Training: April 19 – April 25, 2010

Posted on April 27, 2010 by threlkeld

Another light week in terms of mileage. Between the 15K race and then a following week of three workouts, I was feeling a bit beaten up going into this one.

My only workout was a revisiting of the half mile repeats on the track I’d done roughly six weeks earlier. It was a screwy session since the intial turn on the track was blocked off so the high schoolers could do some sort of sport that involves climbing up to the top of a pole, strapping on a harness attached to a pulley, and letting gravity pull them rapidly forward along a tilted line. I wish I knew what this was called so I wouldn’t have to describe it every time. practice their zip line skills.

What this meant was that instead of rounding the track at the top, one had to cut straight across, then try to “make up” for the lost distance by running in the extreme outside lane for the rest of the repeat. I was probably slightly under 800m for my loops, maybe more like 780m.

This all makes sense if you understand the Bronxville High School track. This is one of the wealthiest square miles in the entire nation, and per-student spending in their school system is, well, astronomical. Yet they couldn’t manage to put in an accurate track when they spent a million dollars on one a few years ago. What they’ve done is cram a 400m track into too-small a plot of land. Rather than move the lane markers farther apart for the sake of accuracy, they went with aesthetics, distributing the markers as you would on a standard track. As a result, none of the lanes are 400m. The inside lane is 380m. Lane 4 is the closest at 404m. I haven’t a clue what the outside lane is.

Joe had seen my FB post about heading to the track with Jonathan, and there he was when we arrived! He and Jonathan did some 400 (or whatever they could approximate under the circumstances) repeats, first together, then Jonathan took his slower.

Aside from having to dodge around lounging teens, I enjoyed this workout and didn’t find its “twist” at the end (picking up the pace to 6:00 for the last 200m) nearly as taxing as I did the first time I did it some weeks ago. But I suspect I did too many of them. I probably should have done one fewer repeat to save my legs for Sunday’s 5K race and mullet appreciation day.

I took a day off again on Sunday, something I’ve made a habit of over the past couple of months. It was pouring buckets of rain all day and I didn’t feel like dealing with getting soaking wet or disassembling the bed in the guest room (it’s a tiny room) to make room for the treadmill, which is now shoved up against a wall.

I briefly considered going into the city to watch the More Half in Central Park, and maybe do a run in the opposite direction as I did last year (so I could watch the elites, followed by the March on Washington). But, man, it was just miserable out there. My AG hero, Colleen De Reuck, didn’t win, as I’d hoped. She was in the lead until mile 9 when she succumbed to hypothermia (that’ll happen when you’ve got 14% body fat). From what I can gather, later in the race her pace cratered by at least 20 seconds per mile and she ultimately got handily beaten by Sally Meyerhoff (although I’m a fan of Sally’s too, owing to her having meaty thighs and a substantial badonkadonk, like mine).

Colleen with her jaunty red brolly.

I’ve had it in mind that I should do one hard workout this (meaning the current) week, preferably early in the week, then a minitaper for the Long Island Half on Sunday. I spoke with Coach Kevin over the weekend and he confirmed this plan. But he surprised me by giving me a doozy of a workout to do: a 12 miler with the last 8 alternating between 7:15 and 8:30.

I did this workout six weeks ago and, to be honest, it was difficult. I’m expecting it to be a bit easier this time around, primarily because I’m fitter now, although the fact that the wind is low this morning should also help. Now I just need the sun to come up so I can go out there and kick my own ass.

Filed under: central park, coaching, elites, racing, training | 4 Comments »

Race Report: Washingtonville High School 5K

Posted on April 24, 2010 by threlkeld

I’m racing so often these days that I’m getting sick of writing race reports. Or at least I worry that my race reports are boring. I’ll try to make this interesting.

How’s this for an opening gambit: Jonathan was beaten today by a guy with a mullet. He was right in front of me at the start (I was just behind the guys at the front) and I found myself unpleasantly entranced by his straggly neck-shading locks during the National Anthem. After the race I got a look at his front and discovered that he bore a striking resemblance to Davy Jones of The Monkees. But with a mullet.

