“There’s no secret to it. It’s just a lot of years and a lot of getting up, putting on the shoes and getting out the door on those days when it doesn’t feel good and when it’s not all that fun and still putting in the work.”
I read this Jenny Barringer Simpson quotation from Running Times early this morning before going to the pool. You might remember Barringer Simpson from that awesome photo of her winning the 1500m. It’s kind of what I needed to help getting me going today.
Several weeks ago, I expressed some interest in possibly running the Around the Bay 30K race in Hamilton, Ontario, in late March. It was between the New Bedford Half Marathon and Around the Bay, which are on subsequent weekends. The decision depended on the dates of our trip to Barcelona. We booked our tickets to Spain over the weekend, and I moved on to picking a race.
I talked it over with Lisa and Scully (friend and future Team Type 1 women’s cycling team rider) and Céline (friend and possible future multisport athlete). The decision: I’m going to run Around the Bay.
It will be my longest race ever. I’m sure I can do the distance, but I’m still working through how I want to approach it. I love running, and I love racing, but they’re often at odds. When I race, I expect to go as hard as I can, but I’m not a masochist. I expect that running a 30K (18.6 miles) is much more like running a marathon—which I’ve never expressed any interest in doing—than running 5K or 10K races, which I like because they’re short enough that I can go all out the whole time.
The ironic thing is that, despite not planning to run a marathon anytime in the foreseeable future, I’ve started a marathon training plan. (I know you’re saying it’s just a matter of time. La la la . . . I can’t hear you.) It looks doable, peaking at 20-mile long runs instead of the 14-milers of the half-marathon plan I was using. It only has three days of running each week, which leaves me plenty of time for my other tri training, but I wonder if that’s enough volume to help me get faster at the longer distances.
I showed my plan to 2:22 Marathon Man, my awesome coworker. (He’s a fantastic guy. We’ve worked on some great features together that I can’t tell you about yet. We also had a lot of fun in San Diego and the Imperial County backcountry some years ago before a medical imaging conference. He’s also a wicked fast runner and very generous with training advice.) His assessment was that it was pretty good, but that if I want to run a consistently fast pace for longer periods of time, I need to run longer tempo runs, possibly as part of my weekly long runs. This will also, he noted, give me a chance to work on practicing my race-day nutrition plan and diabetes management. That was already on my list of off-season goals, and this will (I hope) expand my chances of success.
Tonight I put on my bright yellow shirt, strapped on my headlamp, and went for the first tempo run using my new training plan this evening. In the dark. In the sleet. On the completely uncrowded rail trail. It was great!
I’m having a pretty good weekend so far.
And different in so many ways from last weekend! I did not go into the office to work. It is not snowing. Etc.
We had lunch with a friend and her daughter today. I can’t believe how long it had been since we saw Gillian. Years. Long enough that I felt obliged to make the visit an item on my 101 in 1001 list. It certainly was wonderful seeing her; we should do it again . . . sooner.
This evening, Lisa and I went to hear the opening concert of the Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra’s 2011-2012 season with a friend from Lisa’s choral group. They’re a local symphony, and I’ll admit that I was expecting a fair amount of pitchy notes, missed cues, and amateurism. Over the years, many people have said that they’re very good; then again, many people say that Applebees is really good. (You can feel free to call me a snob if you want to.) I was so pleased to be wrong. They’re quite accomplished! Life in the suburbs isn’t quite so unrefined as you might think.
Tomorrow I’m going for a long run . . . on snow-free roads. Yay! While I’m out, I’ll be thinking about Caroline, my twin-in-awesomeness who is running the NYC Marathon tomorrow morning.
Here’s a quick update about yesterday’s race: I’m a bit sore.
Was it the lack of arch support in my spikes? The dehydration? Maybe the exertion of running three miles before digging deep to find a kick that helped me pass five or six people in the last tenth of a mile? (I forgot to put that into my “Snap out of it! You should feel good about your race” calculus last night.) Who knows for sure? Not me. Whatever the cause, it’s here—slight, but here.
When I got out of bed today, my first thought was (as always) “OMG, it’s early!” The second was that I’m glad today is a swimming day instead of a running day. There was the aforementioned (mild) soreness, and also I knew I wasn’t going to run after work, since we have a customer visiting from 6:15 to 8:15.
