2007 Johnstown Marathon Results

3:14:29
11/111 overall
4/15
Dead toenail count: 3

Oh, were to begin with the excuses…

Well, the start time is 9am in early October, which normally would be fine. At 9, the weather was great, low 60s. But this is a marathon, and the last 6 miles were in open beating-down sun with temperatures in the mid 80’s. That slowed down everyone this day. At the finish line, everyone I talked to was disappointed with their slow times. That’s excuse #1. A few states over at the same time, the Chicago marathon was shut down due to hot weather.

Excuse #2 (the big one): On Friday morning, a mere 51 hours before I was to start my race I woke up with the initial signs of bad sinus infection. The last time this happened to me before a race (my 50 miler attempt in Nov 2006 in Chicago) I self medicated, not wanting to see a doctor and get told not to run. That was dumb last time, so I was smarter this time. I was at my doctor’s office right at 8 am when they opened up and begged to see him. He was full that morning, but they got me in, and sure enough, sinus infection. We decide to treat it ‘aggressively’ and he asks if I want t shot of antibiotic to kick start the drugs. I say yes, of course. They give me the shot in the meaty part of my upper left thigh. I have had this done before and quickly remembered how unbelievably sore it gets after such a shot. There were times when I could not stand it was so painful. Imagine someone placing a large board on your leg and then pounding board as hard as they can with a sledgehammer. It was worse than that. I worked out the muscle most of Friday, such that I didn’t feel the soreness on Saturday morning. Good. I take the drugs and they help, but I am not completely over it when I wake up (after not sleeping well) at 3:45 Sunday morning. Ok, so race morning and I pound down my antibiotic, some Zycam, and some Dayquil. A little nasal spray for good measure and I head out to the start. I know my congestion is going to slow me a bit, but I try very hard to stay motivated.

At about mile 8, my entire left leg begins to feel ‘sore’ as if I did a hard run on it recently, which of course, I had not. What was weird was that A) it was my entire leg, not just one or two muscles, and B) it was only my left leg. After about a half mile of pain, I realized it was the shot. My leg had not fully recovered from the ‘soreness’ brought on from the shot, and so I had to suffer through it for the last 18 miles of the race. I was on a sub-2:55 pace (about 6:39/mi) until that point, but I had to slow up and in fact walk a few sections near the end.

So, the drugs were needed to fight the infection which slowed me down a little, for sure, but the shot slowed me down more. I blame the sinus infection, either way

Excuse #3: Ok, so yes, I was shooting for a PR is this race. Even after Friday morning’s fiasco I thought I still might be able to do it. I have stopped following a training schedule (per se) a lot time ago because I didn’t like how it tied my hands and made my running feel like work. So why did I think I could run a PR? Well, I have been training with my Cross Country team since August, doing some hard workouts, or so I thought.

I sort of have made the decision to run marathons for fun, not racing every one of them. The reason is two-fold. 1) I can’t ‘race’ a marathon every 3 weeks, I’ll die. 2) Following a set training schedule just sort of bums me out these days. So what I have decided to do this winter season is just work on getting my base mileage up to 65-70 miles per week. I have been sitting at 45-50 for a while now. Get my base up with only a little bit of ‘fast’ work, not paying any attention to any sort of training schedule and running Harpeth Hills, Vegas, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale as training runs. Get my finishers medal and say thank you. I know I can survive, and someday I will get back to focusing on a race and even following a training schedule for it, but not for a little while.

2007 University of Okoboji Marathon Results

2:59:25
4/119 Overall
1/20 Age
Dead toenail count: 3

This was a really nice small community marathon with less than 120 finishers. One piece of evidence, when the announcer said my name at the awards ceremony there was an ‘oooohh’ when he said I was all the way from Michigan. Really nice shirt, decent race support, nice course, all for $30? That’s a deal and a half.

