Great Black Swamp Festival of Races 25K

That's a long event name. It reminds me of this:

A solid tech tee

In February 2012 and 2013 I ran the Toledo Road Runners Club 25K. I dig the 25K distance--it's more challenging than a half-marathon and burns enough calories to make me feel like it's okay to eat and drink carelessly for the rest of the day. This year the TRRC didn't offer the 25K in February. Also, there is no more Churchill's Half Marathon in March. Also, there used to be some other "Festival of Races" during this time of year. I think the Great Black Swamp Festival of Races is intended to replace all of those events. Seems to have worked out well; there was a turnout way bigger than the former 25K and possibly even bigger than the old Churchill's Half.

The Great Black Swamp Festival of Races offered distances of 5K, 15K, and 25K. It might have been wiser with consideration to marathon training to only run the 15K because we were only supposed to have run a long run of 12 miles this week. Nevertheless I chose the 25K for us because, like I said, I like the distance. I wanted to attempt a PR, too.

See me and Joe at the front of that photo? That's how we look when we're unaware that someone is taking a photo of us. We had no plan for pace prior to the race. We did end up running the majority of it together. Joe told me after we started that he'd try to stick around an 8:45 pace. Within the first mile we were doing closer to 8:30.

Long story short, the race started at Anthony Wayne High School. We ran, did some turns, went uphill a little bit, hit the Wabash Cannonball Trail a couple of times, passed the Fallen Timbers mall, and ended up back at the high school. It was a pretty solid course because we were on the road a lot but there was hardly any traffic and where there was, cops held the drivers so that we could pass through. I was surprised by the little amount of wind with which we had to deal, especially being out in the middle of nowhere.

I said we ran the majority of the race together; although we did a good job of maintaining an 8:15ish pace, I was feeling whooped by mile 13. Joe, on the other hand, was feeling all fresh and shit so he pulled ahead at that point. The final mile was a "memory mile." During registration there was an option to enter the name of a deceased family member or friend, so I went ahead and put in Jessica Fernandez--my 16-year old cousin who died nearly two years ago. Along with probably hundreds of other signs lining the last mile of the route, I passed Jessica's name twice (once for my registration, once for Joe's). That was nice. Also, it was cool to see how many people took advantage of that memory mile thing.

There's Joe finishing followed by me a little bit behind at 2:08:16. I PRed by more than a minute and I mostly have Joe to thank. Truth be told, I was feeling like doodoo early on but was having a good time running with Joe so I tried my darndest to hang with him. Thanks, Joe!

That 2:08:16 was good enough for third place in my age group. My prize? A beer glass!

Elliott being Elliott.

I guess I'll run a half...

I'm in! As of yesterday I'm registered for the 46.5th Churchill's Half Marathon. It's fun being able to just register for a half marathon on whim. Two years ago I would have been nervous. Three years ago I would have laughed at the thought of me running a half marathon. Now it's just another long, weekend fun-run.

I ran the Churchill's Half in 2012 during Glass City Marathon training. It was a mild spring day when my plan had me running 20 miles. Originally I was to run the half then a "cool-down" 7 miles. Then I changed my plan to run to the race start in Monclova, run the race, then run back home, which would have had me just over 20 miles. The night before I chickened out and changed everything; instead I ran 7 miles around Perrysburg then drove to the race location. Had I gone with my original plan I probably would have run significantly faster. I had no serious time goal for that race, though, so instead I ran it for fun with Alyssa and Rob.

I passed on running Churchill's 46th Half Marathon this past spring because the route, assuming it was the same as in 2012, was pretty boring. For reasons I believe to be somewhat political in nature revolving around rival running shops and race sponsors the race director(s) added a round 2 for 2013, thus the and-a-half added to the event number. Why am I running this 46.5th if I didn't want to run the boring route this past spring?

New route!: http://www.toledoroadrunners.org/churchills/2013ChurchillsCourseMap.pdf

Instead of running the windy out-and-back course in Monclova the 46.5th Churchill's Half Marathon takes us from Perrysburg High School northboud, westward, south, across the Mighty Maumee in Waterville, then back up north along the river all the way to Fallen Timbers. It'll be my first point-to-point race. The route should be a pretty one; I love Perrysburg and Maumee. Waterville: Meh, I can take it or leave it. It'll be fun to cross the river, though! The small joys in life...

What's my plan for half marathon number five? Not sure yet. I'm going to focus this week on running smart and see where that has me come Saturday morning. It's possible that Joe, Rob, and I will run this together. It's also possible that my pride will make me take it too seriously and tear off on my own. I'm in trouble if Joe chooses to do that--his half marathon PR is a solid minute faster than mine. I've got him in the 5K (as of now) and the full, but he owns the 8K and half marathon distances in races that we've run together. We'll see what happens...

The year is winding down, but the races keep coming! Are you running Churchill's this weekend? What's your race schedule for the rest of 2013?

Bank of America Chicago Marathon 2013 - Part 3

Rob's alarm woke us at 5:00 on race morning. I was surprised to have slept through the night, save for waking up once to mistakenly think Jordan was missing. Never before had I slept so well the night before a distance race. A sign of good things to come? Possibly. There was no time to think about that, though; I jumped out of the couch bed, grabbed my gear, and took my turn getting dressed in the bathroom. I slightly adjusted my bib pinned to the left leg of my shorts, ate half of a Banana Nut Bread Clif Bar (Dare I say that it was better than White Chocolate Macadamia Nut?), laced up my shoes, grabbed my Fierce Grape Gatorade Prime, stuffed my Strawberry Gatorade Chews and Strawberry Clif Shot into my above-the-butt zipper pocket, and then we piled into Rob's cousin's car and drove over to where Tammy, Alex, and Steve were staying.