Now that I have your attention, here’s the race report: Warm up, blah blah blah. Feel crappy, nervous, blah blah. Stand behind mullet guy. RD yells “Go!” and we’re off. Too fast. I’m running with teenage girls and 12-year-old boys who have never run a race. I know this because they are weaving all over the place and asking me, “Are we supposed to run off to the left or something?”

We’re all going at around 5:50 pace and this is just silly. So I slow down. The 12-year-old boys die after 200m (no endurance, these kids today), but the confused girls are still with me. By the quarter mile mark we’re running at a more reasonable 6:30 pace. Then they start slowing down and I don’t want to get complacent, so I pass them, suddenly feeling very Kathy Bates in Steel Magnolias Fried Green Tomatoes.* The rest of the race, I see one woman ahead of me and wait and wait and wait for someone else to catch up. No one does.

The woman is a high schooler in black, probably about 5’10” and all of 130 lbs. She is floating and I know there’s no chance I’ll catch her. I hit the first mile split in 6:37. We turn north. And. Cue the wind. Mile two is way windy. My pace drops to 6:56 for that one. Ugh. But I know the course is sort of in the shape of a bent spoon (or helium balloon on its last legs, if you prefer; or crushed lollipop…), so we should be turning out of the wind eventually and getting it on our sides again.

But that second mile has killed me and at the 2.5 mile mark I start thinking how nice it would be just slow down a bit, or even walk. Or stop and sit down. There’s an idea. But I have to keep going. I’m a little mad at myself because I know I mentally gave up to some extent when I realized in mile 2, as I watched my average speed eroding, that I wouldn’t break 21:00 today. I’m at 7:00 pace at 2.5 miles. This is unacceptable. I snap myself out of it and run the next half mile about 10 seconds faster. Then I see people turning into the parking lot at 3 miles and gun it for the last tenth for a finishing time of 21:12.

So I’m a bit disappointed, but I ran as well as I could today. Since this was a nearly flat course (total up/down elevation was around 150 ft) I now have a 5K pace to use as a baseline for training and for coming up with a reasonable (ha ha) pacing plan for next Sunday’s half marathon on Long Island. I suspect my legs were still tired from Wednesday’s speed workout, since I had leg soreness in the middle of the night. I knew I should have gone with my instinct on Wednesday to do 4 x 800 rather an 5 x 800. Live and learn.

Today's haul. The graphic is a wizard hat ("Washingtonville Wizards").

This week’s haul included a lovely plastic trophy (and bonus non-haltingly correct pronunciation of my last name) and an AG medal. Jonathan came in (I think) sixth with 17:35 while also smashing the 50-54 course record by about a minute. He was, as previously stated, beaten by Mullet Man (who turned out to be in his 30s). We hung around, eating free bananas and watching the kids’ races, waiting for the awards ceremony, which could only happen after they raffled off 4,000 gift certificates from local establishments. These little races are a hoot. They always remind me of political protests — everyone and everything is given equal importance and tedium is never an obstacle in either planning or execution.

More fun stupid stuff…

The drive to Washingtonville, about an hour from our place in Yonkers, is very pretty if you get off of 87 and instead take the Palisades Parkway. On the way, you go past an exit for Letchworth Village (a sign that always makes us giggle). We made up a town to go with it: Lushton.

On the way back we noticed a Mercedes with a vanity license: 4MYBOGIE. What does it mean? That led to a half hour session of FBI style profiling the type of person who gets a vanity license plate. Highly critical profiling, naturally. This sort of thing is why I can go on long car trips with Jonathan; there’s no pressure to talk, and when we do talk, it’s usually at least entertaining, if not always deep.

For the hell of it, here’s a picture of our cat, looking more cute and less pissed off than usual. She was in bed when we left at 8:00 am this morning. I predicted she would still be in bed when we arrived home at 1:00 pm. I was right.

*Whoops. Wrong movie. I’m not surprised I got them mixed up as they are both insufferable movies about annoying Southern women that came out around the same time. Steel Magnolias was so awful that I finally decided it must be a satire of something. I only made it through an hour of it before returning the DVD. I don’t think I made it much farther through Fried Green Tomatoes.

