2008 A1A Marathon Results

3:14:33
17/504 Overall
6/59 Age
dead toenail count: 1.5
Ok, yes I know I was supposed to be closer to a 2:55 for this one, and I was on that pace for the first 16 miles, I promise. Then the proverbial wheels fell off.

For the third time in (sort of) three times, a legitimate taper killed me. I was shooting for a PR at this race because of the flat course and expected nice weather (which I sort of got). That means I reduced my mileage quite a bit the last 3 weeks. I ran the Miami marathon three weeks ago as a jog and it was my last long run before this race. My weekly mileage, which is normally ~55 miles a week dropped to less than 30, with me only running 18 miles the week of the marathon. On Monday, 6 days before the race I went home and proceeded to violently vomit up my chili lunch. After a few very painful trips to the bathroom (dry heaves, yuck) I went to bed feeling awful. I took the next day off from work, went to the doctor and got some anti-nausea meds and tried desperately to rest and recover the rest of the week.

 Come race day I thought I felt ok, and my legs felt great. I was just tired. My whole body was dragging, not anything specific. By mile 16 I knew I was slowing and by mile 20 all I wanted to do was stop, lie down and take a nap. That and I was really hungry too. Like Big Mac hungry. It was a feeling I have never experienced during a marathon before.

It was last years A1A marathon I had my famous dehydration hallucination bouts, so this year I made sure to drink plenty during the race, and I did taking water AND Gatorade at almost every water station. Stephanie was there as my cheering squad and each of the 4 or so times I saw her I had her offer me a water bottle with Gatorade just in case I was not getting enough at the aid stations. It turned out I did not need it, but she was such a good support crew. At about mile 21 there was an ‘alternative’ aid station. A big sign just before said ‘next stop, water or beer, your choice!’. As I came upon them I yelled ‘I need a beer!’ they cheered me on and gave me a nice cup of what tasted like Michelob. I think it was the best tasting beer I had ever had.

The race course, being the same as last year was still beautiful. The temperature at race start was about 69 degrees and warmed to about 76 by the end. There was a stiff steady wind (maybe 8 mph) off the ocean that at times kind of annoyed me, but kept the effective temperature down which was nice.

Last year I did not get to enjoy the post race food as I spend an hour in the medical tent due to my dehydration. This year being a smarter runner allowed me to partake of the most excellent post race goodies. Pasta from California Pizza Kitchen, muffins and cookies from Publix (Yum!) and free Michelob Ultra from the local Budweiser folk made my starving tummy very happy afterwards. I managed to save enough energy at the very end to do another handstand at the finish line which seems to be a new tradition that I have. As tired as I was I manged to hold it longer than at the Miami marathon.

In the end, I finished a respectable 17th (top 3.3%) even though I had to take walking breaks starting at mile 20. This is partly why I run a marathon every month. When I have ‘down’ races, I do not have to look far into the future for my redemption. My next marathon, only 5 weeks away is one the ocean front once again, only this time in sunny New Jersey!

What am I? I'm a Marathoner

Yeah yeah, so is everyone else who runs marathons, what’s the big deal. Well, my running has taken over my life, or at least a good chunk of it. Let’s look at some facts:

- I have run 11 marathons between June of 2006 and January of 2008, a time of roughly 18 months.

- I run 5K races as often as I can, just for the speed training. Of all the work I need to do to become a better marathoner, I detest the ’speed’ work the most. So to properly motivate myself, I run 5K’s because my competitiveness will get me through it as a hard ‘fast’ workout. A t-shirt for my speed training? Cool!

- Here in early February I have registered from my February marathon, my March one, and one in April. I know which marathon I am running in May as well and have a good idea what marathons I am running in June, July and August. If you pressed me, I could tell you what I am running in September, October, November, and December. Remember, this is early February when I write this.

- I run 50-60 miles a week, every week. At ~8 miles an hour, my running is a 6-8 hour/week part time job. I plan my days around my running. I will run at crazy hours, getting it whenever I can. I have never missed a run because I didn’t have time. I find the time, every day.

- As I pen this blog entry, I have 6 pairs of running shoes, each with some amount of effective ‘life’ left on them.