That's Rob leading the way to check our gear.

The seven of us walked about a mile and a half to gear check at Grant Park. Before we went through the security checkpoint Jordan snapped a photo of us at what is probably some iconic Chicago tourist spot.

Cheesy tourist photo

We were cutting it a lot closer on time than Tammy and I would have liked. By the time we separated from Steve, who was in the second wave, and waited in line to get our bags checked it was 7:00 and we needed to be in our corral (D) by 7:20. Tammy and Rob wanted to hit up a toilet but the lines were crazy long. I pressured them to wait until we got into the corral, where I was certain there would be port-a-potties. I was wrong, but it was too late to leave and get back before they'd close off the corrals. On our way over to the corral I drank my Gatorade Prime. That combined with the cold temperature quickly gave me the urge to pee, but I convinced myself that if I didn't think about it it would just go away.

Pre-race announcements took place and some music played. The music was really lame for a race. Glass City and Columbus did a way better job at pumping me up--ACDC sticks in my memory. Maybe it's because Chicago is a hipster town, but the pre-race music was the kind of Death Cab for Cutie stuff that they play on Alt Nation. There was redemption when they played Born to Run (the only Bruce Springsteen song that I enjoy) for the start, which got my adrenaline flowing by 7:37 when we finally crossed the start mat.

Tammy, Alex, and I took off a little bit ahead of Joe and Rob. Throughout the first mile I started to float ahead a bit just because of the crowd and flow of traffic. I found myself out of reach of Joe and Rob and thought about backing off to run with them for a few more miles at least, but the crowd had me amped up and moving happily from the get-go. I think it was at the mile three water station where I totally lost Tammy and Alex. Again I thought about backing off to try to hang with them, but I figured it would be a pain in the butt to try to get through the mass of runners. There were more than 40,000 of us running, after all.

5K: 27:58

The atmosphere of this race was incredible. I can't imagine there is better crowd support at any race--not even the coveted Boston Marathon. For the entire first half of the race I remember fighting off laughing for no reason other than being happy and amazed due to the awesome spectators. Their signs, their chants, and their high fives had me totally high on life. I ate six of my Gatorade chews in mile 8.

Half: 1:52:11

Miles 13 and 14 were my fastest at 8:09 and 8:08 respectively. I was feeling good and I knew at the time that could have been very good or very bad. Initially when I saw my pace in mile 13 I tried to pull myself back in order to conserve energy and strength that I'd absolutely need later in the second half of the race. When I started mile 14 I told myself "Screw it" and that I'd burn some gas in the tank just because it felt good. In mile 15 I got realistic. Also, I noticed that my feet felt a lot more then as they should have in miles 18 through 20--heavy and tired. My energy was high, my legs were moving great, but my feet felt like cinder blocks. I decided then to have my last six Gatorade chews.

30K: 2:39:36

This is when I started trying to do math in my head. I'm so bad at math. Also, it's when The Blerch was creeping uncomfortably close behind me. My pace over the past few miles slowed to something more reasonable (perhaps realistic?)--about 8:40. What would I need to maintain to finish under four hours? Match my past two marathons at 3:53 and some change? I don't think I was entertaining the idea of a PR. Somehow I decided that I could do 9:00+ miles and be safe. Even right now I don't know if that's accurate. I do remember being content when I was under three hours at mile 20. I think that was also what I deemed a good time to take my Clif Shot. This is the point at which I started walking through water stations, only because I was pretty sure that I was good for time. I saved the Clif Shot for last because it had a caffeine boost. I had never raced with a caffeine gel or chew, but I did use the same Clif Shot later in my two 20-milers for this round of training. I'm pretty sure I've perfected my marathon fueling.

40K: 3:37:31

Here is where I started getting all pumpy-pumped up again. I don't look at course maps before races much the same way I don't watch roller coaster POVs before I ride them. I don't want any surprises to be spoiled! The crowd had grown on both sides of Michigan Avenue and I felt like everyone was there for me--have I mentioned that the spectators are freaking awesome?!

As I crossed the mile 25 mark I got butterflies. I realized that, excluding the previous three water stations, I hadn't walked at all, nor did I ever have the urge to walk (unlike at Glass City and Columbus). Because I was so proud of myself and the spectators were killing it, I told myself to go as hard as I could. In full disclosure, I almost cried a few times in that final full mile. I was about to finish THE Chicago Marathon and with a good time to boot, even if not a PR. Or would it be a PR?

I made the right turn onto Roosevelt to be greeted by a short bridge. Yay! Uphill at the end of a race! Exactly what I wanted. I knew that getting to the top of that little hump, which looked and felt like a mountain, would mean that I'd get to run downhill. A sign read "300 Meters"--good! I was almost there! The left turn onto Columbus Drive revealed the finish. I realized that 300 meters was a lot farther in reality than in my head. Or maybe it's the other way around. Whatever the case, I was so stinkin' happy. As I neared the finish mat I could see that the clock was still under four hours. Given that I started seven minutes after gun time, my happiness jumped up like, seven notches.