Filed under: movies, racing | 8 Comments »

The 5K

Posted on April 23, 2010 by threlkeld

I have one tomorrow.

I knew it had been awhile since I last raced one, but I didn’t realize until I looked at my old logs just how long it’s been: nearly four years. It also turns out that I’ve only ever raced three 5Ks. In mid-2006, shortly after I started racing — with a 5K, 10K and 15K in under a month’s time — it became clear to me that I was better suited, at least temperamentally if not physiologically, for racing longer distances.

Or at least that’s what I’ve always thought. Namely, that I have no natural speed. But the truth is that I’ve never trained for shorter race distances (meaning less than a half marathon), so I really have no clue if that’s true or not. I stopped racing 5Ks because I hated how I felt when I was racing them. It was just too hard to run that fast. Because of the high level of discomfort involved, I bought into the “I’m not a 5K racer” perspective for years.

Now, after having recently raced a 2 miler and a couple of 4 milers, and having truly enjoyed each experience, I’m guessing that my dislike of racing shorter distances back then had more to do with my lack of aerobic conditioning and less to do with some sort of natural disadvantage in the speed department.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not proclaiming myself a fast racer at shorter distances by any means. I’m fully expecting to have my ass handed to me in the track races I plan to do in a few weeks. But I’m starting to doubt that I’m as irredeemably terrible at racing short as I’d thought.

Tomorrow’s race won’t exactly present the opportunity for a fair assessment, by the way, at least from a competitive standpoint. We’re running a small 5K way the hell up in Orange County. But, as with all my races this season, I’m going into this race essentially to see how things turn out, not to achieve any particular goal or beat someone else.

The last time I raced a 5K I hated it. Tomorrow I expect to love it.

—————————————————

On a totally unrelated note, it’s spring and that means I’m thinking about my grandmother, who died just about two years ago at the age of 93. Flowers burst into bloom and I get reliably depressed; I’ve come to expect it, although it’s better this year than it was last year, when I found myself weeping on a few runs. I miss her dark sense of humor and appreciation for the bawdy.

I saw her in Iowa, alive, for the last time in April 2008 when I thought she was going to fight her way back from a stroke (having survived just about everything else life had thrown at her), then went back to say farewell at her funeral a month later. Then Cedar Rapids was hit with floods of Biblical proportions, which destroyed much of city’s historic downtown including parts where she grew up. I was relieved that she didn’t live to witness the destruction and loss.

My grandmother died less than a year after my great aunt, her older sister and best friend, died in the summer of 2007. That was also a tough one. We were hiking in Switzerland when I got the news about my great aunt and I remember sitting down on a log in the foothills of the Matterhorn and bursting into tears among all that enormous, vertical beauty. Both of these women were accomplished watercolor painters. I hate it when artists die in general, but it really peeves me when I know the artists in question.

Anyway. I don’t mean to be a downer. I just loved those two old gals and miss them both terribly.

Filed under: everyday life, racing | 6 Comments »

Training: April 12 – April 18, 2010

Posted on April 21, 2010 by threlkeld

Since I’m in a somewhat manic “oh I’ll just change everything” period, I may as well also change how I label these training posts. I realize that since I’m not training for any particular race, saying I’m in “week n” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. So I’m going to do what the pros do and just tell you what dates I’m talking about.

First things first — and I’m skipping ahead into this week, so if you’re confused, it’s not you, it’s me — I did not run the Boston Marathon, which everyone else in the world seemed to be doing. (And I should add that I never will run the Boston Marathon, despite its caché, for a host of reasons). But I did have a grand old time watching it on Monday evening.

Since I had so much to do workwise (don’t people know not to schedule meetings on Patriot’s Day? Sheesh.) I had to sit on our Tivo recording until about 8:00PM. Staying away from all news was challenging (although, let’s face it, Facebook was harder to go cold turkey on for an entire day — I slipped once, but only to post something, not to read).

