Run anyway

Today, all the voices were working against me. All the excuses were wailing at me. It's too cold. [It's 59°.] My feet are sore, and my back hurts. [That's almost always true.] I should take a rest day. [Then just run two.] Skip it and run trails later tonight. [Later never comes.] All these voices, I'm proud to say, were shouted down.  I ran anyway. Maybe that ought to be my new motto for the second half of 2010 -- Run Anyway.

This weekend was tough and exhausted me.  I ran and played with my daughter at her school picnic Friday.  We ran/walked through a scavenger hunt, had lunch, and ran/walked on a hike to see a remote control plane demonstration.  I don't think I logged many total miles, but it was a busy day.  Then, on Saturday, I ran a tough trail run with a group of Louisville hashers.  The shiggy was thick, and at times, I ran at a crouch through the underbrush like an honest-to-god harrier.  This was after a day of shopping at our city-wide yard sale.  Finally, on Sunday, I wanted an easy day, but the daughter still managed to run me ragged with adventures, expeditions, and shopping. 

I bought a pair of Vibram Five Fingers Sprints.  I haven't run in them yet -- I'll let you know when I do -- but I have walked quite a bit in them to break them in.  They are very comfortable.  For now, I recommend them.

Race Report: Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon

ORN: 26.2 miles in 5:25'10" [bib #1744]. When the race started, the weather was nearly 70° and clear, and when I finished, it was over 80°. Considering the bulk of my training miles were in wintry weather, yes, you could say the weather played a factor in the world-class suck that was my first class marathon. Actually, that's not fair. I cannot just say that it sucked. It was more complicated than that.

Pre-race

After staying out a little too late at the pasta dinner and Balloon Glow, I slept hardly a wink Friday night. I was too excited. When my alarm went off at 4:30, I was ready to go. I quickly dressed and ate two pieces of toast and a Clif Bar. On the drive downtown, I drank 0.6 L of water. [I decided to drink this and be done with it until the race starts so I wouldn't be peeing all day long.] I parked in my office parking lot a few blocks from the finish line and grabbed the shuttle to the start.

On the bus, I got an idea of how freaking long it's going to take me to finish. Downtown receded behind me, and I began to feel the weight of task ahead. The guy sitting next to me, another first-time marathoner, tried to make chit-chat, but I was far away.

Once at the starting line, I did the dance of getting into the potty lines, sitting around trying to keep calm, and then getting back into the potty lines. I was fabulously hydrated heading into the race. Hydration was to be the least of my problems today.

Fidgety, I tried to stay off my feet and ignore how warm it was already. I tried to find my calm center, but it was elusive. For one thing I felt cold. I was shivery in my American Cancer Society singlet even though it was around 60°. The shivers came from nerves, I guess. After one last long stand in the bathroom line, we were off. It took 15 minutes for me to get to the starting line after the gun.

Notable events here: my last experience with a clean porta-potty, numerous Elvii, and several other people in costumes. Fun!

Miles 0-12

I'm not going to do the usual thing you see in a lot of race reports and divide everything up into nice, even sections. I'm going to describe the race as I experienced it. The first half was a breeze. I loved it. The crowds were huge and very supportive. There were a few bands and lots of booming speakers blasting music. Notable among these musical interludes were the jazz band in Old Louisville, around mile 10, and the Doors cover band near the split.

The best mile of the whole day was mile 9, the jog through Churchill Downs. Running underneath the twin spires while the thoroughbreds finish their morning workouts makes this is a great race in my book.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the great crowd support all through this section but in the interest of brevity I'll just say it was a large reason why this section of the race was a blur. It was just easy, fun, people-watching up to The Split.