This was my first marathon since my big decision to stop ‘racing’ every marathon I enter. I am hoping to run a total of 8 marathons this calendar year and can’t bust my butt at every single race. So for this one I decided to go out ‘slow’ and get in gear early and hold it. At the start (about 50 degree with a nice breeze) I started out with front group for the 1st mile. The pace felt good but I did not look at my watch until we hit the mile 1 marker and then I noticed I was going to fast (about 6:17) so I let the crowd of 5 guys go, then dropped back to 6:40 and stuck it ‘in gear’ for the rest of the race. I would have finished a little sooner but I made at least one wrong turn that cost me at least a minute. The official time says that my overall average pace was 6:51, but my GPS watch had me averaging 6:45 for the whole race but it also said I ran more than 0.25 mile long. Oh well. I got under 3 hours, which makes me happy.

The course was very pretty, going around a nice large lake with some stretches on county highways and some stretches through residential lake front streets. The course markings were so-so, and there were only two aid stations in the first 6 miles which ticked me off. After that they got more frequent. The temperature was not too high, so keeping appropriately hydrated was easy. The course had several ‘rolling hills’ but none of them were too high or too long. A pleasant course, just make sure to drive it beforehand or you can easily get lost.

Under 3 hours without even really trying. Who knows what will happen when I go back to actually racing these marathons. Yippie!

2007 Hatfield McCoy Marathon Results

3:17:11 (7:32/mil)
5/191 Overall
1/9 Age
Dead toenail count: 4

Oh my, what a race! Ok, so the actual race kicked my butt in a huge way. All the reviews were right, this is an incredibly difficult course with hills galore. None of them really steep, but get enough gentle rolling hills and it starts to hurt, with one of them over a mile long at about mile 7. There was another one at mile 23 that was about half a mile long that hurt as well. The weather was a factor as well, with the start at ~70 degrees and ~80 by the finish. Now that I learned my lesson regarding hydration during marathons, I carried a 20 oz bottle of Gatorade with me and still drank water/Gatorade at every one of the 25 some odd water stations throughout the course. I still felt a little dehydrated at the end.

I finished 5th overall, but I will admit that I had to take walking breaks starting at mile 18. Even with all of those, I lost only one place between there and the end. I sweat like a pig, which was fine except for the fact that my feet got very wet (even with ‘running’ socks) and so I got a 4 big honkin’ blisters. At three separate points in the race it felt like someone chopped off one of my toes (each time a different toe) but after 10 minutes the feeling passed in each instance.

The course might have been rough as can be, but the hospitality of the community and race officials is beyond compare. I paid $30 for this race and I got a ok t-shirt, a fabulous pasta dinner, a respectable finishers medal (better than Boston), a free lunch of pulled pork chips and soda, and an 18” trophy for finishing 1^st in my age. That’s the material benefits, the people running the race were kind and friendly. Everyone from the ladies helping at packet pickup, to the people serving pasta to the many many water stations volunteers, to the sweet ladies who gave my Gatorade, cold towels and cold sponges at the finish. I can truly see why this marathon has the great reputation it has.

The race is not that popular with less than 250 runners, but they all have an interesting story. I saw a whole bunch of people who are members of the marathon maniacs as well as the 50 states marathon club. I met one guy who was running his 100^th marathon, all of which were after he was 51 years old. I met a whole bunch of people who run marathons for fun, not for the competition. The guy who finished 6^th overall lives in Columbus, OH and is trying to run 12 marathons this year, one every month. Me, I am just trying to run 7 in total this year. Maybe next year I will try 12. In other words, this marathon draws the marathons ‘wackos’. Understand that I use that as a term of endearment as I am becoming one of those wackos.

This area is economically depressed ($3.50 for a matinee movie, yeah!), just like the entire state of Michigan, so they depend a lot on tourism. You can tell traveling around the area that the whole Hatfield-McCoy thing is something that they play up to get people to visit here. If you ask me, the energy they put into this marathon is worth so much more.

This was one of my lesser marathon finishes, but it will be by far one of the most memorable.

2007 Boston Marathon Results

3:09:50 (7:15/min pace)
1888th place overall (out of 20,348)
1262 in division (out of 4525)

Oh my oh my! What an experience! I am now in very select company as I am now officially a Boston Marathon finisher. It truly is one of the most memorable experiences of my entire life, no doubt.

