A temperate tempo PR (RRR #1)

(results) The workout for this weekend was a 5-mile tempo run, so I decided to do it at the Red Rooster Ramble on Thursday night. I really like the Ramble -- a quick look at my race results shows that I had done it 30 times before this week -- and I can't think of a better place to do a tempo run. I am familiar with the course, and I know the mile markers are accurate.

I set the course record in 2010 and 2011, so I wanted to do it in 2012, also. I figured that I might as well do it in RRR #1, as long as I had to do a tempo anyway. So I tentatively planned to run under 30:18 as long as I felt okay.

The temperature was perfect, low 40s, and while there was some wind, it wasn't that bad (and it's a loop course), so it was a good day for an attempt. In 2010 I made my attempt on a hot, humid evening, and while I succeeded that day, it was extremely hard on my body.

The red rooster and me

The first 100 meters or so of the course have huge puddles and deep potholes. It was okay. I got into third position behind Haynes. Another guy (Justin) was just behind me, and he passed me at about 3/4 mile; I drafted off him for about 10 seconds and then let him go.

Time at the mile: 5:45. Wow! That was faster than I expected. My goal pace was 6:00-6:10. So I decided to just settle in and see what happened. The second mile has a bit of a hill, and my time at 2 miles was 11:45 for a 6:00 second mile. This was exactly what I wanted.

The third mile felt harder. I was wondering if my quick first mile would lead to catastrophic failure at some point of the race, and was afraid that it might be happening in mile 3. Nope! Time at 3 miles was 17:36, for a 5:51. Maybe it felt harder because I was running 9 seconds per mile faster!

At this point, I had a decision to make.

I could slow down to 6:20 pace, jog it in and break the course record by only a tiny bit, so that it would be easier for me to break again later. This is what I would do (and what I have actually done) if I didn't care about the race, only about winning prizes.

Alternatively, I could keep up running hard, and see how much I was capable of breaking the course record by. I respect the Red Rooster Ramble, and I want to give it a good, honest effort. The quality of the course record should reflect the quality of the race, which is very high.

Also, let's remember that I was supposed to be doing a 5-mile tempo run (not a 3-mile tempo + 2-mile jog), and I was on PR pace for 5 miles, and not PR pace by a little, either -- my PR was 30:09.

So I kept the pressure on, not straining, but just keeping the same effort, and came through 4 miles in 23:34 (5:58, and a 4-mile PR) and then kicked in the last half mile, finishing the race in 29:23.

I was thrilled. Thrilled! I just broke my 5-mile PR by over 40 seconds, in a solo effort, without having to push like it was a race. This is an extremely good sign for track season, I would think.

Why the breakthrough? I've been doing hard track workouts, certainly. I also have been running high mileage (around 80). I have also been doing my training runs faster (under 7:30 pace). All these probably contributed.

I intend to keep training hard and stay healthy, and I can't wait for outdoor track!

Tempo+race=PR (New Bedford half marathon)

(Results) I received a free entry to this race courtesy of the very kind race director, Dan, whom I met at the Rock 'n' Roll Providence half last summer. Since I was somewhat out of shape from being injured and running low mileage in February, I was planning to run the race as a long run. Long run, no pressure! With water stations and a medal, sounds like fun!

A few days before the race, my coach and I decided that I might as well get a good long effort in, so the plan was: first 8 miles as a tempo run, then race the last 5. I actually love this plan and I was super psyched for the race. First eight miles are easy, right? So I lined up well behind the starting line, partly because I didn't want to push past all those people and partly because I didn't want to run too fast for the first couple of miles.

The gun went off and... Nothing. Didn't even move! It took 27 seconds for me to cross the starting line, and when I did, it was at a walking speed, packed into a crowd. This was far from tempo pace. So I became that idiot who sprints past you and almost knocks you over in the first 100 meters of a race. Happily, this was my only error of the race.

I discovered that if I ran on the edge, I could pass everyone with no problem! The other benefit of running along the edge was that I was close to Krissy when she took this awesome picture of me just chillin' along during the first mile.

I went through two miles in a nice, easy... 12:50. Oops! That was faster than PR pace. Now I understood why I had caught up to or passed many of the women I usually see at road races. I relaxed for the next two uphill miles and ran around 7:00 per mile and let many people -- in particular, Caitlyn and Katrina -- run off into the distance.

You may legitimately wonder, "what is the difference between running tempo pace at the beginning of a half marathon, and racing the beginning of a half marathon?" since it is generally not a good idea to be in oxygen debt any time you have 10 miles left to run. The answer is heart rate. I was wearing a HR monitor and trying to keep it around 160 BPM. I arbitrarily made up that magic number before the half marathon, and anytime I saw 155 or 163 I would speed up or slow down accordingly. It was annoying to have women pass me and just have to let them go because I was not racing yet, but it was also liberating. "Sorry buddy, my heart rate and I are hanging out back here at 160, see ya."

The middle miles passed uneventfully. I chatted a bit with Caitlyn, and drafted during the windy sections behind a tall gentleman who, from the back, bore a resemblance to Christian Hesch.

(I am tiny near the left side of this photo)

I reached eight miles in 52:35 (6:34 pace) and then it was ON. The chains were off and I was racing! I accelerated away from my happy little group and... faced the wind by myself. Awesome. We were running near the ocean, and there was a serious headwind. No matter; I was happy to be racing. I passed men, women, men -- just rolled right by and there was nothing they could do. I would see someone 50, 100 meters ahead, and then I would catch her.

The only bad thing was that one of those people was my teammate Sasha, who was having a terrible day that ended with a wheelchair and an ambulance (but not a hospital). The dragon on the back of our singlets is unmistakeable!

From mile 12 to 13, the course goes up a big hill, and it was here that I encountered my first serious problem of the race: a woman in a running skirt was ahead of me. This was a serious problem because, at some point in the past, I decided that I would not be beaten by anyone wearing a running skirt. This resolution is somewhat arbitrary, and has been (perhaps justifiably) ridiculed in the past, but to the best of my knowledge I have so far achieved my goal -- including at this race, as I passed her and her nearby teammate on the climb. That was a close one! She was probably the fastest skirt-wearer I have raced. Fortunately (for my goal) and unfortunately (because she was awesome), I never met or raced Sally Meyerhoff, who certainly would have been faster than me.

I had passed 10 miles in 65:20, so I knew I had to run under 20-flat for the last 5k to break my PR of 1:25:20. That seemed doable. At 12 miles my time was just under 78, so I had 7 minutes for the last 1.1 miles to go under 1:25 (this is all net time, considering my ridiculous 27-second difference with gun time). And I did it! I had to summon a ferocious finishing kick to pass a Whirlaway woman in the final straight. That got me 13th place, much better than the 76th I placed in 2009.

Among my close friends in the race, I was unfortunately the only one that achieved their goal -- I didn't have an official goal, but I ran a PR of 1:24:53, so I was pleased. As for my next half marathon -- the one where I will race from the beginning, yet not go out so hard that I blow up at mile 8 -- it will almost certainly be in the fall, on "the proper side of the pond."  Happy running!

Eight good miles (Seacoast half marathon)

(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).

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!