When I realized on Friday that I was going to work later, I decided that I would also go to work later. This presented me with an opportunity: swim extra long. Most Monday, Wednesday, and/or Friday mornings, I swim for about thirty to forty minutes, starting at 5:45. Despite my early departure, the pool is open until 7:15. The longest that I had ever swam before was back when Lisa and I would swim for an hour on Saturday afternoons, but that was a while ago. I decided to see how far I could swim in an hour and a half.
Actually, my goal was to see if I could swim two miles. I had swam about 1.25 miles before, but most of my swims are about a mile. One day at the reservoir, somebody sprang the idea of swimming an extra mile, doubling our normal route. I really wanted to take them up on the offer, but I wasn’t ready. Physically I knew I could probably do it, but I was worried about the diabetes part. I didn’t have extra snacks with me—though I usually carry a gel or two in the ankle of my wetsuit—and I didn’t know what my blood sugar was going to do on a swim that long. I declined; September came around; it got colder, darker, and rainier; and I thought my chances were gone until next summer. Then today came along!
I was also going to use this swim to see what happens to my blood sugar on long swims. I brought a small chamois towel to dry my hands and my “exercise” meter with me onto the pool deck, along with a bottle of water. (Swimming is thirsty business.) A half hour earlier I had turned my pump down to 0% and eaten an obscenely large banana. At the time, my BG was 121. (Yay!) Half an hour in, Lisa had to leave to go to work. I took a break, gave her a goodbye smooch, drank some water, and tested: 161. (Yay!) Another half hour later, at around 1.25 miles, I tested again: 115. (A bit of a drop, but . . . Yay!) Finally, at 7:15 I stopped, looked around, saw that I was the last person in the pool, and tested: 120. (Woo-fucking-hoo!) When you take out the time when I was testing, I swam 2 miles in 1:21. And I did it all while rocking the happy BGs.
What a difference a day makes!
I’m still not a very graceful or efficient swimmer. I’ve swallowed my pride and started doing a few drills from the Total Immersion system, and I can start to feel a few changes coming on. In particular, I’m trying to be more of a “front quadrant” swimmer. Instead of being a whirligig-like wind-up swimmer with windmilling arms, I should try to keep one hand out in front of me longer. Lengthening out my body should help keep me streamlined and tilted correctly in the water, and I can already feel it starting to change where my power is coming from, as it moves from just my shoulders to include my core. It’s slow going, making these changes. I’m glad I have the rest of the winter to work on my form.
p.s. — My Internet-friend—hopefully one day my have-met-in-real-life-friend—Céline has been swimming a lot lately. It’s fun to watch someone have many of the same experiences that I’ve had.
Lisa is my sports psychologist. While she’s not a licensed mental health practitioner, she’s a good listener, asks probing questions, knows me pretty well, and has a basic philosophy I can get down with: “Snap out of it!”
So I kinda knew where the conversation was headed just after I started it while we were making dinner this evening.
“I need to talk to you about how I can feel better about my time today.” I ran a 22:57 at the Mayor’s Cup 5K race in Franklin Park, Boston.
“Well, it’s only about a minute off your best, right?” It’s true. I set my (most recent ten years) PR of 21:48 in Holliston over Memorial Day.
“And you weren’t that far behind your most recent race.” It’s true, in September I did 22:26. Of course, it’s on local roads that I’ve covered (easily) a hundred times, where I know each crack in the sidewalk, not to mention every uphill and downhill. But . . .
“But I know you feel like your times are going the wrong way.” It’s true. That’s part of it for sure.
“Today was a cross-country race, right?” Yeah. There was grass and mud and short, steep uphills and downhills to bomb and tight turns. It was glorious! At one point, a runner started to squeeze me toward a mud hole to keep her feet dry; a little (I mean tiny) shove from my arm kept everybody where they needed to be. I had forgotten how much I love the click-click-click sound of running spikes as they cross a road or cart path. But all that grass, mud, uphill/downhill, and turning certainly counts for a little time.
“It’s the diabetes, huh?” Yes. I couldn’t seem to bring my blood glucose down below 200 mg/dL (11 mmol) overnight, and it totally messed up my race-day plan. The plan was to lower my basal when I left home, eat a banana when I started to warm up, and run with happy BGs during the race. Instead, I left the house in the low-200s, got to the event in the mid-200s, and started the race at 318 (17.6). I ended up eating and bolusing for something small just before the start, but I was hungry and also a bit dehydrated from all the peeing that I’m sure was related to the highs.