I crossed the mat and looked down at my Garmin.

Garmin at the finish: 3:49:12

Official time: 3:49:11

That's a PR of 3 minutes and 52 seconds! Although I didn't know my official time yet, I knew that my Garmin couldn't have been too far off and that I had definitely PRed. Knowing that got me through possibly the most trying part of the day--making my way through what felt like the longest finish chute ever. I accepted a Mylar blanket and my medal, took a bottle of water, fought off the desire to fall over so that medical staff would just carry me away to comfort, passed on snacks, Gatorade, and protein drinks, and then did something that I was incapable of doing at any of my other marathons. That's right, I took a beer. That 312 tasted glorious.

After the race I got my gear, changed out of my sweaty clothes, and took off my shoes and socks to find one of these on each foot:

Pardon my crusty nail polish.

It was an hour and a half later when all six of us were finished. We took pictures before I hit up the medical tent to pop those liquid-filled skin bags.

Team Non-Elite, minus Jordan

Although that wasn't the end of the fun for the weekend, it was a hell of a morning. I will never ever forget that race. I used to think that I'd never run the same marathon twice, but I do see at least one more go-around at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon!

Run for Pi, and PR!

On Pi Day, I ran for Pi. I did not eat any pie.

Hi! I'm Krista and I'm one of those annoying runners who poses for cameras!

The 5K distance doesn't particularly interest me. My first race was a 5K in August, 2011, and I only did that one to motivate myself to keep on running, since I had just picked up on running in July. I didn't run another 5K until June, 2012, and I only ran that because it was at Cedar Point. I ran the Run for Pi, which technically isn't a 5K because the official measurements had it at 3.14 miles as opposed to 3.1, only because I needed to run 3 miles on that day. Oh, and I like gimmicks.

I'm the awkwardly-positioned one.

I didn't have a plan for this race in the name of geekery; I expected that I'd take it easy and start off around 8:05, then see where that would take me. No chip timing on this one, so I got myself as close to the starting line as possible without being in the way of those "serious" runners. In the relatively few races that I've run, I've learned that at the start it's easy to get sucked into a pace much faster than I have any business attempting. That photo to the left shows me barely a tenth of a mile into the race, moving at 6:37. Whooooa, doggy.

I got my legs in check and slowed myself down to finish the first mile in 7:10. At the beep of my Garmin, I deliberated whether or not I needed to pull back closer to 8:00, or just play it out at that pace, which felt good and, honestly, kinda easy. I went with the latter and finished mile 2 in 7:06.

When my Garmin beeped again, I was confused. How am I doing this? Why won't, nay, can't I slow down? How badly am I going to hurt later? Am I gonna spew when I'm finished? There's a first time for everything. Still, I felt good. That is, until the course started playing head games with me. I had run 3-milers at the race location plenty of times, since that's where group run takes place. To add a little distance, the race organizers had to add a few extra turns here and there, and they decided to do it all toward the end. First, there was this annoying little left turn then u-turn thing.

Then, where we usually do turn to wrap up the group run, there WAS no turn!

HI!

At that point, I was perturbed because I knew exactly where the finish was, and I knew that I was going to need to pass it in order to get back to it. Eventually, there it was--that big, inflatable arch all like, "Here I am, Krista! But you aren't allowed to cut through that parking lot to get to me! You must run around it to get to me (insert Nelson laugh here)!" Despite the mockery that I made up in my head, I couldn't help but cheese it up when I saw a camera. My facial expression and gesture demonstrate my glee to be almost finished and that, since I had just finished mile 3 at 7:06, I was about to take a big, fat PR.

Maybe it was the lady dressed up like a piece of pie...

And there I am, finishing up that last .14 in 55.6 seconds. I'm not sure what that facial expression is all about. I don't remember anything really interesting or gawk-worthy going on to my right, but I look pretty disturbed by whatever it is I was seeing. Or maybe I was just pooped and very much ready to be finished.

3.14 miles in 22:19. Although it wasn't a true 5K--they even had a sign at 3.1 that read "If this was (sic) a 5K, you would be done!--I'm taking it as a 5K PR (-1:27!!!!).

To make the Pi PR even sweeter (get the play on words?), I won my age group! And I wasn't the only one in it! I am still waiting for official results to show up online, but awards went to the top 6 or 7 in my age group, which leads me to believe that there may have only been 6 or 7 of us. Still, I was on top! BOO-YAH!

The TRRC 25K, again

The Toledo Road Runners Club 25K at Oak Openings was yesterday. I ran it last year in preparation for Glass City and this year it aligned almost perfectly with my CLE training plan. I needed to do 14 miles yesterday, so I figured, "What the hey?" to an additional 1.5.

The race is only available to Toledo Road Runners. I joined the TRRC last year because someone convinced me that it was worth it for the discounted and free races, the 25K being one of the latter. Last year I ended up never using the club discount at any races, and the only free race that I ran was the 25K. Would it be worth it to renew my membership for $20 just to run the 25K again? My brain said "no," but I planned to get in at least 14 miles yesterday and if I were to choose to race, I'd get a shirt out of it.