- Halfway through writing this blog entry I went and got my bucket of ice water to soak my feet, a ritual I do to cut down on inflammation. I decided to look at my toenails, and in that evaluation, I decided to remove the toenail on the big toe of my right foot. It did not hurt as it had ‘died’ a little while ago. I have lost the toe nail of every one of my ten toes at least twice, each. This fact does not bother me at all. People talk about marathon runners having blackened toenails. I remove the toenails long before they ever get black. I am a trained professional.

- I will talk about running with anyone who wants to talk about it. It fact, when I tell people that I am a marathoner, they are more impressed with me as a person than when I tell them I am have a Ph.D. in chemistry (I say ‘molecular spectroscopy’ when I want to sound high and mighty) and am currently a college professor. This used to bother me as I busted my arse getting that Ph.D. I left society for the entire 1990’s (graduated High School in 1990, awarded Ph.D. in 1999) to get that title. Anyone can be a marathoner, it just takes some time and dedication, and every marathon has someone who used to be a couch potato and decided to change their life and finish a marathon. Getting a Ph.D. is very hard work, and not everyone could do it, I know that. Yet, people are more ‘wowed’ by my running than by my education. I believe it is an evolutionary construct. For millennia, the human race has praised the physically fit and strong because those individuals are beneficial for perpetuating the species. (You are attracted to the strong and fast because then your kids will be strong and fast, and your kids will be able to go kill the mastodon, etc.)

Am I obsessed? Addicted? Cracked? I am not sure. My running is not coming between me and my loved ones, they always take precedence. It is one of the healthiest addictions a person could have. I have seen how much I have improved as a runner over the last 2+ years and so my competitive streak feeds on my running. I do well at races, I want to do better, I train harder and run more races. It is a good thing that my ankles can only handle ~60 miles a week (although I am trying to fix that, thank you very much) otherwise I would be running more.

It is such a good thing that I am a college professor, as it is a flexible enough job that I can plan marathons long in advance because I know my ‘work schedule’ from essentially now until the day I retire.
You see, I think from now on when someone asks me what I ‘do’, my first response will not be ‘college professor’, it will be ‘marathoner’. After some light conversation I might add that I am not good enough to get endorsements, so I am Ph.D. college Professor so I can pay the bills. But that’s just my day job.

2008 ING Miami Marathon Results (Or: The Birth of a Tradition)

3:14:42 (7:26/mile)
116/2701 Overall
13/325 Age
Dead toenail count: 1.5

I love south Florida, especially in late January when it is mid 60’s with low humidity. It’s way better than Michigan with its mid 20’s with high winds. Ugh.
So I came down a few days early to visit my girlfriend, Stef, and we headed down to Miami the afternoon before the race. With race start being in downtown at 6:15 am, we thought it better to stay in a hotel on the beach the night before. A nice walk down the beach to the expo yielded my bib number and the standard race expo fare. My clothing collection being what it is and me running a marathon once a month, and hence lots of expos, I didn’t buy much more than some Clif Shot bloks, my running food of choice.

Race morning started early, getting up at 3:30. A quick shower, 2 cups of green tea, a banana and a peanut butter sandwich and off I went headed for the start line at about 4:30. A short drive, into the parking ramp at 5:05, and a short walk to the start line, arriving there at 5:20. I learned from my Vegas race that when running ‘large’ races, you get to the start line earlier than is comfortable.

This race was my last long run ‘workout’ before my PR attempt at the A1A marathon in 3 weeks. I have been training the last month or so, getting speed work in, tempo runs, all feeling solid. With my good finish last year at A1A, I wanted to shoot for another PR on the same course. Because this was a training run, I decided to run a 3:15, which is not real fast, but not so slow it would harm me. Just a good solid easy long run, really. With the battery on my GPS watch flatlined (argh) I had to rely on the mile marker clocks and a 3:15 pace band on my arm. I never ventured more than ~15 seconds away from the 3:15 marathon pace after mile 3. That is what is called consistency, baby.

A beautiful course, with sunrise coming up as we ran along Ocean Boulevard. With the sky being cloudy and ~200 m of trees and green space between us and the ocean, the view wasn’t all that great. I had my camera with me and tried to take cool ‘scenic’ pictures, but unfortunately during the race there wasn’t that much scenic.

Because I wasn’t racing, I could stop and take pics including three people from my home state of Wisconsin (complete with cheddar heads) cheering on people. One nice old lady was trying to give people flowers (nice daisies) at about mile 6 and I decided to grab one and put it in my hat. One nice thing about big races is you get lots of people on the streets cheering you on. It was fun.

