Running with a pencil

Eight good miles (Seacoast half marathon)

2011-11-14T17:01:00.001-05:00

(Results) Well, this was quite an embarrassing race for me. You never want to be the one who goes out too hard and dies, and that's certainly who I was yesterday. On the other hand, you can only run a course record if you try, and I certainly did try.

It was a beautiful day for running, a cool fall day with patches of sun and clouds. I had been planning to wear arm warmers, but they weren't even necessary. Alan and I did a short warm-up and I headed to the starting line. Not one of the women I saw was wearing a singlet. That was strange but I took it as an encouraging sign.

The gun went off and I found myself running next to a blonde woman in a long-sleeve shirt (Kim). I asked her what she was planning to run and she said she didn't know. A man had given her last-minute advice in another language at the starting line, so I had no idea who she was or anything.

I started out at a comfortable pace, and I could tell that there were a few other women behind me. I was feeling so comfortable that I was very surprised to see 6:00 as the mile split. Hmmm. The first mile had some steep downhills, so I figured I was probably right on, effort-wise, for my goal of 6:15 pace for the whole race.

Over the next few miles I kept almost a perfect 6:15 pace (12:14, 18:33, 24:49, 31:04). I felt fine. I caught up to and passed a few men in succession. A race vehicle came in front of me, and Eric, sitting in the open trunk, videotaped me running for a while. One of the guys I was running with told me that there were no women anywhere behind me.

A little before six miles, Alan ran up to me and told me that I'd soon have company; the second-place woman was catching up. I was surprised about this. It was Kim, as I expected. I was a little concerned anyway, because the pace was starting to feel harder than I thought it should at this point of the race. I was having to breathe quite hard to maintain the pace, and my legs were starting to hurt -- and we hadn't even reached halfway! -- and the second half of the course was going to be hillier!

Kim caught up and she, Alan and I ran together for maybe a mile and a half. I had no idea who she was or how fast she could run. My natural inclination would be to assume that she's really fast, and now that she had caught me, she would probably pass me and I would not be able to keep up. But I reminded myself that it could be like in the St. Pat's 5k in 2010, where this woman was breathing down my neck the whole race and I was afraid she would sprint past me and win, but actually she was just trying to use me to run as fast as she could, and she didn't think she could beat me (and she didn't).

We made a turn just before 8 miles and Kim put in a surge. "Go with her!" Alan said. But I couldn't. I had run hard to try to shake her in the previous two miles and I couldn't go faster. I passed 8 miles in 50:23 and knew that I was still on pace to break the course record (which was 6:23 pace). Kim was running quite fast at this point, and maybe she would burn out and slow down -- who knew? It could happen. I had to just focus on running as fast as I could and try to stay in the race.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. From 8 miles to the end, I ran about 6:50-6:58 for every mile. Imagine, 6:00 for the first mile and almost 7:00 for miles 9 through 13! That's really embarrassing.

On the bright side, my quick early miles brought me through 10 miles in 64:15, a PR by almost a minute. (All my 10-mile PRs are from half marathons.)

At about 11 miles, another woman (Megan) passed me. I tried to go with her, but failed. I had been so far ahead of third place that she wasn't even visible, and now she was ahead of me. Not inspiring! And in fact, Alan could also see the fourth-place woman (Kristen) behind me and she was catching up. Unacceptable. Then I would be out of the money completely. My 11-mile time was about 1:11, so I calculated that if I ran just 6:50 pace I could still run a PR (1:25:20). That seemed totally doable -- I mean, right? 6:50 pace? That should not be hard.

From 12 miles to the end Alan kept giving me updates on how far behind me Kristen was, and exhorted me to push harder and run faster. I had not been going as fast as possible for the previous couple of miles because it was so far to the end, but now I ran as hard as I could up the hills so that she would not catch up. Luckily, it was enough to hold her off. This is somewhat amazing, because I didn't even achieve my 6:50 pace. I have no idea how that is possible, that my sprinting pace could be slower than 6:50. But that's what happened. I finished in 1:25:36, 16 seconds off of my PR.

So I went out too fast and then died, and ended up four minutes behind the winner. Oops. If I had known I would end up averaging 6:32 pace, I would have gone out in maybe 6:25 pace, and then maybe I would have been able to avoid blowing up, and would have had a faster finishing time. If I had known that this mystery blonde woman had just run under 1:22 a few weeks ago, I would probably have started behind her.

Essentially, I hit the wall. Why? Because I have not been able to train properly. If I were a professional athlete, I would have pulled out of this race, no question. I have done two long runs in the past 10 weeks or so. I've been trying to get over an injury, so two weeks out of the past three I've run under 30 miles, because I was pool running instead of actually running. But I had already paid for the race, and I like visiting NH, so I went and did it anyway. My race plan was to run 6:15s, and I followed it very well for 8 miles. So it goes. My 8-mile split was two minutes faster than what I ran at the Stowe 8 Miler in August 2010.

I like the half marathon distance, and I like training 80 miles a week, and when I am able to put together a solid block of long-distance training, I will race the half marathon again. From this race, I learned that it is totally possible to blow up in a race even if I am mostly fit, and I learned to push myself hard at the end of the race even if it won't get me very far or very fast.

My legs hurt so much after the race that I gave up on the idea of a cool-down run after one minute of a pathetic attempt at a jog, and did a "cool-down walk" instead. Today my calves are quite shredded and I am having trouble walking down the stairs. I find myself pushing on my knees when I get up from a chair. Clearly, it was a hard effort, a good workout even if it wasn't a great race.

It was a well-organized race and I enjoyed talking to friends afterwards, and the food was plentiful and delicious.

Pictures (and maybe video) to follow.

The best running photo of me, ever (yet).

2011-10-22T13:27:00.000-04:00

Here it is. It wasn't a great race for me -- I had lingering effects of a cold, and while I battled back and forth with the same four women from mile 2 to the end, all four of them ended up beating me -- but at least this awesome photo came out of it. I look like I deserve my elite number! The photo is by Brightroom, of course, and I am seriously considering purchasing it. In most of my race pictures, I look either uncoordinated or dumpy -- but not this time!

Smoothie for dinner

2011-09-20T11:53:00.004-04:00

I have a rule for my dinner: it must include vegetables. Current favorites are pasta with spinach sauce, shrimp with snap peas, marinated salmon with asparagus, and ground pork with cilantro and tomatoes. When I run out of meat or fish and I don't want to have pasta again, I fall back on the green smoothie.

The first time I tried one was when my sister posted her favorite green smoothie recipe. Unfortunately, I took the "5-6 cups of spinach" literally and applied it to frozen spinach. The result was a thick green sludge that tasted as though the delicious raspberries, blueberries and strawberries I had put in there had disappeared and turned into spinach. I think I might even have poured some of that wonderfully antioxidant paste down the drain, because it was not really even palatable.

But I backtracked the next time and put only a little spinach, and it was true: I couldn't taste the spinach at all; I could only taste the delicious fruits.So, when I am not I interested in spending a lot of time making dinner, I simply blend up a smoothie. The only thing that takes time is washing the blender afterwards, but I can handle that.

Here is what I put in it:
Frozen banana
5 frozen strawberries
Frozen raspberries
Frozen blueberries
1/2 cup frozen spinach
Oatmeal and wheat germ
Vanilla yogurt
Skim milk up to the level of the top of the fruits (otherwise it will be too thick and clog the blender; you can also use water.)

This makes over two pints of smoothie. I am not sure how many calories it is (most of the calories come from the yogurt and milk), but I don't think it's more than a regular dinner even with all that volume because fruit and vegetables are low in calories, so I just drink all of it. It is also extra hydration.

The best place to PR (Downtown 5k)

2011-09-18T22:48:00.001-04:00

(Results) Today was a good day. Lots of really fast people came from all over the country to Providence; many of my teammates came down from Boston; and I ran a road PR!

My tiered goals were to run faster than I ran here last year (18:10), to run under 18:00, to run 5:40 pace, and to be able to finish strong. And I did!I was very fortunate that one of my much faster teammates was tempoing the race, and when she passed me at 1.5 miles I latched on and ran directly behind her for the rest of the race. The pace was tough, but I set little goals like "keep up with her until the next turn... Okay, now keep up until the next turn." In this way I kept up until the final turn uphill, at which point she sped on ahead of me and I contented myself with passing the two women who had been with us for two miles or so and also a the group ahead.

Here is an awesome sequence of pictures from Capstone Photo where I pass someone who, as it turns out, is currently a Williams student! Our clock times were only 0.6 seconds apart.

I achieved my goal of 5:40 pace, basically, with time-clock splits of 5:34, 11:20 and 17:02 before the finish tape at 17:36. (I started three seconds behind the starting line, so subtract that from the splits.) This is a four-second road PR for me, eclipsing the 17:40 from last year's JCC race. My actual time was 17:35.62, but in road running the timer is supposed to round up to the nearest second, so 17:36 it is.

I was 28th among women and 102nd overall, not as high up as last year when I was 16th woman, but the competition was much stronger this year. I feel great, and I've only done a few workouts so far, so hopefully I will only get faster and sharper as the fall goes on. But right now, I'm happy with a PR. As I have said several times today, the national championship is the best place to PR, because it's the race that matters.

The rainiest race yet (Bobcat Bolt)

2011-07-22T14:48:00.006-04:00

(Results) June 25, 2010

This is a race that has caught my eye for a few years: a 5k and 10k, nearly in my hometown, with plenty of prize money. We knew that Lesley, Dan and Bob would be doing the 10k, so Alan and I did the 5k.

We thought the race started at 10:00, but it was at 9:30, so we arrived a scant 15 minutes before the start of the race and had only a few minutes to sign up, change into racing flats and do some warming up. Warming up was necessary because there was a light drizzle that threatened to strengthen into rain. Bob was nice enough to loan me a hat for the race.

The race start. Photo from Foster's Daily Democrat article

The 10k and 5k were together for the first 5k, and then the 5k runners stopped and the 10k runners kept going. So when the race started, I ran with Lesley (10k) and another woman (Nicole) who was doing the 5k. We ran exactly together around the high school and up the hill to the middle school, retracing the "Bagel Challenge" that I ran weekly in gym class in middle school. I felt that the pace was pretty honest, and yet Lesley and Nicole were chatting! Hmmm, this Nicole was apparently quite legit. I missed the mile mark because, although I saw both of them glance at their watches simultaneously, I didn't think that it had been close to a mile yet. Time flies!

We passed Stoke and took a right to go past the town pool, and I was getting a little worried because Nicole was still right there. I was hoping to win the 5k! At about 1.75 miles, she tucked in behind me to draft, and from there she slowly drifted back. We got to two miles in 12:01. Now it was really pouring. Lesley and I splashed through the puddles, passing men now and then.

We went into a little housing development with about a half mile to go, and I noticed that it was raining so hard that the road was covered in water. Maybe 1/2 inch of water was sitting on the road, with more pouring down -- it was raining so fast that the water couldn't drain fast enough. I was really glad I had the hat to keep the rain out of my eyes!

I was not worried about Nicole, and I didn't particularly care what my time was, but I didn't want Lesley to beat me through 5k since she was running twice as far. So I turned it up a little for the last half mile or so. In this picture, you can see that I got a little ways ahead of her by the finish:

Photo from Coolrunning by Richie Blake
See those "rocks" on the ground around my feet? Those are raindrops. The ground was covered in a sheet of water, with big raindrops pelting down.

I am doing a weird motion in the picture because they guy in front of me stopped running as soon as he crossed the line, whereas I decelerated gradually, so I nearly ran into him. Luckily, this moment was preserved for posterity and showcased on Coolrunning.

Lesley had asked me during the race if I wanted to keep going and do the whole 10k with her -- joking, but I offered to meet her with a mile to go and help push her to the end. So as soon as I finished, Alan and I changed our shoes (he also won the 5k -- see photo, above) and ran backwards along the course. We met her with a little more than a mile to go. I was surprised at how difficult it was to turn on the fast pace again! Alan had no trouble keeping up, but I was straining to stay just behind her. We ran with her for about 3/4 mile and then figured she would have plenty of motivation from there to the end.

After the race, the five of us all cooled down together, and then the photographer took a picture of us for the paper:

Photo from Foster's Daily Democrat article

The post-race meal was very generous, and we had a good chat (despite everyone being soaked through). They gave each of us a plaque in addition to a check. I was hoping to see some of my former classmates, but I only saw one or two people that I barely knew.

As an aside, first place in the 5k and second place in the 10k carried the same prize -- $100. I finished only 20 seconds ahead of Nicole, and she certainly kept the pressure on for the whole race -- whereas in the 10k, the second place woman's time was 43:10, which is much closer to my training pace than to my 10k race pace. But I'm glad I did the 5k anyway.

Miles over the Moon 4-mile

2011-07-20T20:08:00.003-04:00

(Results) July 15, 2011

We did this race because a bunch of friends were doing it, and we were planning to hang out with them before and after. It ended up being a fun evening, and a good outing for me.

The race was at 8 pm, and was themed as a night race; they handed out glowing necklaces to pre-registered runners. (I didn't pre-register, but I also finished before it was dark enough to need a glowing necklace!) The race was hosted by the Wicked Running Club, whose mascot is a black cat (Salem, MA -- get it?); the mascot handed out medals after the race.

Alan, Brett and I warmed up on the course with some other guys. It was warm, but not too hot. The race was through downtown Salem, and the roads were not closed during the race, so there were lots of policemen. We ran past the 1- and 2-mile marks, which ended up being helpful since they were positioned on the right side of the course, so I might not have noticed them if I hadn't known what they looked like.

No other women lined up on the starting line. There was one high-school-age girl (Nicole) on the edge. When the race started, she sprinted to the front, running alongside Alan. I knew it wouldn't last, but I felt I needed to cover it just in case. So I ran behind her, and next to Brett. Nicole checked her watch twice in the first minute of the race. She hung tough for about two minutes, which was impressive, but then I passed her and stayed with Brett's group of four guys.

Here is a video of the start. I am visible if you know what to look for, in white, behind the girl who is in the front:

Alan is very visible. He is wearing sunglasses and a white and grey singlet.

I was running just behind them when we passed the mile mark in 5:29. I asked aloud, "do you think that's right?" and one of them said it was 0.97 on his watch. I had been planning to run a little under 6-minute pace, so I decided to slow down even though I didn't think it was actually 5:29. I had thought about trying to beat Brett, but I certainly didn't want to kill myself to do it, so I consciously slowed down. One guy passed me before the second mile (Doug), with whom we had warmed up. I let him go.

I got to the second mile mark in 11:17 (5:48). I hadn't looked back at all to see if there were any women nearby, but with that pace I decided it was unlikely that anyone was (especially since there was no prize money). I kept my effort at about 90% -- not all-out, not jogging, just a good effort. I passed Doug. A guy ahead of me jogged over to the sidewalk and started walking; as I approached, he started jogging again. Doug called out to him, "Don't push it; live to race another day." I passed a high school kid in orange basketball shorts (Scott). At this point, Brett was the next guy ahead of me! But there was a big gap between us.

The third mile was at a water station; I passed it in 17:08 (5:51). I was hoping I could break 24 minutes (my previous 4-mile road race PR was 24:27), and at this point I was pretty confident that it would happen. I wondered if I could catch Brett. To determine how far Brett was ahead of me, I counted my breaths: I breathe once every three steps (two steps in, one step out) and my stride rate is just about 180 steps per minute, so I breathe just about once per second. Brett rounded a corner and it took me 12 breaths to get there. I decided I couldn't make up 12 seconds in one mile, especially because I knew Brett would be trying his hardest to stay ahead of me. In reality, he was far enough ahead that I was having trouble seeing him as dusk was falling.

The last 0.4 miles or so of the race was around a triangular park in Salem. I had done my pre-race striders around the triangle, and I noticed that each side was deceptively long, more than a comfortable strider distance. So I picked it up, but not too much. On the final straight, I could see the bright lights of the spotlight and the time clock approaching, and I kicked really hard. Spectators told me, "run hard; you can break 23 minutes!" Since I couldn't read the time clock, I had no idea if it was saying 22:57, 22:58... or if I had more time. Luckily, I was kicking as hard as I could anyway. I crossed in 22:54.

I was pretty sure that the course was short. I consulted with Alan (who had a much harder race than I did, taking the lead only in the park) and he agreed. A friend with a GPS watch got 3.92, for a converted time of 23:22 (5:51 pace). Still a PR! We cooled down in the park, and stayed for the awards ceremony. The people cheered really loudly for all of the age group winners who were Wicked Running Club members. Alan and I each got a sparkly red trophy. There were also orange slices, which is my idea of a perfect post-race banquet. Afterwards, we hung out with friends at their house, and had delicious food.

From this, I learned that taking a few weeks between races is really key to my success. It's been three weeks since I ran the Bobcat Bolt, and I was able to run fast in Salem without killing myself. I am going to do my best to space out my races, and at least allow a few weeks before my most important races.

Eighteen times two (10k, NBB Twilight Meet #2)

2011-06-04T00:10:00.003-04:00

5/21/11 (Results) All throughout the spring, when people asked "what are you training for?" I would say, "I'm training to run a fast 10k at the Twilight Meet in May." Saturday, May 21 was the day.

"So, what are you doing this weekend?" one of my friends asked me on Friday. "Sitting around, drinking water, eating bread, being nervous, and then running a 10k at 8 pm," I told him. That pretty much summarizes my Saturday. I went for a short shakeout when I woke up, and then sat around all day, finally driving to the meet in the afternoon.

My ambitious goal was 35:30 (the Tier 1 standard). The goal I was aiming for was 35:45 (the time standard for winning money in this 10k, and what I thought I could run). My backup goal was 36:00. Any of these would be a huge PR, as my 10k PR was 37:53 from the Tufts 10k, and my track 10k PR from college was 41:59.

My coach suggested that I not engage mentally too much for the first four miles, make it like a tempo run but faster, and then start racing with two miles to go. The idea is that if you focus a lot in the beginning of a 10k, you will run out of mental focus by the end. That seemed reasonable to me, so I tried to find someone to share the pace in the first four miles. I talked to Carly, whom I had met at the previous race, but she was planning to go 1-2 seconds slower per lap, which is a lot in a 10k, so we decided not to run together. She suggested that I ask Jordan, which was a great idea because we were both hoping for 35:45, so I introduced myself to Jordan, and Jordan and I decided to lead alternate 800s. Great! I did a 20-minute warm-up on a field and around a parking lot, because I didn't want to run any hills.

The 10k was at 7:50, just as darkness fell. Usually the wind dies down at sunset, but in this case it picked up, and was really kind of windy. I did strides in only one direction because of it. The hip numbers were different this week, which was good because both of mine came off in the 5k, and we were instructed to stick them directly to our arms.

Teammate: "Right on the skin?"
Official: "Yeah. For you, it might go all the way around and overlap, but we're trying it this week."

It worked; it stayed on, and I didn't think about it after the first few laps. Anyway, now for the race. I was seeded #9 out of 11, one of which didn't show up, so I was seeded 8th. The gun went off and I started really slow (see video below), second to last, being cautious in a 25-lap race. I tucked in behind Jordan and she led the first 800, as planned. The first lap was a little fast (85); the second a little slow (87); pretty typical for the beginning of a long race, finding the pace. I took over and led the second 800 just about like the first. The wind on the backstretch was really something -- I tucked in tight when I was behind, and had to fight it hard when I was leading. We came through the mile in 5:46 or so, right on pace. Jordan took over again and I was happy to not have to think too much. I took over and brought us through two miles in 11:34 or so, again just about on pace. I could tell that I was pullling away from Jordan, so I was not surprised when she didn't pass me to take the next 800. From here on out, I would be mostly alone.

About 20 meters ahead of me was a runner in white (Megan). "No matter," I thought, "I'm running my own race." I ran with a consistent gap between us for about two laps, until Alan shouted, "come on, catch up with her!" So I put in a surge, and almost before I had really accelerated, I was on her shoulder. I ran behind her for a lap or two, following the plan to not think too much in the first four miles, and also to conserve energy on the windy backstretch. We were catching a runner in orange. I could hear people cheering for Shauneen. "The runner in orange cannot possibly be Shauneen," I thought; "she was a national champion for AmHerst in college." But indeed it was. I stuck behind Megan just until we caught and passed Shauneen, but by that time I could tell that she was running slower than I wanted to run, so I passed both of them and ran on to face the wind myself.

My goal was to go through 5k in 17:50. After 12 laps, Alan ran across the track to give me my 5k time: 18:05. "WHAT?" I had no idea that I was running so far off the pace. But one or two seconds on six or seven laps really adds up. Now it was go time. Running behind Megan, I had been chomping at the bit, ready to get out there and race. When I heard the 18:05, I abandoned the plan to wait until four miles and just went for it. I pretended that it was a 5k starting right then, and ran hard. I was rewarded with a couple of laps in the mid 85s.

Around this time, Katie lapped me. I knew that I would get lapped, because there was a group that was going for the national qualifying standard of 33:40, and they had a rabbit leading them through a 16:45 5k. I thought I would get lapped with about a mile to go, and my plan was to tuck in behind whomever lapped me, and try to hang on. When Katie lapped me (at 18:30 in the video), I stuck with the plan for a few seconds, and then realized that (a) it was way too early in the race to accelerate like that, and (b) Katie was running much too fast for me. On the race video, the commentators wonder aloud whether I knew I was getting lapped, rather than just passed by a competitor. I knew. So I accelerated briefly, and then went back to my regular pace.

Last Thanksgiving, I ran a five-mile race in a PR of 30:09. I was a little annoyed to not break 30, and I decided that the next time I raced five miles, I wouldn't break 30; I'd break 29. A few days before this 10k, I realized that this was my chance. Alan measured out the five mile mark on the track (just past 20 laps) and stood ready to take my split. So, coming up to 20 laps, I knew I was running for my preliminary goal. Unfortunately, I didn't break 29. Fortunately, when I broke 30 for the first time it was in style, with a 29:05.

When I passed the invisible five-mile mark on the track as described above, I was running with Jenn. She lapped me at a perfect moment, with six or seven laps to go, and this time I followed my plan. She passed me, and I stuck right with her. In the video (at about 27:15), the commentators remark on this, and that I actually closed the gap after she passed me. I ran behind her for two laps, before she surged on the windy backstretch and dropped me. This was really helpful, and I only wish I'd been able to hang on longer!

With a mile to go, I started running harder. It should be noted that while I started engaging the race and running harder at 5k, I didn't actually run any faster, still around 86-87 per lap. My friend and training partner Erin was sitting on the water jump barrier, and every time I ran by she would tell me I looked smooth, and she'd say to run faster. I was running smooth! I felt fine! But I wasn't really running faster. I had asked Alan to tell me, with one lap to go, what I needed to run in order to achieve my goal time. This "goal time" would be either 35:30, 35:45, or 36:00 depending on my time at the end of 24 laps.

With one lap to go, Alan told me I needed a 78 to go under 36:00. (They rang a bell for me, which was nice -- they were ringing the bell for everyone as they passed the "one lap to go" mark, so each person had their own personal bell lap. I've never had that happen before, but then again I've never been in a strung-out 10k with only 10 competitors!) I started running faster. I told myself it was a kick. I could see an orange singlet ahead of me and was shocked that I had a possibility of lapping Shauneen (which I didn't end up doing). Alan ran to the next corner and told me what I needed for the last 300. He met me at the water jump and shouted again. Finally, he ran to the top of the homestretch and read aloud "nineteen, eighteen, seventeen..." I know what a 17-second 100 feels like: it's really fast. I accelerated and kicked down the homestretch for all I was worth. (In the video, they remark that it's almost as though I know the 36-minute mark is approaching. I sure was running fast.) I kicked through the finish and it was over.

On the result: In my second-ever track 10k, in college, I kicked the last lap in 80 seconds and just squeaked under 42 minutes, with 41:59.06. This time, in my third-ever track 10k, I hammered out a 78.5 last lap and didn't quite make it under 36, running 36:00.50. So it goes! It's a nearly-two-minute PR, and I can now succinctly state my 10k PR as "36 flat." My two 5ks were 18:05 and 17:55; hence the title of this post, "eighteen times two." It would have been 18:05+18:03=36:08, if it weren't for my ferocious kick! Alan was fond of pointing out that the first half 18:05 was my fifth-fastest 5k ever, and the second half 17:55 was my fourth-fastest 5k ever (which demoted the 18:05 to #6).

In the end, I was fourth, just as in the previous week's 5k. The only people ahead of me were the three people who were chasing that 33:40 standard -- Katie and Jenn, who lapped me, and Teresa, who almost lapped me but finished just after they rang the bell for my last lap. I did a nice cooldown with Katie and Jenn, and then celebrated my successful race at the team party with lots of nice folks until the wee hours.

On the plan: Strangely enough, I never got bored or mentally drained during the race. This could be because I conserved my mental energy during the first 5k. However, I actually think it's because I had trained for several months for this particular race, visualized this race in my workouts, told everyone it was my goal race -- how could I get bored in a situation like this? This is the day! This is the race! It's go time! I doubt that I'll have enough opportunities to race 10k on the track to actually experiment with different strategies, but if I did, I would certainly experiment with engaging from the beginning. If I had a perfect group at my goal pace, then I would just tuck in, but if I had a situation like this again where I had to run my pace myself, then I would try the strategy of focusing from the beginning and see where it took me. A 10k has a lot of laps, but when you've focused on it for several months, focusing for 25 laps isn't so difficult.

On the wind: During the race, I didn't think too much about the wind, except for trying to tuck in behind people, and obviously fighting against it -- in particular, I never thought, "It's windy, so I guess I won't get a fast time." Far from making excuses, I never even thought about it. But after the race, I started to realize that it was seriously windy. Hip numbers were blowing across the infield. The NB tent almost blew over (see video). I think that the wind probably affected me, that without it I would have run a few tenths of a second faster per lap. Also, if I had had a group to run with at perfect 35:30 or 35:45 pace, I probably could have trotted right along behind them; I wasn't very good at hitting the splits myself, but I was quite good at sticking right behind everyone I ran with (except Katie, who I never really ran with).

So I think I can run faster, and I hope to have the opportunity to run another fast 10k on the track next year, when I have another year of training, and perhaps less wind and a larger group at my goal pace. In the meantime, I'm very happy with this one.

Watch more video of 2011 New Balance Boston Twilight Meet #2 on flotrack.org

Running by the numbers

2011-05-26T16:02:00.000-04:00

After the end of winter track season, I took my mileage down under 60 for two weeks, and I didn't do any workouts. During this period, something strange happened: I would run just like normal on my standard running loops, and I would return home two or three minutes earlier than usual. My training pace, which had been around 7:30-7:45, was suddenly down around 7:10 pace.

I was thrilled! All that hard work was paying off! My coach was not as thrilled:

Just because you CAN run faster doesn't mean you should... If you'd like to be more scientific about it, we can get you set up with a heart rate monitor with target zones, but I think you'll work out and most importantly race better if you're a bit more relaxed on "off" days.

Get all scientific about it? Say no more; I'm on it! I got out the heart rate monitor and, since March 1, I have been recording my average heart rate for as many runs as possible. I've been graphing HR vs. pace as I go along:

I know this is hard to read. Sorry. You can view the full size. The trend is clear: As the pace slows down, the heart rate comes down.

It is a fact that if you run at a constant speed, your heart rate will slowly increase. So for a given pace, the average heart rate will tend to be higher for a 10-mile run than for a five-mile run. Because of this, I labeled each data point with the run's distance.

This graph contains many stories. There is the hilly 13-miler that I slogged through with a heart rate averaging 159 (bordering on "tempo effort"). On the other hand, there's a smooth 8-mile run averaging under 7:30 pace but with my heart rate at a cool 142.

I now have a better sense of what my heart rate is when I'm running; I can sometimes guess what it's going to be, without looking. If I'm running along and I don't feel very good, I'll glance down -- "oh, heart rate is 157, maybe that's why."

Something unexpected: My team does the same loop for both warm-up and cool-down on workout days, but my heart rate is drastically different for the two loops. This data is typical: Warm-up, 7:30 pace; heart rate 142. Cool down, 7:30 pace; heart rate 159. Gosh, track workouts must be really tough on the body!

A side benefit of graphing my heart rate is that I am less annoyed when I find myself running faster or slower than I intended. Fast people show up to the fun run? No problem, that's a new data point at 6:30 pace! End up running with the slow group? No problem; that's a new data point over 8:00 pace!

I think that a graph like this is a great way of measuring someone's fitness. My friend, who was also trying to keep her heart rate reasonable on recovery runs, wanted to know if we'd be able to run together, and a quick look at my graph told her that we would. If you want to know whether you and I can run together, you can easily tell from the graph that I do most of my runs between 7:30-7:45 pace (from the swarm of data points there), and a glance at the scale on the vertical axis tells you that this is usually a conversational pace for me (under 145 BPM).

The numbers on each data point tell you the run's distance, but there's no way to express change over time on the graph, so I made sure to keep track of the data points separately, with the date, in case I want to look at that later. I think that I am getting in better shape, because when I add data points, they are usually towards the bottom, with a lower heart rate for a given speed.

If I really try to peak for some of these upcoming races, and stop doing hard workouts but keep collecting heart rate data, I hope to see the type of thing that started this whole experiment: easy recovery effort, fast pace for the effort level, low heart rate. In other words, I hope to continue to make excellent happen.

New 5k PR! (NBB Twilight Meet #1)

2011-05-15T21:31:00.004-04:00

Last September, I lowered my 5k PR from 18:21 to 17:40 at the JCCRI 5k. Lots of people said, "great job, Diana!" but inside, at least a few were thinking, "the course was clearly short. Who takes 40 seconds off of their PR in one race?" (Never mind that it was USATF-certified and the course measurer was there.) So I was thrilled to follow it up with a 17:43.7 three weeks ago at the Scott Carlson Memorial 5k. And now I'm even more thrilled to have taken another 23 seconds off, with a 17:17.1 at last night's twilight meet!

The race was at night, so all day I hydrated and rested (with a 10-minute shakeout run) and ate cereal and bread. I got to Bentley a few hours early, and was happy to see that it was cool and calm -- no heat, no wind, no rain. Perfect conditions! I sat in my car for an hour or so and thought about the race, how I would feel and how I would react.

Ever since the end of indoor track, I've been training for this series of twilight meets, and in particular I've been training to run 83-second laps for the 5k. I reviewed what my times should be at various points (5:32 mile, 11:04 after 8 laps, 11:45 with four laps to go, etc.). All spring, I've been doing lots of intervals(800s, 1200s, miles, even 400s) at 83 seconds per lap, so the pace should be well-ingrained into my muscle memory.

I did about two miles of warm-up, and befriended Carly from the BAA. When I had seen her name on the start list, I had looked up her training on Athleticore and thought she might be trying to run 17:20 also, but it turned out she was planning to go out a little slower than that. We chatted for about a mile. I did a bunch of stretching and strides, and felt very loose by the time we lined up.

When Dan fired the gun, a Canadian runner went out really fast, and I went out well behind her, settling into second place and trying to settle into an 83. I could tell I was leading a pack, and the first lap turned out to be 80. Oops. Melissa from BAA was running directly beside me as I led the group through the second lap in 84. When Melissa heard that time, she jumped into the lead and I went with her. The third lap was 82, for a 4:06 1200. I stuck right with her even though the fourth lap seemed kind of hard, and it was -- 79.9, for a 5:26 1600. That was faster than my goal of 5:32.

It is well-known that it is easier to run 83s if you can tuck in behind someone who is running 83s, than if you have to run them all by yourself. However, it's not necessarily easier to tuck in behind someone running 82s, than to run 83s on your own. This was the problem I faced. I decided to stick with her and see if I could run a 17-minute 5k (81.8 seconds per lap). I fleetingly thought of my friend Caitlyn, who once found herself in a group and just went with it and ended up running 17:00.5. "Get on the train and ride," I thought.

The fifth lap was 82, for a 6:48 2k. At this point I was starting to lose contact with Melissa. She would get a little gap on me, and I'd have to put in a surge to catch back up. I did this twice or three times. Marissa, a high school runner, was running just behind me, and when I let a gap open up again after six or seven laps, she took the opportunity to pass me and get on Melissa's shoulder. I was able to stay in mental contact with the pair of them until about eight laps, passing that mark in 10:59, for a 5:33 second mile -- right on pace.

Before the race, I had mentally broken it up into the first four laps, the next four laps, a 200m, and then the last four laps. I knew I should get to "four laps to go" in about 11:45. I passed it in 11:44, so then I knew I was just about on pace. I had decided that I would run a little harder on each of the last four laps, so with four to go I increased the pressure. I was running harder, but only managing 84s. So it goes.

As I passed 4k, I heard 13:50, and made a mental note of that (I looked it up later; my previous 4k PR was 14:21). This means that I passed 3k in about 10:19, which is pretty good since I actually ran a 3k at BU in 10:16 when I had a bad race. Up ahead, Marissa had passed Melissa and I harbored fantasies of catching her as she slowed down. Though I was running hard, I wasn't able to close the gap between myself and Melissa. Although I was running hard and obviously in pain and oxygen debt, I also knew that the race was going perfectly, that I was running exactly the pace I was supposed to be running, and that everything was going exactly like it was supposed to go, so I had a certain calmness. I wasn't going to break 17, but I was going to live up to expectations.

I had decided that 15:50 was as slow as I could be with one lap to go and still get under 17:05 (NBB's Tier 1 standard), since a 75-second 400 is pretty much my limit. The clock said 15:57 as I poured it on. I ran 80 seconds for the last lap, 38 for the final 200, coming in at 17:17.10. If I'd only eased up just a little, I could have run 17:17.17!

Here is the video. My teammates are taking the video and narrating, so I get more airtime than a normal fourth-place finisher:

Watch more video of 2011 New Balance Boston Twilight Meet #1 on flotrack.org

I can't wait for the 10k next week!

Scott Carlson Memorial 5k

2011-04-23T15:58:00.007-04:00

(Results) After last week's frustrating near miss, I wanted another chance to run fast. A little sleuthing told me that both of the women who beat me at the Carlson race last year would not be racing this year, making it likely that I could grab the $250 for first place. Also, the weather forecast was 100% chance of rain, plus 15 mph wind -- decidedly nasty weather that would eliminate anyone who was wavering. But not me!

We got there just after registration opened so I could get my size S shirt, and so we could see whether Alan should register or just run with me. He decided to register after EL and a high school team were the only fast-looking guys. It was only lightly raining during our 3-mile warmup on trails. I had heard that the NB flats were slippery on wet pavement, so I tried them out, but the traction was fine, so I wore them for the race (and never thought about it again, so that was a false rumor). It was cold and raining, so I ran about an extra mile doing light jogging and strides in the 10 minutes before the race started, just to stay warm in my singlet. I saw a couple of intense-looking women, but I could tell that they were masters runners, so I was not too concerned. According to the announcer, this year had a record-breaking field, despite the rain! Hopefully this will contribute to a speedy cure for ALS.