“It’s tough, but you’ll get it figured out soon.” That’s my goal for this off-season. I want to learn how to run while eating and shooting insulin, but (honestly) it scares the bejeezus out of me. But nothing ventured, nothing gained; I’m just going to have to suck it up, eat something like what I hope to eat before a race or triathlon, and then go for a run. If I can’t really race over the winter, I can pretend.
“You’re too hard on yourself.” It’s so true. We all are in our little house. Well, maybe not the cat. He thinks he’s perfect.
Here are some pictures from my race today. As always, there are captions that you can see by clicking on an image, which also makes the pictures bigger. So why not start by clicking on the first and going through ‘em?
This photograph of Jenny Barringer Simpson winning the women’s 1500m world championship in Daegu, South Korea, is my new, all-time favorite. I’m going to cut it out and put it next to the treadmill. Maybe it will help me get through another long winter in the basement.
Lisa suspects that my previous favorite was a photo of Paula Radcliffe (like this one maybe) or steeplechase—I do love the steeplechase. Although, it’s still tough to beat the picture in Sports Illustrated from the late 80s of the guy on crutches running the NYC marathon while a bunch of young sisters stare at his awesomeness. I couldn’t find it online. Sorry.
I was thinking about my athletic goals for 2012, which I will discuss in another post soon, when I—well, let’s just show a bunch of “random” facts.
Like I said, totally random facts.
Wait a minute! Maybe I should run the Around the Bay Road Race at some point, whether that’s 2012 or 2013. Brilliant!
Let the negotiations (about New Bedford or Ontario, but not about Barcelona) begin.
You know, when you point Google Maps at where the gendarme put out his arm to hit me in the chest and stop me cold in my tracks while running on Tuesday, it looks pretty obvious that I should have known it was coming. But—in my defense—it didn’t look exactly like this a few days ago; I don’t remember any of those concrete barriers being there, and the fence was not across the sidewalk.
At any rate, there was no need for the officer to tutoyer me: “Où vas-tu?” I mean, asking me where I’m going like that is rather rude. We’re both adults here.
Crazy city running encounters with les flics notwithstanding, I had a great trip. Now I’m home and hoping to steer clear of the man. More photos and bons mots about the trip to follow this weekend.
Mom and I are at Charles de Gaulle airport, waiting for our flight back to Boston. It’s been a good trip, full of excitement and adventure and good food and things that you can’t get at home. In my mind that’s the ideal reason to travel.
We accidentally got in the wrong line at immigration—the one reserved for EU residents. Oops! Somehow we managed to get in the same queue as a group going to Montreal, and it wasn’t until we were all the way near the front that I realized that the travelers I was talking to were going there to visit and not to return home. So we had to cut in line when we got to the head of the queue. Ironically, it was right in front of the Chinese tour group that had cut in line in front of us at check-in. What goes around comes around, I guess.
We had a good time in Paris. Saw lots of highlights. Ate plenty of food. And, of course, wandered into some delightful situations that you so frequently find in Paris.
I went running a couple of times. Paris is not the easiest city to run in. Although if you stay close to the Seine it all works out. Today I went more inland on the right bank, and I got stopped by the gendarmerie twice as I ran past the Palais d’Élysées—once rather forcefully. I guess Szarko must have been at home.
But now I’m almost home. I’m so happy to see Lisa, the love of my life, again. It’s been the longest we’ve been apart in fourteen years.
We’ll see how much of my book I can read.
If triathlon and racing have done anything this summer, it has been to get me out of bed at an early hour. On many weekdays, I left the house at 5:30 to get to the lake by 5:45. And on too many weekend mornings, I was up before 7:00 to go for a long bike ride, compete in a triathlon, or run a race. The consensus around the reservoir on Labor Day, when we all met at our normal 6:00 time, was that we needed to get our heads examined. I’m not complaining; life is choices after all. I’m happy with mine, though I am a bit tired.