To prepare to race on Sunday morning, I was well-behaved on Saturday night. I made a delicious, light pasta dish at home for me and Joe--shrimp sauteed in a spicy infused olive oil with chopped basil and chives, tossed with angel hair pasta and topped with freshly shaved parmesan, served with a salad of red romaine in a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. We split a bottle of Savignon Blanc, watched Evil Dead (true love is what we have), and then I was asleep on the couch by 10:00 (while Joe watched Evil Dead again, this time with the audio commentary on).

I woke up around 7:15, bundled up for the 16° air, and was out the door around 8:10 for the 30-minute drive to Oak Openings. It seemed like there were significantly fewer runners than last year's race, but I saw a lot of familiar TRRC faces--the self-proclaimed "Nerd Herd"; the floozies who wear Newtons and always have new, matching outfits for every race; the tall, lanky, dudes who race for the local running stores and are so hardcore that they wear the short shorts even when it's 16° outside. I renewed my membership, registered, and got my shirt. I thought it couldn't get worse than last year's.

2012: Puke green.

2013: I never make copies in this color.

Same creative unique Microsoft Paint design. Same practical normal old man sweatshirt (but the interior is so soft!). Worse color? Still up for debate. Joe says that last year's puke green is way worse than this year's goldenrod. I think he just prefers this year's color because it tugs at his heart strings like the gold and blue of the Toledo Rockets.

Anywho, after throwing my shirt into my car and pacing about trying to warm up, the race was underway at 9:05. No bibs, no mats, and no timing chips for this little race. Just we runners and some old dude yelling "Go!" I had a plan to run smarter than last year. Instead of going out doing sub-8s, this year I intended to stick around 8:30 for the entire race. After all, I wasn't chasing any award (do you think they'd give any kind of award when the race budget only allows for that gem of a shirt up there?). I just needed to run my 14 miles for training. A PR would be a bonus.

I went out about 25 second faster per mile than I had planned. The first mile follows the road out of the metropark and takes runners past a couple of horse farms, and my gaiter couldn't protect me from a solid whiff of horse poop straight to the face. The pack thinned out quickly and once we were out of the park and onto route 295 (boring, straight, windy country road), we were running pretty much single-file in the shoulder of the road. I passed a few people in the next couple of miles before turning onto another boring, straight, windy country road and making it to some water. Rinse and repeat. The route isn't terribly interesting. Actually it borderlines on terribly boring. It's pretty much a figure-8 that you run twice. Running past that Mile 10 sign when you're really only at about 2.5 sucks, but it feels awesome when you've only got 5.5 miles to go.

Mile 10 was where I started to feel really good; I was almost certain that I'd PR, as long as I didn't crap out. That last 5.5 kinda flew by and I didn't find myself doing my usual countdown to pass the time. When I turned onto the final straight-away, which is about a mile, I felt unusually positive. Instead of thinking, "I am so glad that I am almost finished," I was thinking more along the lines of, "I could do a few more." I finished in 2:09 to PR, some old dude handed me a popsicle stick with the number 36, I handed it off to another old person who recorded my number, and I turned the corner to walk to my car.

Here's the comparison between last year and this year:

Oh, AND Joe surprised me. He just missed my finish, because he was busy running 10 miles at home, but he did meet me halfway to my car with a bagel from Barry's and a chocolate milk. What a dude, right? I like him.

As it turns out, I was the 32nd finisher, despite getting popsicle stick number 36. Official time: 2:09:30.

Ohio/Michigan 8K

At about 11:57PM on Wednesday I decided that I'd run the Ohio/Michigan 8K on the next day.  Albeit not particularly interesting, here is my story.

A few months ago, Tammy had suggested that I run the Ohio/Michigan 8K.  She told me that it's a really fun race in which you run from Sylvania into whatever the first city over the border is in Michigan and back, followed by live music, food, and beer.  In hindsight, I'm surprised that I wasn't immediately sold on the beer alone.  I failed to register and didn't give a lot of thought to running it until Facebook status updates about it started appearing at the beginning of this week.  Around 11:30 on Wednesday evening, my Facebook page was hijacked by someone who convinced me to run.  I knew that online registration was open until midnight, but I was too late.  At 12:00AM on the dot, "Registration for this event is closed."  Fooey.

So it was: I wasn't shut out of the race, but just needed to pay $30 instead of the $25 I would have paid the day before.  Or I could have been responsible and registered when I first learned of the race, in which case I would have only paid $20.  For the record, that's still too much to pay to run a race that you won't win, but the Ohio/Michigan 8K ended up being surprisingly worth even the $30 I paid.  More on that later.

Anywho, the race wasn't until 7:20PM, so I had all day Thursday to get myself prepared as any good runner would do.  I slept in until 6:00AM, ran some errands, did a little yard work, ate a whole bunch of cheese, and sat on the couch a lot.  If that's not an ideal pre-evening race routine, I don't know what is.

When I arrived shortly after 6:00, Tammy, who was working at registration, was working on getting a little drunk already.  I registered, ran into a couple of folks I know, and dilly-dallied.  With all of the time during which I had nothing to do, I considered a warm-up run, but never did it.  I was feeling good and figured I'd just crank out whatever I could once the race started.  My only goal was to try to hover around 8:00-minute miles.  In my last two races I had pace goals.  In my last two races I went out much faster than my goal paces.  In my last two races I finished slower than I had hoped.  In this race I also went out much faster than my goal pace.