The race started and we ran up the initial hill. I went out behind JY, who goes out fast in every race. I was hoping to run between 3:30-3:35 for the first 1k (this course marks every k and every mile!). I passed a group of the high school boys' team before the 1k, and hit it in 3:34. Great! It was windy and rainy and I had to remember to look ahead so that I could cut the tangents properly. There were two high school boys ahead of me, one in the team uniform and one in a white cotton undershirt, and I worked on catching up to them. I passed the mile in 5:46. Great! I could see Alan up ahead, and it was clear that he would get second place, also great!

The guy in the uniform came back to me and I passed him just after the mile. Then we ran past some girls who were cheering, and he surged to pass me. I kept running the same pace and caught him again. We passed 2k in 7:10, for a 3:36. Very consistent! As we made a gradual right turn, I saw some runners in black (not in the race), and when they cheered for me I realized it was some friends who were out for a 20-mile run. We hit 3k in 10:44 for a third k of 3:34, still consistent! I was very happy to be running such an even pace, running the times I wanted without having to go all-out do to it. We got to 2 miles in 11:30 for a 5:44 second mile. I was wondering if this was good, and then I remembered that my goal last week was 11:35, so I realized I was on pace for sub-18.

A little before 4k, a man passed me who was clearly a masters runner (gray hair). He ran near me for a while and I tried to draft off of him and the uniformed high school runner, who was still right near me. (The drafting was unsuccessful, because it was a crosswind.) I figured he didn't know, so I told him: "Catch that blue guy, get 100 bucks." About 30 seconds later, he asked me what I had said. "Pass the guy in blue, third place. 100 bucks, no joke, three deep," I replied. During the race, this seemed like perfectly clear communication to me. Now that I am typing it, I realize that the only people who could parse that message are the sort of people who would already be well aware of the prize structure. But I figured that, as a masters runner, he probably wasn't picking up cash very often, and it would be cool if he could. He never did understand what I was saying -- he asked me after the race -- and he didn't catch the kid, in any case.

I went through 4k in 14:21 (new 4k PR! Previous 14:48) and it was all downhill to the finish. The men were running away from me and I tried to stay with them to run a fast time. I went under the bridge at 3 miles and saw 17:11 on my watch. Wow, it would be a fast time! I kicked hard as Alan and JJ cheered for me. I saw 17:40 come and go on the clock, so no PR, but still close. My official time was 17:43.7 (for a fifth k of 3:23). My second-fastest 5k ever!

I was impressed to see that the second and third finishers were quite fast also, both under 19:00. They turned out to both be very accomplished multisport athletes, one a recent national champion duathlete and the other a Hawaii Ironman champion, both masters runners.

The rain really started to pour just after I finished, so I quickly put on more clothes and Alan, EL and I headed out for a four-mile cooldown on the trails. It was not wet in the woods, and we had a good conversation. There was a nice post-race spread with pizza, fruit and sherbet. I was very happy with the cash prize, and even happier when it turned out that they double-dipped and I got a great goody bag for the age group! Alan got one too, of course, so now cumulatively from this race we have:

$400, two tech shirts, 8 PawSox baseball tickets, a one-hour massage certificate, $45 to a gift shop, two chocolate bunnies, 24 marshmallow Peeps, two Army water bottles, two Army lanyards, an Army mug (what are we going to do with these? This is a Navy family), a red baseball cap, two fancy pens in cloth cases, two ALS wristbands -- and hopefully, someday, a cure for ALS.

RI State Police 5k Foot Pursuit

2011-04-23T13:54:00.005-04:00

(Results 4/17/11) I had been planning to do this race for a long time. They were giving $100 for first place, plus an extra $200 for breaking the course record of 17:58. Considering that I ran 17:40 last fall, I figured I could probably run under 17:58. I had heard that times in this race completely depend on whether it's windy, since the last mile is along the beach, so I checked the wind direction all week, and was very happy to see that it was projected to be about an 18 mph south wind -- perfect! It would push me to the finish line.

Rain was forecast, but when I arrived it was a brilliant sunny day. As forecast, there was a very strong wind. I did the last mile of the course as my warm-up, and found that we would have a strong headwind on the way out, and hopefully a strong tailwind on the way back. But it wasn't the kind of consistent push that I was expecting; something about the buildings, road curve, and seawalls made it come from different directions at different locations.

Huge headwind on the starting line. I jokingly asked my friend Hunter (who is very tall) if he was planning to run a 5:50 first mile -- obviously, I wanted to draft off of him. The race started and I tried to stay behind various men, balancing my desire to run fast with my desire to avoid running into the full force of the wind. The first mile had some uphill, and I found a guy at a good pace, going up the hill. He was wearing a T-shirt that said TMS. I wondered if it was my TMS? I passed the first mile in 5:50, as advertised, but I felt like it had taken a lot of effort to run that pace. (Hunter was at least 5 seconds ahead.)

The second mile was about 3/4 mile of gradual uphill followed by about 1/4 mile of downhill. I slogged that mile, trying to motivate myself to put in more effort, but discouraged by the hill and the headwind. The men were running away from me. I had a goal of 11:35 for two miles, so that I could break the course record. Instead, I glanced at my watch as I made the turn onto Ocean Road, and it said 11:47. A 5:57 mile! Who am I to try to run under 18:00 if I run almost six minutes for a mile of the race? I became very discouraged and I didn't think that I could go under the time.

For the last mile, there wasn't much of a tailwind. A guy in a Cobras singlet slowed down and I passed him, but then he sped up and went away again, and I didn't go with him. Too bad, because he dipped just under the women's course record! I got to three miles in 17:33 for a 5:46 third mile; not bad. People shouted, "run hard! kick it in! lots of money on the line!" but I know that you have to get to 3 miles in about 17:27 in order to break 18; it's hard to make up a lot of seconds in the last 0.1 miles, because percentage-wise it's a huge increase in speed.

I finished in 18:06. Just before the finish, this police officer passed me:

Photo by George Ross, Digital Photo Concept

I should mention that this race was (obviously, from the title) sponsored by the police, and so the police presence was huge. I always run with my car key pinned to my shorts, rather than hiding it on or around the car, because I don't want to take a chance of someone stealing the car. But if there were any race where I would take the chance, it would be this race, with a line of six police cars parked close by, and troopers in uniform (see in background of photo, above) everywhere!

Interestingly, while there were tons of police in the parking lot and race headquarters, there were none on the roads; the roads we ran on weren't even closed after the first 1/2 mile or so. But it makes sense, because there was barely any traffic. The only police officer out on the course was the one who inspired the race, a guy who was hit by a car while running, and now competes in races by pushing himself backwards in a wheelchair with one foot. One of the men I was running with shouted encouragement to him as we passed.

For my efforts, I received $100 and a race hat. There was a nice barbecue after the race, and I had fun hanging out with my friends KC and AH. There was even a Del's Soft Frozen Lemonade stand giving out free tiny cups of Del's! I had three of them; it was very delicious. I felt like I should have run faster, especially considering the generous prize for doing so, but luckily there are always more races.

Wild for Winsor 5k

2011-04-23T13:15:00.002-04:00

(Results 4/2/11) Doing this race was poor judgment. The night before the race, we happened to be looking at upcoming races, and noticed that there was one the following day in Smithfield -- a RI town in which we had not yet run. Also, it was a new race, so we figured no one else would have found out about it. Might as well show up and run a 7-minute pace 5k and pick up $50, right?

On the starting line, I saw TH, as I expected, and I decided to let her go and just run for second (first place = shoes; second place = cash). She ran well, in third place overall at certain times during the race. Unfortunately for me, some other legit people also showed up, so I found myself running a 6:05 first mile just to hang with second place (IN). Luckily this slowed to a 6:20 second mile and 6:30 third mile, but I threw in a kick at the end just to make sure all that fast running paid off! It turns out that the woman I was running with (IN) is an ultramarathoner; she told me after the race that she has no kick. Not surprising for a person who does a 50-mile race one weekend and a 5k the next! That's an impressive range.

All in all, doing this race was a very poor choice. I had done a track workout the day before, and the whole point of a track workout is to stress the body and then recover, in order to improve. A 19:30 5k is not burning up the road, but it's certainly not recovery pace, either. I had been having calf pain, and while I didn't feel it during the warm-up or during the race, I felt it afterwards.

The experience taught me that I shouldn't do a race unless I am planning to go all-out and really race it, that when I have a goal race, I should focus on it and not let small road races distract me from that long-term goal. I hope that I can remember this in the future!

Running' down a dream (St. Pat's 5k)

2011-03-26T00:19:00.001-04:00

The St. Pat's 5k was the third and final race in the Tour de Patrick series, to which I devoted my March racing schedule. Last year, I was hoping to win the race, but I was extremely nervous because I knew there would be over 3,000 people there. It ended up being a tough battle just as I had feared and visualized, but in the end I did win, immortalized in this awesome photo (which was published in New England Runner magazine and led to months of teasing from my runner friends!)

This year, I walked downtown with three other runners from Brown, and we arrived over an hour early, giving us plenty of time to chat with various people. One of the photographers working with George even took this nice picture of our group:

I had a nice talk with the man (IB) who does the announcing for all of Charlie's races, whom I had met several times, but we had never chatted off-microphone. He told me about Ireland, and in particular that I should look forward to ham sandwiches and tea. IB said he thought I would certainly win the race that day. I thought about how humbling it is to look around at the thousands of people who are milling about, and think that I will beat every single female who is wearing a race number (and most of the men). It is a strange and unbelievable feeling.

I also talked to my photographer/runner friend SM, and we agreed that it is dumb when people stop their watch just as they cross the finish line, because (his reason) it makes for bad photos, and (my reason) you can look at the results later to see your exact time.

I did my two-mile warm-up and then changed into my flats. Because I had walked there, I didn't have a car where I could stow my stuff, so I left it with IB at the announcer's table, where it would be safe. Thus, as the race was about to start, I was very near to the announcer's table, and as I was about to head to the starting line, Charlie pulled me aside and asked if I could say something on the microphone to all the people (because I was the current Tour de Patrick leader). No pressure -- there are only 4,000 runners, a couple of hundred spectators, and the mayor of Providence! IB asked me some easy questions; I thanked everyone for coming out and said I was so excited for the race, then gave a thumbs up:

As I was leaving the area, Mayor Taveras shook my hand and told me good luck! That was nice of him.

Okay, now for the race. I hadn't been doing a great job at my Tuesday workouts, and I had the series title well in hand, so my coach told me to only run between 18:40 and 19:00 in this race. I thought it would be cool to win all three races in the series, so I was hoping to win this one. But then I discovered that my friend KJ was at this race, and she ran 18:15 last fall, which meant that winning the race and running slower than 18:40 would be mutually exclusive goals. I decided to go out behind her and run only just fast enough to win (if I could win -- KJ is fast).

The siren sounded and I was ready for it this time -- you can see that my reaction time was faster than almost anyone else's. That's because I was prepared for the fact that I would only barely be able to hear it!

I jumped off the line, but then slowed down until KJ came up even with me, then ran beside or just behind her. She was chatting with Nate. The pace seemed relatively comfortable, but it was hard to tell exactly because we had a big headwind. After maybe 3/4 of a mile, KJ wondered aloud what pace we were running. Nate consulted his GPS watch -- "5:38," he said. "Oh no! That's too fast!" KJ said. I told her that we were not going 5:38 pace, that Nate's watch was wrong, but she decided the pace was too fast, and slowed down. The pace seemed plenty comfortable enough to me, so I abandoned my plan of staying behind KJ, and just kept on at the same effort level. I went through the mile in exactly 6:00.

A funny thing happened on the way out -- I was running with men, trying to draft off of them into the headwind. Every so often, one of the spectators would notice that I was the first female, and would say "go first woman!" or something. A guy who was running just ahead of me apparently thought that this was insufficient, so he kept trying to drum up support in the crowd. "Hey guys, she's the first female! Cheer for her!" he exhorted the spectators. I was embarrassed, because it's not like I need cheering in order to keep up my blistering 6:00 pace, and also it was an out-and-back course, so I knew what I was in for. "It's okay," I told the well-meaning guy, "I'll get it in spades on the way back." (This is literally what I said -- "in spades." I don't think I have ever used that phrase before.)

We made the small lollipop loop with the short downhill and uphill, and then headed back along Smith Street to the capitol building, running right next to the slower runners who were still heading out. Just as I rejoined Smith Street, I heard a group of female runners shout, "go Diana!" and I knew it was my friends from Brown (two of whom are pictured above). Basically the whole way back, people cheered for me as the first female! (I think the singlet helped.)

Here's the part of the story where you know I'm a scientist. I mentioned that there was a headwind on the way out, so I was looking forward to a tailwind on the way back. However, on the way back I was unhappily surprised to find that there was once again a headwind! What the heck? On the warmup, I had a tailwind! Then I thought back to a run I did recently along a highway, where I had a headwind in both directions because, running on the left, the cars nearest me were always going the opposite direction. That was what was happening here -- because thousands of people were running in the opposite direction from me, they were actually creating a headwind. Crazy.

I went through two miles in 12:06 -- okay, but not very fast, and I could see KJ's blue singlet behind me. I kicked my pace up a notch. Just as I was thinking, "man, I'm having to work really hard to run this speed," the quantity of runners/walkers going the other direction tapered off, and I got a nice tailwind. Sweet. I drifted along with my tailwind and worked on getting to the capitol. On the way, I made sure to pass Nate and BH, whom I had beaten in the previous two races and didn't really want to finish behind.

I went through three miles in 17:48 and was very surprised that the third mile was so fast! I momentarily wondered if TH's course record of 18:21 might be in reach, but I remembered that I had agreed to not run very hard, and I figured it would take 40 seconds to reach the finish, so my time would be over the course record; too bad. Ahead of me I saw them putting out a tape and I ran for it. Someone on the other side was gesturing for me to put my hands out, so I did:

I had done it! I won all three races in the series! Wow!

As it turned out, my time was only 1.15 seconds from the course record. That's a little annoying, because I could certainly have gone two seconds faster at any point throughout the race. But I am very happy with the result! I did another microphone interview, and told the crowd (as per Charlie's instruction) "I'm not going to Disneyworld; I'm going to Ireland!" Ha ha, very funny. (The irony is that I have never seen any of those commercials. I just don't watch TV!)

After the race, I talked to lots of people -- Alan finished despite his food poisoning; Sarah and Kasondra had an epic sprint finish separated by only 0.1 seconds in which they both ran PRs; people I didn't know gave me high-5's. I also did an interview with SM from the Pawtucket Times, which was apparently also for New England Runner! The article has lots of nice quotations:

Pretak, Davis cop individual titles at St. Pat's 5k
By STEVE MAZZONE
smazzone@woonsocketcall.com
PROVIDENCE — After battling a stiff headwind for the first mile of the St. Pat’s 5K, Stephen Pretak knew his goal of running close to 15 minutes would not happen Saturday morning.
But the less-than-favorable conditions in the Providence race didn’t stop him from breaking the tape a winner.
The 26-year-old Connecticut native captured the final stage of the inaugural Tour de Patrick, finishing the out-and-back course with a time of 15:31.7. Pretak held off defending titlist Eric Lonergan of North Kingstown, who claimed the runner-up spot at 15:35.4.
In the women’s race, Providence’s Diana Davis defended her crown from last year by taking 30th overall among the 3,547 finishers with an 18:22.5 clocking. She beat 32-year-old Kim Jackson of Providence, a second-place finisher (35th overall) at 18:36.0.
Davis’s performance completes a victorious sweep in the Tour de Patrick, a three-race series that awards the overall male and female winners (based on cumulative time) a trip to Ireland. The 25-year-old Brown University PhD student also copped the Irish 5K in Pawtucket on March 5 and the Celtic 5K in Worcester last Sunday. Lonergan, a victor in the two previous races, was declared the men’s champion of the series.
“I won (St. Pat’s) last year so I sort of wanted to go in and win it again,” Davis said. “It was nice to win all three, but I was definitely the most nervous for this one.”
Pretak, a 2007 graduate of Southern Connecticut University, was making his second appearance at the St. Pat’s 5K. He was second two years ago in the initial race when he ran a personal-best effort of 15:02 to former Providence College All-American Mark Carroll’s course record of 14:26.
“My goal was to run as close to 15 flat — if not under — as possible,” Pretak said. “Two years ago I ran close to that and was mad at myself for not doing it. Today, I went out a little slow and it’s tough to come back from that.
“The whole mile out we were just running right into the wind. I kind of realized (running 15 minutes was not possible) when I saw 4:59 at the mile mark. It was not the pace that I was looking to run.”
For about the first 1,200 meters of the race, Pretak and Lonergan ran alongside each other on the moderately, challenging course. Pretak broke away from the former all-stater from North Kingstown High before he hit the mile mark.
Coming down the final stretch on Smith Street, he had just enough in the tank to hold off Lonergan to the finish, just in front of the R.I. State House.
“I heard his footsteps the whole time through like 2 ½ miles,” Pretak said. “Then he came alongside me at 2 ½ and I knew he had a kick. I guess I just had a decent kick today.”
Davis was more than 25 seconds slower than her winning time of 17:56.2 at the Celtic 5K last weekend, her fastest clocking in the series. This race, however, was her most difficult to come out on top.
“Absolutely, no question,” she said. “The other two I won by two minutes. This one I won by (about) 10 seconds.”
Davis assumed sole possession of the lead after about a half mile, but then had to worry about Jackson during the late stages of the race. Third place went to Framingham’s Amanda Van Cleave, who also dipped under 19 minutes with her time of 18:57.3.
“There were some fast people that showed up today,” Davis admitted. “(Kim) and I were running together at the beginning. She thought the pace was a little fast so she slowed down, but she really caught up the last mile.”
“It feels great,” she continued. “I was nervous the whole way because I knew Kim was behind me, but when they put out the banner I knew I had it. I am really, really happy.”
Nathaniel Broomfield of Pawtucket was the first R.I. local runner to cross the line. The 38-year Broomfield placed 31st overall in 18:24.9. Lincoln’s Richard Botelho, 50, was 54th overall at 19:18.2.
Tiffany Spearman, a onetime distance ace from Woonsocket High, was fifth among women and 59th overall. The 29-year-old Spearman, who now resides in South Boston, ran a time of 19:24.4.

The online version, linked above, only has a picture of the male winner, but the print version has a nice photo of the whole starting line. Also, the part in there about my time being 25 seconds slower than at the Celtic 5k is a little misleading, because the course in Worcester was short.

I have now run 18:25 three times this year, or four if you count the 17:56 on a short course. So now we have:

Four ways to run 18:25
(Super 5k) Kill the first mile, loaf the next two, and then sprint in the finish.
(Irish 5k) Run hard the whole race, uphill and/or into a headwind.
(Celtic 5k) Do a tempo run before the race; go out comfortably and then accelerate in the second half.
(St. Pat's 5k) Run the first two miles comfortably and then negative-split the heck out of the last mile.

I am very happy about how this series went. It's a steep hill from downtown Providence up to Brown University, but as I walked home from the race I basically floated up the hill, ecstatic that I was able to not only win the series but also win each of the three races. I expect that this series will gain in popularity over the next couple of years, and I'm happy to have done it in the inaugural year.

Final standings in Tour de Patrick

2011-03-21T19:50:00.002-04:00

I'll write a detailed race writeup soon (of course!) but I thought I'd post the final standings from the Tour de Patrick. The St. Pat's 5k results has the total time for most of the runners who did all three races, but there are some omissions (notably, Alan). I used chip time, rather than gun time, because many of the runners listed were not on the starting line.

Interesting things to note about this chart:

In all three races, Brendan and Nate finished right together, with no one between them. Brendan beat Nate in the first two races, but Nate beat him convincingly in the third, and in the end their time difference was an astonishingly small 0.9 seconds.

Alan ran the St. Pat's 5k while suffering from food poisoning in order to hold onto his #2 spot, which he did, by a margin of 34 seconds. He had to be there, in case Eric didn't show up.

You may wonder why some people who signed up for all three races only did two -- when they were in the top 10, no less! (not that they knew, or cared). In fact, over 4,000 people signed up for the St. Pat's 5k, and "only" 3547 finished. This is in line with the industry standard of about 90% of registered runners showing up, and 10% of those who sign up not running.

Eric and I are going to Ireland!

Tour de Patrick standings after two races

2011-03-14T14:09:00.004-04:00

Inspired by (the other) Double D's meticulous accounting and frequent sharing of runner rankings and statistics (here is the most recent example), I decided to compile the rankings in the Tour de Patrick after two races. No one else seems to be doing it, so I did.

I would be fifth in the men's rankings, 3.3 seconds behind Dave.

I often watch the Tour de France in the summer, and at the conclusion of each stage they publish the current standings with the time gaps from the leader. My goal here is to do the same thing.

I just took the top 10 women and men from the Irish 5k who had signed up for all three races. There are about 500 people signed up for all three races; I am not interested in taking on that programming challenge. Corrections are welcome; please comment below.

The third and final race in the series is on Saturday.

Sneaking in under 18 (Celtic 5k)

2011-03-13T22:08:00.005-04:00

(Results) Today was the Celtic 5k, the second of three races in the Tour de Patrick, which brought us to scenic Worcester, MA. All three cities in the Tour de Patrick -- Pawtucket, Worcester, and Providence -- are gritty, working-class former mill towns. Of the three races, today's was the one where that was most clear.

The course started alongside a nice park, and ran 1.5 miles out on a straight, flat section of Route 9, past chain restaurants, auto body shops, and strip malls. We made a 180° turn around a traffic cone by the Friendly's restaurant, and ran back exactly the way we came.

Because I raced to a two-minute lead in last week's race, it became clear that I wasn't going to have to go all-out to win the series, so my coach devised a workout for today that would let me use the race in a way that would make me stronger for the spring.

After a two-mile warm up, Alan and I did the course at about 6:10 pace. The mile markers weren't out yet, and the street was still open to traffic, so we dodged red lights, cars, pedestrians, balloon sellers, and lawn chairs as we ran the course. We weren't sure where to turn around but we knew it was near the Friendly's, so we made a guess of where to turn, which as it turned out was exactly the right place! That was lucky. We ran 18:23, so we knew we had run too short of a distance, but we were confident that we had been going at least 6:10 pace, so it was not a problem in terms of workout value.

We got back at 10:40, 20 minutes before the start of the race. I put my long pants and jacket back on and waited a while before going to the starting line. I didn't do too much jogging or strides, because I figured I was pretty warmed up from the first run.

You can see Eric and me with our awesome Leader singlets. I am laughing at the pathetic excuse for a starting siren. Photo by George Ross.

The siren sounded and man, a lot of guys took off! I had been ninth overall last week, and I was figuring I could only do about 50th this week because of all the fast guys. I felt kind of tired in the first mile, which I thought was due to the first run, but I started feeling better as the race progressed, so it was probably due to my lack of sufficient striders. I passed lots of guys in the first mile, and then tucked in behind a high school team that offered to block the wind for me (such gentlemen!). Dramatic foreshadowing: I ended up 14th overall.

I am on the left side of this picture. Copyright Worcester Telegram.

I reached the turnaround about 11 seconds faster than in the first run, so I started thinking, huh, if I just do the second half a tad bit faster, I will break 18 minutes! At that point I knew the course had to be short, but if you can break 18 minutes for whatever reason (other than cheating), why not? My wind-blocking high school boys spread out into a line to high-five everyone coming the other way, so I was on my own with regards to wind on the way back. I timed the second female and I saw her 24 seconds after the cone, for a difference of 48 seconds -- much less than last week, but in the end, the gap would be almost two minutes again.

I was surprised to see my perennial rival Dave S just ahead of me after the turnaround, because I had already remarked aloud that because of my pre-race interval, I would certainly be behind Dave S during the race. But there he was, and I slowly began to catch him. Poor Dave; all the people coming the other way were saying "first girl!" and "first woman" (and mysteriously once, "second woman," maybe because the third-place male had long hair?) and he had to listen to this for about a mile as I inched my way forward. I passed Dave about 1/2 mile from the finish, and from there the race seemed to go very quickly. I managed to sneak in with just under 18 minutes on the clock.

They grabbed me right away for the awards ceremony; I seriously took about 10 steps to decelerate past the finish line and then I was turning around to walk up the steps to the stage. I said all of about twelve words in the microphone interview, because I was still breathing hard, and then they gave us nice plaques and took lots and lots of pictures. I was even interviewed for the Worcester Telegraph, none of which information ended up in this article (from which I took the picture seen above).

Once again, Alan was second to EL, and the Brown Running Club won the Gym Team competition and won a really nice plaque. The three people we brought to the race all ran PRs, even when the distance adjustment for a short course was taken into account. So it was a fun day, and I feel like I know Worcester better than I did 12 hours ago.

I want to go to Ireland (Irish 5k)

2011-03-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

(Results) Way back in October, Charlie Breagy told me about his new St. Patrick's Day race series that he was planning for 2011. "It's going to be a Tour de France style series, where the top male and female win a trip to Ireland and represent the USA in some races over there," he explained to me. Keeping the race series a secret, from that moment until yesterday, was very challenging for me because I was so excited about it. But I didn't want the word to get out, because I wanted to win the trip to Ireland!

For the past two weeks, I obsessively searched the race web site's entrant database for fast people's names. A week ago, I realized that not only were no other fast women signed up, but no fast men were signed up, period. So Alan signed up, because wouldn't it be cool if we could both win a trip to Ireland? As of race day, one other fast guy (EL) had signed up, but still not one of the women I didn't want to race had signed up.

I was nervous all week. I was nervous even on the starting line. Several times, I have arrived at a race having seen no one else that looks fast, only to have some fast woman show up on the starting line one minute before the race starts. Not a single other female had even positioned herself within 10 feet of the starting line; every other female had chosen to start behind the "7 minute pace" sign. And I was the only female doing strides. A few minutes before the start, they started playing Irish music, and I started smiling. My dream of winning a trip to Ireland might just come true.

The air horn sounded and I went out behind a big group of men. The course was basically a lollipop shape, with a big hill on the beginning and ending section. It was a perfect day for running, 45 degrees and overcast, except that it was very windy. I was planning to run 5:45-5:50 for the first mile, but I wasn't sure how to gauge my effort on the first hill. I tucked in behind some men as we entered quite windy parts of the course and came through the mile in 5:54. I figured that was okay, considering the uphill.

During our warm-up, we had discovered that the small out-and-back section in the second mile was very windy. At that time, I had vowed to tuck myself behind a guy when heading into the out-and-back, but when I got there I was in a big gap, with no one to shield me! (What's the point of scouting out the course if you don't apply your knowledge?!) I didn't want to slow down and wait for someone to pass me, and I wasn't going to catch the guys ahead of me, so I just ran into the strong wind. Sigh. I checked my watch at the turnaround: 11:14. I waited until I saw the second-place female and then checked again: 11:50. So I had about a 70-second lead. Hmmm. That's a lot. I was thrilled to see that my friend Sarah was in fourth place! I also passed the 2-mile mark in about 11:56 for a 6:02 second mile. Not that fast, but clearly it was enough to maintain the lead.

The last mile was flat and downhill back to the downtown area. I tried in vain to catch my perennial rival Dave S, but he was too far ahead. As I entered the beginning/ending section of the lollipop, there were some women were still on their way out on the course, and as I ran by one of the women said, "she's going to Ireland!" I ran down the hill and into town, hitting 3 miles in about 17:54. At least it was under 6:00! The straight section was much longer than I remembered and the finish seemed very far away, but as I approached I saw them pick up the finish tape and stretch it really tight, so I spread out my arms and splayed my fingers and tried to give George a good photo, which indeed he got:

As soon as I finished (in 18:25), the race director told me to be back in 30 minutes for the awards because they wanted to do them ASAP before the parade. So Alan (who was second, as expected, in the race) and I ran immediately back to the car to change our shoes, and then did a two-mile cooldown. So imagine our surprise, when we were blocks away and only 20 minutes had elapsed since I finished running, to hear our names and times being announced on the loudspeaker, as the announcer repeatedly summoned us back to pick up our prizes! We also got caught at a traffic light about 50 meters from the announcer, as he kept asking us to appear, but the cars just kept having a green light and there was no traffic gap in sight! I am sure the many spectators were happy when we finally appeared and picked up our lovely prizes.

We both got interviewed for the paper and here is the result:

Lonergan, Davis snare crowns at Irish 5K
PAWTUCKET — When Diana Davis ran up the steep incline during the first mile of the inaugural Irish 5K in Pawtucket, she didn’t just see the top males in the field.
Davis, a third-year PhD student at Brown University, also saw some green.
“I want to go to Ireland,” she said.
The 25-year-old runner took the first step to making that trip to the Emerald Isle a reality Saturday morning when she was the first woman to cross the line in front of City Hall, placing ninth overall among the 849 finishers with a time of 18 minutes, 25.1 seconds.
The 5K was the first of the three-race series of the Tour De Patrick, an event that awards the overall winners (based on combined time in the series) a trip to Ireland. The series, created by race director Charlie Breagy, continues next Sunday in Worcester with the Celtic 5K and concludes in Providence on March 19 with the St. Pat’s 5K.
“I won the St. Pat’s 5K last year and had a really good experience,” Davis said. “Charlie’s also a good friend of mine and told me about this series back in October and about the trip to Ireland. I decided right then that I was going to do it.”
Davis earned her prize with ease in Saturday’s race, posting a two-minute victory over Kasondra Iadarola (34th, 20:25.5) of Sutton, Mass.
In the men’s race, it was slightly more contested. North Kingstown’s Eric Lonergan put on a surge just before two miles to break away from Providence’s Alan Bernstein and win with a 16:12.4 clocking. Bernstein was second at 16:31.3. Martin Tighe, a 52-year-old runner from Providence, was third at 17:20.2.
“I just want to see where I am at,” said Lonergan, who copped last year’s St. Pat’s 5K. “I haven’t raced yet this year. This will be the first one of many.”
The 25-year-old Lonergan, a graduate of Rhode Island College, battled Bernstein in the initial stages of the out-and-back race. Running within a few strides of each other, the two runners distanced themselves from the field by the midway point of the race near McCoy Stadium.
“I know Alan pretty well,” Lonergan said. “He’s a pretty good runner so I figured I would pace off him.”
Lonergan made his decisive move for the title right around St. Raphael Academy on Walcott Street.
“It was rough with the wind and the hills and it started to catch up with me, especially in that third mile,” said Bernstein, an assistant women’s track and cross-country at Brown. “I just saw Eric disappearing into the distance. He got twenty seconds on me and just kept it consistent. The last mile we were both kind of hanging on.”
For Davis, she assumed the front-runner position the minute the gun was fired from the Roosevelt Avenue start. She increased her cushion considerably as she took the left-hand turn onto Main Street shortly after for the challenging incline of the first mile.
“I was in the lead the whole way,” Davis said. “I went out kind of hard going up the hill. I looked in front of me and all I could see was men. My plan was to run hard but consistent. I went through the first mile in a little under six minutes. It was very, very windy out there.”
Davis and Lonergan will now don the Tour De Patrick Green Jersey — awarded to the individual leaders in the series after each race — at next week’s Celtic 5K, also a first-time event.
“I really hope I can keep the lead,” Davis said. “I really would like to go to Ireland.”

It's a nice article. I can't imagine how they got Alan's name wrong since he spelled it for them AND it is correct in the results, but these things happen somehow, I guess. At least it lets you know how I feel about Ireland.

Happily, the Brown Running Club also won the team competition, and we got a nice custom plaque. And my friend Sarah ended up third, and got a prize! Everyone who came with us to the race had a good race and a good time.

Two second-bests (USATF-NE)

2011-02-21T18:25:00.004-05:00

(Results) This was the race where I was going to break 5:00 in the mile. I prepared for it all week, and I made sure I was as ready as possible to do the best I possibly could. However, things did not go the way I had planned them out; the race got away from me, and I ended up running 5:11.69. If I had not had a breakthrough race at Terrier, then this would have been a slight PR, but because I ran so well at Terrier, I had hoped that I could do much better than this. Under 5:00, even. But it was not to be.

I followed my plan of sticking behind my teammates who were sure to run a few seconds under 5:00 in the mile. We went through 1/4 mile in 73.4 and I stuck right behind them. Then we went through three laps in 1:53 and I knew something was not right. When we went through 1/2 mile in 2:31.6 (thank you, time clock, for having tenths) I was totally off of my plan. That was more than 2:30, therefore more than 5:00. NOT part of the plan. I didn't want to pass my teammates on the outside, so I stuck behind them and slowed down for the next four laps. My legs were just not giving me any power. My last lap was a 40. It was not pretty. Of course, I can say "I felt terrible and I still ran 5:11!" but I would much rather feel great and run fast than feel bad and run a moderately acceptable time.

This was the fifth weekend in a row that I raced, and I just have to acknowledge that racing many weeks in a row is not a recipe for success, at least for me. I should have learned this in the fall, when I had 3-4 weeks without a race and then ran a 41-second 5k PR in the JCC race. The lesson should have been underscored a few weeks later at the Tufts 10k, which was my fourth race in five weeks, in which I felt awful. So I am going to try to plan out my racing schedule better for the spring and the rest of the year, and have my goal races follow a good training block, rather than after a bunch of other races.

I doubled back in the 800, but someone entered my seed time as 2:34 instead of 2:24, so I was in the last section. I ran 2:24.95, with splits of 70-75 or maybe 71-74 depending on how you take the 440-yard track into account. My PR is 2:24.74, so this is very close to my PR (which I also ran as a double). It was basically a time trial; because I was in the slowest section, I was 10 seconds ahead of second place, and I even lapped someone on the final turn. As one of my friends indelicately put it -- "You weren't in the fast section; you were in the FAT section!" Sad, but true. At least it makes for good stories to tell later.

Unfortunately, 2:24.95 is a 0.79903 performance index, falling short of my goal of 0.8. Well, my streak of 0.8s had to stop sometime. It would have happened on a long distance event anyway (my 1:26 half marathon is only 0.77) and 0.799 is very close to 0.8. My teammates were kidding with me about breaking my streak of PRs -- and they're right, you can't PR every race, certainly not if you do a lot of races, especially five weeks in a row.

Now I will try to get in a good training block before outdoor track starts, and do my best to rein in my desire to do road races just to win money. That's so 2010.

Finally, a poor performance (Valentine Invitational)

2011-02-12T13:58:00.003-05:00

Did you notice that neither the GBTC Invitational nor the Valentine invitational is actually an invitational? Anyone can enter -- you can just sign up, pay your fee, and run. This is not what "Invitational" means. Here is an example of an invitational that is actually Invitational:

Giegengack Invitational: As is noted on the page where you can sign up for the meet:

Collegiate Athletes ONLY. Invited teams ONLY.