It was a thrilling race, especially on the women’s side, which is becoming a happy pattern in recent years. There are great summaries of the race elsewhere, so I won’t bore you here. Except to say that I wish Larry Rawson would truly retire. He’s like the Rolling Stones (only older) — constantly announcing his retirement only be exhumed yet again, our sport’s own version of Grandpa Simpson, rambling on about how much everyone is earning and how far that money goes in Kenya, reading leg turnover rates like so many tea leaves and getting nearly everyone’s name wrong. At one point he was laboring to compare running the mile (he was a miler in the Mesozoic Age) to running the marathon. Seriously. It was funny.

Okay. Onto the good stuff. I was a bit dumb about training last week, getting carried away and running a bit too hard. But I felt so good after the Scarsdale 15K that I couldn’t stop my legs, which wanted to go. On Wednesday I gave in and let them do a general aerobic run. I was surprised at how slow that was considering the relative effort, although I shouldn’t have been.

I was obviously still tired from Sunday — and probably also from racing over hills for three straight weekends — but that didn’t stop me from doing another speed session two days later. I went back to the “cutdown” workout that I’d done just once before, about three weeks prior. It was a strange session. The first repeat (a mile) was a minor disaster. It was quite windy and between that and running about 15 seconds per mile too fast I just died toward the end. I ended up cutting it short to 1400m. I figured the rest of the session would suck, but that first repeat turned out to be my warmup. The other three legs went extremely well, considering the wind.

I took Saturday off both to rest my legs and to clean our house from top to bottom so my sister and niece would never know what slobs we are. No one must ever know. Niece has decided she’s going to UC San Diego, although since Rutgers’ Honor College apparently offered her a metric fucktonne of financial aid she thought she’d better at least check the place out before deciding to remain a California girl.

While I’m sorry that I won’t have her around on this coast, as she’s really quite charming and the complete opposite — outgoing, cheerful and enthusiastic — of everything I am, I had trouble seeing her living here, especially sequestered away in East Brunswick, New Jersey rather than among the bright lights of New York City that drew her here (insert gratuitous “moth to flame” analogy here) in the first place. But she has her entire life left to move to New York and in the process ruin said life. Like I did! (Just kidding. Sort of.)

On Sunday they headed off into the city for theatre and lunch with more eagerly awaiting family and I dashed up to White Plains and back. Again, it was ridiculously windy and my paces were all over the place, anywhere from 9:30 to 7:50 per mile. But it was a satisfying run and allowed me to eat this monstrosity later on.

This week is considerably lighter: just one speed workout and then my first 5K race in several years on Saturday. I’ll go ahead and say my goal is to break 21:00. Unless it’s windy, I think this might be doable. But you’ll be able to read all about that … next week.

Filed under: eating, everyday life, racing, recovery, training | 4 Comments »

Mulling over the marathon

Posted on April 15, 2010 by threlkeld

I make it a habit of worrying about things far in advance. Unfortunately, this often has the effect of obscuring my view of what’s happening right now. Or, rather, what’s going well.

While I’m not yet collecting any PRs at shorter distances this season, I am having a great time running all these races. I still am not yet back to where I was roughly 20 months ago, at least as far as race times are concerned. That is a depressing reality that I try not to dwell on.

I do know that things are looking up in that I do seem to be improving and, perhaps most important, I’m not feeling anywhere close to entering the danger zone of overtraining that I spent so much of last year wallowing in. I was flat out exhausted so much of the time last year that it started to feel normal. After a break I’m realizing that it’s not normal. There’s the regular fatigue that comes with stepping up training, but that you can recover from during a pre-race taper. Then there’s the other kind — a kind of tiredness that settles in and becomes a part of you, then takes months to shake.

It’s only April. Yet I feel at a crossroads as far as the marathon is concerned. I’ve been burned by that lady five times out of my six tries. I really don’t know that I want to sit down and roast marshmallows with her again. Yeah, it’s only April, but if I want to do a fall race during the normal window of fall marathons (Oct/Nov) then that means I have to start getting my training ass in gear around July. That’s 10-12 weeks from now. Not so much time to consider the implications anymore.

From day to day, I swing wildly between wanting to give the long race another go, then realizing that the thought of bombing out again makes me feel physically and spiritually ill. I also can’t get my head around going back to running 90 mile weeks. I just don’t want to. It’s too much running. The more miles I run, the slower I have to run the bulk of them and the harder it is to do my faster workouts. What’s the point? Especially if all roads lead to a crap goal race as the reward.

