Just Another Day in Studville...

Race Report: Race to Fill the Pantry 5K

Wow, what a great race yesterday in Glastonbury!  Nice, cool weather, a flat course, a well-organized event and stiff competition. 

I can't say my confidence level was sky-high at the starting line.  My last 5K race was in June with no real speed work to speak of since then, I was suffering from a chest cold and I was surrounded by young and fast-looking guys.  Then, after a spirited shove-off which immediately put me in 3rd, somewhere around the 3/4-mile mark I blinked and I was suddenly in 6th with the 7th-place guy nipping at my heels. 

But I drew on that two-decades plus of racing experience and refused to panic.  Instead, I settled into the middle of the chase pack which was six men strong, all of whom were under the age of 30 (except me of course, at 37).  And with Duncan Gerity a country mile ahead of everyone by then, it was essentially a 6-man race for 2nd place.

Again, drawing on that well of experience I ended up doing a much better job of running the tangents than my young opponents which allowed me to move up in the pack, and eventually lead the pack at about the halfway point.  Then my marathon-distance training helped me to maintain the brisk pace while the rest of the chase pack started stringing out behind me.

With about 3/4 of a mile to go and in sole possession of 2nd place (but not by a heckuva lot) I decided to ditch the feeling of being a fox running away from a pack of hounds.  Instead, I took a very irrational approach and focused on chasing down Mr. Gerity.  I locked my eyes on the middle of his back (good thing I have excellent eyesight) and tore off after him. 

In a sense this was a bit foolish since I couldn't have caught him even if he tripped and fell flat on his face.  But it did inspire a prolonged kick which put enough distance between me and the young guns to secure a 2nd-place overall finish in 16:51.  And I'm proud to say that I finished a scant 37 seconds behind Mr. Gerity which, in light of his running ability, I'm chalking up as a considerable success. 

And it was "Keenan Day" at the race as my 9 year-old Cameron took 2nd in the U12 division with a 22:06.  In the kids' fun run my 7 year-old Owen took 4th and my 3 year-old Shane came in, I think, 4th to last.  The only disappointed Keenan was Amy who now has to figure out what to do with four medals instead of the usual one.

So...I've got three weeks of prep work to attend to before the big Santa's Run 3.5-miler here in town, and since a baptism in the family is keeping me out of the Roxbury Marathon that means that the 2009 racing season ends on December 6th!

Race Report: Clarence DeMar Marathon in Keene, NH

Alright, marathon #31 is in the books and man, it was a bear!  I had a few things conspiring against me, namely the cold and rainy weather, a gastrointestinal system that decided to stage a rebellion at mile 19 and a tender achilles tendon that forced me to pull back a bit during the closing miles.  But I managed to get to the finish line in 3:11:25, good for 18th place overall. 

The most vivid memory I'm taking home from the race was walking around after crossing the line, soaking and cold, shaking like a leaf, partially delirious and being handed a steaming cup of the most delicious cup of vegetarian soup I've ever tasted!

So, on the downside the ego took a bit of a hit when I finished in 18th place after taking 2nd last year and the left achilles is, once again, in rough shape.  On the up-side, I'm now qualified for Boston '10 and '11 and I'm now only 9 marathons away from achieving my "40 x 40" goal.

I think it's safe to say that Coach's race report on his 50-mile trail run will be a LOT more interesting than my report.  Can't wait to read it!

Team Supreme Launches Northern New England Invasion

A major component of the team's "World Domination" plan will be executed this Sunday in northern New England, that country which Robert Frost called simply "North of Boston" (the title of his first book of poems).  

The team will dispatch two envoys to two different endurance races; K-Law is being shipped to Keene, New Hampshire to compete in his second Clarence DeMar Marathon while Coach goes where no TS member has gone before...a 50-mile trail race in Vermont!

However, J-Dog and Sourdough will be nervously awaiting their teammates' race reports since K-Law just recently recovered from an achilles injury and Coach is bringing a knee of very questionable integrity to his battle with the Vermont trails.

But if both Coach and K-Law manage to reach their respective finish lines they will make team history in two categories:  "Most Miles Raced by a TS Member" (50!) and "Highest Combined TS Racing Total in One Day"  (76.2!).

Boy, we'd better scrape up some funds to hire a Team Archivist!

DeMar, Here I Come!

OK, it's time to get off the fence and make a final decision as to whether or not I'm going to tackle a marathon or not this fall.  So...for better or for worse...I've decided to go ahead and run the Clarence DeMar Marathon on September 27th.  And the time goal will be sub-3:15 (7:27 pace) for my 26th sub-3:15 marathon.

The sub-3:15 will be a rather subdued goal for me.  Heck, the original plan was to break 2:43 at DeMar!  But then the achilles tendon flared up and I pretty much gave up on any big racing efforts until 2010.  However, the last three weeks of training have been encouraging with weekly mileage totals of 70, 53 and then 64 this past week.  All of which was done with no achilles problems. 

So I decided that I can certainly run a decent marathon on that kind of mileage, but if I train for anything more ambitious than 3:15 I would probably risk triggering the achilles issue again and end up right back where I started.  Still, sub-3:15 ain't so bad.  Plus, it would qualify me for Boston '11 (I'm already good for Boston '10) and it would be marathon #31 for me, leaving me just 69 marathons short of my lifetime goal!

With about a month to go I have plenty of runway left to fit in maybe two 20-milers, but I probably won't try to do more than that.  I'll also try to hit a quota of at least 60 miles per week with little if any speed work.  That should get me where I need to be.  Then I'll toe the line with two sets of crossed fingers on the 29th!

Race Report: Living Well Race Series, Race #3 (10K)

As the race started, one guy shot out to an early lead and he looked young, gifted and fast.  Not only that, but he had a permanent tatoo of a winged foot on the back of his left ankle.  That's bad news. 

Then I noticed that he had another tatoo.  This one was three words in huge letters on his back, stretching all the way from from one shoulder to the other.  So huge that despite the fact that his singlet was blocking much of the letters it was still very easy to read..."PAIN IS TEMPORARY".  That's when I turned to Kevin Ford, the eventual race winner and series champion, and announced that we were about to be creamed.

However, Ford and I managed to catch the tatoo guy by the one mile mark.  Then the three of us worked each other for the next couple of miles with each of us taking a few turns at the lead.  It was pretty exciting to share the lead with two other fiercely competitive runners as we continued to push each other.  

At the 5K turnaround I managed to build a very modest lead over Ford.  Then, after we completed the hairpin turn, we were surprised to find that the tatoo guy was well behind us.  The post-race rumor was that he was suffering from a cold, so although the pain triggered by the cold was temporary it would apparently hold long enough to keep him out of contention for the rest of the race.

It was a nice ego-booster to be in the lead for all of the out-going runners to see, but then Ford bursted my bubble by passing me at the 4-mile mark with a decent amount of authority.  I had decided ahead-of-time that I would not, under any circumstances, push myself up the steep hill at the 5.5-mile mark or launch my usual finishing kick.  My achilles was still on the mend and there was no sense in risking a setback with the fall racing season fast approaching.  That meant that I needed to have a decent lead heading into the hill in order to pull off a win.

Alas, I didn't.  Instead, Ford had me by 10 seconds at the bottom of the hill which meant that the race was his unless he faltered big-time.  Unfortunately for me, he faltered only small-time and nipped me at the finish by 5 seconds.

So the win eluded me, but I clocked a 36:13 which meant that I managed a 5:50 pace over a challenging 10K course on a bum achilles tendon.  So I'm mostly pleased, but it's a little disheartening to think back on the race and realize that I had a very decent chance to pulling off a win if I put in the usual 110% effort near the end.  Howver, I'm trying to keep the big picture in mind and save my achilles for a fall marathon, if that's still possible. 

glorious Race Report

The Glorious Gallop 5K was held last night in East Hampton, and after hearing about this race for a few years, I finally ran it. So was it actually "Glorious"?

First let me give myself credit for setting a new, 9 second, 5k PR at 18:18. So it’s a PR, and I am not allowed to complain, yet somehow, I am not thrilled.

I had heard about this course and wanted to run it, as it has a lot of down hill to it and figured it would be an easy PR. In that regard the course was Glorious. The weather was glorious too, for a July night in the low 70’s. However, I was a bit disappointed, as with the course and the day I felt I could have gone under 18 min if things went well. This is a point to point race, ala Boston. So I boarded a shuttle bus and headed up to the start. The course organizers were a little sketchy as the official start line was determined to be a temporary real estate sign on some one’s lawn. The course started out with a screaming down hill that left the bottom of my feet just burning with heat. The organizers did not feel it necessary to put out mile markers which really bugged me and messed me up mentally a little as I ran. So its hard to give the mile by mile post mortem or splits. But I think I can safely say that I hammered the first downhill mile, held steady for most of mile two, up until I got a bit of a stitch in my side and slowed just enough to let a runner pass and gap me. I think my legs were a little shot still from the fast track workout on Tuesday. But perhaps not. For some reason I did not recognize that it was the same guy that I out sprinted at the finish of my last 5K. I finished with runners 4, 6 and 7 seconds ahead of me. Although at the time they seemed to be really far ahead. As most of my fans could have guessed, this once again placed me 4^th in my age group.

I define a Glorious race as one where I take a huge risk, against odds, and somehow make it work, or die the death of the proud warrior. I fought at this race, and was suffering at the end. But I ran a somewhat safe race, and did not get full the blood lust of battle. No fights were consciously avoided, yet for some reason, it did not occur to me kill myself trying to catch the runners in front of me, until it was too late. I did not punk out, yet I did not really risk it and step up. Let’s call it glorious with a small "g".

Team Supreme Notches Another Race Victory!

This is shaping up to be a banner year for TS in the hardware department.  We just passed the halfway point of the year and the team has racked up four overall road race victories.  Please note that this is not the Boston Athletic Association.  We're talkin' 4 guys ranging from mid-30's to mid-40's with day jobs and young kids (10 kids among us), while fully 25% of the team is preoccupied with actively pursuing the world record for the number of bananas consumed in one minute.

Well, soon after commiting to scaling back on mileage and intensity in order to allow my achilles tendons to heal up, I couldn't help noticing that the campground that I'm vacationing at with my family was holding a 2-mile road race this morning.  Tendonitis or no tendonitis, this was too hard to pass up, especially when the start/finish area was about 1/4 mile from our campsite.

Technically it was a road race in the sense that it was billed as such and awards were handed out at the end.  Realistically, it was a fun run, which I suppose was not a shocker (pronounced "SHAW-ka" up here in Maine) since the field was limited to campers at one campground.  There were approximately a couple dozen runners and I won with a 12:45 and the 2nd place guy clocked a 15:00, which means he was running my long run training pace.  I also put in 8.5 miles earlier that morning.  As a footnote, the Keenan's dominated the event with my 9-year old son, Cameron, winning his age group pretty easily.

So...not quite the Manchester Road Race, but our team is happy to take any victory it can get!

Baystate Marathon?

I just completed a nice 8.3-miler at an easy 7:55 pace with the guys and all the tendons are approaching full capacity once again.  It's nice and warm these days and geez, it's nice to actually sweat during a workout again!

The last six marathons have gone exceedingly well, so at this point I know it's crucial to commit to another race to keep the momentum going.  I've decided to launch yet another marathon PR effort in the fall (current PR is 2:43, set in February of 2008) and one race I'm considering is the Baystate Marathon in Lowell, Massachusetts on October 18th.

I've never tried this one, but the first thing that jumped out at me about Baystate is that last year the top 15 guys all broke 2:40, which seems extraordinary.  So either the race course is really fast or the cash prizes offered by the race pulled in some of the best marathoners in New England, or both.  The elevation map indicates that there's virtually no net elevation change, and although there are lots of spikes on the map it's hard to really tell what a race course is like from these kinds of maps. 

The race caps at 2,000 runners, so I wouldn't say it's a small race but it's not a major race either, which is good since I like minimal logisitical hassles when I'm shooting for a PR.  Someday I'll get some big "destination marathons" on the calendar when I'm not concerned about PR's anymore.  I'm assuming that will happen at some point?  Maybe?

It appears from the comments on MarathonGuide.com that past Baystate runners are smitten with the race.  Multiple comments about the lack of waiting lines for restrooms at a nearby arena definitely makes for a check in the "do it!" column.  Also, the race finishes in the outfield of a minor league baseball stadium.  Very cool.

Anyway, I'm going to put this race on the short-list for the fall.  I guess the fact that I'm giving some serious thought to another marathon only 6 days after a grueling Boston Marathon is a positive sign!

Race Report: Boston Marathon

Well, Boston has come and gone again and I'm pretty fired up with my finishing time of 2:55:06, which was my second-fastest time out of 11 Boston Marathon campaigns.  801st overall and 16th Connecticut finisher.  Very cool.

The difference was, not surprisingly, that I finally ran a smart race.  I ran it like a seasoned veteran instead of a clueless rookie like I normally do.  I covered the first half in a solid 1:25 then just focused on getting to the top of the Newton Hills.  I repeatedly and purposefully told myself (actually, in my partially-delirious state I pictured UCONN Coach Jim Calhoun riding a bike alongside me and yelling this to me) that the finish line is at the 26.2-mile mark, not at the 21-mile mark which is located at the top of the final hill.  So there was no need to sprint up the hills even though I felt like I could.  I have a long history of doing just that, raising my arms in victory at 21 miles in front of all the Boston College students and then proceeding to execute a death march for the next five miles and walking very sIowly through each water station.  This time I just plugged away at the hills with the goal of having enough gas in the tank to avoid walking during the final 5 miles.  And I'm proud to say "mission accomplished"!

The race aftermath was a lot less glamorous.  After grabbing my bag I immediately hiked about a quarter mile to the Park Street T station to take the T back to my car.  Then I had to stop at the Framingham Plaza on the Turnpike to take a very deep one hour nap before downing a McDonalds grilled chicken sandwich and "brownie bites" which are, by my estimation, the most delicious morsels of food in the entire western world.  Or at least they tasted like it at the time.  Anyway, that perked me up enough for a safe drive home.  But when I arrived home I discovered that my left achilles tendon is acutely painful...way beyond normal post-maraton soreness.  So I'm mildly concerned about that, but we'll see how it plays out over the next few days.

Finally, I'm happy to announce that I was part of a magnificent Team Supreme effort.  Byram PR'd with a 3:11:49 and O'Toole covered his first Boston trek in 3:12:50.  I'm very proud of my teammates and pleased to see that the entire squad (including Sattler) is qualified for Boston '10.

Race Report: Colchester Half Marathon

Well, I'm happy to report that all the training paid off and I managed to run a solid race in Colchester yesterday.  In addition to the seemingly never-ending string of hills (some of which were pretty steep), we were forced to contend with some cold, windy weather.  But the turnout was high and the race itself was a great one.

I put in an ambitious opening mile of 5:45 just to see how many contenders were in the race, and I ended up running with a guy wearing earphones, so I assumed that he wasn't taking the race too seriously.  Around the 4-mile mark I was in the lead and didn't sense anyone behind me (I never look behind me during a race) and I started feeling a little optimistic.  I was 4 miles into a 13.1-mile race and I figured that if anyone was going to seriously challenge me I would have heard from him by then.  So I assumed that if I could just keep doing what I was doing for the next 9 miles then an overall win was definitely possible. 

Within 30 seconds of having that thought I blinked and all of a sudden Earphones had returned and he had brought two other runners with him!  So instead of a 9-mile cruise to victory I was suddenly in the middle of a 4-man lead pack moving at a brisk clip through through the Colchester farm country!

Although I was able to drop Earphones over the next several miles, the other two runners proved too much to handle.  Upon taking a sharp right just before the 11-mile mark I decided to launch an all-out, last-ditch offensive and try to catch at least one, maybe even both of the two guys ahead of me.  Instead, I was faced with a 2-mile-long stretch of gradual uphill and a headwind to boot.  So despite the huge effort it seemed like the last 2 miles went by much slower than they should have.

So I settled for 3rd place, but I clocked a 1:18:39 (6:01 pace) which means I somehow managed to run the course over 2 minutes faster than I did when I last ran the race in 2000, when I was a strapping 27 year-old!  And I also noted that my time this year would have been the winning time in any of the last five CHM's.  Figures. 

Anyway, it was a challenging race in which I put in a genuinely solid effort and never mentally ran up the white flag until after I crossed the line, which isn't usually the case. So it was a nice confidence- booster with Boston only 7 weeks away!