After the 80-degree gun start, it didn't take long for me to really feel the run.  I was moving too fast off the bat and tried really hard to pull back for the first half-mile during which I was bouncing between 7:03 and 7:20.  I was also already pretty hot and there was no shade, nor would there be until a stretch of mile three.  Before I was finished with the first mile and realized that I wouldn't be able to consciously slow myself enough, I threw out my plan for those 8:00-minute miles.  I didn't make a new goal; I was just going to run.

Mile 1: 7:47

The second mile was not very awesome.  It became really boring and the road was laden with bumps and potholes--this indicated to me that we had entered Michigan.  The only thing that I have against the state of Michigan is their horrible infrastructure; roads in Michigan are the worst and I can't imagine that anything worse exists in any state in the union.  I think I prefer the drive on the dirt roads of Route 66 in Arizona to the drive on I-75 in Michigan.  As it turns out, the discomfort of driving on said roads translates equally to running on said roads.  At 1.5 miles was our first turn--into a corn field.  Okay, that's not so accurate.  It was actually a turn onto a road running BETWEEN two corn fields.  It was as riveting as it sounds.  I could see the first water station in the distance: YES!  I wasn't even thirsty, but I was so looking forward to splashing myself for a little relief from the sun.

Mile 2: 8:19

Oh, boy.  This is not ideal.  More than 30 seconds slower than the first mile?!  Oh well, that's what I get for going out too fast.  There's not a whole lot to say about the third mile.  More corn fields, more of the same, crappy Michigan road.  Wait, that should be "roadS" because I could see our second turn approaching.  I was getting pretty anxious to get out of the sun, but I had no idea when that were happen.  At 2.5 we made the turn and I could see it: SHADE!  Glorious, glorious shade was not far ahead of me.  It was spotty, but it was pleasant while it lasted.  Still, I was bored.  I even tried to negotiate with myself to walk for a few seconds, but I resisted the urge because I wasn't in pain and I wasn't tired--I was just being a whiny bitch in my head about the heat and sun.  Not worth it to lose time for that.

Mile 3: 8:37

Whatever.  Finishing is what's important, right?  Right.  Mile 4 offered a little more shade and we got back into Ohio, evidenced not by a  "Welcome" sign, but by the improvement of road conditions.  We ran past some classy spectators sitting in front of a pick-up truck parked in the middle of a yard.  A dog barked at us, too.  I was finally feeling less like a namby-pamby.  That's about all there is to say about that.

Mile 4: 8:47

For the last nine-tenths of a mile, I was a little annoyed again; not due to the heat or sun, nor was I tired or in pain.  A woman running with a stroller came up behind me.  A number of things about this woman bothered me:

1.) A woman pushing a stroller is trying to pass me.  A person.  Pushing another person.  In a probably 50-pound stroller.  I am pathetic.
2.) The child in the stroller, for a half of a mile, insisted that she could see the finish.  This was before we even made the final turn.  And she repeated it over and over and over.  Not only was the constant jabber annoying, but what she was saying was a total tease.
3.) I was pretty sure that the woman was going to ram into my heels.  Either pass me with your freaking stroller or fall back.

Maybe a little annoyance from outside of my own head was what I needed for the entire race.  Eventually, I had enough and mustered up the energy to pick up my pace to get the woman and her kid out of my ear.  I also ended up passing a couple of men ahead of me.  That burst carried me from a 9:03 pace to 6:30, which I hit just before crossing the finish.

Mile .98: 8:34

Garmin time was 41:55.  Official chip time was 41:58.

Average pace: 8:25

My miles were all over the place, but despite bottoming out at above 9:00-minutes, I still finished only 25 seconds slower per mile than what I had originally and casually set out to do.  I also placed fifth in my age division.

Tangent: Although I haven't run a lot of races and have only been doing this running thing for a year, I have some weird race distances in my book (25K, 2.9 miles, 8K).

Anywho, the post-race festivities were top-notch.  I killed a bottle of water, had a piece of watermelon (bombest post-race food, hands down), and then sucked down two Miller Lites.  Despite my time, I apparently finished ahead of a lot of the runners--there was no beer line when I got mine, but a while later the line was easily 100 people deep.  I wasn't very hungry initially, but after listening to music and chit-chatting for a little while, I got a little hungry and waited in the food line for my meal.  After 10 minutes of waiting, the line had moved about five feet and I still had a solid 50 to go.  I had homemade mac and cheese in the fridge at home, so I dipped.  Had I stayed in line, though, I would have had my choice of a pulled barbecue chicken sandwich, a turkey burger, or some other sandwich about which I know nothing other than it had cheese on it.

Not a tech tee, but the baddest t-shirt I've seen from a race.

That $30 registration got me two beers, a meal that I never ate, access to swim in a quarry with a giant water slide (which I also didn't do), live music from a mediocre local cover band, and a sweet t-shirt.  I will definitely run the Ohio/Michigan 8K again next year.  I just hope that the race director makes the route a little more interesting.  Of more importance is offering more than one beer line and expediting service at those concessions for food.  I'm not complaining though--I got that all out of my system during the race.

Glass City Marathon 2012--Part 2

April 22nd: The morning I had anticipated for nearly four months.  Since the end of December, I had given up a lot of things that I think only Joe could really have noticed.  I cut out tons of alcohol; I rarely had even a drink on a Friday night, on Saturday nights, if I drank at all, it was a short glass of Jack Daniels and some Diet Coke, and I could only think about the joy of enjoying wine with dinner during the week.  I was no fun on week nights, usually getting a bit grumpy if I wasn't asleep by 10:30.  The most difficult sacrifice for me was the time I gave up spending with Joe to instead go for an evening run a few days each week.  It was all worth it, though, especially since Joe was training pretty much simultaneously.