At the end of the race, I decided I wanted to enjoy the moment. Stephanie was in a set of bleachers at the finish line. Because I had my phone we had been talking and texting during the race (I also talked with my daughter and parents while running) I knew exactly where she was as I approached the finish line. She had her phone and was trying to get my picture so I stopped and stretched my arms out wide. I just stopped right there about 50 m from the finish and was waiting for her. I then realized that there were hundreds of other people there cheering me on. I used the opportunity to play to the crowd waving my arms like a defensive football player on 3rd down at a home game. I then ran to the finish and attempted to go across the finish line walking on my hands. It was very much a last minute idea and it didn’t work to well. It did get me a talk with a reporter from a major Miami newspaper but alas, he did not publish my story.

Afterward I felt exactly the way I wanted to, just a little sore and ready for my next big race. This is the official start of my three week taper. Something I have never done legit. I have tried various tapers, but they always involve too much running, by my own mistake. I have to accept that nothing I do in the next 3 weeks can help me, but there is a lot in the next 3 weeks I can do that will hurt me.
A1A. 3 weeks. PR attempt. Fingers crossed.

2007 Las Vegas Marathon Results

3:00:31
81/4154 Overall
19/438 Age
Dead toenail count: 1.5

Well, this was an interesting one in that I spent less than 25 hours in Las Vegas proper. This was what is referred to as a ‘smash and grab’ job, meaning, you go in, you do your thing, and you get out. Normally I try to enjoy my marathon locales, but this one was forced. I left for Vegas at 9:15 ET on Saturday, arriving in Vegas at 11:15 PT. I took my cab ride over to Hooter’s Casino and Hotel where I was staying and dropped my bag (too early to check in). I walked over (and took the tram for part of it) over to Mandalay Bay Casino which is where the expo was.

I met up with the head JCC cross country coach (and running companion) Brian Olsen and his wife and parents and we headed over for a nice $20 buffet. Pasta, steak, awesome mashed potatoes, YUM!! It was Brian who told me about this marathon in the first place last July. The night he told me about it I went online, signed up for the marathon, got a hotel room and airline ticket. It was actually kind of cool to be at a huge marathon 1500+ miles from home and have a good friend there who I have run with many a time to share the experience with.

After lunch/dinner we parted and I went to the expo which was, I have to admit, pretty lame. I have seen much better at Boston and Detroit and expected a little more. I left Mandalay Bay and headed back towards my hotel, stopping by the Tropicana and the MGM Grand to pick up $1 tokens as souvenirs, a tradition I got from my father. I decided I did want to gamble just a little bit, so I sat down with $60 at a poker table at the Hooters casino. After about 15 minutes I was down to about $20 and was thinking to myself ‘this is how Vegas was built, people leaving their money here’, but I decided the $60 was all for losing. Just then, my luck turned, getting back to $60, then ahead. As soon as I realized I was up to $125 (over double my initial investment) I quick got up and left the table. I had paid for my food and souvenirs for the weekend, so I was done.

Back to the room to try to get some sleep, which didn’t work for me too much, and up at 2:45 PT (only 5:45 ET) to get ready for my marathon.

On race mornings, I usually try to eat toast a few hours beforehand but was unable to find some at my hotel. They DID have a breakfast, but it was an $8 plate with a bunch of stuff I did not want. I decided (stupidly) to eat a Krispy Kreme donut and a banana instead. Bad idea. That would cause one of my big problems. I had heard recently that eating protein and fats on race morning are good for ‘regulating’ the carbs that you have (presumably) already loaded your body with. The 5 buffalo wings I had in the bar 11 hours before hand didn’t seem to help.
Race start was scheduled for 6:07 so I decided that leaving my hotel ((<1 mile away) at 5:30 would be fine. Umm… Not a good idea. There were thousands of people heading for the start and I had to cut through them, jumping bushes, being rude, etc, only to get to the start about 8 minutes before the start. I found Brian with 4 minutes to go and my GPS watch ‘found’ itself about 2 minutes before we started. The race began and we crossed the start line about 15 seconds after the gun.

Brian and I had talked earlier that week and realized we were shooting for comparable times (somewhere in the 2:50’s) so we went out together. We meant to start out slow (7:15 ish) but because we are us, we started at 6:45 and did not slow down because (of course) we felt great. By mile 6 we were in our rhythm, watching the strip go by, enjoying ourselves, feeling great.