That's pretty clear. A previous version of the page also mentioned that to request an invitation, you could contact someone.

Here is another example of a truly invitational Invitational:
New Balance Collegiate Invitational: As is noted on its signup page,

Athletes who wish to be considered for inclusion in the Open events must contact the event coordinator ... no later than Monday, Jan. 24, 2010.

Also clear. And exclusive: only fast people need apply.

For Valentine, anyone can run (as long as you aren't in high school). I ran for the past two years, when I was neither particularly fast nor on a team. Truth in advertising, please. If you're going to call it an invitational, invite people.

(Results) I was looking forward to this 3k and I knew that I could run fast, certainly under 10:00. My plan was to run the first 1600 in 5:20 or a little under, then maintain for three laps, and then kick and really race the last 800.

I had a bad start and found myself in the back. I ran in lane 2 and passed most of the people to put myself near the front by the end of the second lap. I was surprised to see 39 on the clock after 200m. Usually it goes out faster than that! The next couple of laps I fought to stay near the front, and I was working hard, so I was disturbed to see that each time I came around, the time ended in a 9. I was running 40-second laps and having to work very hard to do it. My legs felt tired and I was having trouble breathing. I was thinking, "this is not my day," and then putting the thought out of my mind and running. But it definitely was not my day, and that became increasingly clear as the race went on.

I went through the mile in 5:20 as planned, but I felt awful. After that, it just fell to pieces. I was slowing down, and when people passed me they would cut me off, and I had to stop suddenly to avoid running into them, and then get on the outside to pass them again. The second half of the race was awful. I was running 42s and 43s, getting passed by person after person, feeling completely out if it, with this pain in my chest and heavy legs. I even lost count of my laps at one point. With one lap to go, I saw 9:33 on the clock. It was pathetic. And then the really pathetic part was that I kicked, and I still didn't make it in under 10:15. My final time was 10:15.54. After I crossed the finish line, I bent over and then found myself tipping forward and had to catch myself with my fingertips (you can even see this in the video).

Here is the race video. Be advised that it is twice as long as the last one, and not nearly as interesting. I should have been at the front of the race, one of the people the camera was filming, and instead I am languishing in the back, out of the frame for much of the second half.

Watch more video of 2011 BU Valentine Invitational on flotrack.org

So, my streak of great races has ended. I ran a race in the blue and white singlet that wasn't a PR. I'm not sure why I felt so bad; I felt good on the warm-up, and doing strides, and I was confident going into the race. Maybe I shouldn't have done 11 miles a day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Maybe I shouldn't have warmed up so long before my race. Maybe the track dust and dry air triggered, for the third or fourth time in 10 years, the exercised-induced asthma that the doctor told me I had back when this same thing (trouble breathing, pain in chest) happened during a 5k in tenth grade. I'd like to know what caused me to feel so bad during the race, but I'm not inclined to be very discouraged about it. For me, at least, there are many races.

There are certainly some positive things to take away from this. First, even though I felt awful, I was able to come through the mile in 5:20. I also stayed near the front and used the front-runners' pace reasonably well for a few laps -- after my bad start and before I started slipping. Finally, despite my legs and lungs not cooperating, feeling awful, and basically just surviving the second half of the race, I still ran 10:15.54. It's not a bad time, and it's faster than I ran all of last year. It's significantly slower than I wanted to run, but that just gives me more motivation to run fast next time.

After running poorly in the mile at Harvard and then much better just five days later at BU, I decided that BU's track was magic. But I felt, running on BU's track last night, like I did at Harvard three weeks ago. So it's not the track. That means that I can run a fast mile at Harvard next week, if my body feels like it did at BU two weeks ago. I hope that's what happens, and I'll do everything I can to ensure that I arrive prepared to run fast.

To run in the sun is fun (Super 5k)

2011-02-06T23:58:00.008-05:00

(Results) This race went exactly as I wanted it to go, precisely according to plan. That certainly doesn't happen all the time!

First, the weather was perfect -- sunny and about 40° -- and the previous day's rain cleared the road of snow and ice. Then, the race went just as I planned. There was one person I was worried about, my friend MG, who usually runs marathons and hasn't run anything even close to as short as a 5k, but tends to win the marathons she enters. Plus, when I was talking to her and her friend/coach before the race, her friend/coach mentioned that he thought she should run 5:30 pace and that she could run 17:30. That was a little worrying; I wasn't planning to try to run a PR, and 17:30 is faster than my PR.

Best conversation during registration:

[Looking at the sheets of pre-registered entrants]
Me: Hey, some people have single-digit numbers! Zak and Alan are number 2 and 3! How do you get a low number?
Guy from NRA: If you've done well before, or if we know you.
Me: What if I won the race last year?
Him: You didn't.
Me: And was second the year before.
Him: Uh... really?

(The best part was the unequivocal "you didn't." I assured him that it didn't matter either way, that the extra ink for the second digit in my "54" would not weigh me down. After the race, he found me and told me that I can have a low number next year. Ha ha.)

Here we are a few hundred meters after the start. You can see me and MG on the extreme left of the screen (her in blue, me in sunglasses) and of course Alan right there in the center. She took it out hard and I followed on her shoulder.

She really was running 5:30 pace! Maybe 5:35-5:40, but no slower than that. I had planned to go out in a comfortable 5:45, and the pace we went didn't quite feel comfortable. In fact, I am always a noisy breather when running, and this time I noticed that I was breathing very noisily while MG was silent. To an impartial observer, she probably sounded like she was jogging in a park, while I sounded like I was doing my ninth interval in a set of 8 x 400.

I knew it was serious when we passed Dave S. He can be consistently counted on to run 18:30, so if we were passing him, we were committing to a time faster than 18:30. That was okay, but I was not surprised when he passed us soon after. "Good job, Dave!" I said. "Keep pushing!" he shouted. "Whoo!" I replied. (Eloquent, as usual.)

At this point I kept finding myself pulling even with MG. Each time it happened, I let off and drifted back to her shoulder, because I definitely didn't want to be the one pushing the pace. But a little before the mile, I let it happen and I sort of drifted ahead and didn't look back. A few seconds later someone pulled up behind me and I assumed it was MG putting in a surge and catching back up, but it was a guy. I hit the mile in 5:45. And that was it. It was an out-and-back course, and when I saw Alan coming back he said "no one in sight!" and after I made the turn, I saw who was behind me and where, and I knew I was safe.

Out-and-back courses are fun because the people further back are always shouting things. Like in the St. Pats 5k when I ran to a constant background of "first woman!" and "first women!", or at the Pie Run when people actually said "go Diana!", and of course the Tufts 10k where the women shout under the bridges and generally along a whole bunch of the course.

After the race I ran into my friend Wayne. "Did you hear me cheering for you?" he asked, and then said, "you looked happy -- you were actually smiling." And then I remembered that I was laughing and making jokes. In particular, people were shouting "First Lady!" so I shouted, "If I'm the First Lady, do I get to live in the White House?" I think a couple of men passed me in this section; I came through two miles in 11:57 for a 6:12 second mile. That is what happens when you smile and make jokes: hello, tempo pace.

But it didn't matter, because I wasn't trying to set any records. I was just running. The mile back to the finish line was pretty windy, so I tried to draft off of various men. They were (I assume) racing, so that forced me to run a little faster in order to stay right behind them. This one guy who passed me was wearing Tarahumara-type sandals with thin soles and just a loop going around his big toe and some straps up his ankle. "Slap-slap-slap" was the sound his feet made as he ran by.

With a quarter of a mile to go, I realized that I was running very comfortably. I saw Dave S just ahead of me, and I wanted to pass him. Then I remembered that I missed the Saturday team workout to do this race, so I had better get in a good workout at the race! So I surged to pass Dave S and the guy running next to him. As we came under the arch, there was a guy just ahead of me, who was wearing sneakers. You can see him on the edge of the screen, and me just behind him, in this picture:

I decided I didn't want to lose to him either, so I passed him and then turned towards the finish line and was slammed by a huge wall of wind. I went through three miles in 17:48 for a 5:51 third mile (not bad). The next guy in front of me was Sandals Guy, but he was too far ahead to catch, so I just ran through the finish and ended up with 18:25.

This #183 guy you can see in the picture talked to me after the race. It turns out that I also just barely beat him by a few seconds at the Scott Carlson race in April! Who knew? I assured him that it wasn't him I was trying to pass; it was Dave.

It's pretty neat that I can run 18:25 without excessive exertion. I set a PR of 18:26 in October '09, which was a breakthrough race for me, and now that time isn't too hard. This is my sixth-fastest 5k (after JCC, RMDH'10, CVS'10, Carlson and St. Pats). I am very happy with my current level of fitness, I'm working to improve it, and I am hoping to run a great 3k at Valentines this weekend.

Falling off the track (Terrier Classic)

2011-02-02T12:42:00.001-05:00

(Results) On Friday night, I ran my fourth PR of the year -- 5:04.98 in the mile. This is a huge PR, of over 7 seconds, and it comes after I had already taken 4 seconds off of my PR just five days earlier. So in less than a week, my mile PR went from 5:15.90 to 5:04.98. A year of training has really paid off!

Upon checking in after my warm-up, I was happily surprised to find myself seeded in the second section. (In previous years, I have been lucky to avoid being in the very last section.) Within each section, we were randomized (the person wearing #1 was not necessarily the fastest), and I ended up with #10, in the forward part of the barrel start. Here is a video of the race, from FloTrack:

Watch this video on Flotrack

I was planning on an aggressive start, but everyone went out so fast that I just settled in the back. I was somewhat boxed in, but we came through 209 meters in 38 seconds, so I saw no reason to move. We went through two laps in 76. It felt the way it should -- not super hard -- so I was very happy with how the race was going. When we came through four laps in 2:32, I was thrilled. This was exactly the pace I wanted to be running! 5:04, here I come!

Here is a picture about 10 seconds after the start (we are still in the barrel):

There was a lot of jostling in the pack, even though I was near the back. People kept cutting me off; I had to put my arm out to prevent them from jumping in front of me, and on two occasions I thought the girl in front of me was going to fall down because I was about to run into her. I was thinking, "stop it! all I want to do is run!"I could have gotten away from it by running outside in lane 2, but then I would have to run farther than a mile, so I stayed on the rail.

We came through six laps in 3:48. "Three seconds over 5-minute pace!" I was thinking, and then suddenly the girl in front of me was going down, I was jumping over her, and I found myself on the infield. What the heck?! I had only two thoughts:

1. I've just been disqualified for taking more than 3 steps off of the track. I might as well not even keep running.
2. Get your feet back on the track!

Because I was sort of on autopilot -- I was racing a mile! -- I kept running, got on the track before I even though about it, and tried to catch back up to my group. My first priority was to get my feet back on the track so that I would only take three steps off the track, and in the video you can see that I basically cut off another runner in my attempt to jump back on the track at the first opportunity. As I was accelerating back up to speed, I was thinking that I didn't know how many steps off the track I had taken, but I was pretty sure it was more than three. (In fact, it was probably about eight.)

At that point, I just wanted the race to be over. I didn't really have my head in the game because I knew I was going to be disqualified, so I wasn't thinking about racing other people at all; I was just running as fast as I could.

I ended the seventh lap in 4:27. I instantly added 40 seconds and got 5:07. "Wow, I can still run a PR!" I kicked the last lap, but I wasn't really paying attention and I didn't even know, until I watched the video, that someone passed me at the line. (I did notice Yvonne taking a picture on the backstretch, and I'm looking forward to seeing it.) I was shocked to see 5:04 on the clock as I finished. I thought I would have lost a lot more time than that.

The first thing I did when I was done was to walk up to the officials and ask if I got disqualified. They didn't know, and they didn't even know who I should ask! Steve V. assured me that I wouldn't be disqualified, because I didn't gain an advantage. I was not as certain, because I knew I had taken more than three steps off of the track. After I took my spikes off, I walked up to the timing booth and asked them if I had gotten disqualified. They told me that no one had gotten disqualified in the whole meet so far! So that was a relief. And my coach told me that they would appeal it if I did end up being disqualified (which I never was).

Looking at the video, you can see that I lose about 10 meters from falling off the track. 10 meters is about two seconds, so I should have run at least 5:03. And if I had been with the pack and not distracted by imminent disqualification with two laps to go, I am confident that I would have raced the other runners, and at least tried to pass them all on the outside. I wouldn't have run under 5:00, but I think it's clear that my fitness is at 5:02-5:03 range (at least on BU's track). So I'm very happy with the race, and at least it has given me a good story to tell.

Does a hill bring you closer?

2011-01-24T22:34:00.002-05:00

As I have mentioned before, sometimes things come up in running that I wonder about mathematically, like time intervals around a track or what you can count as a PR. Both of those questions occurred to me within the past few years, but here is something that I wondered about way back in high school:

I was in a cross country race, running about 50 feet behind a girl from the other team. During a straight, flat section of the course, we had been running the same speed, so this 50-foot gap had remained constant. I knew that a hill was coming up, so I wondered: If we both slow down the same amount on the hill, will the distance between us stay the same, or will it get bigger, or smaller, while we are climbing the hill?

It's a good question. At the time, I didn't know how to figure out the answer (and I didn't ask anyone). But after a few years of high school math and physics, where I learned that (for example) you can easily toss a ball up and down while you are on a train as long as the train isn't accelerating or decelerating, and I learned about the "twin problems" in relativity, I figured out how to think about the problem, and I figured out the answer.

The answer is that the time gap between my opponent and me stayed the same throughout the race, but the distance between us decreased while we were on the hill.

You can think of it like this: Imagine that we were identical twins who run exactly the same speeds, but she started 5 seconds before me. Then the gap between us will be 5 seconds for the whole race. If we both run at a speed of (say) 10 feet/sec on a flat course, then we'll be running 50 feet apart for the flat sections. But if we slow down to 8 feet/sec on the uphills, we'll still be 5 seconds apart, but only 40 feet apart, so the distance between us decreases on the uphill.

If we both speed up to 12 feet/sec on the downhills, the distance will increase to 60 feet on the downhill -- even greater than it was on the flat. But when the course flattens out again, we'll still be 5 seconds apart, so the gap will be back to 50 feet whenever we are both running on a flat section. (If she is on a hill and I haven't gotten there yet, the distance between us will be somewhere between 40 and 50 feet, and the same with the other transitions.)

I even have a way of visualizing this happening. Way back in middle school, our coach had us all running around the indoor track, half a lap sprinting and half a lap jogging. There were 100 kids of widely varying abilities, so we were spread out all around the track, with people crossing the starting and finishing lines at all different times. But the key was that when you got to the line on the track, your speed suddenly went from jogging to sprinting, and then vice-versa. I imagined a screen where the left half was blue and the right half was red, and there were red blood cells flowing across the screen, and as soon as they hit that imaginary line, they changed from red to blue, and sped up. So as soon as they turned blue and sped up, they had to get farther apart. This is what happens when my cross country opponent and I reached the top of the hill and started running down the other side: suddenly, we sped up and got farther apart!

Three for three (GBTC mile)

2011-01-24T15:11:00.007-05:00

(Results) Yesterday I ran the mile at Harvard, and ran 5:12.24, which improved on my previous best of 5:15.90 set way back in December 2009 at the Alden Invitational. It wasn't as fast as I wanted to run -- I wanted to run five-oh-something -- but it was still a PR.

I used to think that my problem was lack of mental toughness. I would finish a race like the one I ran yesterday, and I would think, "if only I had more mental toughness, then I could have stayed with the girl ahead of me. I could have run faster if only I had pushed myself harder." I shared this outlook with my friend GC one day last summer, after we had completed a morning track workout together. She pointed out that I had just done [such-and-such impressive workout] under [such-and-such difficult conditions], so clearly I was not lacking in mental toughness. I trust GC's judgment, so from that day forward I no longer beat myself up about inadequate mental toughness.

Now I just say, "Didn't run fast enough? All right. Better train harder."

I had wanted to run all of my laps in 38 seconds, for a time of 5:04 (Harvard has a 220-yard track). I had expected that, with the excitement of the race, I would fly through the first three or four laps in 38 without it being too hard. However, that didn't happen; I ran closer to 39s, and when I tried to speed up in the second half of the race and run negative splits and catch the girl ahead of me, I nonetheless slowed down and she got further away. So, I just have to train harder, so that my fitness allows me to run eight 38-second laps in a row.

Me in one of the last laps of the race. Photo thanks to Yvonne.

Before the race, I was a little annoyed because I wanted to be in the invitational section -- "the fast heat" -- but I wasn't chosen. After the race, I saw that my time would have been the slowest time in the section, so it's completely justified that I wasn't in that section. However, the way that race went, it would have been perfect for me: It went out reasonably slowly for the first six laps, so I could have hung on the back end of the strung-out pack, at a perfect pace, for most of the race. In the last two laps, there would have been people right ahead of me, who I could have tried to catch (in my section, the first girl was 9 seconds ahead of me, too far ahead to be a motivator). So it would have been good for me, and I probably would have run a little faster than 5:12.24 -- but I probably would have been last. The moral is: If you want to be chosen for the fast section, you have to run faster.

So far, I have run three races in 2011 and have set PRs in all three. In fact, in every race since Mayor's Cup where I have worn the blue and white NBB uniform, I have run a PR:

Mayor's Cup: 18:50 (5k xc PR)
USATF-NE XC: 22:24 (6k xc PR)
Pie Run: 30:09 (5 mile PR)
Club nats: 22:22 (6k xc PR)
BU open meet: 10:07.56 (3k PR)
BU open meet: 2:24.74 (800m PR)
GBTC invite: 5:12.24 (mile PR)

This can't possibly last, but it's nice to improve. It's nice to keep running the fastest I have ever run. I will just have to keep training hard and see how it goes.

Mixing speeds

2011-01-22T18:28:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, when I'm running, I come up with a mathematical question, such as the question about PRs and average speeds. Here is another one.

I was doing 200m intervals on the indoor track, one lap fast and one lap slow, and I wondered: is it the same time interval between when my coach sees me, and when the people on the exercise bikes see me?

More concretely: Suppose that a runner is alternating fast laps (which take 1 minute) with slow laps (which take 2 minutes). She passes her coach, who is standing at the start/finish line, after 1 minute, then 2 minutes later, then 1 minute later, then 2 minutes later, etc. How about the people on the exercise bikes 1/4 of the way around the track? Do they also see her every 1, 2, 1, 2, minutes? Is there a place you could stand so that you could see the runner with an equal time interval between meetings?

The answer is that depending on where you are standing, the interval between meetings with the runner is different. If you stood halfway around the track (diametrically opposite the start/finish line), then it would always be 1:30 between meetings with the runner: If she passed you on a slow lap, she would then run half of a slow lap (1:00) followed by half of a fast lap (0:30) before seeing you again. Similarly, if she passed you on a fast lap, she would then run half of a fast lap (0:30) followed by half of a slow lap (1:00) before seeing you again.

If she passed the people on the exercise bike on a slow lap, then it would be 3/4 of a slow lap (1:30) and 1/4 of a fast lap (0:15) before she passed them again, so that's 1:45. When she passed them on a fast lap, it would be 3/4 of a fast lap (0:45) and 1/4 of a slow lap (0:30) before she passed them again, so that's 1:15. So the people on the exercise bikes see her every 1:45, then 1:15, then 1:45, then 1:15, etc.

You can get any time intervals you want between (1:00/2:00) and (1:30/1:30) by standing in various locations around the track.

This is basically a mixing problem: Mixing various proportions of fast and slow laps. It is similar to the question: Suppose you have one liter of apple juice, which costs $1, and one liter of grape juice, which costs $2. You have to make two fruit punches, each 1 liter. What are the possible costs of the two drinks?

In this case if you keep the juices separate, the punches are $1 and $2 (like standing at the start/finish line). If you mix the juices 50%/50%, both punches are $1.50 (like standing diametrically opposite the start/finish line). If you put 25%/75% in each punch, the costs will be $1.25 and $1.75. You can get anything between those by varying the concentrations (like you can get any time intervals between the given ones by standing in different places around the track.)

N.B. My fast and slow intervals were not 1 minute and 2 minutes. That was just for purposes of illustration, to make the numbers easier.

Records start at the gun

2011-01-21T21:33:00.002-05:00

Back in September, in my post The Intermediate PR Theorem, I discussed whether, if my 2-mile split in a 5k was 11:09, I can multiply this time by 1.864/2 to convert it to a 3k time of 10:24. So if my 3k PR had been 10:30, could I now claim a new 3k PR of 10:24? A legitimate question.

In discussing this with one of my professors, I discovered that the answer is no. Consider this:

The current world record for the 100 meters is 9.58 seconds, which Usain Bolt ran in Berlin. Bolt has only run 9.58 once in the 100-meter dash. But in fact, lots of people have run 9.58 for 100 meters before. How? In the last 100 meters of the 200-meter dash!

When you compare 100m and 200m times, it's interesting to note that individuals' 200m times are usually faster -- less than twice their 100m times. For instance, Michael Johnson's 100m PR was 10.09 and his 200m PR was 19.32. In fact, he went through the first 100m of his 200m in 10.12, and then proceeded to run 9.20 for the second 200m. Could he therefore say that his 100m PR was 9.20? No, because he had what's called a "flying start" -- he didn't have to accelerate from motionlessness in the blocks; he started at full speed.

This effect is much smaller in longer events; 200m times are much faster than 400m times. However, the fact remains that in order to be a record for a particular distance, the performance has to start at the gun. For instance, Haile Gebrselassie set the world record for 20k en route to his 1-hour world record, and this record was the first 20k of the race. Even if he ran faster between 1k and 21k than between the start and 20k, it wouldn't count as a record because he had a flying start.

So if I want to run a PR for 1500m in a mile, it had better be the first 1500m!

Goals for 2011

2011-01-17T22:49:00.005-05:00

I made up my goals for 2010 as I went along, so I thought I should make my goals for 2011 in advance. Here they are.

Run 10 miles a day
For the past two years I have averaged 8 and 8.8 miles a day, respectively. I have found that if I run more, I get faster. So I want to run 10 miles a day, or 70 miles a week, on average.

Run every day
I don't see any pressing reason why I should skip running on any particular day. If something urgent comes up, such as debilitating illness, I will reconsider this goal.

Under 17:00 in the 5k, 10:00 in the 3k and 5:00 in the mile
In 2009 I broke 19:00 in the 5k for the first time, and in 2010 I broke 18:00 in the 5k. So in 2011 I would like to break 17:00. 10:00 in the 3k is a goal for winter track. 5:00 in the mile is a dream. You have to have dreams.

Run a NBB Tier 1 time
Since I ran under 10:15 in the 3k on January 2, I have the NBB Tier 2 standard for all of 2011. It would be awesome if I could run a Tier 1 time.

Win a race
Most likely, if I achieve any of my time goals, it will be in a race that I do not win. To run fast times, I must surround myself with people who are faster than me. However, I do like to win races and I would like to do that in 2011.

Win money in a race
What can I say, it's fun to have an envelope full of Benjamins in my sock drawer. However, the more often I race, the slower I will probably be in races, so I have to be choosy about the race schedule. Which brings us to:

Race fewer times than in the past two years
In 2009 I raced 35 times and set 19 PRs at 9 distances. In 2010 I raced 48 times and set 10 PRs at six distances. So maybe if I run fewer races, I will run more PRs. Mathematical analysis of those two (!) data points suggests that I can maximize my performance with about 27 races. That's about the number I was planning to do anyway. I don't plan to make the Red Rooster Ramble series a focus this year, so that will decrease my number of races by at least 10.

Run with lots of different people and have fun
Running with other people is one of the best parts of this sport. I ran with about 100 different people last year, and I think it really added to my enjoyment of running. My favorite part of running is running fast in workouts and races, but my second-favorite part is chatting with other people on a relaxed run.

Late addition: Run 1000 miles with Alan
I had to consult with Alan on this one, because it can't just be my goal; it has to be our goal. And we agree: another 1000 miles in 2011 is our goal. So far we have only run about 60 miles together this year, but I have high hopes that we can accomplish this together once again.

Most Unlikely Christmas tree thank you card

2011-01-17T22:44:00.001-05:00

Band of Red Thank You 5x7 folded card

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A good start to 2011

2011-01-10T20:48:00.005-05:00

On January 2, I competed at the BU mini meet, and ran PRs in both the 3000 and the 800. What a way to start the year!

Last year, my goal was to break 10:15 in the 3k so that I could join NBB. I ran 10:22.25 in my first race of the season, seven seconds from my goal. A few weeks later I tried again, ran a hard-fought 3k with much of the race in the second or third lane, kicked for all I was worth over the last two laps, and ran 10:21.95. Working so hard and taking off only 0.3 seconds was very disappointing.

However, it seems that I just needed to be patient. With another year of training, another 3000 miles on my legs, breaking 10:15 came naturally. Given the amount that I have improved in other distances over the past year, I thought I could run somewhere between 10:00 (40 sec/lap) and 10:15 (41 sec/lap), so when I visualized the race, I visualized running 40s and 41s.

Running the 3000

My seed time of 10:15 put me 4th in my section, so I was surprised when the gun went off and seemingly everyone passed me. I was content, though, as I went through the first lap in just under 40 seconds. I clicked off the first few laps in 40 seconds, then relaxed a bit and ran a few 41s. The race went by very quickly. Alan was at the far end of the track, and after 7.5 laps he told me that I was halfway done, and then I was shocked to realize, very soon after, that two laps had passed since Alan had made that remark, because usually each lap is very difficult. I was basically running alone; after the first lap, I passed one guy (actually lapped him) and one guy passed me. I went through 2k in about 6:48 (which is a new 2k PR) and I felt like I had the race very well in control. With two laps to go, I started kicking, and ran the last two laps in 39 and 38, for a final time of 10:07.56, a PR of about 15 seconds. I was thrilled with the race.

I cooled down, watched Alan and quite a few of my friends race the mile, and then after a few hours I warmed up for the 800. I added it up later and I had done over eight miles of running before I got to the line for the 800. I was also wearing brand-new spikes that I had just been given that day, after the 3k (thanks, NBB!). I had seeded myself at 2:30 because that is my PR. Both Alan and my coach said that I should have seeded myself much faster, and that my goal should be to win my section. I was in section 8 out of 9, the second-to-last race of the entire meet. I reminded myself that the 800 is a very short race, so you have to run hard for all four laps and not worry that it's too fast.

Running the 800

We started in lanes, a two-turn stagger, which was sort of weird. I went out at what I felt was the right pace, and when I cut in there were two men and two women ahead of me. I passed the two women on the second lap. On the third lap I intended to pass the two men, consistent with my goal of winning the section, but they seemed to speed up, so I was content to speed up and stay behind them. In the last lap I kicked past one guy and gave it everything I had to catch the last guy, but he finished ahead of me. Still, I ran 2:24.76, a 6-second PR. My lap splits were 35, 36, 38, 35, which is pretty much the canonical pattern for an immature racer (a mature racer runs even splits), but the 800 is not my specialty, so it's fine with me.

All in all, a great start to 2011. I am looking forward to racing the mile as my next event, and seeing what I can do.

2010 summary

2011-01-03T18:17:00.010-05:00

Goals I set for 2010 and how they worked out:

Run under 10:15 for 3k and 18:00 for 5k:
3k didn't happen. I tried very hard to run under 10:15 for 3k all during winter track, but I wasn't able to do it. I ran 10:22 twice, running my heart out and coming up far short. I also tried to break my mile PR of 5:15.9, but was only able to manage 5:20 on the track in the winter and then 5:17 on the road in the summer. I also tried to break 2:30 in the 800, but I only ran 2:31, not even a PR. N.B.: I ran 10:08 for 3k and 2:25 for 800 yesterday. So, I just had to train more and be patient.

5k was better: All spring and summer, I ran times between 18:20 and 18:40. It didn't feel that hard to run 18:40, but I just hadn't found the right confluence of good conditions, good competition and hard effort. Finally, these all came together in September when I ran 17:40, which was a 41-second PR. That's a 3.8% PR! Big PRs like that usually only happen in when you haven't run that distance in a long time, not events like the 5k which I had run repeatedly. And yes, the course was USATF-certified! Running 17:40 changed my life (at least with respect to my running career). It qualified me to join NBB (which was my reason for setting my 3k goal at 10:15) and has put me at a higher level in my running.

Win every Red Rooster Ramble and win the points competition:
I did this. I drove down from NH, two hours each way, to continue running the races in the summer. I set the course record twice (it was broken in between) and got in lots of good tempo efforts. I really enjoyed the whole series, but I'm not planning to make this one of my goals for 2011.

Run under 19:00 for every 5k:
I did this. The only exception was a Halloween-themed 5k, which I ran for fun and still ended up running 19:04. The closest I came to not running under 19:00 was Mayor's Cup cross country race at Franklin Park, where I ran 18:50. That motivated me to make several changes to ensure that I wouldn't run so slow in the future. My fastest race was 17:40 and second-fastest was 18:01.3, so all but one of them were between 18:00 and 19:00.

Run every day:
I did this. I have now run every day for two years. My minimum mileage was 2 miles (when I was sick). I also count pool-running as the requisite 2 miles as long as I do it for more than 30 minutes. I pool-ran two days this year.

Run more miles than last year:
I did this. I ran 3211 miles in 2010 and 2907 miles in 2009. I averaged 8.8 miles per day. Here is a graph of my weekly mileage (click for larger) where blue is weekly mileage, red is cumulative average for the year and green is 8-week moving average:

I should point out the huge change that has taken place in my running over the past three years. The following graph shows my weekly mileage (and 8-week average) for all the weeks of 2008, 2009 and 2010:

Just for fun, I added a trendline to the weekly mileage data. I got y=0.28x+27, meaning that I have on average increased my weekly mileage by 0.28 miles per week (from about 30 to about 70 over the course of about 150 weeks).

Run 1000 miles with Alan:
We did this. In mid-November when we had only run 800 miles together, I didn't think we could possibly do it. However, we made a concerted effort in the last two weeks of the year, wherein we ran 53 and 61 miles together in two consecutive weeks, we managed to run a convincing 1043 miles together in 2010. (We ran 1178 miles together in 2009.)

Net over $1000 in prize money:
This is a goal that I set sometime in the fall, when I saw that I was close. As December came to a close, it became clear that I wasn't going to make it. However, if you include the profits I made when I sold things that I won, and if you consider gift certificates to be money (which I do, as long as I use them on things I would have bought anyway) then I netted $1001 this year. I spent $557 on entry fees and took home $1558. Here is a graphical view of my cumulative profits over the course of the year.

Of course, running is absolutely not about the money. I have enough money. I run to have fun and to run fast.

This year, I ran 49 races: Seven track races (5 indoor, 2 outdoor) and 42 road races, including 16 Red Rooster Rambles. I won 28 of them (including the 16 RRRs). Of the 26 road races that were not RRRs, I was 1st 12 times, 2nd twice, and 3rd three times.

I also achieved 10 PRs this year: three in the 5k (18:24, 18:21, 17:40), two in the 3k (10:22.25, 10:21.95), two in the 6k (22:24, 22:22), one in the half marathon (1:25:59), one in the 5-mile (30:09), and one in the 400 (65.0). These are percentage improvements of:

5k: 4.2%
3k 1.7%
6k 4.3%
half marathon 5.3%
5-mile 0.9%
400m 5.7%

I also set course records at the Red Rooster Ramble 5 mile (30:57 and 30:32), the Kingston Firemen's 5 mile (30:47), and the Rhode Races half marathon (1:25:59) (new course). The RRR is getting a new course next year; exciting!

People I ran with in 2010: Alan B, Melissa H, Jenna R, Haynes H, Sarah T, Jeff M, Kim C, Kim J, Bob W, Steph R, Jackie J, Karen B, Kristen P, Ian, Ben K, Michaela D, Katie T, Brian M, Mark B, Henry M, David L, Mike B, Edward T, Anna, Ben N, Greg, Erin H, Jamie J, Dan H, Oliver C, Joey G, Riadh, Jim M, Jen C, Tess A, Dan G, Scott D, Beth, Wendy, Nick S, Laura E, Michael C, Michael G, Bob J, Billy R, Russell D, Vicky J, Clay H, Matt H, Alex S, Scott C, Chris J, Michelle G, Cooper W, Stella W, Dave D, Mark C, Gwyn C, Eric M, Rob, Verity, David, Jimmy, Matt S, Paul L, Brett R, Erin L, Lauretta B, Mike O, Nate B, Sarah C, Pat M, Kyler E, Keith M, Carmen T, Emily D, Evan S, Jordan A, Erin D, Sasha V, Jen D, Emily M, Tom, Jenn D, Sarah C, Will V, Katie D, Karina J, Leah B, Erin B, Kathryn J, Sarah B, Tony W, Scott M, George R, Lauren, Vinit S, Laura K, Caitlin M, Chris P, Rich, Joe, Erin A, Zak K, Nikki. (This only counts people I talked to while running -- I did some running in large-ish groups and I don't count the people I didn't talk to. Also, just racing against someone doesn't count.) That's 105 people. Pretty awesome! Thanks, everyone!

2009 was my best running year ever, and now 2010 is my best running year ever once again. I ran lots of races and had lots of wonderful experiences. I ran lots of miles, got faster, got stronger, and ran with lots and lots of great people. That's pretty awesome, and it's what makes running so much fun. 2011 is off to a great start so far, and I hope it will be another wonderful year!

Newport Pie Run

2010-12-04T19:06:00.006-05:00

(Results) This year, I decided to do a Thanksgiving race. Every other year of my life, I have either been in Maine for Thanksgiving or traveling to relatives' houses, so there has been no time for races. This year, a confluence of the mutual absence of many sets of relatives left me free and able to do whatever I cared to do on Thanksgiving, so I decided to do a five-mile road race.

I looked at last year's results, and decided on a race in southern Rhode Island that gave cash to the top two runners. Last year's competition was stiff, but I decided that as long as I ran hard, I would be able to run with last year's winner (MH) and at least get second place. The race is generally known as the Newport Pie Run, but it is actually in Middletown, RI.

When we arrived, I was happily surprised to see our friend Mark signing up! So Mark and I did a warm-up together. It was quite cold out, in the 30s, and windy (Middletown is on the ocean). I saw one woman (KS), in pink, who looked pretty good, but I didn't recognize her. I also saw MH (last year's winner). I stripped down to my singlet and shorts and went to the starting line. It was bitterly cold and windy, so I stood inside the mass of people (mostly dressed in long pants and long sleeves, gloves, hats, etc.) to stay warm. When the race start was imminent and I went to the starting line, I was unhappily surprised to find two really fast women standing there. One ran in the 2008 Olympics. The other recently ran a half marathon nearly one minute faster per mile than my PR. Well, there went the cash. Thanks, guys. Now it really was just going to be a pie run for me.