The fatigue of training, it seems, is not the only thing that lingers. I seem to still be carrying the fatigue of failure and disappointment in my bones. I do know that every time I read someone’s post about the spring marathon they’ve got coming up, I am just so incredibly glad to not be them. That’s got to be telling me something.

These days, as I think about what to do in the fall, I find myself gravitating more and more toward the idea of making the fall a transition back to the full marathon distance in 2011 (assuming I ever go back). This is about all my brain can handle.

Once I’ve concluded my spring fling spent whoring around among various distances and dipping my toe (as I intend to) into crazy ultra relays, track racing and cross-country racing, I could then turn my attention to becoming a very good half marathon racer. It’s a distance that I love — long enough that you’ve accomplished something of significance, but short enough that you can do one every month if you want to.

What if I could run a 1:30 by the new year? Or a 1:26? What if.

Filed under: physiology, racing, recovery, training | 11 Comments »

Race Report: Scarsdale 15K

Posted on April 11, 2010 by threlkeld

Who will survive the coming zombie invasion?

I’ll tell you who: masters runners.

The finish of the Scarsdale 15K today was a testament to two things: the value of running small local races if your goal is load up on cheap hardware from China; the dedication of racers who are on the wrong side of 40.

The top 10 finishers included the entire 50+ masters men’s team (positions 1, 3, 4, 6 and 8). The winner (Jonathan) is 53. The female winner (Emmy Stocker, who regularly beats me) is 51. Emmy’s racing pal, Frank Colella, also placed in the top 10, at age 47. He was second in his AG, which means another 40+ guy (I don’t know who) was also in the top 10. So, uh, let’s see…that means that at least 8 of the top 10 finishers today were well over 40 years of age.

Yes, it’s the youngsters who will make delicious, easily attainable zombie food while the rest of us dash off to the local gun shops and gardening centers to prepare.

Before the race I spotted Emmy and knew she’d beat me. Because she always does! I didn’t recognize any other women. This wasn’t a big race for me, meaning I wasn’t going in with any particular goals or concern for how I’d do relative to other people. I had a rough goal of wanting to at least break 1:09. I’d end up with a 1:09:37. While I wasn’t thrilled with that time, I was happy to place 2nd female and 16th overall.

The Scarsdale course is really tough. It trends toward uphill, most of it gradual, but there are a few short, steep ones thrown in. I ran the first 4 miles slightly too fast: between 7:00 and 7:10. I probably should have run 7:15 instead. My pace started to fall off after mile 5 and I’d end up with an average 7:22 pace. But given the course and the headwind in the last two miles, I’m pretty happy with that. I didn’t hit the tangents as well this time around, but that was primarily because the roads weren’t closed to traffic and I didn’t think weaving back and forth constantly was a good idea. My total distance was 9.44.

My effort was quite high, averaging 93%. It was a bit warm too, so I’m sure that pushed the HR up a bit. But I was able to run the last quarter (through a parking lot and about 300m of a track) at 6:17 (97%). So I’ve got something resembling a kick, at least when I’m finishing up on a flat section.

Emmy came in around 1:08, so the margin wasn’t that wide. I was in 6th place (F) for the first few miles, then managed to pass three women in pretty quick succession midway through the race. So I ran most of it figuring I’d get 3rd, since I’d seen Emmy and another woman ahead during the first mile or two. But apparently Emmy’s companion dropped out at some point, so I was surprised to get 2nd.

Jonathan won in 55:30, beating a youngster by about a minute. I saw him at the out and back toward the end of the race, when he had a little over a mile to go, running behind the lead vehicle and no one with him. That was a little thrill for both of us and he managed something approximating a smile when we passed each other.

Jonathan had teamed up with four other 50+ guys, including Joe, for the team competition. Apparently, decades ago, this race was larger and much more competitive. Team competition meant something. This year, they were told that they could just pick the fastest guys at the end of the race to define their team. What? But they entered their names beforehand and ended up taking half of the top 10 spots anyway.