Yesterday morning I got up just a little early—7:30—to run a 5K . . . in my own town! I’ve never been able to walk to the start of a race before. It was great! I hadn’t been running much over the last 5-6 weeks, so I wasn’t expecting to be anywhere near my PR of 21:47. My goal was simply to find out what my paces should be as I develop a new training plan. In the end, I finished 18th of 118 in 22:26, which made me quite happy. (If I’d run my old PR yesterday, I would have finished—get this!— 17th. Of course, I would have also won a prize for being third in my age group.)
I'm #108, the guy in the blue singlet.
Today, I got up a bit earlier to drive one town over and watch my coworker compete in her first triathlon: the women’s only Title 9 Tri. It was a beautiful morning, and she did really, really well. (Second in her age group and well within the top 25%.) Way to go, Loren!
Here are some photos I took this morning.
Today I competed in the Sharon Triathlon and am very happy with my top 1/3 result. It’s hard for me to believe that just over three months ago I did my first triathlon, when I compare how that first one went and this one. While that other one wasn’t awful, it was much different than I had expected. This one, by contrast, was even more awesome than I had expected.
Here I am. Lisa got up very, very early with me to get there very, very early. She’s a peach.
Since the previous triathlon—where I swam a quarter-mile in 12:30—I’ve really worked at improving my open-water swimming skills. It occurred to me this morning while waiting for the start that I probably should have signed up as a normal “age grouper” instead of as a newbie. But I signed up back in the day when I wasn’t quite so comfortable, and what’s done is done. The swim was actually quite good: 17:00-or-so for a half-mile. Well, okay . . . it was difficult. Unlike my open-water swim practice, the water this morning was rather choppy. Was that because of the breeze over the lake or the dozens of other swimmers around me? At any rate, it was difficult because I still need better technique to go with the confidence and speed that I’ve been developing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed catching swimmers who started five, ten, and even fifteen minutes before me.
After my good-enough swim there was the first of the two parts I was actually dreading: transition. I actually contemplated calling this post “Lost in Transition,” but I didn’t want you to think (incorrectly) that I was displeased with my race before you even got to the first paragraph. My transition times—well, there’s nothing to do but be blunt—sucked. Somewhere between flopping about in the shallow water while taking off my wetsuit, actually getting lost on the way back to my bike, having trouble with my blood glucose meter, and trying to put on my shoes without getting sand in my socks, I frittered away about seven or eight minutes of time to everyone else’s three or four. Clearly, that’s something to work on.
The bike was really good. Like last time, I did all of the passing. (Well, technically I did get passed by two riders who were drafting off each other, but they turned left when the course turned right, so I say that doesn’t count.) The course was quite flat, and I was hoping to average around 20 mph. With the roads wet from the light drizzle that had been falling all morning, I was very happy with the fact that I almost made it.
And finally, the run. Unlike my first tri, I wasn’t coming off training for a half-marathon. In fact, I had kinda let my running slip a bit over the last couple months, and I was starting to notice it in the trouble I’d had hitting my times during my quality workouts. Plus, I had also been cramping a bit at the end of a couple swims, which I chalked up to the fact that the back of my body from my lower-back to my calves had been really tight the last week, almost to the point of pain a couple days. So I was a little nervous about pushing a hard run after an hour of swimming and biking, but it went well. I never really get the typical “brick” legs after switching from the bike to the run (*touch wood*) and today they felt good, too. My goal was to find a mildly uncomfortable pace and go with that; which I did. 7:53/mile isn’t much to write home about, but it was good enough today.
So there we have it. Swim=good. Bike=good. Run=good. Transitions=room for improvement. I’m digging this whole triathlon thing, and I want to do more of it. I have thoughts about where I want to go with it, but I’m keeping my cards close to my vest because I don’t know how much time I can actually devote and how I can balance it with everything else in my life. We’ll see.
Of course, there’s still that issue of diabetes. I had hoped that I could cobble together the things that were individually working for me in the morning. The swim that starts near 150 mg/dL and ends at 100. The bike ride that starts at 120 and ends in the same vicinity. And the run that starts at 150 and ends slightly higher. But enough was different that when I started around 150 before the swim, I ended it near 350. Ugh. And then I went up a bit more during the bike. As a result, my ability to take on extra carbs was severely limited, so I pretty much did the whole tri after only eating a pre-swim granola bar and a banana. Next time. Next time.