The weather forecast three days before the race was downright horrible. Low 40’s, steady rain winds 20-30 MPH gusting to 50 MPH. There was serious talk of cancelling, mostly for safety issues. Runners were talking about nothing else in those last 48 hours. It was a bona fide Nor’easter that ran through the area but luckily, the brunt of it was done by early race morning.

The expo (imagine 250 businesses selling running stuff to them most dedicated runners in the world) was huge and seriously cool. I bought very little, but received a whole lot of free stuff, food, blister stuff, sunscreen, chap-stick, etc. It was wall to wall runners all day long. The ‘energy’ of the expo was seriously cool.

After the expo, I got to head over to finish line to take some pictures as I knew it would be hard on race day. It turns out, lots of people have the same idea.


My race day started early, waking up at about 4:45. I took my time drinking my tea, a warm slow shower, heading for the subway at about 5:20 am. I needed to ride the subway for 10 minutes to get to the buses that took us to the Athlete’s Village, a staging ground 0.7 miles from the start line. Since it takes so long to get everyone there (23,000+) they started the buses early. I got there in time (2 hours before I needed to leave for the start) to stake out a small parcel of land (2′ x 5′) to sit under the big circus tent.


The temperature at this point was in the high 30’s so not bad. I took my time getting ready, stretching, eating a bagel and connecting my homemade gators to my shoes.
This was a custom system that I built just before I left Michigan, a two piece operation that allowed my feet to breath yet stay dry in the hardest of rain. You can tell who my father is (Thanks Dad!). In the end, it did keep my feet drier that without it. People complimented me on my ingenuity. Some people were wearing plastic bags on their feet right up until the start.

At about 9:10 (50 min before the start) I started my walk to the starting line. My drop bag (my clothing and stuff I wanted at the end of the race) was put inside a well labeled bus and then it was just me, my shoes, my running clothes and a 26.2 mile run to the finish. I got to the start line just in time to watch the elite women start (25 min before my start time) and then I entered my corral. Your starting location is based on your qualifying time. I registered using my 2:59:04 from Sunburst which put me in the second corral. I found out I could have updated my qualifying time with my 2:55:30 from the A1A Marathon and then I would have been in the very first corral, but decided that since I was not racing this one, it was fine. 2 min before the start I removed one layer, a cotton t-shirt under my windbreaker. The nice lady holding up the rope separating corral 1 from corral 2 took it from me with a smile.

The gun went off right at 10 am, and surprisingly, I passed the start line within 20 seconds of the start. Another fear that did not come up was that the first few miles would be spent running on top of people feet. The seeding of the start is a great idea so everyone was moving at the same pace around you.

The course starts out with a whole bunch of downhill running, and I knew that and LISTENED to everything I hear that said to hold back. I did that, just getting into a groove that felt comfortable. After less than a mile I knew that I needed to ditch my other cotton shirt I was wearing, but because of my windbreaker and how it was fashioned, it would have taken me 2 minutes if I stopped and removed it. I decided to do my best Incredible Hulk impersonation and unzipped my windbreaker halfway and literally ripped the shirt apart to take it off. And guess what, the shirt was a bright lime green color

My biggest concern for the race was the cold. I wore enough clothes to keep me warm, but the clothes that kept me warm slowed me down, probably adding 5 pounds to my weight once they were wet with rain/sweat. That was fine. Survival this day was more important than a fast finish time.

The miles rolled on, and if you recall, I got more than a little dehydrated back at the A1A marathon, so this time I was much better at hydrating. At every water aid station (roughly every mile) I took a cup and walked for 4 steps while getting a good swallow. After the half way mark I switched to Gatorade and took 2-3 swallows walking for 6-8 steps. Hey, I was getting tired…

They say that this is the largest spectator event in the world with 500,000+ watching it ‘live’ throughout the course. I am sure the weather kept some people away, but there was pretty constant crowds the whole way which was really cool. There were lots of kids holding out their hands for high-5’s and I obliged for about 100 of them throughout the course.