There's no crying in football, and there's no stopping in running. The gun went off and I was running. It took me about 15 seconds to realize that my hands were freezing cold. It was cold and windy, and my hands were seriously uncomfortable. I wasn't going to be able to warm up my fingers by wiggling them, because the wind was too cold. I should have worn gloves. This was a real problem. As I was wondering whether I should run with my hands on my neck, or on my waist, or what, Alan happened to mention, "If you want my gloves at any point, just say so." "YES!" I said, and over the next 30 seconds or so used the stiff fingers on one hand to get the gloves onto the stiff fingers on the other hand. It probably slowed me down, but I didn't care.

We passed the first mile in 5:52 (Alan was running with me). That seemed like a pretty reasonable speed -- slower than 5k pace, but not too much slower. The two fast women had disappeared into the distance. Alan glanced back and said, "you've got company," meaning that MH was close behind me. (He later told me that she was running about 10 meters behind us for the first two miles.) I didn't think about it; I put it out of my mind.

We hit two miles in 11:54, for a 6:02 second mile. I was happy to still be averaging under 6-minute pace. At this point we ran downhill to a beach, where it was windy but probably scenic (I did notice an octagonal gazebo). Here was an out-and-back section, so we started to see the leaders coming back. The runner immediately ahead of me was Dave, a friend from RI who is often close to me in races, and as we passed him on the out-and-back part near the cone, Alan told him he better not slow down, because we're coming for him... I was able to see who was behind me, and it was KS (the woman in pink that I had noticed as looking fast) followed by MH! Once again, out of over 1300 people milling around before the race, I had correctly identified my two closest competitors...

We hit three miles in 17:54 for a 6:00 mile, aided by the downhill, and began the trek back up the hill we had descended. The hill seemed to be about half a mile long -- it was LONG. I conserved energy on the uphill and probably slowed down too much, though Alan was looking back periodically and he reported later that the hill was where I dropped KS and MH. We went through four miles in 24:22 for a 6:28 fourth mile. Not my finest hour, but this hill was pretty serious business.

Happily, though, the downhill was on the other side and we screamed down it all the way to the finish. I managed to catch and pass Dave, and put about 15 seconds between us in the last half mile. This portion of the race was very windy, and even when I ran so close to Alan that I nearly clipped his heels, it was still windy and I felt like I wasn't drafting at all. The next person in front of me was Alan's teammate, and he encouraged me to catch the guy, but he was pretty far ahead and it didn't seem possible to me.

When the finish line was in sight, Alan peeled off and told me I had 20 seconds to get in under 30 minutes, and I could do it. When I heard "20 seconds," I immediately thought "100 meters" (80-second laps being an ingrained benchmark) and looked ahead and thought it looked to be a little farther than that. But I kicked hard and was surprised at how much speed I had left. I nearly did catch the guy (he beat me by a second, but our chip times were the same) and came in with a time of 30:09 (5:47 last mile). To my surprise, KS finished ahead of MH. It turns out that KS is totally legit, even though she was racing in a pink zip-up sweatshirt. It just goes to show you that you can't judge people's speed by the clothes they wear to race.

That's a 7-second PR for me over my 5-mile split from the 2009 Tufts 10k, and a 23-second PR over my actual 5-mile race PR from Red Rooster Ramble #13. However, I'm confident that I could have gone a lot faster. I didn't come into the race mentally prepared to push myself to the wall, and I didn't push myself nearly as hard as I did in RRR #13. Had I pushed myself that hard, I surely would have run faster. The conditions weren't great; as I discussed, the wind was a constant factor, and the hill was long. With these considerations in mind, I've decided that I'm glad I didn't break 30 minutes, because my goal is not to break 30 minutes: The next time I race five miles, I want to break 29 minutes. That's my goal and I'm sticking to it.

I won my age group, so I came home with a metal water bottle and two pies (apple and pumpkin) for my efforts. $25 poorer, but at least well hydrated and fed.

Running every town in Rhode Island

2010-11-30T14:09:00.004-05:00

Rhode Island is a really small state. It only has 39 towns. So, I've decided to run in all of them while I live here. So far, I have run in 21 of them. I am keeping track of my progress on this page.

This past weekend I ran in two new towns -- Middletown and Tiverton. I thought I would be running in Newport for the NewportFED Pie Run, but it turns out that the race is in Middletown. (Similarly, the previous weekend I did a race sponsored by the Westerly Track Club, which was in Charlestown rather than Westerly.) On Sunday, I was going to Little Compton anyway, so on the way we did a long run in the wonderfully-named Weetamoo Woods in Tiverton, RI.

Rhode Island has a lot of localities that aren't officially-recognized towns. For instance, the University of Rhode Island claims to be in Kingston, RI as its official university address. However, there is no Kingston -- there is a South Kingstown and a North Kingstown (note the addition of a "w"). Officially, URI is in South Kingstown.

Luckily, we just got a Rhode Island atlas with the town boundaries clearly delineated, so we can tell exactly which town a certain race route or run was in. For instance, the Red Rooster Ramble, which I ran 16 times in 2010, is generally known to be in Warren, RI. However, only the first and last mile of the course is actually in Warren; the middle three miles are in Barrington. And when I did my warm-up run, I ran to Bristol. Who knew?

One reasonable question might be, "what qualifies as running?" For instance, I visited Newport and I probably jogged a few steps across a road or something while I was there: does that count? No. For this definition, I'm inclined to adopt Dave Dunham's rule, which he used when he ran in every town in Massachusetts: It has to be part of a run of at least three miles. I have also decided that it's acceptable if it is part of a race warm-up or cool-down even if that part of the run is less than three miles.

Li'l Rhody Runaround

2010-11-21T17:22:00.005-05:00

It has been far too long since I have posted, so I am going to start now, and try to catch up on race writeups and other posts I've been thinking about, before the end of the year. I'll start with today's race.

(Results) Today was the Li'l Rhody Runaround, an 8-mile trail race in Westerly, RI. I did it last year, but at a comfortable pace because I had the Alden Invite coming up a week later, where I wanted to run a fast mile. This year I was willing to run a little faster. I was planning to wear racing flats, but when I arrived at the race I learned that the woman who has dominated the race for the past few years was out of town, so I opted to wear trainers to be gentler on my calf, with which I've been having issues lately. I tied them a little tighter than usual so that they would feel more like racing flats and provide good traction on the rocky trail.

Everyone was required to wear at least 200 square inches of orange, because it is hunting season, so I went all-out and wore an orange NBB singlet (from last year), orange shorts (with orange tape over the logo) and orange gloves. I was one of the only people out of 300 runners wearing a singlet; most people had long sleeves and many had long pants. But it was about 40 degrees and sunny. If you're cold when it's 40 degrees and sunny, you're not running hard enough! That's what I tell myself.

The gun went off and we ran about 3/4 of a mile down a dirt road before entering the trail. Lots of men passed me during the road portion, and I made sure they didn't have ponytails. Once we got onto the single-track trail, I just held my position. Every so often a man would pass me; probably 10 men passed me over the course of the 6 miles of trail. Occasionally I passed the man ahead of me. The trail was well-marked with pink or yellow arrows, and quite dry. There were many boardwalks, each with "AMC 2001" or a similar year carved into them, and even a covered bridge with benches inside!

My biggest problems were rocks, roots and leaves (pretty typical for a trail race, I know). The trail was absolutely covered with dry leaves, pretty thickly, so often I would slip a bit, like a treadmill action. The roots were good for traction (because I could avoid the leaves), but somehow I found myself stepping on the roots with my toes while my heels were still on the ground, which jerked at my achilles tendons (bad when you are having calf issues already). I did this about five times in the first few miles, and thereafter figured out how to avoid it. The rocks were also good for traction, but it was challenging to figure out the best path over them and tiptoe delicately across them while maintaining a good pace. Sometimes I chose the wrong path over them and went further than necessary, and once I had to leap over a puddle at the last second. But as trail races go, this one was very tame; it was only gently rolling, with something that I would call a "hill" at about the 5 and 6 mile marks.

There were actually some hunters out there, so it was good we were wearing orange. I saw a guy up ahead with an orange vest on, so I assumed he was a race volunteer -- until I saw the long black rifle he was holding! I'm sure it would be difficult to find animals to shoot, when 300 people are running through the woods. Another time, I saw a guy in orange with a camera that had a huge lens on it, so again I thought he must be a race photographer -- but he wasn't taking pictures, so I guess he was just out there taking pictures of the animals.

I was able to work with the men around me; for the first half of the race I was in a long parade of orange men. As the race went on, the short road portions and the hills broke up the parade, and I had to actually look at the arrows marking the course, rather than just following the guy ahead! When we went on the short road portions, I expected to feel better than on the trail, but to my surprise I felt like I was working hard just to stay even, and I was happy when we ducked back into the woods again. (This may have been because it was windy on the road, and not in the woods.)

At about 7 miles we popped out of the woods for the mile-long road run to the finish. Given my negative experience with the road portion in the middle, I was pleasantly surprised that I felt great, and immediately pulled away from the guy who had been right behind me for the past few minutes. I passed two more guys on the road and felt nice and smooth all the way through the finish. They announced my name as I was nearing the end, and even held up a finish tape! Pretty nice for a trail race!

I ran back along the course to find my friend Sarah, and ran to the finish with her, then went on a little more cool down. The post-race refreshments were great, with hot soup, fixings for PB&Js, and cider. They gave some nice prizes, and even a plaque! Sarah placed in her age group, and Mica ran the farthest she has ever run! So we all went home happy.

Running on Deer Isle: Part III

2010-10-15T18:46:00.002-04:00

This fall, a series of four essays is running in the Island Ad-Vantages, the local newspaper for Deer Isle and Stonington, ME. After each of my essays appears in the paper, I will also post it here.

When I decided to run every road on Deer Isle, I initially planned to skip all the private roads, because I didn't want to trespass onto private property. However, as soon as I started running the roads, I very quickly learned that if I skipped the roads marked "PVT," I'd miss 90 percent of Deer Isle. One of the reasons for running every road on Deer Isle was to really explore the island and see all of it, and to do that I had to run the private roads.

To respect property owners while still being true to my goal, I came up with a few simple rules. First, if there is a "No Trespassing" sign, I turn around at the sign. Similarly, if there is a rope or chain across the driveway, I turn around there. These rules result in some rather silly behavior: I run about four feet down a road, turn around at the rope, and run four feet back out, just so I can "count" the road as one I have done.

Additionally, if the road ends at a house, I turn around about 100 feet before I get to the house. However, it's often hard to tell whether the road ends. Several times, when the road curved around the back of the house, it looked like it kept going, so I ran down the road past the house, only to stop short when I realized the road ended in a parking spot. Other times, the road looked like it stopped at a house, so I turned around, only to inspect the satellite images later on the computer and find that the road did continue past the house. When that happened, I went back and ran the road again, this time all the way to the end.

To my surprise and continual delight, I have never had any trouble running on private roads. When I am running on a private road and a car comes by, I am always afraid they will stop and question me – but I smile and wave at them, and every time they just wave back and keep driving. (My theory is that on a private road with multiple houses, everyone just assumes that I'm someone else's crazy houseguest or renter.) I have run past people sitting on the porch in their pajamas, people mowing lawns, people out for a walk. I wave to them, and they wave back. When running on the main road, I wave to every car that passes, and usually the driver gives me a two-finger wave. Everyone is friendly.

One time, I was running on the French Camp Road, and I was doing a workout: 15 seconds sprinting and 30 seconds jogging, repeated over and over. I was afraid that someone would come home to find me absolutely tearing out of their driveway at full speed, and they would make the logical deduction that I had burglarized their house and was making a getaway. Luckily, I didn't see anyone the whole time I was running there.

I did get caught trespassing once, but it was my own fault for being lazy and not following my own rules. Most roads on Deer Isle, I have to run twice: once on the way in and once coming out. This particular day, my map showed that two roads connected in a "V" shape, so I could run in one road and out the other. However, when I ran down the first road, I found that it didn't quite connect to the second one, though I could see the second road through the trees. I didn't feel like running all the way out the way I had just came, and then running all the way down the other road just to end up at a place that I could see from where I was standing, so I quickly walked through 100 feet of woods and started jogging out the other road – and found myself on the wrong side of an 8-foot-tall metal gate!

The bad news: the landowner was in the woods gardening, and sternly informed me that I was on private property, and then listened unsympathetically to my explanation about my map. The good news: it had been pouring rain for an hour, and I was thoroughly soaked, so when the woman asked me where I came from and I told her Ron's Mobil (at this point about three miles away), she evidently decided that I was crazy and simply said "good luck." Even more good news: there was an eight-inch gap between the bottom of the gate and the road, so I was able to slide under it and get out of there.

So thanks, Deer Isle and Stonington, for sharing your roads with me and for allowing me to enjoy their beauty as you do.

Running on Deer Isle: Part II

2010-10-05T12:28:00.002-04:00

This fall, a series of four essays is running in the Island Ad-Vantages, the local newspaper for Deer Isle and Stonington, ME. After each of my essays appears in the paper, I will also post it here.

About a year ago, I decided to run every road in Deer Isle, and now I've nearly finished my quest. If you see a road with a green or blue sign, I will have run down it. I've run hundreds of miles now on little dirt roads, on the crumbling pavement at the edge of Route 15, at the edge of the ocean and in the middle of the woods.

Over Christmas vacation, with snow on the ground and no vehicles driving to summer homes, animal tracks covered some roads. Deer, squirrels, rabbits, birds – sometimes all in the same area, running in circles and crisscrossing the road as though someone had sprinkled seeds on the snow. Surprisingly, I didn't see much actual wildlife (although one day I ran down a road where all the trees had faces). I saw a few deer, of course, standing on the road and then dashing away between the trees. On Christmas, I ran past a house with ducks on the roof and a horse in the yard. One day, I had been running for less than a minute when a movement on the side of the road startled me and I realized I had just run past a sheep! It wasn't tied up, but it clearly stood in the same place all day, right next to the road. "You'll never guess what I saw today!" I told my family afterwards, in a tone usually reserved for tourists who have spotted a moose.

According to my map, it is possible to get from the Reach Road to the dump, because Quaco Road goes all the way through. One day, I parked on the Sunshine Road, ran up Fish Creek Road, and took a left where indicated on the map. It was a dirt road, and then it was two ruts, and then two ruts with grass in the middle. Soon, puddles filled the ruts and I couldn't run more than a minute without stopping to tiptoe my way around the edge of the puddle, or pick my way through the middle on conveniently-placed rocks, or take a few steps and then make a flying leap across the whole thing and hope the dirt on the other side was solid. As the dump got closer, I started seeing all kinds of junk discarded in the woods. Half of a car from the 1940s, a refrigerator, an old mattress – all kinds of stuff that I didn’t know was back there.

On Lowe Road, I wasn't quite as fortunate. On my map, Lowe Road also goes through to the Reach Road. Once again, I parked my car on the Sunshine Road, and my boyfriend and I planned a long loop: up Route 15, across Lowe Road, down the Reach Road to the Sunshine Road and back to the car. However, as we ran along Lowe Road, we discovered that (like so many roads on the island), it ended at a house. No problem! We would find it: the old road, or puddle-filled ruts, or trail, which would take us to the Reach Road. We followed everything we could find, pushing through thorn bushes, wading through puddles, going east in an attempt to find the Reach Road. We ended up finding a long path through fields, which we followed east for half an hour or so until it ended in a clearing and we were completely lost. Eventually, we crossed some sort of fence and found a dirt road. But which way was out? I spotted a "Private Property" sign and reasoned that it had to be facing out, so we ran that way and found ourselves back on Route 15, popping out at Dexter Farm Road, which we had run past an hour before!

Me running down a typical private dirt road in Deer Isle

One day in the winter, I found myself running down a road that kept going and going, nearly a mile long with just one house at the end. This road was beautiful, sweeping past large boulders until it curved down along a natural beach, a private beach in a small cove, hard to see from out on the ocean and not marked on any maps. In fact, I found several such beaches on the island: small deposits of sand that couldn't be seen from the main road or from the bay, perhaps enjoyed by the same family for generations. At one beach, the sand extended out towards a small island, forming a natural sand bar. Beach chairs were wedged into the bank.

Late in the summer, I ran past a secret lily pond. Perhaps someone took flowers from Ames Pond, tied their roots to rocks, and tossed them in. Another day, I ran down a road which (as usual) ended at a house, but in this case the house was surrounded by cars, cars from every decade, and trucks, and tractors, more than 50 of them in all, cars that should have been in the parade and cars up on blocks.

And the dogs! Big dogs barking and jumping behind tall fences, tiny little dogs yipping from enclosed screen porches, loose dogs that come out into the road and chase me, growling. Once, a man happened to drive by at just as a loose dog was coming for me. He slowed down, rolled down his window, called the dog by name and told it to leave me alone. Thanks to this kind man, whomever he is, I was able to pass the house and keep running. Thank you!

Red Rooster Ramble wrapup

2010-10-02T17:48:00.004-04:00

The Red Rooster Ramble is a 24-week race series, a 5-mile race every Thursday night. Of the 24 races, I did 16 of them. I placed first in all 16 races I entered. I set course records in week #3 (30:57) and week #13 (30:32). (In the meantime, my record was broken in week #12 (30:45) which is why I had to get it back in week #13.)

There was a points competition, as follows: 5 points for showing up, plus 10 extra points for first place, 9 extra for second place, etc. down to 1 extra for tenth place. So each week that I won, I earned 15 points. I led the points competition for the whole series, but the second-place woman was always very close, and I knew that I had to keep showing up at races or else she would surpass me. I made a few trips to Providence to keep my dream alive, and in the end my 240 points was enough to win.

Over the course of the 16 weeks, I had various goals for the runs. Sometimes I wanted it to be a tempo run. The week before the half marathon, I wanted to practice my half marathon pace. The week after the half marathon, I wanted to survive the race and keep my winning streak alive. Many times in the summer, it was 85 degrees and humid, so I just wanted to finish without collapsing of heatstroke. Here is a graph of my finishing times this year.

It may be worth noting that only three females have ever run under 32 minutes on the course (mostly because no one else has bothered). I did that a number of times this year. Each of the other women has only done it once.

For all but two of the races, I kept track of my mile times for each of the five miles. (One of the times I didn't do it was my slowest one, the post-half marathon race.) I have a secret conspiracy theory that mile 4 is actually a little long and mile 5 is a little short, and I have persisted in believing this conspiracy theory even after Ray officially certified the course. This graph supports my theory.

This graph tells many stories. For instance, look at the orange curve. That was a hot summer night when I just wanted to get through the race and run under 7-minute pace. But in the last mile, there was a man just ahead of me, so I decided to pass him. He didn't want to be passed, so he sped up. In the end, I did pass him, but I had to run a 6:20 last mile to do it!

Another interesting thing to notice is that every mile I ran except one was a 6-something. I never ran 7:00 or over, and I only ran one 5:58. Every other mile was 6:00 to 6:57.

It's interesting to look at the difference between my two course-record runs. In Week #3, I didn't set out to run a course record; I merely decided (somewhat ambitiously) that 31:00 would be a good tempo run, so I set out to do it. Alan ran with me through a 5:58 first mile in which I harbored fantasies that he would let me take the overall win, and then I slowed down throughout the race until, at mile 4, it was clear that I had to majorly speed up in order to hit 31:00. I ran 6:01 for that mile, my fastest last mile of the entire series.

In Week #13, I actively set out to break the course record. I enlisted the help of a friend to set a consistent 6:06 pace. The graph shows that I managed to run a consistent pace.

Many of the curves show a significant speedup in the last mile. I attribute most of this to men. There were often men around me, and I often wanted to pass them, so I often accelerated in the last mile even though there is no specific prize associated with passing men.

At the end-of-season party, I received many prizes for all of this running. I received a trophy and some money for having the fastest overall time, a gift certificate for earning more points than any other women, a bottle of champagne for having the most points of anyone (men or women), and a shirt for running more than 8 races.

I had a good time and made lots of running friends, and I'm planning to do it again next year! I can't wait until March!

The Intermediate PR Theorem

2010-09-24T19:35:00.008-04:00

Today in class I talked about the Intermediate Value Theorem, so this is a good opportunity for me to talk about my favorite application thereof.

Imagine that you are racing an 800, and your coach tells you to run 80 seconds per lap. Well, you get all over-excited for the first lap and run a 70, and then you are tired and run a 90 for the second lap. Afterwards, your coach says, "that was the worst-paced 800 I've ever seen! Was there even a single lap in there that you did in 80 seconds?"

In fact, there is! Since you ran the first lap in 70 and the next lap in 90, there must have been some 400-meter stretch which you covered in exactly 80 seconds. Maybe it was from 200 to 600 meters, something like that.

To prove this with the Intermediate Value Theorem in a way that will generalize to my next example, let's do something slightly different. Instead of timing you for different 400-meter stretches and finding one where you ran it in 80 seconds, we'll look at different 80-second time periods and try to find one where you covered exactly 400 meters. We can do this using the following picture:

Now we'll make a function f(t) = the amount of distance covered between time=t and time=t+80. In mathematical terms, if your speed is some function v(t):

Then f(0) is the distance covered in the first 80 seconds. This is going to be more than 400 meters, since it took you only 70 seconds to cover the first lap:

Similarly, f(80) is the distance covered in the last 80 seconds (from 80 seconds to the end -- 80 + 80 = 160 seconds = 2:40), which is less than 400 meters, since it took 90 seconds to cover the last 400 meters:

And for some time in the middle, the distance covered is exactly 400 seconds. Maybe it's from 29 to 109 seconds, so f(29) = 400 meters:

Now here is a picture of f(t) itself. It starts out greater than 400 and ends up less than 400, so the Intermediate Value Theorem says that it must be exactly 400 at some point in the middle.

Okay, now for the fun part. I run a lot of races and I keep careful track of all of my personal records (PRs). Sometimes, I run a personal best for a shorter distance during a race of a longer distance -- say, a 3-mile PR while I'm running a 5k. In that case, the course is usually marked at the 3-mile point, and I can look at my watch and see what my time was. However, sometimes I want to just multiply my final time by a suitable factor.

Last weekend, I went through the first two miles of a 5k in 11:09. I converted this to a 3k time by multiplying by 1.864/2, and got 10:24 for the 3k distance. This is extremely close to my PR of 10:22. I'd like to be able to say, "I ran a 10:24 3k during my 5k!" But is this really true? The Intermediate Value Theorem says yes!

To see this, we set up a function as above, f(t) = the distance covered in the 10:24 starting at time=t. If I cover exactly 3k in the first 10:24 of the race, i.e. if f(0) = 3000m, then we're good! If not, then either it's more or less. Let's say f(0) > 3000m, so I was even faster than average at the beginning! No problem. But then there must have been a time in the last bit of the 2-mile period when I was slower than the average, so by inching t along, we can find a place where f(t) = 3000m exactly. Similarly, if I was slower at the beginning and f(0) < 3000, then there must have been a time at the end when I was faster than average, so we can inch t forward until f(t) = 3000m exactly.

So now you know: I lied to my class today when I told them my favorite application of the IVT was the "temperature at antipodal points" example. My real favorite example is this application to running times.

Downtown 5k

2010-09-20T15:40:00.004-04:00

(Results) My time in this race was not as fast as I had hoped, but my place was higher than I would have dreamed! Before the race, I hoped I might be able to place in the top 25. However, I ended up placing 16th, 13th American. Last year, the 16th female ran 16:33! Who knows why many fewer elite women showed up this year, but I'll take it.

The morning was cold, so I wore warm-up pants and a jacket to walk down to the race area. I visualized my 18-minute race. My plan was to run with Joan Benoit Samuelson. I did my warm-up run in my long pants, and by the time I got back my leg muscles were thoroughly warmed up, as was the day itself. It turned out to be much warmer than I expected.

I lined up about 5 rows from the front. I was happy to meet my friend Jenn on the starting line. When I told her of recent PR and my plan to run with Joan, she said that I would probably be faster than Joan. She also told me that she herself would be lucky to run under 18 minutes. So I revised my plan and decided to try to run with Jenn. Also, I couldn't find Joan on the starting line, even though I knew what she was wearing. Only much later, when I watched the race video, did I realize that there were two parallel starting lines: Joan was on the other side of a barrier from me, so I couldn't see her.

The gun went off and I went out at a fast clip. I saw Jenn zip past me on the left and I caught up to her. A pudgy woman passed me on the downhill in the first 1/10 of a mile and called out happily to her friend. Whatever! Jenn was going quite fast and passing people left and right. I kept up with her for a while, but after about 1/4 mile I realized that she was going too fast for me, so I let her go. I also couldn't see Joan, so I had to just run on my own.

Here is a picture of me and Henry in the first mile. I should not have been ahead of Henry -- he finished in 17:28. Photo by Scott Mason.

I passed the mile in 5:28. I had expected the first mile to be fast, and it was! Just then, Joan came zipping by on my left. I caught up to her and ran behind her for a few paces, but I was unable to match her speed, and I watched her open a gap ahead of me as we ran past the Wild Colonial. In the middle of the third mile, Alan was on the side of the course and told me I was in 15th place. I was very surprised to be at such a high position! I wondered if a horde of women was going to pass me in the second half of the race, since I had gone out too fast.

I tried to keep up a good pace for the second mile, but it was very difficult. I felt that I had gone too fast, and my legs had no pep left. So I tried to keep even with the men around me, though some men passed me. I got to the 2-mile mark in 11:28, for a 6:00 second mile, and 19 seconds slower than my 2-mile time last week. Darn. In the third mile, one woman passed me, and I had no response. I just wanted to maintain my position as well as possible, and I was very fortunate that the hordes of women I feared would pass me never materialized.

Here I am at about 2.8 miles, before turning to go up the ramp.

I was very happy to see the approaches to the mall and know that the race was almost over. I hit the 3-mile clock in 17:26, so I thought that I would finish around 18:00, since last week I discovered that it is about 33 seconds to the finish from 3 miles. So I was unhappy to see the clock saying 18:04, 18:05 when I was not even close yet! I crossed the line in about 18:10. Kevin told me later that the race winner (Molly) had taken about 42 seconds from 3 miles to the end, so my 44 seconds was not too bad.

Given the hot conditions, the many turns on the course and the fact that I went out too fast, 18:10 was a fine time. I was not disappointed. After all, if I hadn't run last week, it would be an 11-second PR. Plus, to finish 16th at the national championships was beyond my wildest dreams! (It all depends on who shows up...)

In the past week I have joined New Balance Boston, so I went to chat with the team after the race. I met some of the other runners on the team, who were all very nice. After a while we headed over to the awards ceremony, and we were happy to learn that the team had placed first! Three women's teams showed up, and only one men's team. Like Steve said, "90% of life is showing up." So we went up and received medals for this feat.

Here is a picture of our three runners. You can see that I am wearing the medal; the others took theirs off. I was very happy to be able to contribute to NBB's third straight team title.

There was cash and special medals for the top 10 Americans, so I was only three places out of such an honor. Crazy! I stayed until the very very bitter end of the awards ceremony, when only about 10 people were left, and Brown won the College Challenge competition, as well (the only college to field a full team). So it was a day for lots of winning.

JCCRI 5k

2010-09-12T16:46:00.005-04:00

(Results) I cannot say enough good things about this race. It was great! It was super! At various times today after the race, people asked me, "so, how was the race?" and I could not help but say, "it was awesome! It was so great!" because truly, it was.

I prepared for this race. I made a plan, and I visualized the race for an entire 18 minutes beforehand, imagining all the turns and the vistas and the times and the thoughts.

My goal was to break 18:00. Last fall, my goal was to break 19:00, and I did, with an 18:58 at the Downtown 5k in September. I improved it to 18:26 in October, and all winter I tried to break 18:00. I even gave up ice cream for about six weeks preceding the USATF-NE indoor track championships, where I finished in a disappointing 18:29. In March I ran 18:24 at St. Pats, chipping two seconds from my PR. In April I ran 18:21 at the Scott Carlson 5k, chipping off another three seconds. Such tiny improvements were frustrating. This summer I ran a lot, and at the end of the summer my comfortable training pace suddenly dropped from 7:45 to 7:15. This told me that I was probably ready for a big improvement in the fall racing season, so I set my goal for this race at sub-18.

Race plan: Run with Katie. Run on her shoulder, and don't let her get away. If she gets away, reel her back in. Stick like glue to Katie as long as possible.

Time plan: Aim for 5:40 for the first mile and under 11:30 for two miles. Try to get to three miles before 17:30, because 30 seconds for the last 0.11 is really quite fast. The first mile has a downhill and the second and third miles both have slight uphills.

The course is quite nice. Basically, you leave the JCC, go to Blackstone Boulevard and run a ways down it, turn around close to the end (at Lloyd Street), and come about a mile up it, and then come back all the way on Elmgrove.

I lined up on the starting line. Steph and Katie were both there, so I expected to get third. Someone sang the national anthem and then I thought we would start, but after the national anthem someone sang what sounded like a Hebrew song of some kind. Mayor Cicilline blew the air horn and we were off. My reaction time was a little faster than most other people's, because I was looking directly at the Mayor instead of listening for the horn. Steph took off in the lead pack with the guys and I stayed at a reasonable pace with Katie. I glanced at my watch at the 3-mile line and saw that it was 33 seconds from there to the start/finish line, so I would have to get there in about 17:26 or faster. We turned a corner at 1/4 mile and Dave S. was right with us. Before the 1/2 mile turn onto Blackstone, we passed him. I have never beaten Dave before, so I confess I was a little excited to be ahead of him in a race.

The first stretch of Blackstone was perfectly straight. Katie and I tucked in behind three guys. I had a sense that she wanted to get around them, but it was impossible because we were running in the bike lane and there were moving cars on the left and parked cars on the right, so we couldn't go anywhere. It was a good thing we didn't, too, because as it was we passed the mile in 5:32. Alan had said to go through the mile no faster than 5:40, but I was sticking to Katie no matter what happened.

Soon we got to the turnaround point. This broke up our little group and we were able to get past two of the guys. Just before we did, a spectator shouted something like, "that's right, get those guys!" and then a few seconds later when we passed them (two of them seemed to be younger, and friends) one of the guys groaned, "oh no..." because he was passed by a female. Actually, two females. (He probably didn't see Steph way up ahead.)

Now we had to run up the gradual hill of Blackstone Boulevard. Katie got a little ahead of me, and I surged for a few strides to catch up again. Then she got a little ahead of me again, and I surged to catch her again. This probably happened five times. I was happy to see that it wasn't too hard to catch back up each time; the hard part was just to stay even and not fall behind.

At this point, there was a guy with long hair (not tied back, just loose) running with us. Every time I surged to catch back up to Katie, he appeared to take it personally, as he put in a big effort to get back in front of me. I tried to ignore his antics, but it was very distracting. After the third time I was getting fed up. I surged to get away from him, but again he got right back in front of me. I was not interested in playing games; I had a race to run! "I'm not racing you," I said. "That's fine," he shouted back. The next time I surged ahead, I was able to leave him behind.

By this time Katie had gotten a bit ahead of me, and we were coming up to the two-mile mark. I passed two miles in 11:11, for a 5:39 second mile. Wow! I was only hoping for 11:30, and here I was 19 seconds under my goal. Pretty exciting! I kept keying off of Katie for the third mile, as we made a sharp turn onto Elmgrove back towards the finish line. I could easily see her ahead of me, and I tried to keep the distance between us constant. I focused on increasing my turnover and speeding up whenever I felt that I was faltering.

Finally I saw cones and flashing lights up ahead. Was it really so soon? I glanced at my watch at the line marked 400/800 (for the children's races) and it said 16:11. With a quarter of a mile to go, I was almost certain to break 18:00!

I kicked hard from there. At the 3-mile mark, where I had hoped to sneak in under 17:30, I was thrilled to see a 17:09. Wow, I was really going to do it! This was a great race! I kicked kicked kicked and watched the clock tick 17:38, 17:39, and then as I crossed the line, the announcer said my name and "17:40." Perfect!

What does 17:40 mean to me?
1. As I said above, it is super! awesome! great!
2. It starts with "17:" which is quite amazing and wonderful.
3. It is the highest performance index I have ever run:

4. I broke 18:00, so I can try to join New Balance Boston!

Also, we had a Brown Running Club team, which was the second team overall and the first all-women's team. The prize is that we get our team name engraved on a plaque in the JCC. Cool! I will have to go there and look at it after it is engraved. So, thanks to Carmen and Emily for being a great team.

Also, there was a raffle afterwards. I nearly always win a prize in post-race raffles. I had three race numbers -- my teammates had to leave early -- and yet, when one of the numbers was called, it was mine. I won a case of beer and a yoga mat. Not bad!

Oh, and ALSO, I was expecting that since I was third, I would receive $50 (the prizes went $150-$100-$50) but it turns out Steph is in another age category, so I got $100 instead of $50! That was very nice. So, a good day all around.

Running on Deer Isle: Part 1

2010-09-12T15:43:00.002-04:00

This fall, a series of four essays is running in the Island Ad-Vantages, the local newspaper for Deer Isle and Stonington, ME. After each of my essays appears in the paper, I will also post it here. I have added a photo to jazz up this blog coverage.

I’m a runner, and I’ve been running on Deer Isle for 15 years. It’s a beautiful place to run, and I recently realized that there were a lot of places on the island where I had never been, so in the fall of 2009 I decided to run every road on Deer Isle. During the past year, each visit to Deer Isle has been an exploratory adventure: I pick out a road on the map, drive my car to the spot, and run down yet another collection of small dirt roads, not knowing what I will find at the end or along the way.

I first came to Deer Isle when I was two months old, and I first ran on the island the summer when I was ten, in preparation for joining the cross country team in fifth grade. For the next decade or so, my runs on the island were predictable: I would run out my front door and run out to Route 15 and back a few times, or maybe run to the end of the Sunset Crossroad and back.

Of course, I also ran the Fourth of July Fun Run in Stonington. Some of you may remember my epic duel with Wally Fifield back in 1996: I was 11; he was about 45; we shared the lead all along Cemetery Road and Route 15, until I made a wrong turn at the harbor. Wally got a little ahead of me, and though I sprinted to catch back up, he was able to just out-lean me at the finish line. I ran the Fun Run for four years in a row in the late ‘90s, and now I run the Stonington Six every year.

Once, just before I left the island for my senior year of college, I “ran around the island,” completing a 17-mile loop of Route 15, 15A, and Sand Beach Road. Three years later, I decided to run all the roads on the island. I printed a map of Deer Isle, and highlighted all the roads I had run. Most of the main roads were done, but clearly visible on the map were the hundreds of roads I knew nothing about, like little fingers stretching from the main roads towards the ocean.

That summer, anyone who ran with me joined me on a new road. On Fourth of July weekend, my brother and his wife joined me on a 9-mile run looping around Dunham Point Road and Pressey Village Road. On Labor Day, my boyfriend joined me on a 7-mile run of the Oceanville Road. These are beautiful places! My sister-in-law loved how the Dunham Point Road repeatedly brought us to beautiful views of the water, with the Sylvester’s Cove beach as well as some little private inlets. Why had none of us ever run out there before? We didn’t know what we were missing!