I wanted to get on the road to UT no later than 5:30AM, which, on a normal day, would have as at UT no later than 6:00.  Race start wasn't until 7:00, but the two most direct routes to UT had both been backed up the past  few days due to construction.  I learned at the Fall Classic in November how important it is to arrive early and to take advantage of a lot of that waiting-around time to pee and then get back into line to wait to pee again.  When we were still not out the door at 5:35, my stress intensified.  I didn't want to let that put me into a funk and, as Joe usually needs to remind me in stressful situations, things typically work themselves out just fine, so I told myself to simmer down.  The only traffic we encountered was waiting to park at UT.  Phew.

Joe went off to find himself a bathroom without a line and I waited for Tammy, Alex, and Alyssa.  Once I found them I had spent way too much time not worried about anything, so I started running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to find Joe.  After a solid five minutes of me panicking, I located Joe and all together we found a bathroom with no line.  It really wasn't a challenge--directly up the elevator were a whole bunch of bathrooms, but I guess they had cooties or something because everyone else preferred to wait in lines downstairs.  I still haven't experienced a cootie-outbreak from said bathroom.

From the toilets, it was off to the start line.  It was a cold 39ish degrees, so over my tech tee I wore arm warmers and my super-sweet Toledo Road Runners 25K hoodless sweatshirt.  We worked our way in near the 8:30 pace group.  What a small world it is--at least one of us knew pretty much everyone standing directly around us.  By this point, I don't remember feeling any stress; instead, I felt the same giddiness and excitement that I had until Saturday.  The shotgun sounded, our walk toward the starting line gradually sped up to a jog, the road widened, and we were off.  I immediately separated myself from Joe, Tammy, Alex, and Alyssa--they were running the half and I was on my own for the full, so I didn't want to wear myself out by hanging with them early in the race.  I was feeling great, smiling as we snaked through and out of campus and into Old Orchard.

The spectators in Old Orchard were great and it surprised me to see how many people from the neighborhood were out to support us runners.  Some were playing music, others held signs, and a few rang cow bells.  The first water stop was on Kenwood, which is where I got rid of my super-sweet Toledo Road Runners 25K hoodless sweatshirt.  I was kind of sad to say goodbye to that ugly thing, but I was already warming up a bit.  The race route then took us through Ottawa Hills, which I feel also had awesome crowd support.  I never realized before how hilly Ottawa Hills is--definitely not any challenging inclines, but enough to call it rolling and offer fun terrain for running.

Bad camera angle; not a heel-strike.

I think it was at the next water stop where I shed my arm warmers.  Eventually we were in Wildwood Park, which is where I tried to down my first PowerBar Gel.  Like a dimwit, I had waited until Friday night to try to find my Kona Punch Gels.  Second Sole didn't have them, so I tried Dave's at the expo on Saturday, but they didn't have them either, so I had to settle for Vanilla that the nice young man from Second Sole brought to the expo and hid just for me.  Back to the race, I was able to get down about half to maybe three-quarters of the Vanilla Gel at that water stop.  I did the same thing later in the race--I think around mile 13 or so.  I really don't know if Gels, Sport Beans, Shot Blocks, or Gus help me at all, but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.  I do know that I felt stronger during the race than I did during my 18-mile long run, during which I think I had about half of a Kona Punch Gel.  I don't really think I can fairly compare the race to my 20-miler, since that consisted of a 7-mile warm-up sans Gel, an hour and a half break, then the Churchill's Half Marathon with, again, about half of one Gel.  I'll need to keep on experimenting.

Power walking?

Miles one through fourteen flew by, mostly because I was enjoying myself so much and so happy to finally be running a marathon.  We split from the halfers around mile 10 and it was heading into mile 14 that I was feeling a little bored for the first time.  Of note, through that point I had maintained a solid 8:30 pace--15 seconds faster than what I should have been doing.  No worries.  We were in some lame Sylvania neighborhood in which virtually NO ONE was out to watch the race.  Everywhere traffic was stopped for us, motorists were doing their best at looking impatient.  Some laid on their horns, not in a supportive or fun way, but instead in a, "Fuck you, runners!" way.  In one of the Sylvania neighborhoods, a resident actually pulled out of his driveway in between runners and then honked at some of us to get out of the way.  I shouldn't have been surprised, since it was Sylvania, but it got me a little bit fired up.

Despite my not-so-positive feelings toward Sylvania, I loved running through Olander Park.  There was a water stop and relay exchange right before the lake at mile 16 and the crowd there was phenomenal.  They made me feel like a rock star, some even yelling my name.  The crazy love and enthusiasm for us runners there made me smile the biggest, cheesiest smile.  Also of note: there was almost an incident with a family of geese and a runner on the path around the lake.  Fortunately, no humans were bit and said geese were cooperative.

Right before Alyssa found me--still smiling!