There was of course the famous ’scream tunnel’ which is where you run by Wellesley College and the women of Wellesley stand there and scream at the top of their lungs for you and beg for kisses. It is true, you can hear them a little over half a mile away and it is deafening. Thousands of co-eds screaming you encouragement. Because it is tradition, I had to stop for a kiss, well I got three. The last one from a nice young woman who held a sign that said simply ‘Take a break. Kiss me.’ I did both, but quickly. The excitement gave me a nice shot in the arm in terms of motivation, but only lasted for about a mile before my body reminded me that it was cold, wet and tired. I remarked to the runners around me that Wellesley college needs to be at mile 22, not mile 13.

I was never planning on ‘racing’ this one, meaning I was not shooting for a PR or anything. I am currently in heavy training for the Hatfield/McCoy Reunion Marathon in early June and I did not want to take a week off from that training schedule to recover from a hard Boston, so I took it easy. My training schedule for this week called for a 18 mile run at a 7:00/mile pace. At mile 18, I checked my watch, 6:55 pace. Great, I said, now I have a nice gentle 8 mile cool down run. My pace slowed and I tried to enjoy the crowds a little more, using them to get me through the numerous gentle, but long, hills that ended with that famous one, ‘heartbreak hill’. I was happy to get to the top, but then annoyed as after that there were still a bunch of small ones that I did not realize existed. I am sure they seemed worse than they were, but remember, I had already be running for 20+ miles.
Once you turn on to Bolyston street, it is less than 0.5 mile to the finish. After you take the turn you can see the banner over the road. It just calls to you, drawing you in. Literally with less than 0.15 mile to go, I got a nasty cramp in the back of my leg. I stumbled for a few steps, laughed out loud and said ‘good timing’ yet ran on.

The finish line was a well-oiled volunteer machine. Medical personnel, Mylar space blankets, chip removal, food/water, finishers medal (which if you ask me is pretty lame). Everything was great, right up until the time came to get my drop bag. Thousands of runners stood outside buses with bags, trying to stay warm as volunteers tried very hard to get bags to the appropriate people quickly. It took a while, and some runners began to get rather upset. I was just getting very cold and starting to shiver. Once I had my bag I found an entryway to a restaurant to do a quick costume change into warm clothes. That made a world of difference.
A short walk back to my hotel ended in a nice hot shower. My toes held out good considering how wet they got. I did put a lot of Vaseline on them before the race and I think that really helped. A few small blisters popped, dry socks, clean clothes. All was good. A nice dinner at the hotel restaurant with a big juicy steak (NO MORE PASTA PLEASE!!) and it was off to bed.

The experience was great. Now, two days later, I feel a little depressed, only because a joyous event that I had been focusing on and looking forward to for so long was now complete and behind me. Anticipation is now all gone, replaced by memories.

Thank you all who gave me words/emails of encouragement. They helped me through the crappy conditions. I love you all!

2007 A1A Marathon Results

2:55:30
2/435 overall

Yup, you saw that right, 2^nd place overall. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I was actually in the lead for the first 25 miles.

The day started off great, dark and about 48 degrees. Perfect running weather for a guy from Michigan. The locals were shivering in the cold air. The half marathon and full marathon started at the same time (6 am) so I was not to concerned about the flurry of people in front of me at the start. I just got into my rhythm of about 6:15 pace, which is a little faster than I wanted to go. I met a woman at the start who was trying to Olympic qualifying time of 2:48. She looked like she could do it too. In the end, she did not qualify.

The course was gorgeous, running almost the whole way along the beach. We started the race heading west towards the ocean, and as we crossed a bridge, the yellow orange horizon of the sun was just coming up. It was beautiful. The sunrise 20 minutes later was awesome.

The two races follow the same course until about mile 6.5 when the half marathoners turn left and the marathon runners turn right. As I came around the corner I saw the big sign with the arrow for marathon runners to turn right, so I changed lanes and started my turn. There was a crowd of people there who all started moving when I came around. Two police officers on motorcycles took off, a race official on a bike gets going and a Harley starts driving besides me with a cameraman on the back filming me the whole way. I was like ‘cool’. And I ask the dude on the bike “how many people are in front of me”. He says ‘Nobody, they were all half marathoners’. I told him to stop lying to me and tell me how many runners there were in front of me. He said he was serious, I had the lead in the marathon and he could not see the second place runner.