Last winter, I started running the little roads in earnest. I would look at the map of the island, find a main road with a lot of little roads off it, and then set off to run them, highlighting the roads on my map when I was done. The Sunday before Christmas, I ran home from church in a blizzard, and ran all of the little roads off of 15A on the way. On Christmas day, a mild, dry day without much snow on the ground, my boyfriend and I ran the eastern half of the Reach Road, 13 miles of little dirt roads stretching towards the Eggemoggin Reach. A few days later, we ran the Dow Road in the pouring rain, a place where I had never even driven.

Here I am after running home the Sunday after Christmas in a blizzard.

I doubt that anyone has ever run all of the roads on Deer Isle; it just seems too unusual. Some people may have been to all the roads on Deer Isle – especially Hubert Billings, the island’s code enforcement officer. But many people haven’t seen every road, so I would like to share with you my experiences running everywhere on the island, since you have likely never been to some of the places I’ve visited. Over the next few weeks, I will write several more columns about the strange and beautiful things I’ve seen, and I hope you enjoy them nearly as much as I have.

Stratham Fair Road Race

2010-07-25T14:16:00.002-04:00

(Results) I ran this race last year, and was hoping to be able to race for the win this time around. Last year, the women's winner (Stephanie) beat me by exactly a minute, so I wasn't close to her at all. I was expecting to be closer to her this year. Alan's plan was to run with me and help me run fast. However, while warming up with Bob and me, he realized that Bob was the only fast guy there, so he registered for the race and decided to run at his pace.

On the starting line, I glanced over to make sure I knew where Stephanie was, at exactly the same moment that she was glancing over to see where I was! So the stage was set. Alan had asked me if my race strategy was going to be "sit and kick," and I told him that it was. However, when the gun went off, I did not feel like hanging back and sitting, so I led. Stephanie hung on my shoulder, chatting with this guy. Seriously, they were chatting about the houses in the area that he had recently toured with a real estate agent. We went through the mile in 6:04 and they were still chatting away. My goal was 6:10 pace, so this was fine.

So after the mile mark, I relented to my strategy and backed off a little to hang on her shoulder. I did this for maybe 3/4 of a mile, until I realized that it was not advantageous to be on someone's left shoulder on a clockwise course. Going up a hill, I surged ahead to take the inside of the turn and passed a few men. I could hear breathing behind me, but I couldn't tell if it was Stephanie or a man. I passed the 2-mile mark in 12:14, for a 6:10 second mile, right on pace.

During the third mile, we went up a couple of hills and I focused on catching the men ahead of me (or perhaps I was just watching them slow down and come back to me -- hard to say, really). The number of water stops on the course was amazing; there were at least 6 water stops on a course of less than 6 miles, plus three people spraying hoses. I didn't drink much, but I poured water on my head and torso at every opportunity. I got to 3 miles in 18:34, for a 6:20 third mile. That seemed reasonable, considering the hills. There was a photographer at mile 3, who snapped a picture just as I looked at my watch. So it goes.

During the fourth mile I think I caught two relay people (the exchange was just before 3 miles) whose partner was faster than they were. Then I caught up to a guy (Todd) and followed him for basically the rest of the race. I kept hearing footsteps behind me, and I actually glanced back once or twice when we went around curves, but there was no one behind us that I could see, no one at all, not even men. I passed 4 miles in 24:39, for a 6:05 fourth mile. Fine with me! I had remembered the final hills as being between mile 5 and the end, but in fact they were between mile 4 and 5. So we climbed the hills of Rt. 33 in Stratham, and Todd was able to get a bit ahead of me.

I passed 5 miles in 31:07, for a 6:28 fifth mile. Again, it seemed okay considering the hills. I knew that it wasn't far to the end from there, and I set my sights on catching Todd. The road curves to the right several times in the last half mile of the course, and I kept thinking the finish was right around the corner! Finally I saw the cones and time clock ahead, and I kicked past Todd to the finish line. Here is a picture (from the Portsmouth Herald):

The next finisher was about a minute behind us. The photographer from the paper asked me where I was from, for the photo caption, and as usual I had a hard time deciding what to say (I unfortunately chose Providence). Then the reporter (Ken) caught up with Alan and me, and interviewed us for a long time, maybe 10 minutes. In the meantime, the next female finishers came along, and it was a sprint finish! To my surprise, Stephanie was out-kicked for second place. Very exciting. Ken asked me many questions. My favorite exchange went like this:

K: So, how many races have you won this year?
D: Um, about 20.
K: Did you say "three"?
D: No, twenty.
K: I mean just this year.
D: Yeah, about 20 this year. Maybe it was only 15. A lot of them are this weekly race series... (etc.)

In the paper, he wrote that it was my 15th or 16th victory of the year, of which 14 were Red Rooster Rambles. In fact (I looked it up this morning) it was my 22nd win of the year, of which 14 were Rambles. So I am slightly less lame than the article suggests.

We ran a nice 3-mile cooldown; we ended up with nice gift certificates as prizes; I won a raffle prize (though not the Red Sox tickets this year), and we returned to the fair later in the day for our free entry with race numbers! It was a great day and I hope to do it again next year. My finishing time was 34:40, which for 5.7 miles is an average pace of 6:05 per mile. So I am sure the course was not quite 5.7, because running 6:06 pace for 5 miles on a flat course at the Red Rooster Ramble absolutely knocked me out. (5.6 miles would be 6:11, which is probably more reasonable.) This is 84 seconds faster than I ran last year (4% faster), and 24 seconds faster than last year's race winner.

The full article, from the Portsmouth Herald:

By Ken Stejbach
kstejbach@seacoastonline.com
July 25, 2010 2:00 AM

STRATHAM — Saturday's 37th annual Stratham Fair Road Race had that "Cheers .... where everyone knows your name" feel about it.

It was a friendly place for the winners — Bob Wiles and Diana Davis — both of whom earned their first Stratham Fair titles.

Wiles, a 32-year-old from Kittery, won the men's title, crossing the finish line in 29 minutes, 34 seconds. Davis, a 24-year-old from Exeter and Providence, R.I., who grew up in Madbury, won the women's title in 34:40.

There were 207 runners who finished the 5.7-mile course, which began and finished at Stratham Hill Park.

Alan Bernier, a well-known local runner who also resides in Exeter and Providence, was second in the men's race in 31:16, while Brandon Gerrish, an 18-year-old from Lebanon, Maine and graduate of Portsmouth Christian Academy, was third in 32:01.

Heidi Nadeau, who grew up in North Hampton and presently resides in Portsmouth, was second in the women's race in 36:58, just edging last year's winner Stephanie Crawford, a two-time winner of the race, who finished in 37:01.

"A couple of young guys took it out good," said Wiles, noting Gerrish was in the lead for the first couple of miles. "We were keeping an eye on him. He was running good."

"I knew I came out a little too fast," said Gerrish, who will attend Texas A&M this fall and hopes to continue his running at the college level.

Gerrish went through the first mile in 5:12.

Wiles ran with his friend, Bernier, for the first couple of miles.

"About two miles in (Bernier) told me I was on my own," said Wiles.

Wiles' win was his 10th of the season.

"I am having a good year," said Wiles. "I'm picking all the right races."

Wiles, who was fourth at the Market Square Day 10K has a best 5K clocking this season of 15:23, which he set in winning the Redhook 5K.

As far as the Stratham race goes ...

"It has a hometown feel to it," said Wiles. "Gary (Rohr, the race director) does a great job and it's a fun way to start the weekend. It's one of those fun races you look forward to every year."

Wiles was second the last couple of years, last year to Lawton Redman, and the year before to Casey Carroll.

"I was hoping the third time was a charm, and I lucked out," said Wiles.

Wiles wasn't the only one who placed second last year.

Davis, who attended Phillips Exeter Academy and now teaches algebra there during the summer, was second last year behind Crawford.

Davis and Crawford also ran the first couple of miles together until a hill began to separate the two.

Davis, who's been running 55-60 miles per week, said she's been getting stronger. Last year her goal was to break 19 minutes in a 5K; this fall she wants to break 18.

For Davis, who ran at Williams College, this was her 15th or 16th win of the year.

"If you want to win, it's a matter of choosing races wisely," said Davis, who is going for her PhD in math at Brown University.

Most of those wins (14 of them) have come in the Red Rooster Ramble Series, a five-mile, 24-race series in Providence.

Her biggest win of the year, however, was the Providence Half-Marathon, which she ran in 1:26.

Crawford, a 33-year-old from Dover and member of the Coastal Athletic Association, said she "just didn't have it" this year. The speech therapist from Easter Seals said she hasn't run in too many races this year.

Nadeau, the former standout javelin thrower at Winnacunnet High School and Penn State University, caught Crawford at the finish.

"It was an all-out high school wild finish," said the 23-year-old Nadeau, who ran almost two minutes faster than she did last year and about eight minutes faster than she did the first time she ran the Stratham Fair race a couple of years ago.

"Every year I try to get faster," said Nadeau, whose goal is to win her first ever race.

Stonington Six - July 3, 2010

2010-07-21T14:15:00.005-04:00

(Results) For several years now, I have had a goal: to win my hometown 10k. Now, one could argue that it's not actually my hometown (since I am From Away) and that it's not actually 10k (probably 6.25+). But nevertheless, ever since I won the Fun Run four years in a row back in my youth, my goal has been to come back and win the real race. Let's quickly review the history:

1996, age 10: My first time running the Fun Run. I asked my parents if we could drive the course beforehand so that I would know where to go. They assured me that I would not be winning, so I could just follow all the people in front of me. One mile into a 1.2-mile race, I found myself battling for first place with a 40-year-old lobsterman. We got to a T intersection and I turned left; he turned right. I quickly corrected my error and caught back up. As we sprinted down the final straightaway towards the finish line, he was able to get a slight advantage and beat me by a nose. I have a picture of this somewhere -- it is epic (but not digital). My prize was two lobsters from the co-op!

1997, age 11: I am ready for a rematch with my lobsterman friend. Unfortunately, he is not in the race this year. My brother (31 years old at the time) is running, and he slows down to run with me and then lets me win (we went 1-2). He gives his "first male finisher" prize to the kid who finished behind us. Our dad finishes sixth overall in the fun run. The prize was $10 to the grocery store.

1998, age 12: My brother and I return, but now for whatever reason there are lots of kids from abroad visiting the island and they all decide to run the race. I finish sixth, but first female again. (The prize was $15 to a local restaurant.)

1999, age 13: All the years kind of blur together. I don't know what happened, but I know I won four years in a row. (The prize was a size-large T-shirt from a local museum.)

2000-2007: I was always away for the Fourth of July, so I couldn't run.

2008: I came to the race hoping to win, and I led the first three miles, but then a woman passed me, and at five miles a girl passed me and ended up winning. Happily, she was from the island. A third woman tried to pass me in the last mile, but I held her off. Good thing, because she was in my age group! (And the prize was a $25 gas card, very useful.) I ran either 43 or 44 minutes -- the results got messed up that year and my record-keeping was ambiguous. The winner ran 42 minutes.

2009: This time, I was really in shape, and I thought I would certainly win. However, another woman was doing strides on the starting line! Danger. I held her (Susannah) off for the first mile, but then she passed me and ran away, running about 35 minutes. It turned out that she had been 4th at the Olympic Trials marathon and was the current national champion in the 50-miler. So I didn't really stand a chance. Running alone, though (not even with any men), I still ran 40:36, which was a 10k PR by nearly 1.5 minutes. (The prize was a 6-pack of Poland Springs water and a tote bag.)

2010: Now, finally, maybe it was my chance! Alan said, "last year it took the national champion to beat you, so you'll probably win." Of course, if Susannah had shown up, I would not have won, and if Elizabeth had shown up, it would have been a very tough battle. However, I did finally win it this year.

I was barely able to get onto the starting line, because it was full of young boys all jockeying for position. Alan gave me his spot and I lined up next to a girl in pink:

She took it out at the gun and, from my vantage point behind her, I could see that her shirt said "Manchester Invitational." This meant two things: first, she was a high school cross country runner, and second, she must be young, because the shirt was synthetic. Back in my day, they were cotton. We went back and forth -- she would surge and I would cover it. Then I would surge and she would cover it. She was running a very erratic pace, surging to get ahead of me and then slowing down. I did this for a few minutes, and then decided to put an end to it. I sped up until I had put about 20 feet between us. She didn't catch up. I hazarded a glance as we made a 90-degree turn and she was further back. A little before the two-mile mark, I looked back and there was no one.

Ahead of me were five men: Alan running with a Tufts collegiate runner, then two men that we had seen on our warm-up and thought were twins running together, and then another man close ahead of me. I stayed behind the fifth man and was happy to let him carry me through the tangents on the curvy course. A little before three miles, I felt myself catching up to him, so I passed him and ran on ahead, moving into fifth place overall. The rest of the race was relatively uneventful except for the usual tug-of-war between my desire to run the tangents and my desire to avoid the cars. I was fortunate that the walkers, who had a 30-minute head start, ran interference (walked interference?) for me on much of the course.

I got to the 6-mile mark in exactly 38 minutes, the same as in the MDI YMCA 10k where I ended up running 38:55. In Stonington, from 6 miles to the end you bomb down this steep downhill, make a turn and then kick for the finish. So it should have been faster than at the MDI. However, I finished in 39:31. So I think the course was a little long, or 6 miles was short. (It should be noted that my split from 6 miles to the end was the same as Alan's, so I was not lollygagging.) I was surprised to look at my popsicle stick and see a "4" on it, since I knew I was fifth! But one of the twins (?) had made a wrong turn and cut off maybe 1/2 mile of the course, finishing ahead of Alan, so he was disqualified.

By the way, it turned out that the girl in pink was running the Fun Run (they start together, and split at about 1 mile). She and her brother went 1-2 in that race. I won the 10k by over seven minutes. Like I always say -- "The key to winning races is choosing your races wisely."

I chatted with some people I knew; then we ran back along the course until we met my brother and sister-in-law, and we ran with them to the end, and then cooled down back to the car. (They ran about the same as last year, but a little slower.) Ironically, in our rush to drive to the parade, we forgot to go to the awards! After all those years of hoping to win. But it's really about the pride, not the schwag. Luckily the rest of the family was still down at the finish area and picked up our prizes for us, which were nice blue duffel bags with the race logo. Sweet! I even managed to get in a swim later in the day, and much fun was had by all.

Red Rooster Ramble #13

2010-06-18T16:01:00.003-04:00

(Results) Almost as soon as the MDI YMCA 10k ended on Saturday, I wanted another chance. I had let my focus and mental toughness lapse, and I was not happy about it. So I was eager to avenge this at another race.

While I was in Maine for two weeks, a super-fast Brown runner (Lauren) ran the Red Rooster Ramble and beat my course record. As loyal readers will recall, my course-record-setting run was not intended to be anything special; I was just trying to run under 31 minutes. However, last week Lauren showed up and ran 30:45 and beat my time, so this week was a good occasion for me to run hard, focus, exercise my mental toughness, and try to take back the course record, for whatever that's worth.

I asked Haynes if he would run with me, and he agreed to do so as the first 30 minutes of a 40-minute tempo run. He even brought his Garmin watch to keep us on pace! Our goal was 6:06 pace with a goal time of 30:30, just to be safe.

We had agreed not to go out too fast, and during the first mile Haynes kept checking his watch to make sure we were on pace. Eric was running with us, and Haynes told him that I was trying to break the course record. Eric had run with Lauren last week when she broke it, so he thought that was cool. We went through the mile in 6:02, a perfect time. I like to go out just a little under my goal pace, so that I know I can do it.

During the second mile, a guy in Vibrams passed our little group of three and eventually put about a 30-meter gap on us. At one point, Eric said, "he's slowing down; you've got him!" but I did not see him slowing down and I never got closer to him. We passed two miles in 12:08 for a 6:06 second mile, right on pace. Now it was starting to get hard, so I just thought about the turn at 2.5 miles and said, just run on pace until that point. We got to 2.5 miles on Haynes' watch and he reported a 3:04 half mile. Fine by me. We made the turn onto the busier road and I opted for the sidewalk, as we were making a gradual left turn. I don't know which is better; the sidewalk is shorter but it goes up and down at each driveway. I focused on just getting to 3 miles on pace.

This we did. Haynes reported a 2:57 (!) half mile, as we passed 3 miles in 18:11. This was 11 seconds faster than I had passed 3 miles in last weekend's 10k, but that one involved hills and this one did not. When Haynes announced the time, Eric said, "that's way faster than last week -- you've got it!" and accelerated away to try to catch the kid in Vibrams. In reality, of course, simply making it to 3 miles in a good time did not guarantee that I would make it to 5 miles in a good time!

The fourth mile was rough. My legs were hurting, and several times I realized I was taking longer, slower strides. This makes me feel slow and also slows down my breathing. Each time, I consciously increased my stride rate, taking faster though shorter strides, and accelerated until I was on Haynes' shoulder again. We made it to 4 miles in 24:22 -- five seconds faster than the flat 4-mile race I ran in May. I had thought I was struggling and running slowly, so I was pleased that the damage was only a 6:11. Not that bad.

The last mile was rough. The battle was between the part of me that said, "look how hard I'm breathing! look how much my legs hurt! I must be working as hard as possible; I can't go any faster!" and the part that said, "quicken the strides, smooth out the form, go faster, faster, faster..." With half a mile to go, Haynes took off in pursuit of Eric and the kid in Vibrams.

I checked my watch at the "1/4" spray-painted on the pavement and it said 29:00. I was confused. Huh? It took a few seconds for me to realize, okay, 90 seconds for a quarter and I'd come in at 30:30. I kicked... Alan was running back along the course towards me, saying something about "it's okay, Diana" and "only 10 seconds left." I was confused again -- was it impossible for me to hit the time, and he was just saying that it's okay if I don't break the record? It seems like more than 10 seconds between me and the finish line! Huh?

I saw 30:31 as I crossed. I'd done it! My official time was 30:32. Whew. Alan had been telling me that I was going to be 10 seconds under the record. After I crossed the line, I held on to the fence for support. Apparently, I was shaking (I don't remember this). I tried to walk away, and ended up staggering around like a drunk person. So I attempted to sit on the ground, which ended up in me sprawled awkwardly on the grass, so I just rolled onto my back and lay there with my eyes closed. Some old guy came up. "Does she have asthma?" he asked. "No, I have the spins," I replied, because the dots on my eyelids were spinning in circles. Eventually I sat up and sat on a rock. This whole process took about five minutes until I was confident in my ability to walk to the water table without embarrassing myself. Bear in mind, I have never done anything other than walk away from the race. Such theatrics are a first for me -- and it was not theatrics! After the five minutes of laying on the ground and sitting, my hamstrings and calves had contracted and now they were very tight. I did the first quarter mile of the cool-down in nearly 2:30!

This time of 30:32 is only 16 seconds off of my PR, set at the 5-mile mark of the Tufts 10k (30:16). It is my PR for a 5-mile race. I am quite happy with it. I ran 33 miles in the three days before the race, which may account for my difficulty walking away from the race afterwards. Tactics-wise, it would have been wiser to run every RRR in 32 minutes until Lauren starts training with the team in the fall, and then sneak in and nab the course record back. But I feel like this is something I needed to do, to convince myself that I have the mental toughness necessary for racing.

MDI YMCA 10k

2010-06-18T15:34:00.002-04:00

(Results) The day started nicely, with my nephew and niece sweeping the kids' 1-mile fun run after less than two weeks of running training! My nephew was first overall in 6:56 and my niece was fourth overall and first girl in 7:37. After a start like that, I was of course expected to continue the family winning tradition and take home the 10k win. I looked around and there didn't seem to be any fast-looking females. Then I got to the starting line, and there was a woman in a black sports bra and shorts with an extremely well-defined vertical line down her abs. Huh. This could be a problem. You can see us in this picture:

The first 3.5 miles of the course were out and back on a street in Bar Harbor which involved going up a hill and down the other side, then turning around and doing it again. This woman (Elizabeth) and I passed the miles right on each other's shoulders in 6:08, 12:13 and 18:22. Fast times, despite the hills. We came back past the start/finish lines and I made the mistake of taking a cup of water (it was humid out). Elizabeth got about 10 meters on me.

At that point, I gave in to the demons that tell me it would be so much easier if I just slowed down. I slowed down to about 6:30 pace and watched Elizabeth run away. Around mile 5 or so, a man passed me. In the final stretch, I nearly outkicked him, but he kicked and held me off (see photo below). In the end, Elizabeth ran 38:04 to my 38:59. It turns out that she is a well-known local runner, and she told all her colleagues and friends that she would be running, which explains all the people cheering for her on the sidewalks with posters.

Funny story about the sprint finish: Two days before, as we were finishing our 3/4-mile training run, my nephew sprinted for the end. I accelerated and hung on his shoulder, matching his pace from just behind him. After we finished and slowed down, he asked me if I was running my fastest. I thought for a moment -- should I lie, to boost his ego? "No," I said, "but remember, I've practiced a lot." The next day, as we were walking along the beach, he asked to race me. "Sorry," I said, "but I have a race tomorrow. I'll race you right after I finish." As I was sprinting for the finish in the 10k, out of the corner of my eye I saw my nephew racing me on the sidewalk. I kicked hard and outran him. I think this was the best possible way to do it, because I didn't have to out-sprint him in a one-on-one race and make him feel bad, and yet he got to race me on his own terms.

I was very unhappy with my giving up halfway through, and I decided to avenge my poor performance in the Red Rooster Ramble five days later. This picture basically sums up my feelings about my performance relative to Elizabeth's:

10k By The Bay

2010-05-30T18:24:00.004-04:00

(Results) I almost didn't do this race. I was scheduled to give a math talk at the same time as the race start -- 10 am. However, this race presented such a perfect confluence of circumstances that my friends finally convinced me that I should re-schedule the talk and do the race. In particular, $200 was on the line and the majority of Rhode Island's fast women were out of town for the weekend -- Katie, Jackie, Michaela, Vicky, and Karen were all away -- leaving only Steph and Trish as likely competitors. So I went. My parents were here for the weekend, so they drove me down to Warwick.

I got there an hour and 15 minutes early, but they were already out of size small race shirts (and I was only #82 to sign up). We sat in the shade and I showed off my ability to identify my competition: My parents pointed out a pair of fit-looking women jogging across the grass and asked if I thought they would be fast. "They'll probably run 43 or 44 minutes," I predicted. My mom grumbled about this -- "I wonder if you would have looked at me before my 44-minute 10k and predicted me to run 48 or 49 minutes!" -- but in the end, only one of the two raced, and she finished in about 43:40, just as I predicted.

When I got to the line after warming up, I once again exhibited my poor prediction quality when it comes to masters-age runners (as I did at the Bedford Rotary 5k last weekend). There was a very skinny woman wearing just a sports bra and shorts. I was definitely worried, because she looked like she would be really fast (and if you had asked, I would have guessed her age to be 28). I whispered to Clay to see if he knew who she was, and he just said "gimme a break!" He turned out to be right...

The air horn went off and I found myself in about tenth place behind a bunch of guys. Over the course of the first half mile down the long driveway of the organization, I passed some overzealous men and soon found myself tucking in behind a pair of men. I sensed that I was not going 6-minute pace as I had planned, but decided to go with it. We passed the mile in 6:18 and I darted out from behind the guys and surged ahead. One of the guys laughed -- "I guess someone wasn't happy with that split!" -- and one, in a red singlet (in the results as Tom), came with me while the other stayed behind. I locked onto Tom's shoulder and hung on through two miles, with a second mile split of 6:28. He cut the tangents like a pro, and I was right there.

Somewhere in the third mile, Tom apparently decided he didn't want to run with me, and put in a surge, which I didn't cover, so he was maybe 50 feet ahead of me, a gap that stayed constant for the next few miles. At this point, two men were way ahead, Clay was maybe 100 meters ahead of me, and then Tom was 50 feet ahead of me. So Clay was in the money as third male, and I was in fifth place overall. Miles three and four were both around 6:30. Mile five slipped to 6:37, but this part of the course had many turns and it is possible that I didn't cut the tangents as closely as Ray did when he measured it. Anyway, it was hot and we were just winding our way among many turns in a housing development for most of miles four and five.

Just before the 5-mile mark, it got interesting. Clay, who had been running 6-minute pace, suddenly lost his speed and started coming back. I shouted ahead to him, to let him know that someone was coming to take away his third-place spot. But it was no use; Tom overtook him. But actually, I was getting closer too! By they time I passed Clay -- incredulously! -- the gap between me and Tom was about half as big as before. So I made my move and caught up to him and passed him right as we got back onto the driveway of the organization, with about a half mile to go.

I derive much inspiration from passing people and wanting to hold them off. Whereas I ran mile five in 6:37, I ran mile six in 6:20. I was quite happy to be third overall and I didn't want to see that disappear. Also, after passing six miles in 38:41, I thought I could probably dip under 40 minutes, which before the race would have seemed depressingly slow but now was looking pretty good. I kicked the last mile and down the hill to the finish line and managed to finish in 39:55 and third overall. Tom was 14 seconds back, all over the last half mile (and Clay was 30 seconds back). As it turns out, I was the only person under 40 years old in the top five, and the second female was two and a half minutes behind me, despite her weighing about half as much as I do.

I did a 4-mile cool down, part of it with Clay and his young daughter, so that I could count it as a "long run" and not have to try to squeeze in a long run on graduation day. The awards ceremony was successful, as I received cash and my parents were duly impressed that running had become so lucrative. $200 is the most I have ever won in a race, the previous being $175 ($50 for winning + $100 for course record + $25 gas card for double-dipping age division, last August). Unlike last year, this year the calculation (money won) - (money spent on entry fees) actually yields a positive number! But this will make up for the fall, when I do things like race at Franklin Park when dozens of very fast people show up and all I win from my entry fee is a fun race and a warm sense of well-being -- like in the half marathon, when I paid $50 and "all" I won was five minutes of fame, some good finishing pictures, an awesome story to tell the grandchildren, and a nice supply of happiness and glory that is still carrying me along.

Bedford Rotary 5k

2010-05-26T11:48:00.005-04:00

(Results) I opted to do the 5k this year rather than the 12k, because I didn't have a great experience last year (I ran the 12k while sick) and wasn't too excited about doing it. So I simply watched the 12k and cheered for Alan and his teammates and Caitlin, and hydrated while hoping that it wouldn't get too hot by 11 am.

I warmed up on the course with the map in hand, but didn't get much of a feel for the course because the starting line was kind of far from the parking lot where I started and the race was a lollipop. So it goes. I was distressed to see on the starting line a really fast-looking woman. She appeared to be a master's runner with no body fat, clearly defined muscles and perhaps capable of running a 17-minute 5k. Well, there went my chances for this race! I loitered around near the starting line and some guy told me he recognized me and asked if I did the Newburyport track races. That seemed weird because I only did one, in fall 2008, in which I ran 5:58 for a mile (all out). Whatever. He introduced himself and asked what I wanted to run, and I said 18:30.

I lined up on the starting line and there were multiple photographers taking pictures. I used to feel bad about lining up on the starting line, because many of the men would likely beat me. But I have learned that it's okay to line up on the starting line if you're going to (try to) win. In this case I ended up 9th overall, so it was justified.

The gun went off and a guy (Dennis) running next to me said, "I heard you say you want to run 18:30. That makes you my new best friend." I introduced myself and he said he planned to run the first mile in exactly 6 minutes flat. That was okay with me. But I was thinking, wait, that doesn't sound right, 6 minutes flat is too slow for 18:30, isn't it? However, I was planning to start out conservatively because of the heat. Alan said "it's looking really good," meaning that no one was close behind me, so I didn't have to kill myself to establish a lead in the first mile. Dennis pulled away over the second half mile of the race and got to the mile mark a few seconds ahead of me, but I still got there in 5:58.

Over the next mile or so Dennis lengthened out his lead somewhat, catching up to a very little boy who had gone out ahead of us. I was afraid that I would run the second mile slower than the first, because he was getting ahead of me and because I usually run the second one slower. So I was pleasantly surprised to reach two miles in 11:51, for a 5:53 second mile. Not tearing up the pavement by any means, but not slowing down, either. I caught the little boy just before the 2-mile mark. He ended up being just 12 years old. Two miles in 12 minutes is pretty impressive for a 12-year-old, I think. This put me in 10th place.

As I turned back onto the road we had started on (I said it was a lollipop) Alan looked behind me and said, "you have at least 20 seconds on the next woman." Now, this could mean two things -- either "I can see a woman and she is at least 20 seconds behind you," or "I can't see anyone behind you but I can only see about 20 seconds down the course." I decided to assume the former, but it turned out to be the latter.

On long straight road, I caught Dennis. He told me I ran a smart race as I passed by. I got to the track (stadium finish!) and kicked like it was a track race, trying to catch the guy ahead of me. I was running fast enough that I was surprised that he wasn't getting any closer -- he must have been kicking hard, too. Just before I crossed the line I saw the clock and it said 18:33, so I knew I hadn't broken 18:30. So it goes. These cute cheerleaders held up a finish tape and some photographers took a picture. The little kid finshed about 30 seconds later, and his dad asked if I would pose with him for a picture! Gosh, that's the first time anyone's ever asked to take a picture with me. I was honored. Oh yes, and the very fast-looking woman finished 4th in 20 minutes. Still fast!

The timing company added about 6 seconds to everyone's finish time -- mine was reported as 18:41. The guy who won the 12k finished in 37:13, and they reported it as 37:19, which is too bad because he set a course record and it's 6 seconds slower than it should be. (My stopwatch and the finish clock agreed exactly.) So now I know that if I want to break 18 minutes at a race timed by this company, I should run 17:50 just to be safe! (easier said than done)

They did the awards ceremony before I even finished cooling down -- it was over by 11:45. That was surprising! Luckily Alan was there to pick up my medal and put down my mailing address. But happily, there was plenty of food left and we got a good lunch before setting out to hike a few mountains and then go camping.

West Bay YMCA Run 4 Fun

2010-05-18T11:20:00.004-04:00

(Results) This seemed like a perfect race -- $100 for first, $50 for second, and only the first-place male competitive for the past two years (last year the second-place male ran 26 minutes for 4 miles and the top two females about 4 minutes slower). So Melissa, Haynes and I headed out to try to grab some fast times and three of the top four places.

The race was hard to find! It was in an industrial area around Electric Boat, with broad empty streets, manicured lawns and trees, and huge warehouses. Well-maintained, perfectly flat, and completely devoid of human life. We couldn't find the road we were supposed to take, and we encountered another guy also looking for the race, but we managed to find a parking lot separated from the race area by just a fence, so we managed to get there.

Registration was uneventful... until the Brown track team showed up! Two of them had just run their last collegiate race the night before, so it was the first day of their entire lives when they could compete for cash, and here they were to do it! So Haynes knew that his chance of second place was now zero.

... and then Jenna showed up! I have run with Jenna once a week all this year and twice a week last year, and I probably know more about her training than anyone other than her, but still I had no good guess as to how fast she would run. Her 5k PR is about 2 minutes faster than mine, but it was three years ago and she hasn't trained much recently, so who really knew what she could do? Haynes shared his helpful opinion that no matter how out of shape you get, you can still run one minute slower than your PR for 5k. If that was the case, she would surely beat me.

We did our 2-mile warm-up jog with the map. It was a confusing course with multiple loops around the same roads in different directions, but by the end of 16 minutes all three of us knew exactly where to go. When we got to the starting line, it turned out we were the only ones who knew where we were going! Lucky for the others, there were volunteers at the intersections.

The gun went off and a woman in pink sprinted away. Luckily, I had watched Alan's 5k in Central Falls two weeks ago and I had seen this woman do the same thing and then finish in 20:30 or something, so I was not concerned. I passed her after a minute or two, and the four of us (pink lady, Jenna, Melissa) ran together. Jenna offered to lead so that I wouldn't have to break the wind for everyone the whole time, and I acquiesced. We passed the mile in 6:00, and at maybe 1.5 miles I took the lead back and let her draft off me again. (Drafting at 6-minute pace may seem dumb, but there was actually some breeze since these roads were close to the ocean.)

We passed 2 miles in 12:11, for a 6:11 second mile. Now we were on the lollipop portion of the course, out on a straight road, do a little triangle, and then back on the straight road. As we entered the triangle, the lead guys (the two Brown track guys) were finishing the triangle, and they were shouting ahead asking the volunteers which way to go! When we finished the triangle at about 2.5 miles, Jenna was still right on my shoulder. We were running into a headwind, and I had a choice: drop back and let her lead again so I can draft, or try to open up a gap. I chose the latter. Jenna hung on for maybe 30 seconds, and then the sound of her breathing gradually became further away. I went through three miles in 18:22, so another 6:11 mile. However, I would never discount anyone's finishing speed, so I didn't think I was out of the woods at all. I continued to press, only glancing back once when we made a 90-degree turn, and I discovered I had somewhat of a cushion.

Now I was following two guys, Haynes in front and then a somewhat older guy between us. We were running along a loop that we'd done twice in the other direction, and suddenly Haynes took a right! Without thinking, I shouted, "are you sure? Haynes!" and he turned around and came back to the course, just behind me, and immediately passed me and ran ahead. Now there was about half a mile to go. I passed the older guy and ran somewhat behind Haynes. Now the question was, would I try to out-kick him? The answer is no: I tried to out-kick him at the end of a run once, and his top speed was just enough faster than mine so that I knew I didn't have much chance. We both kicked, and he finished one second (!) ahead of me, 24:26 to 24:27. In the race for second place, Jenna got Melissa by two seconds (!). All four of us finished within a span of just 30 seconds. Gosh, what a race! (In the men's race, Eric caught the Brown guys and won by quite a large margin.)

The three of us did our 2-mile cool-down on a shady road (unlike the race course, which was in direct sun due to its being completely manicured) and then added on another half mile with the Brown track people while we waited for the awards. Those guys were really funny! It was the most fun half mile of the day, with the guys joking around and everyone laughing.

At the awards ceremony, they did the raffle first and ALL of us won prizes! Three of us plus all three from the Brown team (two guys and Jenna). The prizes we ended up with were not so good -- gift cards to the YMCA and one of those RoadID discount cards -- but it was free! Much better than nothing!

They announced the winners and had us sign for our cash. They had decided to only give out $75 and $40 instead of $100 and $50! I expressed my surprise to the nice lady giving out the awards, but you can't really complain when they're giving out cash. Later, I wondered what the etiquette is in such a situation: They advertise $100 for the winner, and then when you win, they give only $75. Is that dishonest of them? Probably. Is it within their rights to do it? I guess so. It would be a big deal if the Boston Marathon, for instance, advertised $100k for the winner and then only paid out $75k, but in a tiny local road race you take what you can get, I guess.