Everything was awesome until mile 18, which is where I noticed that my feet hurt and my pace had slowed to closer to 8:40.  I had never experienced foot pain in a training run, or at least I had never noticed it.  I got over it quickly, though.  Some friends had told me that somewhere between mile 18 and mile 22 I'd either start talking to God or need to go to my "happy place."  Mentally, things were great through mile 22.  However, the bike path heading back toward campus was a little bit of a head game.  It was at the second-to-last water stop that I, for the first time, partially walked through.  I felt that at that point I really needed to make sure I was getting enough water, which I couldn't have done had I run through like at all of the previous stops.  Getting my legs running again was a bit of a challenge, as they felt kinda stiff and beat up at that point.  One of my last few miles was 10:03.  Around that same time, I found myself with the 3:50 pacer.  I asked him if he was good for offering some kind of motivation, to which he responded, "Not now.  I'm just trying to finish."  Should it have been discouraging that a pacer was struggling?  Meh, didn't bother me.  I smiled, chuckled, and carried on.

Intense.  I passed them all.

I crossed mile 25 and shortly thereafter was greeted with clapping and a hearty, "There's my favorite runner!"  It was Alyssa, waiting to run me into the finish.  I like Alyssa a lot, but I had never been happier to see her.  I am never going to forget what a relief it was to have someone there for me to talk and get my mind off of the fact that I had already run further than most people drive their cars in a day.  We walked through the last water stop, where I had to decline a Bud Light, and then began the descent toward the Glass Bowl.  Tammy and Susan were waiting just before mile 26 to join us.  They probably don't believe it, given the sense of humor I had, but I was in a zone.  Had I not been in that zone, having the three of them there with me probably would have brought me to cornball tears.



All the way to the entrance to the Glass Bowl, Alyssa was my personal hype-man, getting the spectators to give it up for me finishing my first marathon.  As we approached the stadium, Alyssa told me that when I hit that turf, I had to give it all I had left, run as fast as possible, and pass everyone I could.  She shoved me toward the turf.  When I crossed the finish, I was doing 5:55.  I got my bad-ass finishers medal, a Mylar blanket, and a hug and kiss from Joe.

Looking strong, I must say!

I ran my first marathon in 3:53:20.

Closer to 26.2

I hit a milestone today, running my longest distance ever: EIGHTEEN MILES!  And as I type, Joe is out doing 8 miles, which is going to get him to a milestone as well--his first 30+ mile week!  Pretty awesome for someone who works easily 50-60 hours per week, has MBA classes until 9:00PM on Mondays and Wednesdays, AND wakes up at 5:00AM every day to get in an intense 1-hour P90X workout.  The half marathon is going to be a piece of cake for him.

Here's the week in training:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 7.54 miles @ 8:42 minutes/mile
Wednesday: 2.89 @ 7:26
Thursday: 5.13* @ 7:58
Friday: 4.83 @ 8:50
Saturday: 7.95 @ 8:59
Sunday: 18.07 @ 9:03
Total: 46.41 miles

It was a wild weather week.  Wednesday was almost 60 degrees and sunny.  I had planned on doing 5-6 miles after school, but changed my mind to run a 2.9-mile, 6:29PM Leap Day race at Levis.  There was a good turnout, I bet largely due to the weather.  I wore shorts and a t-shirt.  I REALLY LIKE winter, but it was pretty sweet for it to feel like a late April day on the last day of February.  Results still aren't online (BOO, TOLEDO ROADRUNNERS!  BOO!), but my Garmin said I finished in 21:30.  Not my fastest three miler, but I was happy with it.

Thursday's run at Levis was actually 5.5, according to Rob, but I didn't get outside and give my Garmin enough time to find satellites, so for nearly a half-mile of running I was waiting on that.  Pace wasn't too bad, but I regret not sticking it out for 6 miles.

And today?  Today I ran 18 miles.  I know, I know, it's not a huge deal...to you.  But I feel AWESOME about it.  This is huge for me.  Last week, I was supposed to do 17 miles and only did 15.22 due to poor (no) route planning.  Yesterday I mapped out an 18+ mile run, but changed up things this morning and still managed to do just over 18.  I think it's because I didn't do it last week, part of me thought, "Krista, you're going to come short of 18."  But that didn't happen.  I did run 18 miles this morning.  I definitely didn't kill it on pace, but my splits were all pretty close to even.

I need to think more about fueling.  I only bought one gel to try, totally not thinking about the fact that I'd need to fuel more than once during such a long run.  I had a chocolate chip cookie and a small glass of water just before heading out the door.  I got to Tammy's at about 2.5 miles and had another small glass of water.  At about 6.5 miles, I had a Power Bar Kona Punch gel and some water.  At 11.5, I had another small glass of water and then nothing more until the end of the run.  For my next long run, my plan is a Power Bar gel every five miles.  I'm going to stick with Power Bar because it's really thin, unlike Gu.  Any flavor suggestions or warnings?  How often do you fuel on a long run?

Toledo Roadrunners 25K

I had some good runs last week, despite the psychological setback of missing my planned 15-mile long run the week prior due to sub-zero wind chills.  According to Hal Higdon, I should have had a long run of 13 miles this past week.  On Friday I was feeling good and needed to tie myself down to doing that, so I decided to try my feets at a 25K at Oak Openings (details shortly).  I'm glad that I held myself to doing that!  Here are the numbers from last week:

Monday: 5.26 miles @ 8:31 pace
Tuesday: 4.48 @ 9:06
Wednesday: 7.20 @ 8:25
Thursday: 3.03 @ 7:26
Friday: 4.93 @ 8:45
Saturday: 8.02 @ 8:45
Sunday: 15.59 @ 8.28
Total mileage: 48.51

That was HUGE as far as mileage for me.  I'm sure that experienced runners will tell me I just did a big no-no, considering that I've been maintaining right around 35-mile weeks.  I won't be doing 25Ks every week, though.  Likewise, I (hopefully) am not going to do anymore weeks without a rest day.  I'm taking off tomorrow for sure.