This is about where I started to freak out. I was in a comfortable run grove, but I have never led a race, let alone win one, so I got nervous. I decided to just stay in my rhythm and never look back to see if the 2^nd guy was gaining on me. For the first time in my life I had lots of people cheering ME on, and I knew it was just for me, because I was in the LEAD and there was nobody else around me. After the half way point, when I started seeing the other marathoners coming towards me, they were cheering. That’s why I am used to doing, cheering on the leaders as I run behind them. It was weird.

I took the half marathon turn at under 1:20:00 which (had I stopped there) would have broken my personal best for a half marathon by almost 5 minutes (I felt good!) and still no one in sight behind me.

At about mile 15, a light rain came out of nowhere, but then turned into an absolute downpour for about 5 minutes. Cold windy and now rainy. Awful conditions. The good news was that it lasted for only 5 minutes, but the bad news is that in that 5 miles, my shoes got soaked and I was running on bricks the rest of the race.
At about mile 17 or so, I actually started to see things. Strange concentric circles began to permeate my vision. That was just the start of what ended up being hallucinations. After the fact I realized I just did not drink enough (having just a little water at each station) so I got dehydrated. During the race I couldn’t think enough to say to myself ‘oh, I need to drink more’. That was the one big thing I learned on this day. I shall never forget it, because it cost me my goal of 2:50 and the win, the latter I never expected. At about mile 20, I lost feeling in my hands, and at mile 23, I lost feeling in my feet. In mile 24 my brain started to go fuzzy. Yeah, it was that bad.

I used my bike escort (who was with me the whole way starting at mile 6.5) to my advantage. He would go ahead of me at each water stop and tell them to only hold out water, far from my body (so it wouldn’t spill on me). I also had him stop at mile 20 and start a stopwatch and find out exactly how much of a lead (in time) I had on second place. I was starting to fail, and I wanted to know how much of a buffer I had. It was 3 minutes with 6 miles to go. That helped a little, but I knew he could catch me if I slowed down any more, which I did. I averaged 6:10 miles for the first half marathon, but lost all that, finishing with a 6:42 average pace. I have almost no memory of miles 22-26, as I was trying to keep going, wanting to stop and pass out. I tried so hard just to stay alive and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Right around mile 25, I lost the lead. Again, a lead I never thought I should have had. I did not fight it, for I had nothing left.

When I crossed the finish line, I had three people come grab me because they could tell I was about to fall over and go night-night. They sat me down, gave me fluids and food. I did not stand up for almost an hour. At one point one of the medical personnel was telling me they were about to take me to the hospital. I assured them I was recovering, just slowly. I downed 5 bottles of fluid (4 fluid replacement drinks, 1 water) and ate a muffin, a bagel and 4 (really good!) cookies. I also got interviewed by the local newspapers and television station. I didn’t get as much copy as the guy who won it, but I at least got my name mentioned, and not just in the results section. THAT was cool.

I would like to run this race again, not just because I almost won it, but because the course was so beautiful. That is reason enough to do it again. Don’t think that I almost won it because I am really fast. It was a slow field of racers, truly. A winning time of 2:54:30 is not that fast. I know I could have done better, and now I know I am a legit marathon runner. Time to start training for my next marathon.
Next marathon on deck? Boston. Yeah baby!

2006 Chicago Lakefront Ultra Results

Well, it must happen to the best of us, my first DNF (did not finish) In the grand scheme of things, I probably should not have attempted the run in the first place. Yes, I know excuses are like bowel movements, everyone has them and they all stink, but I will give three valid reasons. Take them or leave them, it is how I am going to get through my dejection.