We left shortly after and did another 4 miles, stopping by the race area one last time to ask a question about the YMCA certificates. The nice lady said she was so glad to see me, because they had decided to change it and pay out the full amounts! So I signed for my extra $25. Then I realized I would be seeing everyone else who won money later this week, so she allowed me to pick up their cash, too.

Now I was in the extremely unusual position of running with $70 in my key pocket! That's definitely something I've never done before and don't plan to do again! In all, the three of us had fun and everyone agreed it was a good race and a good day.

Rhode Races half marathon

2010-05-06T11:48:00.001-04:00

Sunday, May 2 dawned cloudy and humid. I had been concerned about the heat, so I literally drank about a gallon of water the day before to ensure that I was fully hydrated. I do not do well in the heat -- a few years ago, as soon as warm weather hit I would find myself with my heart rate at 180 bpm struggling to run 10 minutes per mile -- so I wanted to take every precaution.

Brett was running the marathon, so Alan gave both of us a ride down to the start (otherwise I would have run). I did a one-mile warmup on the course, not wanting to do too much since 13 miles is a long way. I was happy to find a row of 50 port-a-potties near the start, but was shocked to find that each one had a line of 10 people for it! So I gave up on that idea; you can use your imagination about that. I saw my photographer friend George at the start and he asked if he could take some pictures of me. Here is the nice result (from this slideshow):

However, I also found someone else on the starting line, a fast-looking woman in BAA gear. Never one to beat around the bush, I introduced myself, shook her hand and asked what she was planning to run. She told me her name, and I immediately knew that my chances of winning the race were now slim to none -- this was someone who had won Penn Relays, and who had beaten me by at least a minute in all the cross country races last fall. She said she was planning to do a 10-mile workout with some miles at 6:15 pace, and then see how she felt for the last couple of miles. I was pretty sure that anyone with times like hers would feel just fine for the last few miles! At that moment, I would have put my chances of winning at under 5%. I vowed to just run my own race and try to run a big PR (my previous best was 1:30:47). Trish came to the line and we shook hands. I also ran into a couple of other friends on the starting line, Jim (from other Providence races) and Katie (one of my captains in college).

The gun went off and I was mostly worried about the huge video camera arm that was across half of the road. However, it swept away just before I got there. Alan said I could run 6:20 pace (1:23), so I positioned myself behind Mariko, who had said she would run 6:15s. I went through the mile in 6:12 and realized why Trish was not beside me; she was running a more intelligent pace! I tried to back off a little for the second mile and ran 6:16. However, I apparently had no trouble backing off in the third mile, when I split 6:40. I was concerned about this, but Alan was right there on the bicycle saying "nice job, right on pace." We both knew that 6:40 was not "right on pace," but no matter. My friend David caught up at this point and slowly increased his gap on me as we ran up Blackstone. I was pleasantly surprised to hear several people cheer for me by name, including a college teammate I haven't talked to since I graduated!

Here is a picture from the first mile.

Alan was riding ahead on the bike and timing the gap for me. I had given up on my short-lived attempt to maintain contact with Mariko, and she quickly put a 30-second gap between us. I went through five miles in about 32:30, and it occurred to me that this is about what I've been running at the Red Rooster Ramble recently, so that was good practice.

I was running with a tall guy in a black and yellow singlet (in the results as Isaac; see photo below) and this woman wearing a Team in Training outfit kept coming by on a bike saying things like "two minutes back from the leaders." I assumed that Isaac must be running for Team in Training, and this woman was giving him updates. However, Alan later told me that Isaac was wearing headphones so he couldn't hear anything, and the woman was actually MY escort, and was giving ME updates on my position! Crazy. I wish I had known at the time, so I could have used the information or at least thanked the woman for riding along with me the whole way. I'm confused, though, because at 7 miles or so she was saying the gap was 3 minutes, which is too much gap for the lead female (who was maybe 1-2 minutes ahead of me) but not enough for the lead male (who was at least 10 minutes ahead by then).

Alan had stopped giving me time updates about Mariko, either because it took too long to ride all the way up there and then wait for me, or because she was so far ahead that I was never going to catch her and so it was uselessly depressing information. He was timing the gap between me and Trish, though, which was about 35 seconds. This gap was pretty constant for the middle of the race, I think. My theory is that I went out too fast and put a 35-second gap between us in the first two miles, and then we both basically ran the same speed for the remainder of the race.

I went through 10 miles in about 65.5 minutes, a long way from the 63:20 that Alan had suggested I try to run. I like to think of the half marathon as 10 miles plus a 5k, so I decided I had to run the last 5k in 19:30 in order to run under 1:26. Now that I have typed that, I realize that it is wrong -- 19:30 would have put me at 1:25. Ha! (Just remember, I'm a mathematician, not an arithmetician, and I'm neither one during a race when my higher faculties are just in survival mode.) I did manage to pass some people in this mile, a body-builder looking guy whom Alan had told me to reel in and pass starting at mile 6, and my friend Jim who was walking every so often.

Does this look like a fast runner? No! It looks like a slow runner! Looking slow is good camouflage.

It was around this time that Alan started giving updates on Mariko again. "She's only 35 seconds ahead of you! You can catch her!" I was thinking that in this case A certainly did not imply B, because 35 seconds is a lot, and we're talking about someone fast here. I would have to run 10 seconds per mile faster than her, and she was fast, so it was probably not going to happen. I could not see her ahead of me and I had no indication that she was coming back.

Mile 11 was up the Pitman Street hill, and I ran it in 7 minutes. 7 minutes! In that one mile alone, the distance between Trish and me went from 45 seconds down to 30. Alan was telling me that Mariko was only 25 seconds ahead now and I could catch her, but 25 was still a big number! I ran down Gano Street to India Point Park and Michaela was at the water stop, telling me that the leader was only 10-20 seconds ahead and I could catch her. I was disoriented because the course map had said that the first two miles were the same as the last two miles, but we were diverted onto the path rather than the road. No matter; the yellow singlet had appeared in front of me. All odds to the contrary, she had actually slowed down enough that I was once again close enough to see her! In short order I passed her, said "good job" incredulously, and ran on towards downtown Providence. This was just about at the 12-mile mark.

Well, now I was really running scared, because I was the pursued -- two fast women were behind me and I couldn't see them at all. I ran under a bridge with a bunch of police officers under it and I heard one say "just stick with our original plan!" Then there were motorcycles passing me and converging in front of me. The motorcycle escort was so exciting at last year's Rhode Races 5k, and at the St. Pats 5k, but this year I was just concerned about getting myself to the finish line as soon as possible. I ran under another bridge and another friend was there on a bike. He told me I was 100 meters ahead of the next woman. That did not seem very far to me and so I was very worried as I ran.

Apparently Alan was not worried, because with half a mile to go, he told me where he had hidden the house key and rode off to go cheer for Brett out on the bike path! (He changed his mind and followed me to the end, I guess to see if I broke 1:26.)

Finally, I managed to make the final turn towards the finish line. I glimpsed the time clock and I saw it said "55" at the end, and my instincts said "speed up and you can beat the next minute" (whatever that might be). I vaguely perceived that something was blocking the way on the right side of the finish line, so I aimed towards the left side. Then I realized that people were pointing me over towards the right, and the thing that was blocking the way was the tape. Again, I was so excited to break the tape at St. Pats, and this day it hadn't even crossed my mind to think about it!

This video includes a clip of me breaking the tape (please excuse the 10-second ad before the video clip):

I had gotten a lot of crap for raising my arms over the tape at St. Pats, so this time I just ran through the thing. However, the following picture, which appeared on coolrunning, gives the impression that I ran into the tape with my face and choked myself with it (you can see a guy in a Team in Training shirt on the bike behind me, apparently my bike escort -- they are also visible in the video above):

They gave me a minute to catch my breath and then called me over for the live TV interview. I called Trish over because I thought she deserved to be interviewed just as much as I did. Here we are:

George Ross took closeups of us being interviewed. Here is mine:

We were interviewed on TV for a few minutes and then I was led away to do the microphone interview with the announcer guy. I tried to speak slowly and enunciate, because I know you can rarely understand what people are saying when they get interviewed at the end of their race. The guy asked me, "you won the 5k last year and the half marathon this year; are you going to win the marathon next year?" I said "we'll see." Here is the microphone interview:

Then a woman led me away to do a third (!) interview, this time with three people at once and for print. They held up pocket microphones and asked questions. After that was finished, I asked the woman who those reporters were and she said they were the ProJo and the New England Runner! I don't know if they weren't able to have extended interviews with other runners or what, but half of the ProJo article ended up being about the women's half marathon:

PROVIDENCE — She’d already run a lot of 5K races this season and hadn’t run a half-marathon since March of last year. So Diana Davis decided it was time to bump up the distance.

It proved to be a very good decision, as the 24-year-old Brown University grad student won the women’s title at Sunday’s Shape Up RI Half Marathon. Clocking a winning time of 1 hour, 25 minutes and 59 seconds, Davis joined 31-year-old Phil Reutlinger on the medals podium. The attorney with the U.S. Navy stationed in New London, Conn., won the men’s half-marathon title in 1:12:36.

[...]

Davis, who trains with the Brown University Running Club while she pursues her Ph.D. in mathematics, describes Sunday’s victory as the biggest of her young running career.

“I love this course,” she said. “It’s basically all the runs that I do stitched together. … I really love the course, and that we didn’t have to go over College Hill. That was perfect.”

Initially, Davis thought the best she could hope for was second place, given the sizeable lead that 28-year-old physician’s assistant Mariko Holbrook of Somerville, Mass., established early on. But Davis began steadily closing the gap over the last four miles or so, and by mile 12 she overtook Holbrook, then held on for the win.

In third place most of the way, defending champion Trish Hillery also passed Holbrook and finished second with a time of 1:26:34.

Because the race started at 8:00, I was done by 9:30 am. I hung around the finishing area for half an hour or so, and was happy to see basically everyone I knew who was in the race. Everyone I talked to had run a PR! I think the running club had 100% PRs in the half marathon, with the exception of someone who's been injured and just ran it for fun. Sarah and I waited for the awards ceremony for about an hour, and then I went back to the finish line to ask them when the awards was going to be, and while I was up there they did the awards! So I missed them. I fished around in the box later, though, and took my plaque. Then I waited around for another three hours for the marathon/5k awards ceremony to see if there was any sort of gift certificate that went with the plaque, but there wasn't. I did get to chat with just about everyone I knew there, including my friend from college who had cheered for me on the course, and my friend Jim whom I had passed around mile 11 when he had to stop and walk.

Aftermath...
I still haven't said "I won a half marathon" out loud. What a crazy thought. When people asked me how my race went, I said, "it went fine," or "I ran 1:26," and only told them my place when asked directly (I'm working on humility). I've been running 6 miles a day at 8-minute pace and my legs have been sore. I also ended up with a blister under my toenail (which I could feel during the race), the same toenail that acted up for the first time during the last leg of 100 on 100.

We got Chinese food after the Turtles and Alan picked up the ProJo sports section lying on the table, and it turns out they had a race preview article on Sunday, which was mostly about cancer but also mentioned me.

If any number of things had gone differently, I wouldn't have won this race. I am happy with it, and I am looking forward to running faster in the future. Marathon? Maybe!

Photos taken from Digital Photo Concept and Capstone Photo.

Three races in five days

2010-04-23T10:53:00.004-04:00

First race: The Brown Running Club mini-meet on Tuesday. Four people showed up, three guys and me. I was planning to do the mile and the 800 as a sort of interval workout, but no one else was interested in the 800, so we did just the mile and the 400.

Mile: The guys appeared to all be about the same speed as each other and as me, and one said that he didn't know how to pace a mile, so I offered to pace the first lap and said then they could all pass me. This is what happened. I led the first lap (409 meters) in about 79 and then all three went by. I passed the third guy (Simon) on the backstretch of the second lap, but he re-passed me half a lap later and we went through the half mile in 2:41. I had been planning on running about 5:40, so this was much faster than planned! I passed Simon on the backstretch again and ran an 85 for the third lap. Edward was running a few seconds ahead of me, and the gap had been relatively constant for the past two laps, so I harbored fantasies of catching him. I accelerated on the backstretch and caught him just as we came off the last turn. I kicked hard and had him by about a meter with 50m to go, but in the end he prevailed, 5:24 to my 5:25.

400m: Two laps of rest jog and then we were on the line for the 400. I am not even counting this as another race because I lost the ability to run fast about halfway through. For the last 100m I was just moving my legs but with no speed at all. I ran a 72. I probably would have run faster in trainers than in spikes!

Second race: The Red Rooster Ramble on Thursday.
This race was notable for several things:
(1) The first race I have ever run in a raincoat;
(2) Downpour with lightning for the first mile or two;
(3) Complete rainbow for the last mile!

Throughout the warm-up, the flash-to-bang time was between 5 and 7 seconds. Definitely not comforting. But the race went on regardless (with about 2/3 as many participants as usual). Alan and I both opted to wear our super duper lightweight rain jackets because it was pouring rain. Because I have an important race on Saturday, I decided to run 33 minutes for this week's race. At the start of the race, I was surprised to be surrounded by people! This was a nice change. I was running in a whole pack of guys until the 1-mile mark, which we passed in 6:28. I introduced myself to the guy nearest me (Russell), and he said he was trying to break 34 minutes. "Stick with me, and you'll surely break 34 minutes!" I said. He did so, and in the end he even broke 33 minutes.

Two college guys, Russell and I ran the whole race together. I shouted out our times at each mile marker because Russell didn't have a watch and he asked me to. At about 3.5 miles, a guy appeared up ahead and one of the college guys said, "looks like third place is up for grabs!" I was surprised that (1) third place was that slow; and (2) this guy was keeping track of what place we were in. If you had told me the guy ahead of us was fifth, I would have believed you. A little after 4 miles we turned a corner and saw a rainbow! I shouted to the others about it so that everyone would notice. We caught the third place guy shortly after getting back on the bike path. He was not pleased, but I was as pleasant as possible about it, talking about the rainbow. On the bike path, surrounded by water and flat land, we could see the whole rainbow, stretching from the horizon back to the horizon again! I have never seen a whole rainbow like that before. Reminds me of the disk model of hyperbolic space.

In the last 1/2 mile I could hear the college guys accelerating. I staged a couple of preemptive strikes, but in the last 1/4 mile they caught up even though I was kicking, and when I could tell that they had it, I backed off. It turned out that they were really racing each other. I want to save myself for Saturday! I jogged it in and finished in 32:42.

I was pleased during the race that I could maintain 6:30-6:40 pace without straining. I was able to run that pace with four steps per breath, not even needing the usual three steps per breath. This is good news for me because I want to run a half marathon at 6:30 pace next weekend, which will be 2.6 times as long as the Ramble.

Third race: Scott Carlson ALS 5k (results)
Well, basically I just went out and ran this race and that was that. I let Katie go after about 1/2 mile of the race, and for the next 2.5 miles I just watched her run away and finish under 18 minutes while I finished many seconds later. I ran basically 5:45, 6:00, 6:00 for the race, as has become standard for me. I did run a PR of 18:21, a PR by about 3 seconds. If I were getting a performance bonus each time I broke my PR, then chipping off a few seconds at a time would seem like a strategy, but as it is, it is just an indication of my extremely shallow slope of improvement. I won $100 for third place, and our team won the team division. There was delicious sherbet, and there were even lemon poppy seed muffins after the race.

I skipped the RI State Police Foot Pursuit on Sunday to do a long run of the half marathon course. I like the course very much; it basically does parts of all of the runs I do (the 8-mile loop, the River Road, India Point Park and the 14-mile loop are all represented). We only saw mile markers for 2, 5, 7, 11 and 12, so hopefully they will be marked better next weekend!

So far in 2010 I have paid $125 in entry fees and made back $225 cash, for a net profit of $100 (plus things like T-shirts and water bottles). But this will change next weekend, as the half marathon cost $50 and I am guessing there will be no profits.

Red Rooster Ramble 2010, #4

2010-04-20T11:45:00.004-04:00

(Results) This Red Rooster Ramble was relatively uneventful. After the previous week's hard effort to run 31 minutes, I was ready to drop back down to 32 minutes this week.

I wore my older racing flats to see if it was the shoes that were making my feet fall asleep. This experiment was successful in a sense, because my feet didn't fall asleep this week. So if the trend continues, I'll stay with these flats.

I also didn't do strides -- I figured, no one else is doing strides, and I'm not going all-out this week, so I might as well not bother. This was a bad idea, because my legs felt heavy and slow for the first mile. Next week I'll do strides, even if no one else does them!

On the starting line, one guy said he was going to see how fast he could run the first mile. The starter said "go" and he took off across the parking lot, with Alan and me behind. I told Alan what the guy was up to, and Alan took off to catch up with him. After about 1/4 mile, Alan passed him. I could hear this guy Billy right behind me, and Billy passed me around 1/2 mile or so. Then we both caught the "fast mile" guy and almost immediately after, I heard breathing behind me. I was surprised, that the fast mile guy had accelerated and was right behind me! But no, this turned out to be Bob (the fast mile guy dropped very fast).

Bob, Billy and I all passed the mile in about 6:10. Over the next few miles, Bob ran fast and disappeared into the distance, and Billy slowly increased his lead over me. I harbored some fantasies of catching him, but I didn't. I had my chance before the 4-mile mark when he missed a turn, but I shouted ahead and he made a U-turn and got back on course. I was surprised that my third and fourth miles were within a few seconds of my time from last week, because last week I was really going for it and this week I was not so much. I kicked the last 1/2 mile and ended up in 31:44.

Alan won, the top five of us all went on a jolly cool-down together on the bike path, and there were tacos for dinner!

Red Rooster Ramble 2010, #3

2010-04-12T14:19:00.003-04:00

This Ramble was less eventful, in that I drove there instead of biking. Alan and I chatted with the Jackmans a little and they said they planned to run together at a little under 7-minute pace. The main contenders eliminated, I discussed with Alan the possibility that he would let me beat him so that I could win the race outright instead of just the women's division. We left this possibility unresolved. I had already stated that my goal was to run 31 minutes (6:12 pace) as a tempo run. I had done a 5-mile tempo in about 31:50 the previous week.

I felt a little self-conscious changing into racing flats and doing striders because I was the only one doing it, but these things must be done. When the whistle blew to start the race, a guy in a green shirt took off, with Alan and me following behind. After about 50 meters, Alan said, "I guess it's just you and me." "And that guy!" I pointed out, not wanting to unfairly discredit a competitor. But we both knew that he would not hold his pace, and indeed after about 1/2 mile it was just Alan and me.

Alan ran the first mile with me, which we passed in 5:58. When we made the turn onto the road, he said "bye!" and accelerated away. He had told Bob he was going to run 29 minutes, so he had to run 5:45s to achieve that. I ran the second mile in 6:13 and was pleased that it was almost exactly the 6:12 pace I had desired (and that mile included a little hill).

I knew that the third and fourth mile would be the hardest, because my times have always been slowest on these two miles. I kept the pressure on, and it was gratifying that I could see Alan ahead of me for the entire way until about 3.8 miles (two weeks before, I couldn't see him after mile 0.8 or so). I ran these miles in 6:17 and 6:28, respectively. I was pretty shocked about the 6:28, because I didn't think I was running that slow. But after the race Bob and Alan were talking about it and they agreed that the fourth mile is long. I think this is probably true (map).

In any case, my elapsed time was now 24:56 and I had just over 6 minutes to get to the finish line. What was supposed to be a tempo run was definitely a race by this point. I got to the "1/2 mile to go" mark in just over 28 minutes, and the "1/4 mile to go" mark in 29:31. But I managed to kick hard and by the time I got to the finish line the clock still had "30" before the colon, so I was safe.

I finished in 30:57. The race director came over to me and told me I had set a course record! He told me the previous CR was 31:24 and showed me the sticker saying so at the top of his clipboard. I thanked him heartily for this but tried to correct him, because I knew that JoAnn M. had run 30:15 on the course last year and I had run 31:20 in a failed attempt to beat her time, so the course record couldn't possibly be 31:24 if I had run faster than that and not even won! But in any case I guess 30:57 is the new CR, at least until JoAnn comes back to defend her position. The guy in the green shirt who had gone out ahead of us finished in 38 minutes or something.

We did a two-mile cooldown, during which both my feet fell asleep and only one woke up, and chatted with the Jackmans over pizza.

Red Rooster Ramble 2010, #1

2010-03-25T21:09:00.002-04:00

The glorious day has finally arrived, March 25! I have been looking forward to the first day of the Red Rooster Ramble very much, ever since my last race of indoor track season when I realized that I should really do some tempo runs. I got this idea from reading this article about Bernard Lagat (on page 6):

In refining Lagat's training, Li conferred with his mentors. "I've had several," he says. "Coach Chaplin, of course. Bill Dellinger at Oregon was very generous with me. I have a monthly lunch with coach Joe Vigil (the former coach of Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor). I sat with Bob Larsen of UCLA at the Mt. SAC Relays and shared my puzzlement with athletes in general. My question was, where is the correlation between great interval workouts and racing well? Because a lot of guys do one but not the other. He said he had found tempo runs helping his guys. I tried it, and it helped mine." It sure helped Lagat. Tempo running is sustaining a pace near the edge of one's aerobic capacity, not as hard as racing, in a zone around 90 percent of maximum heart rate. Lagat would become famous for doing tempo runs of 5000 meters or longer on the trails.

I have sometimes had the problem of running harder in workouts than in races, so I felt that this tempo strategy could work for me. Red Rooster Ramble to the rescue!

Sarah and I biked 10 miles to the start of the race, mostly along the bike path. There was a stiff headwind and it was all I could do to go about 14 mph (the bike path has mile markers, and we were going 4:00-4:20 per mile). We managed to get there and sign up and get to the starting line by 6:30, but they didn't start the race until 6:40, so we were there in plenty of time.

When the gun went off, a guy in white took off like a rocket, Alan was behind him, and even with a conservative start I found myself very quickly in third place. I soon realized why when I got to the mile mark in exactly 6:00! I was planning for this to be a tempo run, so I was trying to run just 6:30 per mile, and 6:00 was thusly a little over-excited. I tried to slow down for the next few miles and hit miles 3 and 4 right on pace. In any case, I ran alone for the rest of the race, with no one in sight ahead or behind me even on the long straight stretches, with mile splits of 6:00, 6:17, 6:27, 6:32, 6:11. My right foot fell asleep for the last mile or two and didn't really improve much on the cool-down, but I attribute it to the biking because Sarah said the same thing happened to her.

Alan and the guy in the white shirt tied for first (!) in a course record (!) and I was third overall. Sarah ran a PR! After eating some pizza, Sarah and I took the RIPTA -- my first time on the bus! free with the Brown ID! it really works! -- back to Brown.

St. Pats 5k

2010-03-22T16:13:00.005-04:00

(Results) I was very nervous in the days leading up to this race. I thought I had a good chance to win, which made me fret over the race more than usual. When I tried to visualize the race, my heart rate would skyrocket and adrenaline would course through my veins. Every time I tried to imagine the race, I would be racing someone neck-and-neck and have to out-kick them at the finish line. One of my reasons for wanting to win the race is that I saw pictures of last year, and there was a finishing tape. After I won a couple of races last year, I decided I wanted to win a race with a tape, and I was hoping that they would have one this year also, and that I would be the one to break through it.

Saturday was sunny and warm. I walked down to the capitol building with some other people in the club, and immediately lost them all when I went to get in line to get my tech shirt. I made a few laps of the huge crowd, but didn't find any of them. I did luckily find Trish H. [my new experiment to refrain from using people's full names, so this blog doesn't show up so high in search results] and gave her a book which she had expressed interest in reading. I abandoned my effort to find my teammates and went for my warm-up jog, to the 1-mile mark and back. I made sure to note the various mileage marks on the way back -- for instance, when the capitol building came into view, there was 3/4 mile to go, and at the Dunkin' Donuts, about 1/4 mile to go. I changed into my racing flats and hoped that no one would steal my warm-ups and sneakers, which I left in a bag near the start/finish line.

Luckily, I ran into Melissa and we made our way to the starting line. "Excuse me, you have to go around!" said a volunteer, pointing us to the sidelines so that we could line up in the very back of the huge crowd of people behind the starting line. "We're running the race," I explained redundantly, and headed towards the starting line. "In the front?" he asked. "Yes." No one ever said I looked like a fast runner! This guy clearly thought we were not starting line material!

Once on the starting line, I looked for all the people who I should worry about. Trish was there, and Melissa. I saw a woman in a TNT uniform that I recognized, so I introduced myself and learned her name, hometown and occupation. I looked around and didn't see anyone else who looked dangerous. My nervousness subsided a little bit because I knew exactly what I was dealing with. But then there was the whole deal with the starting gun... There wasn't a gun; there was an air horn, but not a regular air horn; it was like an air horn whose engine was backfiring! I didn't think the race was starting, but everyone else started running, so after a fraction of a second, I was off and running, too. I'm sorry for the person behind me!

The first mile was relatively uneventful. Lots of men went out really fast, but I didn't see any women in front of me after the first 100 meters. Trish appeared on my left at about 3/4 mile, but I didn't see her after that. I passed the mile in 5:43. At about that time, I heard a female breathing right behind me. I have mistook a man behind me for a female before, so I took a quick glance back: definitely female. And not one of the three I recognized; someone completely unknown. Now the race was much more interesting.

On the starting line I had asked Trish about the course, because I didn't have a chance to run the middle mile. She helpfully told me that there was a steep but short hill in the second mile (unlike the race volunteer, who told me it was a gradual uphill on the way out and gradual downhill on the way back!) so I was prepared for it when we got to it. This girl was hanging right on my shoulder. I tried to drop her by accelerating up the hill (didn't work). Tried the same thing going down the hill (didn't work). Gosh, it was turning out to be just like what I had imagined, running neck-and-neck with someone the whole race! Shortly before the two-mile mark, we got back to the out-and-back section of the course, which meant that we were passing by the thousands of people who were behind us in the race. So much cheering! It seemed like half of the people we passed screamed as we went by, and some shouted "Yeah, first woman!" or (less frequently) "yeah, first women!"

We passed the two-mile mark in about 11:45, for a 6:02 second mile. I was satisfied with this because of the hills. Now it was just a question of the long straight mile back to the capitol. I surged, and the breathing on my shoulder got further away, but only for a moment, and when I took the pressure off she came right back. Now I was getting worried. Alan was by the side of the course and said something encouraging. "How much?" I said. "She's right behind you." "How much, how much?" I said again. "About two seconds," he said. Maybe a minute later, he shouted something encouraging again and I realized that after I passed by him, Alan had started running and was now shadowing us from a few meters back (like he did at the Tufts 10k).

Well, now things were getting desperate. When I got to my 1/4 mile to go mark, she was still there, so I surged again, but this time, I wasn't going to let up. I told myself, if I can stay in this level of pain from now until the finish line, she won't be able to keep up and I will win the race. When I started the surge, her breathing got further away, and as I kept pressing, I didn't hear it come back. With maybe 150 meters to go, three motorcycles came off the sidelines and converged in front of me to usher me to the finish line. For the first time I thought I really would win. Up ahead of me I could see the finish line, and I saw that they were holding up a tape! I ran straight towards it and lifted my arms before I got there. Wow, I had actually won the race!

I ended up running a (net time) PR of 18:24.3, winning by about seven seconds. I thought it was much closer than that. In this picture you can see the second woman (who ended up being named Kaitlin), in blue, over my shoulder:

The race results say that I set a new course record:

But that is wrong, because the woman who ran 18:43 listed above was actually second, and Trish ran 18:22.55 last year, which is faster than my time:

so I have e-mailed the race results person and asked them to take out the part about it being a course record. I hope they do, because it's not true.

Everyone I have mentioned won the same prize, a pair of running shoes. I chatted with the other women for a little while after the race, and everyone was very nice and personable. I was quite thrilled to see Matt and Tom, who had come all the way downtown to see the race! (Tom has confirmed that I actually did not have the nose-squinching expression that the above photo has captured.)

The running club ended up winning our division, for which I believe we won a plaque (they hadn't tabulated the results yet one hour after I finished, so I left without picking up the team prize). We had the third-fastest time of any team in any division, and all the scorers of the two faster teams were all men (our team was two women and one man). I was 20th overall, out of about 3600 people.

As an aside -- you know how sometimes you ask people about running, and they say "I only run to catch a bus"? Less than three hours after the race ended, I did have to chase a bus. I chased it down and caught up to it while it was driving, waved down the driver, and got him to let me on. So it was a success.

Mixed drink arithmetic

2010-03-12T14:45:00.002-05:00

Consider the following "easy" way to add fractions:

a/b + c/d = (a+c) / (b+d).

An elementary school teacher's nightmare! With this sort of reasoning, 1/2 + 1/2 = 2/4 = 1/2. Bad news.

But we can find a situation where this actually works, as my professor pointed out the other day: mixed drinks. If the fractions represent the concentrations of alcohol in a mixed drink -- the numerator being the amount of vodka, and the denominator being the total amount of screwdriver (vodka + orange juice), the math works out perfectly!

For instance, if you have one drink that has 1 oz of vodka in a total 8 oz beverage, and another with 2 oz vodka in a 4 oz beverage, you pour them together and you get 3 oz in a 12 oz beverage:

1/8 + 2/4 = (1+2) / (8+4) = 3/12.

Do not show this trick to your ten-year-old child!

The resulting fraction is always between the two that you added together, which makes sense in the context of drinks -- if you mix together two drinks, the resulting drink can't be weaker than both of the original ones, nor stronger than both of the original ones; it has to be in between.

I am wondering whether I should show this to my students this summer. Last summer, we did many problems of the form "two gallons of a 20% concentration are mixed with five gallons of a 10% concentration. What is the resulting concentration of the mixture?" Even after the initial confusion of "what the heck is a gallon?" (most of the students were from abroad) these kinds of problems were beyond many of the students. They liked to add the percentages, average the percentages... anything but "total amount of concentrate over total volume of the mixture!" as I would always repeat, tailoring it to the situation. ("Total amount of cheerios over total amount of cereal! Total number of cloudy days over total number of days!)

Perhaps if I twisted it so that they would be "allowed" to do this "crazy" fraction addition after they set it up properly, they would think that was fun and learn to set it up properly. (Although some of them came in not knowing how to add fractions, so that could be dangerous! "What did your crazy American teacher tell you about adding fractions?")

A new PR in the 400

2010-03-02T10:56:00.003-05:00

My indoor season ended kind of dismally, so I wanted to end it with a bang and try to get a PR in the 400. When I was "sharpening" for the 5k, I did a workout of 5x400, and I was supposed to do each 400 in 75. I accidentally did the first one in 71.2 without even trying to run so fast, so I thought I had a good chance of breaking my PR of 68.9 in the 400.

The evening of the mini meet proved eventful, as the five guys and I went to the OMAC only to find that it was closed. So our indoor track meet had to move to the outdoor Hope High School track, which was blessed with a very strong wind yesterday evening. This was good for the 200m but not so good for the 400m, which had to fight it.

Lucky for me, two guys also wanted to do the 400m. I was hoping that I could draft off of one of them on the windy stretch from 100 to 200 meters. When our starter said "go," one of the guys (Brian) absolutely took off, and he was gone immediately. However, the other guy (Dave) was faster than me on the start but not much faster than me after that. So after we had done our one-turn stagger in lanes, I cut into lane 1 and drafted off of him down the straight, and stayed out of the wind.

As we neared the 200m mark I prepared to pass him, accelerated, and got right behind him. But as soon as Dave heard me behind him, he accelerated and appeared to simply zoom away. So I spent the curve catching back up to him (didn't want to pass on a curve anyway) and prepared to pass him at the beginning of the straight. However, just as soon as I caught him and was preparing to move into lane 2, he sensed this and zoom! away he went again. About 50 meters from the end, I realized that I was clenching my face all into a scowl, so I relaxed my face for the last little bit and zipped over the finish line in a more proper sprinting form.

Since I couldn't catch Dave, I was afraid that I might not have achieved my goal of a PR. After all, last spring I tried to run a PR and ended up running 70.2, well off my goal. (The fact that I had just done a workout half an hour before the meet might have had something to do with it.) So I was pleasantly surprised to see 65.16 on my watch! The official timer had it at 65.0, so that was nearly a 4-second PR.

I thought it might have been the largest percentage decrease in PR that I had ever achieved from one race to the next, but actually it's not. From 68.9 to 65.0 is about a 6% decrease, which is pretty huge. However, last spring I improved my half marathon PR from 1:40:19 to 1:30:47, which is a decrease of 10% and therefore even more huge.

65 seconds puts the world record at 73.2% of my time, which is the same score as I got in the half marathon. So I am about equally good at the 400 and the half marathon. (For comparison, the world record is 81% of my indoor 3k time, so my indoor 3k is much better.) However, I plan to change that at New Bedford when I hope to run much faster than 1:30:47 for the distance.

Pushup ladder number theory

2010-02-25T09:08:00.001-05:00

I have two (very muscular) friends who like to do pushups. In particular, they do a pushup ladder consisting of:

1 pushup (rest)
2 pushups (rest)
... (etc.)
9 pushups (rest)
10 pushups (rest)
9 pushups (rest)
... (etc.)
2 pushups (rest)
1 pushup

Naturally, I wondered how many they were doing. I added it up and it turns out they did 100 pushups.

I was not as hard-core as my friends, so I only went up to 5 and back down. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.) How many, I wondered, was I doing? I added it up and it turns out I was doing 25 pushups.

Huh. A pattern. Could it be true that if you go from 1, up to n, back down to 1, you are always doing n² pushups?

Like for instance, if you do 1 pushup, 2 pushups, ... all the way up to 16 pushups and then back down to 1, will you really have done exactly 256 pushups?

Yes!

Proof #1 (algebra). (The less-illuminating proof.)

There is a formula for adding up the numbers from 1 to n: (n+1)*n/2. So we simply add up the numbers from 1 to n (for the pushups on the way up), and then add up the numbers from 1 to n-1 (for the pushups on the way down).

on the way up: (n+1)*n/2 = n²/2 + n/2

on the way down: n*(n-1)/2 = n²/2 - n/2

If you add these two expressions together, the "+ n/2" and the "- n/2" cancel out, the "n²/2" and "n²/2" add up to n², and you just get n².

An acceptable proof, because it tells us that the number of pushups is n², but it is somehow unsatisfying. Okay, it's true, but why? Why?

Proof #2 (geometry). (The wonderful proof!)

The picture above illustrates the proof for n=6. Here's how it works: The vertical stacks of red blocks represent the pushups you do on the way up. First you do one (top right red block), then two, etc. up to six (the stack along the left side). On the way down, you do five (the blue blocks along the bottom), then four, etc. down to one (near the top right).