Miles 12-18

At 4th and Breckenridge Streets, the race course splits. The half marathoners head toward the finish line, and the marathoners begin the second half of their day. [Aside: the "mini" is the BIG race. The crowd assumes everyone is running the mini and shouts things like "two more miles" at mile 11. And for the marathoners... well, you can imagine how annoying that gets.] After the split, the crowds for the marathon portion of the race evaporate. Apart from a few handfuls of people and the water table volunteers, this was a lonely section of the race. No bands, no cowbells, no banners. Just the road stretching on forever.

The abrupt lack of crowd support probably contributed to this section of the race being the turning point. With nothing to look at and nobody cheering and the heat starting to really bake us, the race began to really suck.

The highlight of this section is running through Cherokee Park. Whereas the race up to that point had been mainly flat once we were out of Iroquois Park, now the hills resumed. That sucked too, but at least it broke up the monotony. I noticed my feet started really hurting in the park. I mean, serious pain, especially in my left plantar fascia. And I had this strange series of spasmodic cramps along my inner thighs, but they didn't last long.

After leaving the park, I abandoned my plan of running two miles and then walking a minute. I also highly modified my hydration plan. Rather than metering my water carefully so I wasn't peeing every 20 feet, I just drank and drank and drank. The race was now a game of survival. I just had to do the best I could. I felt like I was dying. Figuratively, anyway.

Miles 18-21

This brief section was when despair started to set in. I don't know if I was hitting the wall at that point, but I felt I had nothing left in me. There was no question that I was still going to finish the race. But I gave up all pretense of doing it in any sort of elegant fashion. It was going to be slow, ugly, brutal, unpleasant, and almost impossibly hard. What marked the endpoint of this awful section was seeing my friends Helga & Chris and their kids.

Helga & Chris had already finished the half and were showered and fresh and walking their kids back to their car. I assumed they'd even been home already by this point. In any case, they all cheered and gave me high fives. That, by itself, lightened my load a bit. But then Helga ran with me for about a half mile until I turned to climb the Clark Memorial Bridge. As we ran together, first she called my Wife and told her I looked great. Then, she gave me all sorts of encouraging words that brought lifted my spirit to about 25% [from <1%]. style="font-weight: bold;">Miles 22-24

Helga's good vibes carried me about 300 feet, just beyond the base of the bridge. The long hill of the Clark Memorial was just starting when it became abundantly clear that I still had a long way to go. At this point, I was walking a quarter mile and then shuffling/jogging a quarter mile or so. I was going damned slow. My feet hurt bad. My traps were aflame from the mere effort of moving my arms back and forth for nearly five hours. Would this race never end?

Miles 24-26.2

Passing the 24 mile marker was no comfort. Every step was a painful struggle. I was talking to myself out loud at this point. "I gotta get over this bridge," I'd tell myself. Then it was, "I'm gonna get over this bridge." Then, "I'm going to run to Market Street." As I passed Market and looked west, I could see the finish line and the race party area. I saw the beer tent. Those bastards had better still have beer.

I was making deals with myself. OK, just run to Chestnut now. Stop and stretch. OK, now run to 4th. Have to walk. OK, finish strong and run down 7th to the finish. One last walk break. [These are mere blocks I'm talking about here, tenths of miles.] Finally, around 7th and Liberty [where I work] I picked up the pace and decided to run it on out.

I saw my wife between Jefferson and Market, right before the final turn, and that lifted my spirits tremendously. She handed me a key chain that had 26.2 on it. That was all I needed.

Smiling, hands in the air, my whole body in open revolt, I crossed the finish line. I began to weep.

Post-race

That's right, I began to weep right after I got my medal. I wept the whole way through the chute, which was, thankfully, about a block long. That gave me enough time to get the weeping out of my system and "man up" for pictures. I wept because I hurt. I wept because I was able to stop running. I wept because I achieved my goal. I wept because I was done.

Two things make me weep spontaneously now: Mr. Rogers and finishing marathons.

At the party tent, I turned in my medal to get engraved and found the beer tent. I threw down the best glass of Michelob Ultra [ick] ever and turned back to go find Wifey. I kept moving because my hamstrings wanted to cramp up. Finally, we ran into each other and kissed.