No hood!  Totally 80s!

Let's go back to yesterday morning.  Toledo Roadrunners had a 25K at Oak Openings at 9:00AM for members only.  I had been thinking about joining, since membership includes discounted and sometimes free race entry, so the race was a good reason to finally do that.  I had planned to leave the house no later than 7:30, giving me a half-hour to 40 minutes to get to the ATM and make the 30ish minute drive to the park, wait in line to sign up for the Roadrunners and then wait again to pay my $5 to race.  Right before I left, Joe pointed out that my zipper on my coat was jacked up.  He helped me win the battle with the zipper, which went on for a few minutes, then I was out the door.  Found the park, registered for everything, got my super cool non-hooded sweatshirt, hit the port-a-potty (which had already been destroyed, leaving no other option other than trees because the restrooms are under construction right now), and then waited with around 45 minutes to spare.  I thought about joining the other more experienced runners in doing a warm-up mile, but knowing that I had never run further than 13.1 miles before, I wanted to save all of my energy for the 15.5.  I walked a loop around the parking lot, which ate up maybe 5 minutes, and then lingered around my car, periodically sitting down to play with my phone and pass the time.

The race directors didn't get us herded to the start until 9:00, which is when we were supposed to have begun racing.  A dude from Thursday night runs at Levis recognized me and offered to run with me for the start of the race.  I was all for it because I thought that would help me to not go out too hard or too slow.  One of the organizers gave a little spiel and then around 9:10, we were finally moving.  It was a small crowd of maybe 100, so it wasn't a big C-F at the start of the race.

There I go, all the way to the far right!  Thanks to Monica Urbanski of the TRRC for the photo.

I told running dude that I wanted to maintain an 8:30 pace, but he had other plans.  For the first five miles, we maintained an 8-minute per mile pace, which I knew I would later regret.  Running dude had plans to meet up with another dude to do 7-minute per mile pace, so at 5 miles, I told him to do his thing.  So there I was, all on my own, sandwiched between a big group of really fast people and some not-so-really fast people.

I slowed my pace gradually to 8:28.  Miles 9 through 10.5ish were a big head game for me.  The course was sort of a figure-8, and that stretch of the 8 was one long, straight, boring road.  I've pulled off 10+ mile runs on the weekend easy-peasy, but racing and being on that straight-away was driving me nuts.  Plus, I got passed by an old dude and a woman probably my age or a bit older.  At one point in that lame-o stretch, my pace went from 8:30 to 9:15!  I wanted to run faster, but I didn't want to wear myself out anymore before I really needed it.  Then I thought about walking a bit, but I thought I'd look like a schmuck, so I just pushed until I got my pace down to 8:45 and ended up not walking at all.  Once I hit the 11-mile mark, I watched my Garmin a lot.  I kept on doing the math in my head--"4.5 miles left; 4 miles left; 3.5 miles left; 5K left; a warm-up run left.  For the record, at 13.1 miles I was at 1 hour and 50 minutes--more than 3 minutes faster than my finishing time at the Fall Classic in November!

In the last 5 miles of the race, there were a few more "maybe I should walk" moments.  What kept me from doing that, though, was thinking about how proud I'd be of myself after crossing the finish, knowing that I RAN more than 15.5 miles.  Not gonna lie--I also thought about wanting to make my friends and family proud of me, knowing that I didn't wuss out at all.  So a big thanks goes to all of the people who have knowingly or unknowingly motivated me to run: mom, Joe, Tammy, Susan, Alyssa, Rob, Becky, Ryan, and Jessica.

Just before 15 miles, I could see the end of the race up the road.  I got pumped up at that point, even after two more people passed me with another old dude stomping loudly behind me.  I started to cheese it up because I suddenly felt no pain or tiredness.  I am pretty sure that I could have gone on for another 5 miles at that point, but Joe was standing right there at the finish, waiting for me with a Gatorade and a slice of pizza (my husband is the shit, in case you didn't know it).

According to my Garmin, I did 15.59 miles in 2 hours and 11 minutes.  Results aren't yet posted, so I'll see how different my time is from what they get.  There was no chip timing of any sort, since it was such a small affair.  However it turns out, I'm happy that I did it and feel good the next day.  As it turns out, my Garmin wasn't too far off!  According to the official results, I finished in 2:11:59.  Out of about 90 runners, seems like only 30 were women!  I finished 51st overall out of 91 runners and 10th out of 28 women!  The fastest woman finished in 1:54:14.

I didn't do anything special to care for my body when I got home, other than showering, popping 5 ibuprofens, and taking a 1-hour nap.  Moving up and down the stairs was awful throughout the day, but this morning I managed to go out and do 5 miles with Tammy and Joe.  I slowed them down a lot and Joe said I was moving like Frankenstein, but I felt a lot better afterwards insofar as being loosened up.  Tomorrow, though, is a rest day.  For sure.

For your enjoyment: