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Race Report – 2010 Falmouth Road Race

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 No Comments by Chronic Triathlete

Had to steal these pix off MarathonFoto's site. They screwed up my order for proper digital images three times.

Ran my second Falmouth Road Race last Sunday. What a great event. It’s so amazingly well organized and the people are fantastic. If you haven’t done it, but live close by you should definitely try and get in.

Good, but not great results

I PRed by 00:01:39 over last year with a finishing time of 00:47:47 @ 6:49 pace. That was the good news. The bad news is that I was hoping for something faster. Sadly, I simply couldn’t tap it down to where I wanted. My fastest mile — which also happened to be the flattest — was 6:44. This was along a stretch where there were tons of people so I think I got a little five-second boost from the crowd.

I ended up 431st overall and 69th in my age group. This pisses me off because I finished 195th overall and 17th in my age in the Brooklyn Half Marathon. I know Falmouth pulls in a better pool of talent, but I didn’t realize that it extended so deeply behind the world record holders and olympic medalists.

I guess this just shows me why the half marathon distance has always been my favorite. Still, I thought I could carry some of that expertise down into the 10k/7m distance. Next year I’m going to switch up my training.

Warning, runner geekery follows

My recent half marathon and 5k results fall in line perfectly on the pacing chart I use. Both are right on the money with a V02 max of 60ml/kg/min. So, using that value as a marker, I calculated I should have been targeting a 00:43:10 @ 6:10 pace. However, when comparing the courses, I adjusted down for a 00:45:30 @ 6:30 pace because the Falmouth race, while not having much of a vertical gain, does have a lot of rollers.

Unfortunately, my training didn’t match up with my goal. In fact, I didn’t really train specifically for the event at all. I figured that I could simply maintain my exceptional fitness from May’s Brooklyn Half Marathon by running with the marathon group I’m coaching and by doing a few tune-up runs and a short taper four weeks before Falmouth.

Things didn’t workout as planned. The two weeks prior to the race I ran sporadically and based distances more on how much time I had to run that day than how far I needed to go. I also tapered stupidly; probably over tapered by taking it too easy five days before and randomly throwing in a 1/2m swim.

Oh… one highlight I forgot

I got a fist-bump from Meb Keflezighi as I crossed the line at the end. He was scheduled to race, but posted on Twitter the night before that he was backing out. Didn’t say why, but being the guy that he is, he stuck around in Falmouth and greeted runners as they finished. Pretty cool. Hopefully some of his talent came across to me.

The aftermath

This part is a bigger unknown than any question about training or pacing.

I did not feel good on race day. I had suffered some sort of stomach issue, like a food poisoning or possible pine nut consumption (I’m allergic) two days before the race. It only lasted six to eight hours, but it was enough to throw me off. I felt tired and stressed and my stomach was a little grumbly.

This has continued into today as I write this (the day after the race). My stomach just feels off. I’m also really tired today. My right side — the side that has the more pronounced neuro issues — feels noticeably more tired than the left. Emotionally I’m pretty drained too. I know this happens after a race, but this feels different.

I’m also weirdly tense today and had a lot of difficulty settling down to work or focusing on things. I know it sounds strange to say I’m tired and tense, but that how it feels — tired body, frenetic mind.

And, on top of it all, I feel a little fluish. Kinda hot, kinda not, kinda stuffy, maybe a cough. All vague stuff, but together they add up to a sign that I should probably take it easy for a week or so. I was scheduled to do a 10-mile race in Brooklyn this coming weekend, but work is keeping me up in the Cape Cod and Boston area for the rest of the month so I have a good excuse not to run it.

I did do any easy 2.3m run tonight to see how my body felt. Basically fine. Legs heavy and tired, but in an expected post-race kind of way.

Anyway… that’s it. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

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Race Report: 2010 Brooklyn 1/2 Marathon

Tuesday, May 25, 2010 9 Comments by Chronic Triathlete

It’s getting rather embarrassing, really.

I really do have Lyme Disease. I promise. However, from my running performance you’d have no idea. I get emails weekly from people who are suffering terribly with the disease, but as they get worse I only get faster and more fit.

I don’t feel so fantastic and I don’t feel as if I’m getting “better”, but the running just keeps coming. I’ll take it. Still, I can’t help but somehow feel guilty for achieving while others are suffering.

How’s it all possible? I don’t know.