And there will be a next time, because I feel like I can keep getting better, and I’m having a lot of fun.
Hi, y’all! It’s been a few days since I wrote here. In the meantime, Lisa has returned home from Oregon, and we have spent some time together hiking Mt. Holyoke, hanging out in the new backyard hammock, watching the new Woody Allen film, running a bit, and eating ice cream. [1] It’s been quite enjoyable!
I had briefly contemplated writing about swimming each day for a month. I’ve been doing a lot of it recently—and have even posted a little about it here—but, as Lisa said, “That’s a lot of swimming.” The problem with committing to writing daily on a particular subject being that it’s hard to find time to write about anything else. “Life is choices,” and all that.
Thinking of choices, last week was the first one in quite a while where I didn’t race or partake in a long run. Instead, on Sunday morning I started building up my cycling mileage again. Last year I was a riding fool, but this year I had been much more focused on swimming and running, almost to the exclusion of the bike. Why did I ever cut back? I was so glad to be back at it; a few times as I watched the world slide by during my 50-mile outing, I found exclaiming aloud, “This is fantastic!” You would think I hadn’t been riding in years. (Not coincidentally, about 35 miles into the ride, my sit bones let me know that they were going to need a bit more saddle time before they would be truly happy.)
So now I’ve switched over from training for a better run time to getting my cycling legs back. I will need them for the Sharon sprint triathlon in mid-August and for my trip to Provence a month later. Hopefully there’s a way to keep my running ability near where it is now without putting in the same amount of miles. I’m thinking that if I keep with my tempo and interval workouts and go for an easy run a couple times per week that could work. Who knows? Perhaps I should look at a triathlon training plan. [2]
The book I was reading in the hammock between bouts of cloud-watching was Sheri Colberg’s Diabetic Athlete’s Handbook. It’s been on my reading list far too long—so many books languish there—despite some pretty clear evidence that I need to learn from it. I’m pretty close to finishing it and will be sure to share some of its wisdom here soon.
The book is a nice complement to some observations that I’ve been making since last Sunday, the day of the BAA 10K. I don’t really like blood sugar journaling because it takes up so damn much time, but I really want to make this part of my diabetes experience better. My hope is that if I can limit the data and observations to one specific area (i.e., exercise) it should be an easier habit to keep. I’m a little intimidated by the prospect of sorting through the raw log data in order to determine what to do differently next time; surely it’s going to involve some guessing, but at least I’ll have something to compare against.
And that finally gets me around to something I’ve been ruminating on a lot recently: how to be a badass diabetic mofo, or BA-D-Mofo.
For the longest time I’ve only been making haphazard changes to my diabetes management for exercise. Now is the time, though, to treat diabetes like swimming. I have to jump into the deep end. Or rather, I have to jump into the open water where I can’t see the bottom and where I’m far away from land and where all that I have around me is the water and my insecurities and the hopeful knowledge that I can do this because I’ve done this before. I have to gather up my courage and take a risk, make the observations about insulin and food and exercise, bolus for things I eat before exercise, and eventually (hopefully) arrive at a place that’s more manageable (if not always comfortable).
To quote Mark Twain, who would totally have been a BA-D-Mofo: “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”
[1] — I know, I know! I used an Oxford comma there, even though Oxford says it’s no longer good style. I just can’t seem to break the habit. We become old-fashioned slowly and without really meaning to, by snickity. [back . . .]
[2] — I guess I am a triathlete after all. [back . . .]
I’m trying hard to keep some perspective on my 49:27 result in today’s inaugural BAA 10K in Boston.
It’s not the best 10K I’ve ever run, but it’s also not the worst. (That would have been the one where I finished last, well over a half-hour slower than today. I didn’t even have diabetes at the time.) I finished just out of the top quarter, so there were plenty of people who would have been happy with my time.
I ran into a bunch of people I know from work — Alex, Alexander and Portia, not to mention Annapoorna and Kaushik. I had a nice time warming up with Alexander, who finished about a minute behind me, and chatting with him and Alex afterward. (Alex finished about 20 minutes ahead of me, but we knew that he would be way up near the front.)
I saw the winners of the race a bit before my turnaround on the out-and-back course. (I couldn’t tell if women’s runner-up Kim Smith heard me when I cheered her with a “Go Kimmy!”) And there were loads of good-looking women up in the first-wave starting corral and around me during the race. It was when I couldn’t keep up with one of them — the one with the really steady 7:00 pace — that I knew something was amiss.
