always enjoy doing this race. I skipped it last year in favor of running the Thunder Road Marathon. For those of you who follow my blog, you know how well that turned out for me. See Picture. This year I did not come into the race in shape due to the notorious recurring calf injury. I was unable to run so the three weeks prior, I got in 2 runs and a few bikes leading up to the race. Race morning I was not too motivated to run and was a little slow getting out the house. Maybe I should have taken that as a sign? When the gun went off, I found myself starting way too fast so I backed off and tried to settle into a pace closer to what I needed. Mile 1 was a 6:15. Normally that would not be a problem, except this is not the road, bad footing, and I am not in form. So yeah it was going to be a long next 13 miles. Mile 2 was more normal but I was already mentally out of it. I was already contemplating when I was going to call it a day. I could take a short cut back to the main road, I could dart off course at mile 3. I call myself a quitter and a few expletives which I can't write on here and keep going. At mile 4, I followed 2 guys in front of me off course and across a creek. We get turned around and have to go back across the creek. I now have wet shoes. I stop here and contemplate calling it a day. But convince myself to run the last 3 miles back to the start. By mile 5 I can feel the blisters on my heels. It really starts hurting and I decide to just run one lap. By the time lap one is almost over my heels are on fire, my legs are dead and I am mentally still in Atlantic City at the poker tables. I tell myself to stop but after another round of insults in my head and even more expletives, I keep running. Great, now I am all alone with 7 miles to run. The last lap was a combination of anger at my calf injury which cost me fitness and disappointment as I knew from the splits on my watch that I would not meet my goal time. By mile 11, I can barely stand up. My legs are rubber and my feet are torn up. As I got to 13.5 a young guy comes racing by me. Only to turn around a hundred yards later to see if I am chasing him. If he would have asked I would have told him he could power walk and I would still not try to chase him. As I cross the finish line, I collapse and look down at my black shoes which are now red. Yikes. That is going to hurt for a while.

Both heels looked just like this.