She made me a basket with all sorts of goodies in it. There were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Clif Bars, naproxin, a 26.2 car magnet, epsom salts, pain relieving sports creme, and beer. I tore into a sandwich. My recovery began.

Finished 872nd out of 1,076 overall, 595th out of 710 males, and 99th out of 114 males 35-39.

Tuesday: more post-race stuff and my marathon lessons learned.

Someday I'll do the Iroquois Hard 10

ORN: The course my group ran we call the Iroquois Hard 10 because you spiral five miles up the sides of Burnt Knob in Iroqouis Park, and then you spiral back down for five miles. And it's hard. It's not always steep, but it's always rising [or falling] for the whole five miles. And yes, this course forms the first part of the Derby Festival Marathon/Mini-Marathon. Heck of a way to start a marathon. But my daughter turned six yesterday, and I didn't want my running all morning to take anything away from her big day. I skipped my running group and slept in. I wanted to be there for lazing around in bed, eating breakfast, and all that good Saturday morning stuff. Totally worth it. It wasn't until around 15:00 that I broke away from the family and did my 16 miles in 2:46'15".

I did it long after my over-indulgent breakfast at Wild Eggs and after a slice of birthday pizza at Chuck E. Cheese's, so nutritionally speaking, I wasn't ready for this workout. It was a rough one. The first few miles were tough, but I was doing my usual 9'30"-9'45" pace, admittedly a bit fast for a long, slow distance. It wasn't until around mile three, right after the bathrooms at Seneca Park, I hit a good stride and ran in the flow for a few miles.

The weather was schizophrenic. It started out sunny, grew cloudy and threatening rain, then cleared, got cloudy again and rained briefly, cleared.

Then, around mile eight or so, I started to get hungry. Not just a little hungry, but ravenously hungry. So hungry I considered raiding a garbage can. So hungry I considered gobbling down dandelions. Fortunately, I had Gu gels, but really.... I was getting woozy and stumbly, but still I ran on. Heck, I was barely half way through.

Around mile nine, I was certain I had a blister. I thought for sure my toenail was turning black and would be rattling around my shoe before it was all over. [Spoiler alert: no blister at all.]

At about the tenth mile, I was done but still six miles from home. My motivation failed me, and I considered calling home for a rescue. But I thought I'd never hear the end of it, so I kept slogging up Barrett Hill. Around mile 13, I was back at the bathrooms at Seneca Park, choking down water and stretching my cramping hamstrings. At this point, I was running nearly 11 minute miles and hating every minute of it. I managed to get moving again, found my groove, and plodded like a sad, little robot all the way back home.

This was, without a doubt, one of the least fun runs I have done in a long time. And it was all my fault for not eating properly all day. I should have had a bowl of oatmeal or something before I set out. I think I would have been better off if I had something on my stomach. Or perhaps if I had packed along a banana. Instead, when I got home, I devoured everything -- two Clif Bars, some cheese, a hot dog, and later a huge Indian meal.

One day, I will learn.

The weather could have been better

ORN: This morning, I ran 10 miles in 1:42'24", which is my best 10-miler time this year. It was a great run, taking me from Seneca to Cherokee to Tyler Park. I ran with a guy from the running group until our routes diverged, but he was a few seconds per mile faster than I. We didn't really run together, I guess.

The weather was cool (low 40s) and overcast, until the last mile or two when it started drizzling.

The great parts about today's run were that I ran through new parts of Louisville. I haven't been in the Tyler Park area in years, and whereas I used to hang out on Bardstown Road all the time, I hardly ever go there now. But I ran through these areas this morning, and it was great. Also, I ran through the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood, which has all sorts of beautiful, old mansions. I ran past the statue of Daniel Boone and then up to Hogan's Fountain. It was just a wonderfully varied route.