It is easy to see how you could draw a square picture like this for any side length n, i.e. maximum number of pushups n, and the total number of pushups would always be n², because the picture is a square.

Proof by picture! Very satisifying! Now I understand!

USATF-NE 5k

2010-02-24T16:54:00.002-05:00

(Results.) The 5k I ran this weekend was quite a wasted opportunity. My goal was to run under 18 minutes, because I have done several workouts (and 3k races) that indicate I am in shape to run under 18 minutes. The particular goal was 17:55, also known as 43 seconds per lap. I went out on pace, went through the mile in 5:42 (the actual mile, as this was on Harvard's "8 laps to the mile" track), and then proceeded to decide that I didn't really want to run so fast. So I slowed down and ran slowly for the next mile. Then I kicked the last lap in 38 seconds. Nevertheless, I missed my PR by less than three seconds, indicating that if I had just tried a little harder in the second half of the race, it could have been quite good (even if not under 18 minutes). It was rather poor decision-making and I wish I could do it again differently, but I will have to wait until at least outdoor track to make amends.

On the bright side, my friend from high school came to watch the race (above)! And we had a lovely lunch at a Korean restaurant, because I had never eaten Korean food. Now I have, and I can say that it is truly tasty.

On running every day

2010-02-15T15:13:00.002-05:00

I ran every day in 2009, as reported in my 2009 wrap-up. Counterintuitive as it may seem, I have found that running every day is mentally easier than skipping some days.

Back when I didn't run every day -- in other words, my entire life before 2009 -- I ran most days, but I skipped a day each week, or at least a few days each month. So every day, it was mostly "what am I going to do for my run today?" but with shades of "do I really have to run today? maybe today can be my off day." When I ran every day, I simply had to decide what to do; I didn't have to decide whether to do it.

I recently heard that a friend of a friend made a resolution that he would run every day in January 2010. He was so proud of himself for achieving this that, on the night of January 31, he ran naked through the streets of his snowy town. This got me thinking: is it really so difficult to run for a month straight? Once I decided to run every day for a year, it wasn't so difficult.

The difficult part for me is going to be the first day when I don't run. So far, I have continued running every day in 2010. I nearly lost it last week, when I felt pretty sick, but I ran two miles around the indoor track anyway, and was rewarded with a fever of 102 a few hours later. But fever reducing medicines cured that problem...

For some people, running every day would be a stupid goal, because they have only been running a few days a week, and they might get injured if they increased their running frequency so quickly. For some people, it would be foolhardy, like if they only run 20 miles a week and would therefore have to run only a paltry 2-3 miles per day, which would decrease their enjoyment of their runs by making them ridiculously short. However, running every day is good for me.

It has also made it easier for me to answer such questions as "how many miles do you run per day?" I simply take my total miles from last year and divide by the number of days, and get the very convenient answer, 8.

Super 5k

2010-02-08T19:09:00.005-05:00

For once, a race writeup that is current!

Yesterday, I raced the Super 5k in Narragansett, RI. Salient points: it very cold and windy, I/we achieved both individual and team victories, and I got mistaken for a (albeit very fast) 42-year-old woman. (results)

Melissa and Erin joined Alan and me for this race. The question of what to wear for the race loomed large in each of our minds. It was about 25° and very windy, and the first and last miles of this race were right along the ocean. I opted for a short-sleeve technical shirt under my singlet, and shorts. Alan wore shorts, Erin 3/4 length pants, and Melissa full pants. Everyone else wore long sleeves.

After a two-mile warm up, we stripped to our racing attire and went to the starting area. It was very windy, so that doing a strider out was no problem, but returning to the starting line we were fighting the wind. My hands were freezing (everyone else opted for gloves). I ran back to the car to get gloves, but changed my mind.

Melissa spotted a woman who she had beaten, but not by much, at a recent 10k, and pointed her out to me. (This woman ended up being Anne Kugler, though I didn't know this until I saw the results.) My main fear was that Trish Hillery, who won this race last year in 18:27 (I was second in 19:24) would be there. I thought I could beat her, since I beat her at Ronald McDonald, but it would have been much harder. She wasn't pre-registered, and she didn't show up. Phew! They didn't start the race until at least five minutes late, which was very annoying since many of us were standing around with bare legs and arms.

Finally, the gun went off. I jumped off the line and could only see men ahead of me. Anne appeared on my left. I tucked in behind her so that I knew where she was, and because of the wind. We went through the lovely arch below a castle that is so iconic in Narragansett, and ran down a long straight road. After maybe three minutes, Anne slipped back. I kept the pressure on, tucking in behind some men. I couldn't hear her behind me, a good sign, but no guarantee. Up ahead I could see that Alan was sharing the lead with Eric Lonergan.

We turned off the seawall road and then took another right onto an uphill road with a big round stone thing. All this meant was that the mile mark was approaching. I went through the mile in 5:47. Perfect! This was just great news. I want to run 17:55 for the 5k in Boston on Friday, which means 43 seconds per lap, or about 5:45 for the mile. I had just done this, and it didn't seem too fast; it seemed like the right speed to be running. (The mile marks could have been off, of course.)

Then it was a half-mile push to the turnaround cone. I was happy that I couldn't see runners approaching until I was quite close to the cone, which meant that I wasn't so far behind the leaders! Unfortunately, Alan was in fourth place now (only the top three would get cash). I wanted to know how far Anne was behind me, but all I could manage to say was "whoo!" and Alan said something encouraging like "great job!" I went around the cone at just about 9:00 exactly. When I turned around I could see that I had a bit of a gap on Anne, but it was hard to estimate, maybe 7-8 seconds. So I started catching guys on the way back to the road.

Hit the two-mile in 11:56, for a second mile of 6:09. All of our second mile times were slow, so we think the second mile was long (maybe the first mile was short). I caught one of the guys Alan runs with at TNT, Dave Shaad. A little while later, he passed me back and put on a gap. As we turned the corner onto the seawall road, there was a volunteer making sure we didn't get hit by cars. "Nice job, Trish!" he shouted as I ran by.

I refuse to look back in races, but I did so at this point. Was he really mistaking me for Trish Hillery, or had she somehow appeared behind me? No one was immediately behind me; he was actually mistaking me for Trish Hillery, who races in black OxySocks (knee socks) and purple sunglasses, and is 42 years old. (Actually, he was probably just saying this because she won the race last year, and he assumed the same woman had returned. He probably has no idea what she looks like.) It's nice to be mistaken for someone so fast, but it's definitely one of the weirdest encouragements I've ever received while running.

My plan had always been to find guys to draft off of, when I was running the last mile back, into the headwind along the seawall road. Unfortunately, when I got to the road, all the guys were 30 meters ahead of me! So I found myself breaking the headwind myself. Grrr. I focused on catching a guy in a blue T-shirt who was running with Dave Shaad. I managed to do this a little before I got to the castle arch again. Unfortunately, Dave had also accelerated, and he was still ahead of me.

At this point, Alan had finished and run back along the course and was there to give me the update. "Good job, you've got about 10 seconds on her; finish hard and run a fast time!" Ten seconds was not an acceptable amount of lead to trust to fate. I kicked hard and hit the 3-mile mark in 17:59 (6:03 third mile). I kept kicking and was happy that the announcer was saying "here comes the first woman" and not "what a race it will be for first place!" I ended up in 18:34, a comfortable 18 seconds ahead of Anne.

Me finishing, out-kicking the guy in the blue T-shirt.

The third-place guy pulled his hamstring, so Alan ended up a comfortable third, in the money.

Melissa ran a blistering last mile to reel in the woman in front of her, and outkicked the woman for third place. Erin had a tough race but finished in good form.

Alan finishing with no one in sight behind him; Melissa finishing with the woman she out-kicked visible in a gray shirt.

We managed to win the women's team competition by just two points, 10 points to 12. We each received a bottle of wine, and we got a $100 gift certificate to a local tavern (to share, apparently). Plus, Alan, Melissa and I got aluminum water bottles, and cash. We all made money (net) on the day. I also got a $25 gift certificate to a bagel place in the raffle, so we went there after the race and each got a dozen bagels (we bought them out; they only had 36 left, so we didn't even get baker's dozens.) Later that day, we watched the Super Bowl, and the correct team won. So it was a good day.

Terrier Classic, 3k

2010-02-03T12:18:00.002-05:00

I returned to Boston on Friday night for the Terrier Classic. Once again, I would try to break 10:15 in the 3k.

[Digression: Both the Terrier Classic and the Valentine Invitational, hosted by BU, are two-day meets. The two days they chose are Friday and Saturday. The women race on Friday, and the men race on Saturday, in both meets, every year. How is this fair? The women have to miss class or work to race on Friday, and the men just show up the next day and race on a reasonable weekend day. I think they should either switch them between Terrier and Valentines, or switch both year to year.]

I was in the third section of four for the 3k. When the gun went off, somehow I didn't get out very well and got way behind -- actually third to last. I am not sure how this happened, as I usually get off the line well. Maybe I should take Mark's advice and crack my toes the next time.

Anyway, this put me in the position of having to pass hordes of people. I went through the first lap in 39 (to run 10:15, I had to run 41 seconds per lap). I passed some people on the turn, just as the person in front of me was passing some people, meaning I had to run in lane 3, adding lots of extra distance. Grrr.

I went through the 800 in a perfect 2:42. (I did 4 x 800 averaging 2:42.6 a few weeks ago). I locked in behind a girl in blue, and hung on. The pack was hitting perfect 41's. After a few laps, they ran a 42, so I went to pass a few people -- on the turn, of course, adding more distance. A poor choice on my part. I ended up in third place, and once again went through the 1600 in 5:29, just one second off of perfect 10:15 pace.

The two runners in front of me pulled away a little. I reeled them in. We went through 2k in 6:52. I am always bad at simple arithmetic when I am running fast, but I added 26 to 52 and got something that ended in 8, and thought, hmmm, probably 10:18, that's too slow. Darn it.

The next lap they pulled away again. I reeled them in. But they pulled away, and I couldn't keep up. I ran 43 for a lap (luckily I didn't hear this when Alan told me). I was running alone in third with the two girls out of reach ahead of me. With 2.5 laps to go, a girl passed me. I passed her back right away and started to kick. With two laps to go, the time clock said 9:00. I sadly realized that I probably couldn't run a 75 for the last 400.

I was running as hard as I could; my legs were burning. I even thought to myself, "this is the hardest I have ever run." I sprinted the last two laps, and got nipped in the final stretch, so I ended up fourth. Two laps of sprinting turned out to be an 82-second 400, exactly the pace of 41 seconds per lap that I should be running. It's crazy to think that I had to run so hard just to run 41 seconds!

I ended up running 10:21.95, an 0.3 second improvement over my previous 3k. So it's a PR! But I still have seven seconds to take off. (results)

Exciting: FloTrack videoed all the races. Here is a video of my race. I am eighth from the right on the starting line, with a white singlet and black shorts. From the back, my singlet appears to have a large red diamond. Enjoy the video. Here, I'll even embed it in this post (I'm the one with the red diamond and black shorts just to the left of the "play" arrow):

GBTC Invitational

2010-02-03T12:03:00.003-05:00

In December, I ran 5:16 at the Alden Invitational, so clearly my goal in the mile was to run faster than that. I went out in 36, not far behind Anna King, who was leading. Alan said to take the next lap to reel her in, which I did, running the second lap in 37. I actually had no idea what my times were -- I figured I had gone out in a reasonable 77 or 78. Well, on the third lap Anna got away from me a little, and I couldn't get her back. So I slowed down a little, and went through the 800 in 2:35.

Well, then my legs decided that they would rather not run quite so fast. I started to struggle, and people caught up to me and passed me. It was not pretty. I kicked in the last lap hard and was ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED to see the clock going 5:18, 5:19, 5:20. How could I run as hard as I possibly could, and not run a PR? Not a fun realization. I ran 5:20.61, which is my second-fastest mile, but not what I wanted. Bah humbug. (results).

Here are people passing me after I slowed down in the mile.

I doubled back in the 800. Sometimes, when I run an unsatisfying mile, I come back and run a great 800 and save the day (as last year, when I tanked a 5:35 for the mile and then ran a 2:33 PR in the 800). The plan for the 800 was to go out just like the mile and then kick the last two laps. I did this, but was unable to run the last two laps fast enough, and ran 73 + 78 for the 400s. Again, I was shocked to see the clock say 2:30 as I finished. I ran 2:31.09, again my second-fastest 800 (by 0.6 seconds). (results)

And my legs hurt a lot for the next few days. This race was on Sunday, and my next race was on Friday, and my leg fatigue was such that I didn't do any track workouts in between. Such is the effect of racing hard, twice in the same day.

First race of 2010

2010-02-03T11:54:00.005-05:00

We went down to BU for their open meet on January 2. My goal was to run 10:15 in the 3k, which would qualify me for New Balance Boston. All sections of the 3k are mixed gender, so I was only worried about three people in my section: Leslie Hocking (who I expected to be well ahead of me) and Renee Knapp (who I expected to be near me).

I went out behind Leslie and just behind Renee. After a few laps, she slowed down, so I passed her and led. I went through the 1600 in 5:29, just one second off of the pace. But then I slowed down. With three laps to go, Renee passed me, and I did not stay with her. I gave up the ghost and ran my last lap in about 42, for a final time of 10:22.25. I would have been really mad if Renee had broken 10:15, but she didn't; she ran 10:17. So it goes. At least it was a 10-second PR. (results)

2009 wrapup

2010-02-03T11:50:00.002-05:00

I wrote an extensive summary of my 2009 running and racing here. I have copied it below for your viewing pleasure. To see a graph of my weekly mileage, click on the above link.

I ran every day in 2009.
Total mileage: 2907 miles
Minimum daily mileage: 2 miles
Maximum daily mileage: 32.1 miles
Number of races run: 35
Personal records set: 19 (two in the 800m, one in the 1k, three in the mile, one in the 3k, five in the 5k, one in the 6k, three in the 5-mile, two in the 10k, one in the half marathon). Here are what my PR's are now.
Total spent on race entry fees: $505
Total prize money won in races: $467
Other things won in races: Two pairs of shoes (1 Merrell, 1 Reebok), a pair of Red Sox tickets, four medals, a trophy, a plaque, two canvas tote bags (one pink, one pink and white), a beach towel, an aluminum water bottle, two pairs of running gloves (one of which says "Run the Rivah"), a bluetooth hands-free set, a six-pack of water, a freezable six-pack cooler, a pint glass, a Pilsner glass, a picture frame, and a spork.
T-shirts obtained: 17 (9 cotton, 8 synthetic).
Profit or loss on the season? Profit.

Mile PR progression: (5:30), 5:26, 5:22, 5:16.
5k PR progression: (19:50), 19:24, 19:11, 19:07, 18:58, 18:26.
5-mile PR progression: (33:50), 32:33, 32:21, 31:24, 31:20. 30:16. (Includes 5-mile splits during 5.7 and 10k races.)
10k PR progression: (41:59), 40:36, 37:53.

Alden Invitational

2010-02-03T11:43:00.002-05:00

The first track race of the indoor season! Six of my math grad student friends from the department came to watch (Jackie, Li-Mei, Tom, Matt, Jonah, Mehmet), as did my friend Melissa. And Alan, of course. And two of my calculus students were on the Brown team, so they were helping out with the meet and watching the races. Lots of spectators!

The mile went out in 37. I was in fourth, behind two Brown runners and a girl in purple. After a few laps, the Brown girls took off, and I didn't go with them. I passed the purple girl but basically ran by myself for a few laps. As I heard the bell and was coming up on one lap to go, I realized that one of the Brown girls had fallen off the pace and was within reach. I kicked hard and passed her just past the start/finish line, then kicked it for all I was worth to make sure she didn't pass me back. I ran the last lap in 36, and needn't have worried, as she finished well behind me. That was a 6-second PR for me, very exciting start to the season. (mile results)

Then I doubled back in the 1000. I had never raced the 1000 meters before, though I raced many 1000 yards in the cage at Exeter in high school. I was in the second section of three. I planned to go out in the back and then pick people off. However, it went out slower than the mile -- 38 for the first lap, of only five! So I took the lead, or maybe second place. I ended up leading a few laps, and they rang the bell for me! However, I got passed at the end and ended up second in the section. Very frustrating for it to go out so slow! I think I could have certainly run a lot faster. I ran 3:12.32, which was an automatic PR considering that I had never raced the distance before. (1000 results)

Fall racing 2009

2010-02-03T11:18:00.002-05:00

My goal for the 3k this winter was to be 10:15, so in the Brown Running Club outdoor mini-meet, I ran 2k at the same speed. Well, that was my goal; I ended up running a little slower than that. Excuses: it was dark and windy; I was running alone. I went through the mile in 5:34 and then did one more lap. I was supposed to run 6:50, but it was more like 6:56. (results)

Then we ran the Li'l Rhody Runaround (results). I was not running this race hard, on the theory that doing a hard 8-mile trail race would be counterproductive to my larger long-term goals of running fast miles and 3k's. So I let the leaders go and settled into third place. I traded places back and forth with a few men, but I never saw another woman during the race, so I ended up third. Somehow I ended up with a gold medal for this effort, the overall winner being taken out of the age groups and second place being in a different age division. Whatever! I also got a subscription to New England Runner, because they said "does anyone want a subscription to New England Runner?" and I said "Yes!" The winner of this race, Renee Knapp, finished two and a half minutes ahead of me. I would later race her in the 3k in January. Alan got outkicked for third place and ended up fourth.

Then we ran the Andover Country Club race, which was maybe 6k, maybe 3.5 miles, who really knows? (results) When I saw Erin Dromgoole warming up, I knew I could not win. Then I saw Melissa Donais on the starting line, and thought that I might be able to race her (considering that I beat her at Tufts). As it turned out, there was also another woman, Jen Lee, and all three of them managed to get in front of me and stay there during the course of the race.

About halfway through, I was passed by a woman in sneakers and a longsleeve. As with people who make a lot of noise breathing, and people who race in skirts, I refuse to be beaten by people in sneakers and longsleeves. I let her go, but I kept her as my goal. I eventually surged and reeled her in, and just ran on her shoulder. I had no idea how long the race was (it was a bunch of loops on a golf course, and the course had been changed since the previous year) so when we ran up a hill into a bunch of houses, I thought the finish line might be just ahead, so to be safe, I surged to leave the woman behind. It wasn't the finish line. We ran down a hill through some parking lots and then approached the finish line -- but then there was another loop! "How the heck much longer is this race?" I shouted to Alan. He said something. I powered through the loop, which was about a minute long, and finished without being challenged by this sneaker woman. She ended up finishing safely 28 (!) seconds behind me.

I talked to my college teammate Lisetta after the race. There was a long awards ceremony, because they went very deep in each age group (12 deep in the open division) and everyone got Pilsner glasses. Here are Alan and me with our prizes:

Now if that's not the cutest picture... Alan now has four Andover Country Club race Pilsner glasses.

Mayor's Cup, USATF-NE XC

2010-02-03T11:06:00.002-05:00

Mayor's Cup (10/25/09) and the USATF-NE cross country championships (11/08/09) were both held at Franklin Park. The first race was a 5k, the second was 6k. Neither was a great race for me. Mayor's Cup was very muddy, which made for slow times all around.

Mayor's Cup (results): I was hoping to run fast, maybe close to the 18:26 I ran in Providence. No such luck. I went out the first mile in under six minutes, but then slowed down. I finished behind some people I would have rather beaten. However, at least there was this nice picture of me finishing:

USATF-NE XC (results): My plan was to go out with Karina (my former coach at Williams) and then see what I could do. Here I am with Karina a little after the mile mark, executing my race plan:

I pulled away from Karina around two miles, or maybe on Bear Cage Hill. I went through the 5k mark faster than I had run the muddy 5k at Mayor's Cup, so that was good. At the end, I got outkicked, which was not good, but so it goes. (Click on the picture to see the Flickr page, and then you can see her passing me.)

Looking at the results again now, I see that I finished ahead of a lot of fast people -- some of whom (Renee Knapp, Anna King) have since beaten me in indoor track.

Tufts 10k for Women

2010-02-03T10:39:00.003-05:00

Only eight days after the Ronald McDonald Women's Classic, this was also a breakthrough race for me. My previous 10k PR was 40:36, which I ran by myself at my hometown 5k, the Stonington Six, on July 4. I broke that in this race by over two and a half minutes, running 37:53. This was a vast improvement over my Tufts 10k time of just one year ago; I ran 44 minutes at the 2008 Tufts 10k. (results)

Getting on the starting line was very nerve-racking. They called people to line up by time, slowest first. When they called six-minute pace, I started making my way towards the starting line. But they loaded it from the back, so I had to fight my way through a huge crowd. They were introducing Joan Benoit Samuelson and singing the national anthem, and I wasn't even at the starting line yet! I was with a master's runner who had flown up from Maryland for the race, and she was afraid we wouldn't make it. But we did. I found Betsy -- it was my plan to run with Betsy, unbeknownst to Betsy -- and lined up with about a minute to spare. Melissa Donais happened to be right there on the starting line with me.

At the gun, Betsy went out fast and I went with her. We ran the first mile right behind Joan Benoit Samuelson! I kept hoping there would be a race photographer there; it would have been my new profile picture. I was nearly stepping on her heels. But no such luck. The picture below is in the beginning of the race, but no Joanie visible.

We went through the mile in about 5:45. Joanie kept going, and Betsy slowed down. I stayed with Betsy. We got into a nice pack and I just hung on. At about the mile mark, Alan appeared -- he had parked the car, so he met me on the course. He started running my speed, but on the sidewalk, shouting encouragement and advice.

We went through the next few miles in about six minutes each. The pace was probably one or two seconds per mile faster than what I felt like running, so I would slowly slip off of the pack. "Ten hard strides!" Alan would shout, and I would painfully reel the pack back in. Here we are crossing the bridge back to Boston, about a mile from the finish. Betsy is in blue.

We hit the five-mile mark in 30:16. "Oh, that's a bit of a PR," I thought, having recently run a 5-mile race in 31:20. Then I realized that it was not 31:16; it was 30:16. Ordinarily I would doubt the accuracy of any mile mark that gave me a one-minute PR, but this was a national championship race, so it was probably correct. I'll take it!

In the last mile, the pack broke up and Betsy was well ahead of me. I was just fighting to not slow down too much, to not let people pass me. The woman in pink (not the New Balance Boston woman, the other one) was making a terrible racket, very noisy breathing. I refuse to be beaten by such people, but sometimes I can't help it. I did manage to beat her this time, though.

I turned onto the final straightaway, which was very long. I could see the finish line, and I could hear the announcer saying, "the women finishing now are running under 37 minutes." So I thought I would surely achieve my goal of 38 minutes. I ran hard. Near the finish line, I realized that Betsy was not running as fast as I was, so I could pass her! I kicked as hard as I could and leaned across the finish line. It was a photo finish:

The race results had me beating Betsy (and the woman in yellow). A few months later, I happened to look at the results again, and they had changed the ordering from net time (chip time) to gun time. Now Betsy was listed ahead of me! If you look closely at the above picture, it is clear that her foot crossed the line before mine. However, she apparently crossed the starting line before me, also. National championship races are supposed to be determined by gun time, so the current results are the correct ordering.

I was 55th at the national championships -- and I finished ahead of Melissa Donais! (She won all the races when I was in high school, and she ran for the hated Andover.) I also would have placed fifth on the New Balance Boston team if I had been on it, which is the team that won the race.

Ronald McDonald 5k Women's Classic

2010-02-03T10:12:00.003-05:00

It's been nearly three months since I've posted, and Meghan has demanded an update! So here we go.

Ronald McDonald 5k for Women, 10/4/09 (results)

This was a breakthrough race for me. At the Downtown 5k, I had just cracked 19:00, running 18:58 (chip time, 19:01 gun time). I expected it to take a while to take off the next minute, but I ended up running 18:26 at this race, making the top five and beating some really fast people.

I had wanted to get in the top five, because there was money for the top five. However, when the gun went off, I quickly put that goal out of my head. An Olympian (Amy Rudolph), two Kenyans, a local track star who can run 4:50 in the mile (Steph Reilly), and a bunch of other fast people were all around. One minute or so into the race, I actually laughed out loud -- what am I doing up here in the front with all these people?

Rudolph, a Kenyan, and Reilly were in a pack in the front. Then the second Kenyan, then a girl in a white shirt. I got into the pack behind all those people, and just hung with them. We went through the mile in something like 5:45. Here we are at the mile. Trish Hillery is still leading this little pack.

Eventually three of us -- I didn't know who any of these people were at the time, but it turns out they are Kim and Katie -- broke off from the rest of them in our little pack. The girl in white was far ahead of us, and everyone else far ahead of her. But I just hung on to Kim and Katie. Here we are a little before mile 2.

Kim took the lead and I kept hanging on. We were gaining on the girl in white (Nicole Radzik). With about a quarter of a mile to go, Katie and I passed Kim and then passed the girl in white. It was a race for fifth place! We turned the corner and made a sharp turn into the Brown stadium onto the track. I kicked for everything, afraid that Katie would pass me back. But she didn't. Here is a picture of me trying to out-sprint Katie.

And the Kenyan was only two seconds ahead of me! We also won second place in the team competition, and I happened to win the raffle for shoes, so I went home with many presents.

CVS Downtown 5k 9/20/09

2009-09-20T10:52:00.000-04:00

We had over 50 Brown Running Club members signed up for the CVS Downtown 5k, and the morning of the race about a dozen of us met at the Science Library and ran downtown to the race start. We had picked up our race packets the previous day, and I was a little sad that the adults' race bags had sort of boring stuff -- over-the-counter medicines, chapstick. Last year I got the kids' race bag and it was full of candy and office supplies, fun stuff!

We took a team photo and then Erin and I warmed up. She recognized the Oregon Track Club warming up on the other side of the road, runners who are about as close to famous as you can get in distance running. On the starting line, I stood with running club boys near the front of the pack (some people took up to 7 minutes just to get to the starting line after the gun went off!) and introduced them to each other so they might find someone to run with. I also ran into Neal and Dan on the starting line. My goal was 19 minutes, and I thought some of these guys (Nick, Will, Anthony) might be around my speed.

At the gun, I tried to run conservatively but yet 6-minute pace. I ran in a river of men around the turns and curbs, and was successful in hitting just under 6 minutes for the first mile. I kept an even effort and was shocked to see the two-mile sign earlier than I expected -- but I went past this sign in just 10:40, and after the race everyone agreed that it was placed at about 1.8 miles. So I didn't know how fast I was running.

At this point I passed Will, and noticed Jamie running alongside the course (not in the race). I could see Evan up ahead of me, about 50 feet ahead but with the gap staying constant. Shortly after I passed Will, I caught up to Nick, and we traded places several times -- me following him, then I put in a surge and he was behind me, then he passed me again. During this time, Evan stopped by the side of the course and stood by the canal. I called out to him, but he could not run again; he ended up finishing the race but plagued by a stomach cramp. Nick and I traded back and forth a few more times, but then I passed him convincingly. We made the final turn up the hill towards the finish line and he came swooping past me out of nowhere, so we raced up the hill. I passed the 3 mile sign in about 18:25, so I knew I would be close to my goal. I kicked up the hill and just barely missed seeing 19:00 on the clock before I crossed the line.

In the end, I ran 19:02 gun time and 18:58 chip time. Though Nick beat me, he started ahead of me, so my time was faster. We actually had a lot of running club people right around 19:00, but only Nick and I actually ran together. I was the running club's eighth finisher and first female, and I was 50th American female overall.

Individual results, team results.

After the race, Will, Erin and I waited around for the awards ceremony to accept our wonderful trophy. We chatted with Matt Tegenkamp and had our picture taken with him and Amy Yoder-Begley, who won the individual titles. I also chatted with Neal, whose team had won money in the USATF team (rather than college team) division. It was a pretty good day.

100 on 100, August 15, 2009

2009-09-01T16:00:00.002-04:00

100 on 100 is a 100-mile relay (actually 98.8 miles) on Route 100 from north to south in Vermont. Becca, Owen and I did it two years ago, and this year it was Alan, Tyler and me. It is similar to the Reach the Beach and Hood to Coast relays, in that the number of people on the team is a multiple of three, the number of legs in the race is a multiple of three, and the runner circulates -- in our case, runner A, then runner B, then runner C, then runner A, then runner B, then runner C... until the race is over.

For 100 on 100, a regular team has six people who each run three legs of about five to six miles each. So each person ends up running about 16 or 17 miles. We had an "ultra" team, so we had three people, each running six legs theoretically of five to six miles each (actually from 2.5 to 7.3 miles each). Since there were three of us, we had six legs total among us, and we each had to run six legs, so our team name was Six Legs. Very clever.

Alan, Tyler and I drove up to Vermont on Friday night and stayed in Alan's friends' guest house. It was very comfortable. Since our team was supposed to be wicked fast (based on our five-mile race paces), we didn't have to start the race until 10:00 am, so we left at a leisurely 8:00 am and drove up Route 100 to the start at the Trapp Family Lodge. As we drove along Route 100, we saw the mile markers and transition area signs that we would encounter later that day. As we got within 15 miles of the Lodge, we started seeing runners.

"Runners already 15 miles ahead of you? 15 miles is a lot!" you cry. Not to worry. It was about 9 am, and the first teams started at 6 am. So it had taken them three hours to get that far. Alan calculated that we would pass teams running 10-minute pace who started at 6 am by the 60-mile mark. This was reassuring.

We were shocked to see a barefoot runner, which we surmised meant that there was a barefoot team -- and we were later even more shocked to learn that this barefoot team was an ultra team. Over 30 miles apiece in the heat is crazy enough, but to do it barefoot? Gosh. At least they were all male.

So, we got to the Trapp Family Lodge, checked in, took armfulls of the fruit and an entire box of granola bars, took our case of water and a few extras that someone else left behind, and started changing into our race attire. We decided that we were not going to use the snap bracelet provided as a "baton," because having other people's sweat running down your arm is disgusting. I went to the women's bathroom and found that a man was already in there cleaning it -- all the other teams with women were long gone.

Here is Tyler returning from the bathroom.

I distributed PEA attire so as to take a nice picture for the Exeter Bulletin. I was nearly unable to do this because, unbeknownst to us, they gave us a talk before the race started about rules, directions, safety, and so on. We were sad to learn at this meeting that the Boreal Boys, another ultra team, with three middle-aged marathoning men from Canada, had dropped out due to an injury. Just before the race started, someone was nice enough to take a picture of the three of us, which you will hopefully see in the next issue of the alumni magazine:

Then Alan took off the shirt and headed for the starting line. The official race time was more than two minutes faster than regular time, so I reset my watch to match it. I would use this official time on my watch all day to take accurate times at each transfer so that we could calculate paces for each leg. There were three runners on the starting line: us (Six Legs), a team from Delaware, and a team of alums from Saint Lawrence University.

When the race clock said 10:00:00, the man said "go," and the race began.

Leg #1: Alan (1), 2.5 miles cross country, 15:14 (6:06).
Alan's specialty is the 5k, so he could have thrown down the hammer on this leg, but he was smart and decided that, with 30 miles ahead, it was best not to. He even chatted with the other two runners and discovered that they had mutual friends. The Delaware guy was wearing cutoff jeans because it was such a short leg.

While Alan was running, Tyler went to pin on his number. Where had Alan put the bag of pins? We looked for it all over the car. It was nowhere to be found. So Tyler went running (no! don't run, you have plenty of time, no extra running today!) back to the registration table to get a new baggie of pins. Crisis averted.

Alan decided that he was not going to be beaten, even by a little bit on his first leg of six, by a guy wearing cutoffs. He beat him by a comfortable margin, and handed off to Tyler in first place.

Leg #2, Tyler (1), 6.4 miles downhill, 36:36 (5:43).
Tyler immediately descended a very steep dirt road. It was so steep that it could do serious damage to one's quads this early in the race, so Tyler held back some, and let the other two guys pass him on the downhill. Alan and I got in the car to drive to the next point, but we ended up having to shadow the runners down the hill because we were behind a state police vehicle that refused to drive past the runners. The mile marker occurred at only 0.9 miles, making Tyler think for a moment, perhaps, that he was running 4:30 pace. It was fast, but not quite that fast.

At the bottom of the hill, the runners bunched up again for the road run to the next transition area.

Tyler opted to wear a shirt on this leg, the only leg during which any member of our team would wear one. It was only late morning, but it was quickly becoming hot. Water stops would be a critical and repeated theme during the day, and the first one was about halfway through Tyler's leg. Hand off the bottle, wait for the person to drink the water and drop the bottle, pick up the bottle, and drive on. Oh, and take a picture of the event!

Alan and I drove to the next transition area and put on sunscreen. Alan did not think it was entirely necessary, but I slathered it on his back anyway and then covered myself in the stuff. It turned out that the spots we missed (the fronts of Alan's quads, my neck) got burned, so it was a smart idea, even though it led to lots of sweating.

Leg #3: Diana (1), 7.0 miles rolling, 49:38 (7:05).
As Tyler approached, I could see that he had about a one-stride lead on the Saint Lawrence guy (the Delaware guy had passed him, and we wouldn't see them again). Wanting to preserve this small advantage, I positioned myself behind the transition area cones, and accelerated as Tyler approached so that I would be up to speed at the cones and we would have a perfect handoff, just as in a track race. It worked perfectly -- he touched my hand and I went. I heard a scuffle behind me but did not turn around. I was surprised that the Saint Lawrence guy didn't pass me right away, but maybe 15 seconds later. No matter; he passed me and quickly faded into the distance. Tyler later told me that the Saint Lawrence runner actually fell on the handoff, hence the scuffle and the delay. Gosh.

After the Saint Lawrence guy passed me, I was the very last runner in a string of 99 runners spread out along Route 100. As soon as I left, the volunteers packed up the transition areas. I was all alone, with no one behind me and no one in sight ahead of me, 98 runners beyond the horizon that I was trying to catch. This was a 7-mile leg, my longest of the day, and my goal was to run 7-minute pace but not tire myself out.

At one point, I ran under a highway bridge, with two elevated roads supported by lots of concrete and steel, cars whooshing by overhead. I was disturbed to see large signs on both sides of the road, under each elevated structure: CAUTION: FALLING CONCRETE. Really inspires confidence. Alan and Tyler gave me water halfway through, which I drank though I didn't feel I really needed it. I was more concerned about our last-place position and the knowledge that the two runners ahead of me were only increasing the gap. But I drank it -- "money in the bank."

There was a right-hand turn across a road when I neared the school that was the transition area. A volunteer was stationed at this difficult intersection. "Last one!" I exclaimed, as I crossed without assistance when there was no traffic. Yup, I was still the 99th runner on the course.

As I handed off to Alan, I said, "I love you, Alan" and decided that I would say it at all six handoffs that day.