My first half of the 5K was really, really good. I knew I’d had trouble pacing myself in the past, so I decided to go out a clip that didn’t feel too fast. First mile: 6:53. Second mile: 7:08. These miles felt really comfortable . . . not easy, but I was certain that I could do the rest in that neighborhood.
In short, I was having a good great race, the kind that I had been envisioning when I visualized my performance and that I expected after looking over the previous couple weeks in my training log. This was my first “A” race since the triathlon seven week ago, and I had been feeling good about where I was with my conditioning and taper.
After slowing down at the tail end of the first 5K (which I did in 22:00 — just off my short-rest PR time last month) I had to walk a bit. I choked down a few chalky glucose tablets, though I wasn’t sure I was low. It took a lot of effort to push through the last few miles; the last one was a particular challenge. When I finished more than twenty-seven minutes later, shuffling along at more than 25% off my desired pace, I had the bright spot in my vision that I see when I’m low.
As I walked through the post-race corral, I had visions of myself needing a little help getting to my BG meter in my baggage, but I managed on my own alright, despite having “baby giraffe legs.” My finishing BG was 68 mg/dL (3.7 mmol/l). I suspect that’s the low-rent BG neighborhood where I was most of the last three miles.
So there’s the bad: diabetes got me (again) during one of the races that I’ve trained hardest for. But here comes the second slice of bread in the happy sandwich.
This is my first race at a distance that I’ve done before within the last ten years. The day would eventually come when I would have a disappointing performance in a race where I had a benchmark. Today was that day. This had to happen.
There will be more 10K races. There’s one every weekend it seems.* And I’m in the best shape of my life right now. I like how I’m progressing, how I feel and look, and what I’m capable of doing. I suspect that I have more potential left to develop, and I’m excited about giving it another go.
And, as always, this is another diabetes learning experience. I’m still just a novice badass diabetes mofo. (BA-D-Mofo?) Next time I’ll remember to lower my temporary basal rate 30-45 minutes before the start. (I made that mistake at New Bedford, too. On race mornings, I should write myself a note in Sharpie next to my watch that says, “Lower your basal!”) I’ll figure out how to eat something before an event so that I have something in my stomach and legs without messing up the insulin and/or BG. I’ll have more things worked out, and I’ll get that sub-43:00 I know I can do.
* — The only good thing about running those last few miles so slow is that my legs still feel relatively fresh. I could probably run another 10K next weekend, but I’m no crazy Mzungu. After all, I need to put some serious miles in on my bike so that I can ride all over Provence in a few months . . . and maybe do something else exciting, too. :^)
I like local races. They’re small, collegial, laid-back. Just like the bigger races, they draw all sorts of people, but it’s so much easier to see, meet, and eavesdrop on 150 of them compared to when 1,000 people — much less 10,000 — show up.
Take last Sunday’s 5K race in Holliston, just one town over from where I live. (Yes, Sunday. The day after I ran a 5-mile trail race. I know.) There’s the 22-year-old local cross-country hero who you just know is going to win the whole thing. (And he did, in 17:21.) On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the gray-bearded guy telling anyone who will listen that he’s racing in the same racing flats that he’s been wearing since 1975. In the nebulous middle, there’s the guy with the 80s mustache and the too-short running singlet. When I toed the line, I was right next to some high school girls who were trying to decide whether they were going to run six or ten minute pace. After the race, the winning woman (age 19 — 21:06) and the second place finisher (48, mom of several — 21:07) cooled down together. Throw into that mix dads with running strollers and couples out for a fast run/walk. And me. And lots of other people like me: people who like running but aren’t eccentric or fast enough to really be worthy of much notice.
This was the company that I found myself in on Sunday morning at 9:00 when I set out to run my second race in two days. I could definitely tell that I had run a race the day before, but I felt good. (For the record, this was my first time running road races on back-to-back days.) I wasn’t sure what kind of time I was going to get. I had a difficult training week with some trouble hitting my tempo run splits, and I was slower than expected on an easy run earlier in the week. Plus, I’d just done another race.