Training terribly

Training has been tough lately. Over the last three months my legs have been feeling like burning bologna. They’re not very snappy and I’m almost constantly achy and sore. Also, for a period of about a month, I was getting these shocking, burning sensations in my thighs. Almost as if I’d suddenly spilled hot coffee on my leg. The first time it happened I was running and it surprised me so much that I jumped. I thought I had been shot, stabbed, bitten by some unseen dog. It didn’t hurt so much as it felt like hot water being poured over my upper thigh. Freaked me out!

It didn’t happen again for several days, but then it started to become a familiar part of my runs. Later, it started happening while doing non-running activities. Simply walking or eventually just sitting would trigger it. Every time I’d look down expecting to see that I’d somehow knocked my coffee into my lap.

All of this made training really tough. Physically I was getting these new, weird symptoms and I wasn’t recovering after long or intense runs. Mentally I was starting to think that my luck had run out with the absence of muscle pain/burning.

Then, as mysteriously as it all started, it went away. The aches and pains resolved to a level relative to the efforts I was putting out and the burning stopped all together. I haven’t had an incident in several weeks now (knock on wood).

This is stupid!

Why did I put myself through all this? The Brooklyn 1/2 Marathon. I love this race and always center my training around it. This was my 5th time. 2nd time post Lyme diagnosis.

Like last year, I set a pretty ambitious goal and like last year I was nervous as hell. I kept thinking, “This is crazy!”, “Should I even be doing this?”, “When’s my luck gonna run out?”.

I staked out breaking 01:30:00 as my goal. That’s a 6:52 pace for 13.1 miles. I’ve never run more than a 10k (6.2 miles) at that pace (faster actually). It sounded stupid. Like I said above, my training was crap. I did a lot of speed work, but only got in two quality long runs. One of eight-miles and another of ten.

Mind over… over everything

When I coach, especially beginners, I’m always telling my runners that training is like balancing a physical/mental seesaw. As long as you keep the weight even on both ends, everything works out. However, if you add weight to the physical side by upping your training distance or intensity you need to balance it with heavier mental preparation. The opposite is also true, if you start weighing yourself down mentally with lofty goals you need to apply a comparable amount of training to achieve them.

Balancing the seesaw in preparation for this race was a real challenge and it was, without a doubt, the hardest event I’ve ever done. The goal put me on the limit for the entire thing. The first half of the race was very hilly so I was constantly monitoring my breathing, stride, pace, form, all the systems. Fortunately, the last six miles are pretty much dead-flat and I was able to engage the autopilot, but… man, it was a rough run.

Results

Of course, after all my worrying, things worked out pretty damn well. I finished in 01:28:04 at a pace of 6:43! That time put me in 193rd place overall (out of 7,000) and 17th in my age.

I chopped over 5:00 minutes off my PR from last year. And just like last year, I was dumbfounded.

The aftermath

Unlike last year, I suffered pretty badly afterward. The race was over and I was home by 10:30am and I felt pretty good for the rest of the day. A little more tired that usual and a little sore, but nothing unexpected. I even stayed awake though 90% of the new Shrek movie which I promised my daughter we’d go see in preparation of my needing an hour nap.

The next day, Sunday, however, I was roadkill. Very tired and VERY sore. However, against every rational-thinking fiber of my being, I went out and ran while coaching my beginners group. I ended doing seven miles — 1 to get there, 5 with them and one more to get home. Going for a run was a good idea, but I shouldn’t have gone that far. As a result, I continued to pay with very painful legs and a very tired body through Monday. Today I’m feeling much better and getting back to “normal”.

Going forward

I’m taking a week off from running completely. The weather here in NYC is crazy nice so I may duck out for a bike ride, but just a casual spin. Running, though, is off limits until next week. Maybe next Wednesday when I coach again.

As for treatment… there’s no news there as I continue to stall on the Bicillin shots. I told myself not until after this race so I either need to find a new excuse or make an appointment with my LLMD.

And that’s it. If you got this far, thanks for reading!

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Race Report: 2010 Brooklyn Biathlon

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 10 Comments by Chronic Triathlete

Entering back into the world of multisport

I did the 20th Annual Brooklyn Biathlon last Sunday. Participation marks my entrance back into multisport competition after a two and a half year hiatus. It’s fitting, really, that I would choose this race to get back into it. Seven years ago it was my first ever multisport event.

With a run/bike/run format it really plays to my running strengths. The distances are short with a 2 mile run, then a 10 mile ride followed by another 2 mile run, but the speeds are intense putting those who are competing pretty much on or just under the limit the whole time.

A little nervous

I was feeling quite a bit of anxiety about doing this event. Aside from being laden with emotional significance, my coach and the other “A-list” athletes from my team were there. We’ve traditionally used this race as our official season opener and generally dominate. It’s not unusual for everyone to come home with some hardware either from the overall standing or from their age group.

I hadn’t done much biking over the winter so my bike fitness was a total mystery. I also haven’t done a race transition (changing from running to biking or vice versa) since getting sick. A lot of questions and things up in the air.

Good show!

Turns out that I had little to worry about. The first run was quick, but I came in 11th with a time of 12:18 (6:09 pace). Transitioning to the bike was tough and it took me 1:11 (:30 to :45 seconds is the goal), but after that it went surprisingly well.

I expected to be completely overtaken by riders almost immediately, but I didn’t get passed until about the halfway point and that was by a teammate who wears an aero helmet (dork). A few more riders, including the top three women, passed me with about two miles to go. I hate getting “chicked”, but it was motivating and I held on to finish the seconds leg in 29:33 and 16th place.

The second transition was a little better. In and out in :47 seconds.

For anyone who’s never done a bi or tri, the sensation you feel while running after having just gotten off your bike is hard to explain. You feel like you’re running in quicksand as your body tries to move the blood in your legs from the biking muscles to the running muscles. You feel like you’re moving sooooo slow while in reality you’re probably running pretty well. The urge to panic and push harder is compelling, but it’s important to remain calm for the first mile and let everything thing sort itself out.

This was the part of the race that I was most concerned about. With all the weird tightness, twitching and general misbehaving my muscles do I didn’t know if they were going to work for me. Would I cramp up, feel pain, shutdown all together? I didn’t know.

Through the line

The second run ended up being five seconds slower than the first! And I “unchicked” myself by passing back the three ladies who had caught me on the ride as well as a couple of the guys.

I came in 12th overall in 56:13 and finished 3rd in my age group. Pretty much un-fucking-believable. I really had no idea that a finish that high was even possible for me right now. I had looked over some finishing times from the previous two years the night before the race and I thought that I might slip into the top 20… if I was lucky. But 12th… damn!

The aftermath

Of course, after experiencing my performance, I was feeling pretty good after the race. Over the following couple of hours I did grow increasingly more tired, but I did what I normally do after an event or extra-hard workout. I sort of prop myself up in bed and close my eyes for an hour. I sleep, but it’s this weird coma-like sleep that I’m at a loss on how to explain. My body falls into some weird super shutdown mode and I totally zonk out. It feels great and I wake up feeling pretty good.

I expected a lot of muscle pain from the intensity of the race, but found that I got very little. My legs are more stiff than sore. I wonder about this as it really doesn’t make sense. I know my running fitness is very high right now, but my bike is very low. That plus the overall high intensity nature of the activity should have resulted in some DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). Maybe I’m continuing to underestimate my fitness, but it just seems like something’s off in the process.

What next?

I don’t know… I was really feeling “done” with multisport events, but this gives me a little hope that I might still have some racing in me. That said, I don’t want to over do it and start packing in a lot of races.

I think I’ll keep focusing on running and leave it at that for now.

Thanks for reading.

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Race Report: Stop The Tears 5k

Thursday, February 25, 2010 2 Comments by Chronic Triathlete

Who’s fast at 40?

Did a small 5k race last week while we were down in Florida. My wife found it randomly in the paper on Wednesday and I figured I’d take advantage of the light training week to “taper” for the Saturday event.

I haven’t done a 5k in over two years so I was a little nervous. While I’ve done a few hard, fast miles here and there since getting sick, I’ve shied away from doing full-on 5k style training/racing. I just don’t want to tax my body to that level. Still, I was interested in testing my new 40-44 age group, so I showed up at 8:00am to take a crack at it.

The field was very small. I’d be surprised if there were even 150 people there. The race was a fund raiser for a local group that helps abused children. There was a walk component to the event and many of the participants were grandparents walk-running with their grand kids.

What better way to crush the competition than to find a race full of retirees and children?

Who’s bad?

I love how, after racing and working with runners for so many years, I can size up the competition with just a quick look. It’s kinda like poker – everyone has a “tell” that lets me know what cards they could play out on the course. How fit someone looks is a great indicator, but sometimes it’s as simple as looking at runner’s shoes or his clothes. Other times it’s the way in which he composes himself in the final five minutes before the gun. Of course, there’s always that guy who delivers a thrashing performance despite having an iPod, wearing Nike Shox and a sporting a Abercrombie & Fitch sweatsuit, but for the most part who’s who is usually pretty clear.

In this race, though, I didn’t even need to look to see who had racing flats on. There were only four of us even warming up and one guy had his college track team singlet on! We were the race.

Go!

We line up and take off. The course was a zig-zaggy adventure over a grid of roads through a quite neighborhood. There were lots of turns. As expected, the four of us who had bothered to warm up quickly disappeared from the rest of the race. What was surprising though, was just how fast College Boy disappeared from us! I mean, he was gone after about 1/2 mile. I never saw him again.

The first mile went by for me in 5:40. I was pretty shocked and new I needed to cut back or end up a heaving mess on the side of the road. I settled into 4th pace, but tried to stay within striking distance of the guy in 3rd place. He got about 25 yards on me before I think he realized the same thing and eased up a little. The gap never grew.

Unfortunately, the gap never closed either. I ran the 2nd and 3rd miles in about 6:00, but couldn’t find the kick to make a move on him. I’d like to think that if I had just held on for a few more minutes I could have stayed with him and maybe made a push at the line. However, I doubt I would have been able to out run him. The entire time I was behind him he never looked back. Not once. Not even when we rounded the corners at the end of the block where a quick glance sideways would show him who’s chasing. This tells me that he was feeling pretty confident and not worried about someone sneaking up on him.

Through the line

I ended up with a finishing time of 00:18:26 which averages out to a 5:55 pace. Pretty fucking stellar considering I’ve not run that fast for that long in over 2 years. In fact, that’s a PR for me on the road. I should point out though that I’ve never done a 5k road race that was as flat as this one. The biggest incline was a speed bump near mile 2.

After finishing, and assuring myself that I wasn’t going to throw up, I started to feel pretty good about medaling. I knew the winner, College Boy, who finished in a blazing 00:16:52, wasn’t in my age group. I was also fairly confident that the 2nd and 3rd place guys were younger than me. There was an award for overall Masters and I thought I had picked it up.

Sadly, it seems that the 3rd place guy was also trying out his new age group and took the Masters award from me. I Googled him up after I got home and, judging from the other race results I found for him, he just turned 40 a few weeks before me. Damn!

All was not lost though. Since he won overall Masters, I won 1st in my age group. While it was a little bittersweet, I’m pretty thrilled about it. The irony is that my time would have had me winning the 35-39 age group. Oh well.

The aftermath

After the race, I felt pretty great for about 2 hours. Then I crashed. It felt super tired and really sleepy so I got into bed, propped my feet up to drain the blood and took a one-hour nap. This gave me a good recharging and, with the help of a coffee, held me through the rest of the day.

The next day I was fine as well. And, much to my surprise, I wasn’t even sore from the effort. Maybe a little stiff, but even 48 hours later I was free and clear of any DOMS. I took this as another good sign of my fitness and ability to run this hard. I don’t foresee adding a bunch of 5ks to my schedule this season, but with the other goals I have, I intend to do a lot of speed work. I feel that I now have a sense of where I can push myself and how hard I can go.

Onwards and upwards…

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Race Report – Help Greg Fight Cancer 5k

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1 Comment by Chronic Triathlete
Shane, Scott, Jeannine and Me before the race

Shane, Scott, Jeannine and me before the race

Ran a 5k last night to help raise money for my coworker Greg who’s been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Over 1000 people showed up to run. So many, in fact, that they ran out of race numbers!

This is fantastic news for Greg since the majority of the $20 per person entry fee went into his pocket. With that, plus the additional money that has been directly donated, Greg probably raked in about 25k! That’s probably more than he makes in a year working at the running store. It’s amazing what a community can do for a single person.

Big props to Lee the owner for organizing the race and to practically the entire staff for volunteering. Lee even closed all 3 stores early so that everybody could run the race. The after work hours are probably the most profitable part of the day for the stores so that was a major sacrifice on his part. Very honorable.

It was more of a fun run than a race for me. The course was a very hilly and technical romp though the paths of Prospect Park so it wasn’t a race to try and PR in. I talked to a couple of very fast guys and they all finished a minute off their best… and they were really trying.

I think just about everybody I know (who runs) turned up to participate. The starting area was more like a cocktail party than a race venue. Every time I turned around I ran into someone from my team, the running store or that I’ve coached. This and the great weather made for a really nice night.

I ran 00:21:40 @ 6:46 pace. This put me in at 8th on my age group. had I been racing I could have probably finished 5th. I let 3 guys pass me in the last 100 yards that I could have kicked to hold off had I been interested. My achilles has been bothering me a lot lately and I didn’t feel the need to get up on my toes and sprint it out. I have bigger fish to fry.

Lyme-wise I felt alright. My right calf area went a little numb for a bit which was weird. It didn’t effect my running, but I was afraid it was going to. It only lasted 2-3 minutes and then went away. Just the bugs trying to remind me who’s in charge, I guess.

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