By about the halfway mark, I started to slow. My ankles were not very happy with me. I had been icing them twice a day a few weeks ago trying to get rid of a nagging injury. I had stopped doing that and now they were sore and started to give me grief. Now granted, I had run a marathon exactly 14 days previous which might have effected my pain as well. My stomach also started complaining from the Krispy Kreme donut. Brian left me somewhere between mile 14 and 15. I knew I could not keep the 6:38 (or so) pace he was doing. It turns out he crashed about mile 23 and he was surprised I did not catch him later in the race. He ended up beating me by about 2 minutes and 11 places.
There was occasional entertainment (bands mostly) during the course and most were lame except for the Blue Man Group that was performing at mile 4. That was freaking cool. At mile 20 there was a fake brick ‘wall’ overpass that you ran underneath to represent the tradition ‘wall’ many runners hit when running a marathon. I made a point to smacking it with my hand as I ran by. That was pretty cool, actually.

I had little time after the marathon to make my flight so I never stopped after I crossed the finish line. Got my space blanket, some water and some fruit and started my hike to my hotel. See, they changed my flight time to 11:45 PT. I finished the race (in downtown Vegas) at 9:07 PT. So, obviously, I couldn’t stick around afterwards.

As I started walking the ~1 mile to my hotel I saw a flat bed pickup collecting orange traffic cones from the morning (when they had coned off traffic). The guy driving looked at me, saw my finishers medal and I asked him if he could give me a ride down the block. He asked me how far, I told him 4 blocks and he said sure, jump on. I climbed on to the bed of the truck and we sped down the road, saving me at least 15 minutes of walking. A quick shower, packing job, cab ride, hike through the airport and I was THROUGH airport security 65 minutes after crossing the finish line. I was quite proud of myself. I had enough time to sit down, call my mom and my girlfriend and enjoy an ice cold beer.

This was a really fun experience, and appropriate for my 10th marathon. A lot has happened in my life since I started this latest hobby. I enjoyed this one a lot.

Big lessons from the Vegas marathon:
1) Ice your ankles whenever you can.
2) Try peanut butter sandwich for race morning meal
3) For large marathons, get to the start EARLY.
4) Drink something at every water station, no matter how you feel.
5) Apples when ‘racing’? Probably not a good idea.

2007 Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon Results

3:07:11 (7:07/mile)
4/173 Overall
2/22 Age
Dead toenail count: 2.5

Hilly. Very very hilly. Here is the elevation profile:

This was a wonderful and memorable race for a several reasons. Let us make a list:

1. Not certified. The race director prides himself on this being a hard race that is not certified and not fast. Overall, there is 2500+ feet of elevation gain and loss throughout the race. The hills were gentle, but constant. I started out slow (for me) and just tried to get in a comfortable rhythm. I knew I was racing the Las Vegas marathon in two weeks, so I did not want to take a week to recover. I raced a 5K 4 days later in fact. My first mile was 7:04, so you can see I held a pretty constant pace throughout the run. I never felt like I was pushing it, never really felt tired, never felt strained or sore. I truly felt great throughout the whole race. A 3:07 finish (considering the hilly nature) on this course is pretty darn good.

2. Small race, lots of love. This race was a passion for the organizers, and you could tell. The field was capped at 200 and the 173 finishers got a great deal. Every single finisher got a big round of applause from the spectators. Throughout the race, here were little flying ‘monkeys’ hanging on trees.
With so few finishers, everyone felt like a winner when they rolled in. The organizers asked for people to bring food, so there was a bona fide potluck after the race, including peanut butter sandwiches, which I have never seen at a race before.

3. Divorce Therapy. The race started 26 hours before the final court hearing for my divorce. It was actually nice timing because my post race euphoria got me through the last few hours, keeping calm and even keel. While running this race, I realized how important this running thing is to me. It removes any stress that I hold onto, releasing it into the pavement I pound as I put on the miles.

4. Deal and a half. For $60 I got a personalized (with my name on it) long sleeve technical shirt, another cute t-shirt, a most awesome finishers ‘medal’ (actually a piece of wood, but way cool) fantastic run support (sweet people at every intersection, enthusiastic water stations attendants) and yet another very memorable marathon. This is my 9th marathon (in 9 different states, by the way) and one I will not forget anytime soon.

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!