Leg #4, Alan (2), 5.5 miles rolling, 34:02 (6:11).
Alan took the handoff in last place and went about catching the 98 runners ahead of us. I got in the car with Tyler and we drove along the course to find a good place to hand him water. Note that the shirts have come off.

We stopped the car in a driveway that had a yard with a shade tree. We sat under the tree and waited for Alan to approach. A man with a big beard came out of the house.

"Is it okay if we sit here?" I asked.
"I don't know; are you part of the group who came by here at two in the morning yelling and screaming and..."
"No, we're with a running race that didn't start until 6 am, just running."
"Well, all right. Where are you from, anyway?" (looks at NH license plate on car) "Oh, you're not from around here. You need to ask before you sit on someone's lawn."
"I did, as soon as you came out of the house!"
"Yeah, exactly. If I hadn't been in such a cheerful mood..."

He went back in and Alan appeared behind the trees at the top of a hill. Tyler crossed the road with the water bottle and I prepared the camera.

When Alan looked at these pictures, he said, "I was so mad at you then, for making me do this race and all this running." But he doesn't look too mad. Imagine, he walked a little in order to drink, and he still averaged 6:11!

Leg #5: Tyler (2), 5.2 miles, 30:20 (5:50)
During this leg, Tyler ran past a scenic cornfield. We passed him and shouted encouragement, but did not stop because he had only been running about a mile. Then just a little further ahead, we had to stop at one of those stop lights on a one-lane section of road when you're in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of cars waiting on one side and the green light on the other. Tyler actually passed us and ran across the one-lane section and it was a while until we caught up to him again. Alan was getting frustrated partly by the unnecessary red light, and partly because he was trying to call Sean and his phone kept cutting out. You can see all three of these elements (Tyler, cornfield, phone) in this picture.

We stopped a little down the road, about halfway through the 5.5 miles, and gave Tyler some water. At this point it was past noon and seriously hot.

Leg #6: Diana (2), 5.8 miles uphill, 47:20 (8:10).
Before I started running, Alan had counseled me that I should go as slow as I needed to. "It's okay if you walk," he said. I asked if he was joking. "If we finish the race, we'll do well," he said, "I want to make sure we finish." He advised me to aim for 8:15 pace, since my leg was up, up, uphill. I was determined not to walk, but I would go at an intelligent pace.

I took the handoff just ahead of two other teams. Of course, the runners taking the handoffs were two men, so they each passed me soon after we started running. "Nice job," I said to the first one. "How good are you at running hills?" he asked. "Not as good as you," I replied. "I don't know about that," he said, or something similar.

"Nice job," I said to the second one as he passed me. "Oh, you'll see me again," he told me, and ran off ahead. Here is a picture of me and (the guy who turned out to be) Jamie.

The course turned off the main road and went across a covered bridge. As I stepped onto the bridge, I looked down into the river and saw dozens of people on colorful inner tubes, bobbing and enjoying the sunny day. I was reminded of Dick Beardsley's comment to Bill Rodgers in the first 10 miles of the epic "Duel in the Sun" Boston Marathon, when Dick pointed to a couple out boating on the river, and remarked, "wouldn't you rather be out there?"

The course soon went uphill. I could see the two men ahead of me, slowly jogging up the hill, as I was. Soon after the two-mile mark, Alan and Tyler came by in the car. "Good job!" they said. "Don't be afraid to go slow," Alan told me. "My second mile was 8:30," I told him. "That's fine, just keep going." They gave me water and I kept going.

Soon one of the men ahead of me began to walk. It was the guy from Saint Lawrence, whom I would later learn was named Jamie. If he was walking, then I was going to catch him; it was only a matter of time. As I approached, he heard me behind him and started running again, keeping our gap consistent. No matter. He started walking again and I passed him. "Good job," I said. "See, I told you that you'd see me again!" he reminded me. I agreed that he was right, and jogged on up the hill.

I did not expect Alan and Tyler to stop for me again, twice in one leg, but they did! It was in the middle of something the race handbook called the "saddle," where we banged down one steep hill only to crawl back up the other side of it again. Alan and Tyler parked at the bottom of the saddle and gave me water. You can see Jamie behind me.

Soon the next man in front of me also began to walk. I caught him, too. We were within a mile of the end of the leg. I passed him, but he started to run and began to pass me. I felt bad for him and decided to help him out: conversation. "Hi, what's your name?" I asked. He told me, but I have forgotten, so we will call him Dave. "Dave." "I'm Diana." We chatted a bit and soon the "transition area ahead" sign appeared.

"Look," I said to Dave, "I know your team is up ahead, so if you have to out-kick me at the end, it's okay. I'm not going to kick, because I have 20 more miles to run, but if you want to because your team is watching, it's fine with me."
"I might have to do that," he admitted.
When the transition area came into view, he kicked ahead and handed off with a good margin on me. I told Alan I loved him, touched his hand, and finally stopped running uphill.

Leg #7: Alan (3), 6.6 miles, 38:58 (5:54).

Alan's third leg was relatively long, giving him plenty of time to start catching teams. He immediately caught the guy Dave had handed off to, and ran off in pursuit of however many people he could get.

The afternoon was getting hot, and it was all we could do to take in enough water. When I stopped running, I grabbed a quart bottle of water and a nutri-grain bar and ate and drank as much as I wanted. I then ate another nutri-grain bar or one of these lovely chocolate-covered granola bars that Alan had, before my next leg. In fact, I would grab a full quart bottle, drink all but about one inch in the bottom, and then use that to hand to Alan when Tyler stopped the car. We sure drank a lot of water that day.

This handoff occurred at a pull-off area on the highway, just a strip of pavement, really, but it was next to a nice brook. After handing off, Alan took off his socks and shoes and soaked his feet in the cool stream. But first, I took a picture of Alan halfway done with his running:

I also did a costume change in this transition area, changing 100% of my clothing (keeping only the same shoes). It was a hot day, and everything was soaking wet. The new theme was Williams, or purple.

Leg #8: Tyler (3), 7.1 miles, 42:44 (6:01).
This was Tyler's first of two epic 7+ mile legs in the heat. The handbook described this as "one of the most spiritual legs," but it was really a demanding piece of running.

I did not photograph Tyler during this leg, because Alan's friend Sean showed up on his bike. We had all stayed in Sean's guest house the night before, and now Sean was out on the course to hang out with us and support our team. We had a good chat with him. The transition area was actually right near their house, so after Tyler handed off to me, Sean was able to just cycle on home.

Leg #9: Diana (3), 4.7 miles flat and fast, 33:38 (7:09).
When we were deciding who should run which sets of legs, it was clear that Tyler should run the 3n+2 legs, but it was unclear which set Alan and I should run, respectively. Alan's set (3n+1)adds up to 31.2 miles, while my set (3n) adds up to 32.1 miles. Of course, we'd want the faster person to run the longer distance! But as it turns out, my set of legs has all the hard parts at the beginning, and the last four legs are really not so bad. Case in point, my third and fourth legs were both flat and fast.

We were now deep into the other teams, passing lots of runners on each leg. (In the photo above, you can see a guy in black whom I have just passed.) Most of the other teams were running slower than we were, in particular slower than I was, so once we spotted someone ahead, it was a matter of time before we would have reeled them in.

However, some runners were not so easy to pass. A runner in pink appeared ahead of me, passing other runners. She would pass them, then I would pass them, but she stayed ahead of me. How could this be? No female was allowed to be faster than me! Fortunately, I was running just a bit faster than her, so I was able to slowly reel her in and then pass her. "Good job," I said to her, as I did to each person I passed.

Just about then, we ran past a group of teammates giving out water. As I ran past, a woman cried out, "you a Williams girl with those shorts?"
"Yes!" I shouted, then called behind me, "class of '07."
"Go Ephs!" she called after me.

Would you have recognized the Williams connection if you had seen this person running down the road? I think it takes a dedicated alum to do that:

When we got to the transition and I stopped running, I met up with the woman in pink whom I had passed. She introduced herself as a Williams alum from the '90s (I forget which year -- '95?) who had been a swimmer in college. "You passed me!" she said, "but it's okay, because you're a Williams alum."

Leg #10: Alan (4), 4.2 miles flat and fast, 24:36 (5:51).

As I handed off to Alan, he asked me what my time was. I was using just the official race time, rather than starting a watch, and just calculating my mile splits based on that. So when he asked, all I could tell him was the time -- "uh, 28:30?" because the time (of day) was 14:28:30. "What??" he asked confusedly, and ran off. By the time I handed him water, though, I could tell him that my time was 33:38.

At this point, we were catching as many people as we could. I think Alan caught 12 people on his leg. Get it done, hand off to the next person, and then rest. Here is Tyler preparing for his next leg while Alan runs #10:

We sat down as much as possible during the time between our legs. After we handed water to the runner for the last time, we would drive to the next transition area and then sit in the shade. When we saw the runner coming, we would continue sitting in the shade until they were about 50 meters away. Then we would get up, walk to the transition cones, and start jogging just as the person was about to come through. We really had to conserve as much energy as possible for our difficult task.

Leg #11: Tyler (4), 7.3 miles, 49:36 (6:48).

For those of you keeping track, you'll notice that Tyler ran 7.1 miles on his third leg, then rested for just under an hour (34.5 minutes for Diana's leg and 24.5 for Alan's), and then headed out to do another 7.3 miles in the sun and heat. Before running his leg, he looks fine and happy:

But the running was very difficult. As you can see, Tyler's speed was slower on this leg than on any of his others, though it was still probably faster than at least 95 of the other teams. After he finished running, he nearly passed out. But while he was running, he looked good:

I also took some artsy reflection photos of Tyler:

This transition occurred at a car dealership. It was a strange transition, where the runners actually changed direction like a shuttle relay for hurdles in track -- Tyler and I faced each other when we handed off.

Leg #12: Diana (4), 5.3 miles, 39:27 (7:37).

The barefoot ultra team handed off just before Tyler arrived. (Remember, they started four hours before we did.) Unfortunately for them, this leg headed right into a construction zone, with a couple hundred meters of gravel instead of pavement. Ouch! The poor guy. When I passed him, I shouted, "ultra team pride!" and tried to give him a fist pound. But he was tiptoeing over on the very edge of the road, and would not pound my fist. We did not see them again (though we did see their van -- they were running for a charity and their van had its symbols on it.)

Very shortly after the leg started, the guy from Saint Lawrence passed me again -- the same guy who had passed me at the beginning of the uphill leg. I accelerated.

"I'm not going to let you get away from me so easily this time!" I told him.
"But you caught me the last time, on the hill," he protested.
"Yeah, but you just ran away from me at the beginning of the leg. I'm not going to let you get away like that this time."
"All right," he said, "I'll pull you for a while, and then you pull me." I agreed.

He told me his name was Jamie, and I told him mine, and he explained that he hadn't been able to get in the miles this summer, which was why he wasn't as fast on the hills. He had just graduated from law school and was studying for the bar exam, which is why he couldn't train so much. He said he went to law school at Albany, so I told him I went to college nearby.

"Where?"
"Williams College, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts."
"Williams? Jeez, I couldn't get in there in a million years!"
"Oh. Uh, well..."
"You're fast and you're smart!"
"And I'm female."

Just about this time, we passed the one-mile mark. In 6:35. "Aaah!" I shouted, "you took me through the mile in 6:30! I have to run 30 miles today!" I told Jamie that I was sorry, but I would have to slow down. He gradually slipped ahead.

But only a little bit. He never got more than about 50 feet ahead of me, and then I was running the same speed as him, our gap staying constant. He looked back to see where I was. The gap was constant. Then he started to walk. As I approached him, he turned to look at me. "Here I am!" I said. He started to jog. I caught up to him. "My heart rate is getting too high," Jamie explained, and walked again. "Stick with me," I said, "slow and steady." But he slipped further back.

Soon after this, Tyler and Alan stopped to give me water. Behind me, Jamie was throwing up on the road.

I kept running, passing a few more people before handing off to Alan again. I really had to go to the bathroom, but I wanted to see when Jamie finished. But I had to go to the bathroom, so I did. After I got out of the porta-potty, I saw Jamie finish, almost exactly three minutes behind me. Victory was mine.

Leg #13: Alan (5), 6.2 miles uphill, 41:08 (6:38).

Two years ago, I ran the set of legs that Alan ran this year. I complained about the fifth leg every time I discussed 100 on 100 for the intervening two years. See, back in 2007, we didn't have the water routine down, the way that we had it down this year. My teammates actually did not stop for me a single time on any of my first five legs. On the fifth leg, 6.2 miles uphill, I was thirsty and I wanted water and my teammates just drove by, shouting encouragement out the window on the way to the next transition area. Luckily, I was running with a woman from another team, and her teammates shared their water with me. (This year, in 2009, other teams offered me water nearly every leg, but I had enough from my own team.) So I definitely appreciated the difficulty Alan was getting into on his fifth leg.

Alan had told Tyler he wanted water three times during the 6.2 miles. Unfortunately, we were running out of water -- we only had about two quart bottles left. There was a bar next to where we were parked, so I suggested to Tyler that we see if they would fill up our empty bottles. After all, we were only 2/3 of the way done, and we were almost out of water.

Tyler and I walked into the bar with two empties apiece, wearing only shorts (Tyler) and shorts and a sports bra (me). "Hi, we're running this relay race, and we're almost out of water, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to fill these up for us," I asked.
"Okay, but you need to leave, because you're not wearing a shirt, by the Board of Health."
"Oh, sure," I said, and Tyler and I rushed out the door.
"Wait! You can stay; you're wearing a shirt!" the man called after me. I find this amusing, that a sports bra is considered a shirt. I have encountered this at the Brown indoor track as well, when we are doing a track workout with shirts off, and the man comes down and yells at the boys for not wearing shirts, but tells me that my sports bra is fine. Go figure. Fine by me.

So I returned, in my sports bra, and chatted with the men (two behind the bar, two in front) while they filled the bottles. I readily agreed to their assessment that we were crazy for running 100 miles in a day, and they cheerfully gave me the four quarts of icy cold water. I gave two to Tyler and we rushed back to the car, afraid that Alan had covered more than 1/4 of the distance already, and that we would not be able to give him water three times.

Not to worry. The first part of the leg was relatively flat, and Alan did not need water. We managed to give him all the water he needed on this leg, and he passed about 15 people. In fact, he walked several times during this leg, and still managed to pass all those people AND nearly equal my 10k PR. What a guy.

Leg #14: Tyler (5), 4.5 miles steep uphill, 34:58 (7:46).

At this point in the race, competitors wonder why the heck it goes off of Route 100 just to climb to the top of Killington ski resort. Is such masochism really necessary? Tyler's leg started off gradual uphill, and proceeded to being very steep uphill. Look at how steep this is!

Many people walked up this hill. We got to this point of the hill well before Tyler did, so we were able to view many people's different hill-climbing strategies. Some walked. Some jogged slowly. Most stopped to drink the water that their team handed them. "It's all downhill from here!" Alan joked to them. Of course, they knew that it was assuredly not all downhill, was in fact all uphill until the very end of the leg.

The best was a guy who was power-walking up the hill. "I'm walking with authority!" he proclaimed. To watch him, it was true -- that was a perfect description of what he was doing. He walked with authority out of our sight up the hill.

Tyler was running up the hill, only the second person we had seen who was not walking. He didn't even stop to drink the water Alan handed him. What a warrior.

Alan reminded Tyler that he didn't have to go fast, just survive the leg, walk whenever he needed to. But Tyler did not walk! Here he is finishing the leg in a parking lot, the only flat portion of the whole thing:

Leg #15, Diana (5), 4.5 miles steep downhill, 33:48 (7:31).

Here is Tyler handing off to me. It looks almost like we're dancing!

Alan and Tyler ran up the hill; I ran down the hill. All three of these legs (13, 14, 15) were rated double black diamonds on the course descriptions. This leg began with running under an underpass, through a parking lot, taking a right at a purple (!) building, and then running uphill. Grrr, uphill. I did pass one guy on the uphill.

Then the downhill began. Right away, the Saint Lawrence guy passed me. I gave a feeble attempt to stay with him, but he was just too fast; he disappeared around the turns ahead of me. This was really turning out to be a race between us and them, so I was running the tangents of the roads, crossing the double yellow lines to get the shortest path between me and the finish line.

The Saint Lawrence van was stopping periodically for their runner, and they waited for me to pass. "Go Diana!" they all shouted, and variants thereof, and they offered me water. Jamie had apparently told them my name, and they cheered for me at least twice along the course of this leg.

Soon the road started descending steeply. I had talked to Alan about how I should run it, and we decided that I should run the downhills fast, but not fast enough to ruin my quads. Well, when I got there, I just ran them. I was not surprised to pass people on the downhills, but I was surprised to pass people who were walking on the downhills.

"Good job!" I told one guy as I flew down the hill past him. "Finish strong," he replied. It took me about 100 meters to realize that he didn't mean to finish the leg strong; he meant to finish the day strong -- assuming that this was my third leg of three. "Not done yet!" I shouted back over my shoulder, about 30 seconds too late and not convinced that he would get my meaning.

I was hoping that my time down the hill would be really fast -- under 7:00? maybe under 6:00 for one of the steep downhill miles! -- but it was not that fast. My downhill mile was about 6:30, and my average pace was 7:31, only a little faster than Tyler's steep uphill leg (7:46). So it goes.

Leg #16: Alan (6), 6.2 miles rolling, 40:09 (6:28).

Alan's last leg! When I handed off to him, the Saint Lawrence team had about a 2:40 lead on us. Alan ran off down the road. Tyler and I drove along and parked in a nice grassy spot to give him water. I worried for the 20th time today about sitting on grass that might be laced with poison ivy. We noticed that the Saint Lawrence guy was about 50 meters ahead of Alan.

"Do you think we should tell him?" we asked each other. "We don't want to stress him out." We decided to tell him.
"Alan, that guy up there is from Saint Lawrence." Alan perked up and passed the guy easily. He kicked in to the end and finished 1:20 in front of Saint Lawrence, which means that he had run 6.2 miles a full four minutes faster than the other guy had. Pretty impressive! This is what Alan looked like after running 31.2 miles:

We had to wear safety equipment for the last leg: reflective vest, white headlamp on the forehead, red flashing light on the back. Alan wore my reflective vest so that Tyler could wear his own. The downside of this was that the vest he is holding in the above photo is sopping wet with sweat. I was not looking forward to putting it on. So we put it in the car window so that it flapped in the breeze as we drove, which did dry it off somewhat.

Leg #17: Tyler (6), 5.0 miles, 31:40 (6:20).

Tyler started off with a lead of 1:20, but we knew the lead was tenuous, as the Saint Lawrence runner who did Tyler's second and fourth legs was faster than him. (All bets would have been off, of course, if Tyler had only been running three legs rather than six.) Tyler ran fast and valiantly, but around mile four of the leg, the gap closed down and then the two runners were together for a moment, and then the Saint Lawrence runner ran ahead.

Alan and I were there, driving by in the car, when the change occurred. Alan reminded Tyler out the window -- "don't worry about it, you're doing great, just run your own race, don't worry about this guy; we'll get him."

By this time it was getting quite dark. Alan and I drove ahead to the transition area to wait for Tyler's handoff. I put on the damp reflective vest, the larger of our two headlamps, and a red flasher. I shivered, because it was dark, after 8 pm, and I was still only wearing a sports bra and shorts under the vest. I also shivered with nervousness because now it was up to me to beat Saint Lawrence, and even though I would be racing Jamie -- who had walked on both of his previous legs, and thrown up on the second one -- he had only run 11 miles while I had run 27, including banging down the long downhill leg against Jamie's faster teammate. Nothing would be easy or taken for granted.

I ran into one of the Saint Lawrence guys. "What do you think?" he asked.
"It's on," I said.
"We heard."

I didn't realize that, just after Alan had passed the Saint Lawrence guy on his sixth leg, he had shouted to the van of Saint Lawrence teammates -- "It's on." Clearly, it was on.

A girl took the handoff from her team. She disappeared almost immediately into the dark road. Jamie and I stood together near the transition cones. Jamie was still shirtless under his reflective vest. He was looking nervous, focused, not slow. The Saint Lawrence runner approached. Alan's finger was ready on his stopwatch. Jamie took the handoff and sprinted off into the dark.

Tyler approached. He tapped my hand and I took off in pursuit. 25 seconds had elapsed on the stopwatch, and Jamie was far enough ahead that I could not see him at all in the dark. I just ran, fast.

Leg #18: Diana (6), 4.8 miles, 34:15 (7:08).

Alan and Tyler decided that, since they didn't have to run again, they might as well stop as many times as possible during this, the last leg of the day. I hadn't run far at all when the familiar sound of the car came up behind me and they shouted encouragement out the window. They drove up ahead of Jamie to measure the time gap.

"25 seconds!" Alan shouted. So Jamie and I were running the same speed. Great. The Saint Lawrence team cheered for me by name -- "Go Diana!" as their van passed me, and also when I passed their stopped van.

Up ahead, I saw Jamie pass the girl. I quickly caught her and passed her. We were the seventh team to leave the last transition area; now we were in the sixth position. It didn't matter, though, since all the other teams except two had started earlier than ours. One of those two was Jamie, up ahead. That was all that mattered.

I passed the mile marker and glanced at my watch. Economizing on energy, I only exerted enough brain power to note that my speed was about 6:40. No time for exact calculations; I had a race to run.

Alan and Tyler parked again, and Alan stood on the side of the road to exchange my bulky headlamp for the small one Tyler had been wearing. I took off the bulky one and exchanged it for his as I ran past.

"26 seconds!" Alan shouted. As I tried to put on the headlamp, I dropped it, and had to stop and stoop down to pick it up. The last thing I needed!

"28 seconds!" Alan shouted after me, jokingly.

I put on the headlamp -- which did not illuminate anything -- and kept pursuing Jamie. I could see him ahead of me, vaguely, just the spot of light on the pavement made by his headlamp. I can tell when I'm reeling someone in, and as much as I tried to convince myself that I was reeling him in, I had to acknowledge that the gap was staying the same. I was running nearly 10k pace, and I was not catching him. Inconceivable!

Then, slowly, I realized that it seemed like I might be getting a little closer. And then it was incontrovertible -- the spot of light was bigger. But how much bigger?

Alan and Tyler had parked again.

"16 seconds!" Alan shouted. I might actually catch him! The pursuit was on.

I passed the two-mile mark. I had run another approximately 6:40 mile. Two back-to-back 6:40 miles, and Jamie was still ahead of me. What the heck!

Alan and Tyler sped past me in the dark and calculated the gap again.

"12 seconds!" Alan reported. At that point, I knew I would catch Jamie; it was just a matter of time.

The time came. I neared Jamie.

"You are RIDICULOUS!" he shouted back towards me.

"You're ridiculous!" I replied, not knowing how to respond to such a comment. "It took me over two miles to catch you!"

Before I started running, Alan had told me that when (not if! he had such faith) I caught Jamie, I should just run with him, and then maybe out-kick him at the end. So I ran next to Jamie. It was almost completely pitch dark. Up ahead, some women were cheering for us next to their car, offering us water. "No, thank you," I shouted ahead, because I had a race to run.

Just then, Jamie and I were approaching a side road that entered Route 100 from the left -- the same side we were running on. A huge silver pickup truck came barreling towards us on it, towards Route 100. The reflective vests, headlamps, red flashers -- none of our safety equipment would matter if the driver was planning to make a rolling stop and speed on through the turn and onto 100. I didn't want to lose any time against Jamie, but I really didn't want to die. I cut a sharp left to go behind the truck, as Jamie swerved to the right to go in front of it. All of us -- the women with the water, Jamie and I -- were yelling at the truck driver through his windows.

Jamie didn't die, and I didn't lose any time, having sprinted around the back end of the truck. But I was mad; that was unnecessary. I was amenable to the idea of running with Jamie, so I did, but after a minute or so, I felt that he was running a little slower than me, and I was comfortable running just a little faster than him, so slowly, I pulled away...

Jamie was close enough behind me when he started dry-heaving that I could still see the circle of light from his headlamp. I quickly accelerated -- no way was I going to risk getting hit! I heard him dry heave again, a little further behind me, and then he started throwing up. I ran away.

The Saint Lawrence van was there, the teammates cheering for me a little less enthusiastically than before. "Go, Diana."

A few minutes later, Alan and Tyler were parked by the side of the road again. I couldn't hear Jamie throwing up anymore. "Is he close?" I asked Tyler. "I can't see him," was all Tyler had to offer. "Whooo!" we celebrated, briefly.

So I knew I had it. I was alone -- no one anywhere in sight ahead, no one anywhere in sight behind. All I had to do was get to the end. I slackened off the pace a little bit, and between the mile 3 and 4 markers I apparently ran a 8:30 mile. I got to mile 4 a little after 8:51 pm. I had less than nine minutes to cover 0.8 miles -- if the mile markers were accurate -- in order to beat 11 hours. I remembered two years ago, when Becca had tried to run fast enough over this last leg to beat 13 hours, and ended up finishing in 13:02. So, off I ran in pursuit of Okemo.

The end of the race was extremely frustrating for me. It was dark, and there were no signs telling me where to go. The race handbook simply said, "follow signs and volunteers' instructions." Route 100 was approaching a T at a traffic light. Left or right? I had no idea. Alan and Tyler came up at that moment in the car. I asked them. "Left" said Alan, so I stayed on the left. Then we saw the sign, across the intersection, with a right arrow. I crossed in front of Alan's car and headed off to the right.

Far ahead of me, I saw blue flashing lights. So that was probably the next turn. But which way was I going to turn -- left or right? The blue flashing lights were on the left side of the road, so I crossed when there was no traffic. I approached the police car. "Left or right?" I shouted ahead of me. He didn't answer. I got closer. "Left or right?" I asked again. He pointed to my left and said, "up the hill."

Great, a hill. I felt like at least five or six of my nine minutes had already passed. Okemo better be right there. It was not; the hill was dark, and winding, and long. Alan and Tyler caught up to me on the hill. I expressed my frustration to them. "Is this the right way? How long is this stupid hill? Where the heck do I go?" Alan said something reassuring and drove on ahead into the dark.

I saw lights ahead. A volunteer had one of those light-saber traffic-controller illuminated sticks and was waving it back and forth in repeated arcs. Not helpful -- did that mean left, or did it mean right?"

"Left or right?" I shouted ahead of me. No response. "Left or right? Left or right?" I was running straight at the volunteer. "Right," he said finally. Great! A helpful volunteer! "Which way is the next turn?" I asked, now that I knew he was helpful. "Just follow the volunteer when you get there," he called after me.

100 more feet of running and I was at another volunteer. I was trying to kick in the end of my race and beat 9:00 pm, but I was being confounded by not knowing where I was going. How can you make a series of 90-degree turns at a high speed if you can't anticipate any of them?

I was running straight towards three volunteers. "Left or right?" I shouted to them. Not one of the three said anything. "LEFT? OR RIGHT?" I shouted. I was not happy. "Left!" one of them said, finally. I hugged the left side of the road in anticipation of the turn. Just then, the line of trees on the right side ended, and I saw a line of fire torches lining the road -- TO THE RIGHT.

Three volunteers, and they had all told me the wrong direction. Their left, my right. I had had too many frustrating encounters with volunteers in the past three minutes, and after an entire day of running, I was not in a conciliatory mood. I shouted an expletive. "Right, guys, it's right." I curved over to the right, and ran along the torches into the brightly-lit building.

I sprinted the last 30 meters on the concrete floor and squinted up at the red official time clock. Did I beat nine o'clock??? To my extreme surprise, it read 20:58:03, 20:58:04, ... two minutes to spare! I kicked it in and we finished at 20:58:07, for a time of 10:58:07.

Whew! The announcer with a microphone came over to me. I don't think anyone was listening, but he interviewed me for all 15 people in the cavernous room. "Where's the rest of your team?" he asked. I told him they were in the parking lot, parking the car. Later, as the rest of the teams came in with five people jogging behind the one in the reflective vest and headlamp, I would realize that most teams parked the car and waited along the line of torches for their last runner.

A man handed me a medal. Only one. I realized that I better not let him know there were only three people on our team, or else we would not get six medals. I asked if I could have all six now, and he readily agreed. You can see in the pictures that we each have two. I made sure they were face out:

Tyler and Alan came in and we got our pictures taken. Jamie came in about three minutes after I did. We shook hands with the whole Saint Lawrence team. Our times differed by three minutes, or 180 seconds -- an average of less than two seconds per mile.

Tyler's dad was there too, and he shared dinner with us. There was plenty of dinner, and we put fruit and granola bars in our bag for later. Finally the results appeared, and we were third overall! Only two six-person teams beat us. The first-place team beat us by over an hour, the second-place by only six minutes. Saint Lawrence was three minutes behind us in fourth place. And we had won the ultra (three-person) division! Now to wait for the awards ceremony.

Because it was very hot, some people had gone to the hospital, and the guy in charge was out helping with that, so the awards ceremony was delayed by an hour. Tyler and his dad left. Alan and I stayed and took free sporks from the Merrell shoes booth. We chatted with some Canadians.

Finally, the awards ceremony, at 10:30 pm. We won three (one for each of us) $110 coupons for Merrell shoes, for winning the ultra division. As it turned out, all of the (two) other ultra teams had dropped out, so we were the only ultra team. No matter! We emerged victorious. Alan and I drove to Concord and went to sleep a little after midnight.

Summary statistics:

We each drank about 1.5 gallons of water. When we weighed ourselves the next morning, I had lost 3 pounds and Alan had lost 12 pounds. He has gained most of it back.

Our team average pace was 6:42. Alan's was 6:19 (31.2 miles), Tyler's 6:21 (35.5 miles), mine 7:27 (32.1 miles).

For times for each leg and over all, see here.
For all the race results, see here.

THE END

Kingston Firemen's Five Miler

2009-08-08T17:17:00.002-04:00

While looking through last year's results on coolrunning for races in NH, I saw this race and thought I might be able to win it. Last year, a 48-year-old woman won in 34 minutes. Then, further searching brought up a newspaper article claiming that (a) there was $100 on the line for setting a new course record, and (b) the record to beat was 32:33. Huh. That was precisely my time for five miles in the Red Rooster Ramble #3 back in May. It seemed like it might be doable, but who knows? The course could be hilly. Nevertheless, I decide to do it and my goal was to win and set the course record.

Wait, back up. Saturday, August 8 was the last day of summer school at PEA, the day all the kids get on buses and leave campus. That meant that Friday night I would be up until midnight chaperoning a dance. As it turned out, I didn't get to sleep until past 12:30 and I ate pizza and drank soda at 11 pm. The race was at 8 am, so that meant less than six hours of sleep.

However, 8 am is a perfect time for a race. The morning was clear and cool. We drove to Kingston and found the registration inside the fire house. It was only $15 -- a steal! -- and they still had size-small T-shirts when I registered. Alan was still waffling on whether to register for the race and try to run fast, or not register and just pace me. He could run the five miler or the 5k, but in each race there were guys whom Alan thought would beat him, so he would only be going for second place (and $35, for a net of $20) in either case. We walked back to the car and Alan thought about it some more. Happily, he eventually decided to run with me.

We took a warm-up run of the first mile of the course, out to the 1-mile mark and back. It took 7:57 from the mile mark back to the start, a pretty reasonable pace. I changed into my flats and did some strides while Alan chatted with the men's contenders. I was unnerved to see several other women also doing strides -- oh no, someone else legit might be here! (In my experience so far this year, when I go to a road race and I am the only one doing strides on the starting line, then I win. When there are others also doing strides... who knows.)

The start was crazy because the 5-miler started about 100 meters in front of the 5k start, so we had to line up on the starting line of the 5-mile course with no starting official, just waiting to hear, in this case, a fire engine toot its horn loudly. And we were off!

Alan quickly moved into position just ahead of my left shoulder, and I stayed just behind him. I could hear a female breathing behind me, which I didn't like, but I wasn't about to push it in the first mile. After a few minutes, I got a glimpse of this other person, and was surprised to see an older man! It certainly sounded like a woman breathing. Weird. He stayed with me for almost two miles, and the entire time I was running a little scared, thinking that it was a female even when I had seen that he was male.

We hit the mile mark in 5:38. I didn't believe the man reading out times, so I looked at my watch. "Jesus, Alan, what the hell!" I shouted instinctively, even though I knew it didn't feel anything like 5:38 pace. (Another runner with a GPS later told us that it was at 0.91 miles, so 6:11 pace). Our 7:57 mile had made me believe that it was accurate. No matter, we kept running. A young kid in white shorts and no shirt passed us around the mile. Alan said not to worry, we'd pass him before two miles. We didn't, but we hit two miles in 12:18. The older dude dropped off and the bare-backed guy remained ahead. We got to three miles in 18:30.

There were a couple of small hills, which I did my best to crest with power. In high school my coach taught us to maintain our position on the uphill and then accelerate on the downhill. Post-collegiately, I have taken this to mean decelerate on the uphill and accelerate down the other side. I tried my best to avoid this. I managed to pass the bare-backed guy on a downhill. We got to four miles in 25:01, staring at a large hill. No-shirt dude passed me and went up this hill. I had no pep left to go up it quickly. "You could do this last mile in 7:30 and still get the course record," Alan reminded me. It was a pleasant thought (and one that had already occurred to me before he even mentioned it). The last mile was flat, as advertised; bare-backed guy stayed about five seconds ahead of me the whole time, and I started catching 5k stragglers. Otherwise, it was without incident. I crossed the finish line in 31:24 and refrained from excessive celebration.

Awards ceremony: After a cool-down and chatting with the 40+, female-breathing dude for what seemed like a very long time, they had the awards. Of course they announced the men first. The men's course record had been 26:04. "Our winner, in a new course record of 25:47!" Everyone cheered and applauded. "Kevin gets $100 for the record, plus $50 for first place!" I thought that maybe, since I had broken the course record as well, they would announce me next. Nah, second and third men. Okay, now my turn. "For the women, in first place Diana Davis in 31:24." I shook their hands and accepted my envelope.

Maybe I paused a little too long, or had a slightly quizzical expression. The man paused for a second. "Oh, that's also a course record!" The woman smiled and, seeming a little miffed, knelt down to retrieve the bonus envelope from the box of prizes. I smiled, shook their hands again, and returned to my place. "And she broke the course record by a minute," he followed as an afterthought. "Wow," said some people. Yah, for the record, Kevin broke the record by 17 seconds and I by 1:11...

This race double dipped (awarded age-group prizes to overall winners) so I also received a $25 gas card. And it had a raffle, in which I won a Bluetooth headset for use with a cell phone. So I got $175 and a headset and paid $15 for race entry.

It was Alan's birthday and he talks on the phone in the car, so I gave him the headset. He deserved it. I also gave him the gas card to fill up our rental truck with gas because, that's right, later that day we also moved to Providence. It was a busy day.

Full race results here.