I had no expectations, though I had my hopes. After all, here were my goals for 2011 that I set down in January:
I was positive that I could go under 24:00, and I felt confident about breaking 23:00. My big question on Sunday morning as I was pinning my number to my bright orange running shirt was whether I could beat 22:00.
The first mile felt good, but I knew the 6:23 was too fast. I always go out too fast. My first mile split during a tempo run: too fast. My first interval during speedwork: too fast. My warm-up mile during a long run: too fast. So I forced myself to slow down slightly, which was difficult, as a couple people passed me right afterward. It was the right decision, though; by the end of the second mile (in 7:00) I was thinking hard about the perseverance lessons from Saturday that I was still trying to incorporate into my running psyche. “Just keep going! Only 8 minutes — tops! — until I’m done. Last big uphill right here. Just a couple more minutes. Let’s go try to catch that guy up there. Etc.”
Coming around the corner into the finishing strait, I saw a time in the low 21s on the clock, and I knew I had to give everything I could to break 22:00. Although I didn’t catch the 12-year-old kid who beat me by five seconds, I did manage 21:48. Woo hoo!
No race yesterday. (I’m not a complete masochist.) And I’m going to do my best to make this an actual recovery week by running short distances, trying to run my recommended training paces instead of my typical too-fast pace, getting plenty of sleep, and not overdoing it on the bike. Slow running is hard for me, so we’ll see, but I’m positive it’s what I need to do if I want to have a good race at the end of the month, when I run the BAA 10K in Boston.
“What did I just do?”
The guy from the Hudson River Valley who was parked next to me and who had also just finished running the Wachusett Mountain Road and Trail Race looked over and said, “Yeah, it’s a really great course. It has a little bit of everything.”
It’s true that it has a bit of everything in trail running. We started by running 1.25 miles up Mountain Road / Mile Hill Road; with names like that it’s probably not surprising that it averages a 6.5% grade and is a “Category 4″ road cycling climb (except that we were running). Then we turned right around and ran down the Donbrowo hiking trail, which was quite technical, having lots of rocks and tree roots. Later on we ran up and down some fire roads. But at least I was running on all of those parts. The middle of the course, was mostly me (and my cohort) walking up the 10-12% Old Indian and Semuhenna Trails. I thought walking would let me catch my breath and then restart running up the mountain, but I was wrong; that mile-long stretch was just too steep. So I walked; everyone did, except maybe the people who won.
So what did I do today? This morning, I (mostly) ran 4.7 miles up and down Wachusett Mountain in 46:10. That’s a lot slower than my usual road race pace of around 7:15/mile, but it was my first mountain race.
What did I learn? Here are the easy, straightforward answers. I am not great at running steep climbs — that’s clearly something to work on — but I’m a demon running downhill. I’m not trying to be immodest, but I fly downhill on the trails. After a fellow runner and I passed someone going a little slower down the trail, I just threw myself into it. At the bottom of the hill, I heard, “Nice one!” And then, as I came bombing down the steep, rocky, root-laden trail into the finishing area, I heard someone shout, “D-A-M-N!” That was awesome! So, while I didn’t have a great uphill section, it’s nice to end strong.
The harder, tricky answer is that I have learned a lot about perseverance. As I was running up the opening hill, I was certain that this was the last thing I really wanted to be doing, that I would never want to do it again. The same thoughts occurred to me as I was fast marching up the trails in the middle of the course. (Also during the swim portion of the tri three weeks ago.) These aren’t exactly thoughts that I’m proud of, but as I’m getting physically stronger, I’m also trying to get mentally tougher, so that I can push through the difficult parts and finish all out. I have trouble holding on to people who pass me, but I’ve been finishing too “fresh” on most of my races. I need to figure out how to keep a stronger pace throughout or to start my final kick much earlier. I suspect most of that will just come from me building up more grit and having more experience to draw on.
I think I’m on my way. 2009, the year I got my bike, was all about losing weight and developing some conditioning. Last year, I focused on getting more physical strength. This year, I’ve been racing, and that’s been a source of tremendous growth. I’m learning by doing.
Oh, and the runners who specialize in running up mountains are a crazy group of people. I expect that they sit around saying things like, “Why do we run up mountains? Because that’s the kind of running we did in ‘Nam, kid.” Trail running is definitely the bomb-diggity, though.
I got a little muddy on the race. Yay!
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