I haven’t run this race since 2006, when I was at the very start of my racing “career” (cough cough). My time then was 1:25:something. I remember seeing the little, crappy silver-plated bowls AG winners got and feeling envious. Now I have my peanut bowl.

Suitable for serving nuts, olives or beer.

To be honest, I was nervous about racing 9+ miles. I’ve been racing distances half that length or shorter, for the most part. I did go out too fast and I need to not make that a habit. But I feel good about my endurance, and a lot more confident heading into the Long Island Half in three weeks than I would have had I not raced this one all out today.

I’ve saved the best for last. After I picked up my AG award, a woman came up to me and said, “I’m so glad you beat [name withheld]. She’s the biggest snob in Scarsdale!”

I didn’t press for details. Meaning I’m not sure if this person is the biggest running snob or the biggest snob overall. If it’s the latter, that’s quite an accomplishment, although the former is not too shabby either. Now I’m wondering what exactly you have to do to inspire such schadenfreude among your neighbors.

From Serial Mom, John Waters’ study of a June Cleaveresque serial killer on the loose in leafy suburbia:
Sloppy: Will you believe that god damn litter bugger?
Beverly: I have told her and told her. It takes ninety to a hundred years for a tin can to decompose, and she still won’t recycle.
Gus: Cost the tax payers millions of dollars last year. But she don’t care nothing about the national budget!
Beverly: I hate Mrs. Ackerman.
Gus: I hate her too.
Sloppy: I hate her guts. You know, somebody ought to kill her.
Gus: Yeah, give her a happy face, and then recycle her.
Beverly: For the sake of this planet, someone just might.

Also, Scarsdale High School has a picture gallery of distinguished alumni/alumnae, which I took the time to review since the awards ceremony took forever to start. Luminaries include: Richard Holbrooke, Tovah Feldshuh, Linda McCartney and an NPR contingent: Mara Liasson and Nina Totenberg.

Filed under: racing, westchester | Tagged: | 16 Comments »

Random crap

Posted on April 9, 2010 by threlkeld

TK calls these posts “Ellipses…”

I call them a great way to unwind on Friday afternoon, after the steam whistle has blown. Toot!

The Green Mountain Relay, and my commitment to it, is becoming more of a reality every day. I had to register and input my most recent (terrible) 10K time. Then I had to pick a shirt style (because that is the most important part of all of this — how I look).

Now I’m scrutinizing the various “race leg” sets and, like some clueless roundeye who’s wandered into a Dim Sum palace, I’m pointing helplessly at a few and saying, “Yes, I’d like to run these! I have no concept of exactly how running extreme changes in elevation, for around 18 miles over a 24 hour period — some of those miles in the dead of night — will affect me. But, dammit, I’m choosing with confidence and authority!”

Oh, right. It's the Green MOUNTAIN Relay.

The way it works is, the race is 200 miles long, divided up in to 36 “legs.” They are numbered (surprise!) 1-36. On a 12 person team, each runner will run three legs, evenly distributed. So, for example, runner 1 will run legs 1, 13 and 25. Some legs are harder than others, and a couple of them are fucking brutal. I’ll let some 25-year-old studs claim those.

But I am nevertheless among the masochistic majority, clamboring for the three-leg sets that are on the “hard” side of the spectrum. And I may not get one of the harder sets, since it seems I may be one of the slower team members. I still don’t yet know how I feel about this piece of information.

Also, on a related and disturbing note, the phrase “baby wipes” is beginning to appear frequently among team member communications. What have I gotten myself into?

So far, at least in email, the team is a fun crowd. (I’ve met two of them exactly once, although we’ve been members of the Running Blog Mutual Appreciation Society for quite some time.) Someone shared this photo snapped during last year’s race (this man was not on their team, by the way).

According to co-captain TK, "It was some freak running down the highway we saw while we were all in the van. It was the funniest thing ever and we all mocked him from the confines of our vehicle."

Edited: When I saw this photo, I knew this man reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think of whom. This morning, it hit me. He looks quite a lot like a running Ron Jeremy. (That Wikipedia entry is worth a read, not the least of which because it reveals the existence of something call the Adult Star Path of Fame, located in Edison, NJ.)

On a totally different topic, I am cleaning up on the 2009 shoe closeouts. I’ve picked up Saucony Fastwitch 3s for $40 and Asics Hyperspeed 3s for $55 (Holabird Sports). Holabird doesn’t like grabby people, so they only let you buy one pair of the Hyperspeeds. I’m going to put Jonathan up to buying another pair (or maybe I can drop the cloak and dagger and just place a separate order). At this point, I’m doing almost all of my training in “racing” shoes (7.5 oz or lighter). I can’t imagine how I used to train in 12 oz. tugboats.

My shorts (or, rather, the elastic) have all decided to expire at once too. My mesh “comfort liners” have taken to flapping about like sails. I’m already showing way to much flesh when I go out as it is. I draw the line at sunkissed butt cheeks. I’ve got four pairs of new shorts on the way from Running Whorehouse.

I managed to destroy the watch face of my 301XT last week. I knocked it off the counter and broke the glass face right up the center. The watch still functions, but I’m sure it’s not waterproof anymore. I’m quite annoyed that Garmin thought it was a good idea to not only make the front of a sports watch out of glass, but actually raise the glass so it’s guaranteed to shatter if it gets hit. Great job!

On the running front, I’ve had nothing but good workouts this week (two of them, rather than just one; playing with fire), despite the freak heat wave, and I was zippy on my 7 mile recovery run this morning. So I don’t know what to think about Sunday’s 15K race. Maybe I’ll do well, despite my doubts.

Joe has posted about the upcoming Masters Mile at the Louck Games in White Plains early next month. I’m skipping it since it’s just a few days after the Long Island Half Marathon. I know my limits. But I mention it here because, like a lot of outdoor track stuff, not many people are aware that it’s there for the running. The more the merrier. I’m screwing up my courage these days to perhaps try a track race at Icahn.

We shall see. But, again, people, it’s out there, and that’s why I mention it. These are open races, no invitation or qualifying time required. Take advantage or this stuff will go away. And then you’ll have a bunch of sad people noisily clacking around in spikes.

Filed under: clothes and gear, meets, racing, training, westchester | Tagged: , , , , | 9 Comments »

Reese Ruhpoort: NYRR Scootluhnd Tin Kee Roon!

Posted on April 3, 2010 by threlkeld

I’m tempted to write this entire post in the voice of Groundskeeper Willie, but that’s too much work. So I’ll limit the ridiculous accent to the title.

Jesus God, how this race sucked. I don’t know what went wrong today. It wasn’t a terrible race, but it wasn’t particularly good either. I just had zero speed after the first mile, which was just barely under 7:00.

Wednesday’s track session went very well and I felt fine this morning. I did a three mile warmup in the park and started to have some inklings that all was not well. It was sunny, humid and getting warm. I hate all of these racing conditions. I am a cold weather racer, my best racing weather being just above freezing real feel.

I’d deliberately left my heart rate monitor at home, since not only has it been acting up lately but I also tend to look at it during warmup miles and get freaked out by how high the HR% is. I knew the heat would just push it higher and do more of a mental job than usual today.

I did a couple of strides off on a side path and, boy, did those feel slow. They were probably in the high 6:50s, whereas I typically do some around 6:00 or below during race warmups. Ugh.

It was also a giant race. Or, at least giant compared to last week’s diminutive field of around 2,500. Today’s field was a couple hundred sweating bodies short of 8,000. While I was jogging around, I spotted Joe and gave a wave. Joe would go on to get third in his AG. Go, Joe!

I also spotted a blogger with whom I’ve been exchanging amusing emails with for the past week, Ellen Jovin, another 44 year old racer. I “stole” her AG award last week. She paid me back today by beating me by 10 seconds. We chatted as we passed each other on the way to our respective corrals.

And about those corrals: I was in red again; Ellen was in yellow today. Neither of our bettered paces from last week were reflected on our bibs today. I guess there’s a lag time in getting the credit. Still, it was an annoying discovery.

Two fun observations: First, the NYRR announcer needs a geography lesson, or at least help with pronunciation. They were raffling off a trip to “Edinberg.” I have no idea where that is, but it ain’t in Scotland. Second, there was a band playing Scottish music. I swear, for the first hour I was there warming up, every time they announced the name of the band I heard it as “Whiskey Piss.” I thought, well, that’s a little cheeky. But edgy, I guess. Almost Irish! Then I figured out it’s “Whiskey Kiss.” I like the first band name better. Either way, the music was frantic and repetitive enough to bring on a psychotic episode. That was the last thing I needed today.

So, anyway — boring race bits: The horn blows and the clusterfuck that is Corral Two lumbers forward. We’re moving at 7:30 and I’m already giving up on a good race time today. I’m thirsty already and yet, paradoxically, I have to pee. Jesus, why did I decide to do this?

But by the half mile mark things are opening up and I see my average pace is in the high 6:50s. I know the first few miles of this course are tough — with mile 4 being the worst. I’d gone in thinking I’d be happy to make low 7:00s for the first two-thirds. I was on track for the first few:

Mile 1: 6:57

Mile 2: 7:05

Mile 3: 7:13

The big Harlem Hills killed me, just like in the Mini 10K two years ago — in fact my splits are nearly identical to that race — and Mile 4 is an abyssmal 7:44.

Okay. I accept that and move on. I hope I can regain low 7:00s for the last two. But it’s not to be. My legs are shot. I’m hot and my head hurts.

Mile 5: 7:12

Just past Mile 5 a perky Front Runner zips past me and yells, “I love your shoes!” From the blur of her feet, I can just make out that she’s wearing the same model: unisex Asics HyperSpeed 3s. I grunt in appreciation and shoe solidarity.

Mile 6: 7:34

That damned last mile around the bottom of the park is always so sneaky. It seems downhill, but it’s actually comprised primarily of a gradual uphill grade.

Then the last .2 miles, which really is a hill. I pass a guy who sounds like he’s in need of a defibrillator. A crazed iPod wearer elbows me in the shoulder as he muscles past. I witnessed him call someone else an asshole earlier on. Please, let this ghoulish nightmare end.

Net time: 45:26

16th in my AG, 71.3% AG (ouch) and 123rd woman. Much more competitive this week!

Since I’m now racing at least twice a month, if not more, a cruddy race was bound to happen eventually. I have no idea why I was so slow today, but I’m guessing it was the suddenly warmer temps and highish (80%) humidity. Warm weather is my racing Kryptonite.

Onward to next week, when I take on the Scarsdale 15K.

Filed under: central park, ny harriers, racing | Tagged: , , | 10 Comments »

Marathon dreams

Posted on March 30, 2010 by threlkeld

I had one of those very brief, deep REM, just before waking dreams this morning. It was mundane in substance, but at the same time strangely revelatory in the possibility it presented. In the dream, it’s a few days before a marathon. But unlike the typical head case I am, my mindset is instead a lot like it’s been before my little races of late: pin on the bib, line up, and just resolve to run my best. No pre-race nerves or expectations. In other words, the race, the distance, is No Big Deal. It’s just a race.

I wonder if I can get to a point where I look at the marathon as just a race. It’s always been this huge, horrible thing to deal with, like a tsunami or a carjacking.

I’ve managed to get there — meaning the “Eh, whatever” attitude — with the half distance and even slightly above (I’m not freaked out by 25Ks anymore, for instance, although a 30K still gives me considerable pause). But maybe the nature of the marathon makes this impossible. It’s just too fucking far. Or is it?

I’d be curious to know if other people who race a marathons to the best of their ability (and train and taper accordingly) are able to come at it with a nonchalant attitude, and how you’ve achieved that state of mind.

Filed under: racing | 3 Comments »

Doh! [forehead slap]

Posted on March 29, 2010 by threlkeld

It’s recently come to my attention that achieving blue bibbery may require something faster than a sub-7:00 pace. Like perhaps sub-6:50 or even sub-6:30, depending on the race’s field size.

And here I thought I’d arrived. Now it seems I have more work to do. I’ll have to run even faster to catch that damned carrot.

Filed under: central park, racing | 15 Comments »

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