DNF (well, sortof, see below) Finished second loop (of 3 loops) total of 34.2 miles in 5:09:30


1. My cardiovascular system was severely broken.
On Tuesday of this week I noticed a tickle in my throat. By Wednesday I was coughing up serious lung crap and feeling pretty awful. Thursday and Friday saw me get worse. I was hopped up on Robitussin, Dayquil, Zycam, Vitamin C, and oranges. I had no appetite whatsoever and tried and failed to finish many meals in those last days. On race morning, 3 hours before thr start, I coughed up a piece of phlegm that had the same consistency, but not quite the size of a gummi worm. Yeah, it was pretty gross. I made the attempt anyways, having come this far.

Because I was so sick, my heart rate was higher than it should have been. Early in the week I went for two 6 mile runs with my heart rate monitor. In both cases, I ran about 7:45/mile pace and my heart rate stayed right about 150. During the race, when running a full 1 minute per mile SLOWER, I could not keep my heart rate below 170. My body had shut down. With my heart racing and me trying to keep some semblance of competitive pace, my legs began to show the effects of reduced stamina. My legs are now jello, with it hurting to just move. I tried everything, twice as much sleep as normal, drugs and healthy food trying so hard to recover quickly, and yet I failed.

2. Running the Detroit marathon two weeks beforehand.
2 weeks ago I run 26.2 miles at 7:35/mile pace (and taking my time and feeling great) but in the ultra, I run 34.2 miles at >8:45 pace and feel awful. I was a little injured afterward and it took me a few days to recover. I am not sure that was the best idea. My confidence was certainly way high afterward.

3. I started running again in fall of 2005.
I have only been running for a hair over a year. Only a psycho could believe they could survive a 50 mile race after such a short training time. During the race I cursed myself for failing, having to walk in several spots during the last 8 mile stretch I ran. Here, almost 24 hours afterward as I write this I still feel like a horrible failure. I am not sure how to combat that and get off my self abuse. Nobody else considers me a failure, especially people who know how sick I was.

I am mortal, I guess. Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

2006 Detroit Marathon Results

3:18:48
Underwater mile split 7:02
274/3876 Overall
33/341 Age
Ok, I know, thats not fast for me (hey, I was still in the top 10%!), but this was my last ‘training run’ before my 50 mile ultra in 13 days. I desperately tried to start out slow, I did I did. It seemed the first 10 miles I was saying to myself ’slow down, slow down’ and I would back down. After 21 miles, I decided to treat this like a training run, so I picked up the pace for the last 5 miles, running them about 7:15 pace. Passing people was kindof fun actually. Here, 5 hours after my finish, I feel pretty darn good. One blister on the side of one toe, and a blister over where my ankle brace touches the top of my foot.

My lovely wife and daughter were my ‘crew’ giving me encouragement, hugs and some ‘different’ marathon food. I wanted to test a few ‘new’ things for my ultra. This time I tried potato chips to go along with my peanut butter sandwich and ‘flat’ coke. Yummy yummy. I also took along my cell phone to communicate with Val and SJ, but also to call my parents around mile 10. I tried using my cell phone’s ‘hands-free’ microphone/earplug combo but it didn’t work out so hot, so I had to resort to using it the old fashioned way, holding it up to my ear. That worked OK, since I was still sort of jogging.

The weather was OK, the temp was nice at ~43 for the majority of the race, but the wind was brutal in some spots (gusts over 20 mph) That was probably good practice for Chicago, now that I think about it…
I learned a lot, this last test drive before the chicago ultra, namely:
1. Go out slow, force yourself. Tell yourself ‘If I still feel this great at mile 30, then I can pick it up’. I will have my heart rate monitor with me (I forgot it this time) so that will help.
2. Eat more. After my PB sandwich at mile 13 I didn’t get hungry again, but I should have eaten some more. I had plenty of water and gatorade, drinking some at every other station it seemed.
3. As soon as it feels like a blister, stop and correct it. I pushed on today because I knew I could survive until the finish. If I get another one in mile 20 in Chicago, I WILL stop.
4. Sunglasses! I forgot mine and had to steal my wifes at mile 8.5, the first time I saw her.
Well, now my taper REALLY begins for Chicago. 13 days to go, I will be easy on myself, with gentle runs of 7:45 pace. I can’t don’t anything now that will make me faster, but I can screw up and make me slower. I hope I remember that these last days…