White Rock Marathon 2009

Those of you that read about my wonderful experience – read extreme pain – in the New York marathon are aware that I was also signed up to run the Dallas White Rock marathon exactly 6 weeks later. This was a decision I obviously made prior to New York because not many sane people would do this to themselves.

Surprisingly I recovered well after New York. After a couple days of gingerly descending the stairs in our home, I was able to get a few swims and easy spins on the bike to flush out the lactic acid from my legs. I eased into running a week after the marathon with a couple easy runs. Two weeks later I was back at it with a 52 mile week that included a tough interval session and a twenty mile long run. It appears that the body might not have been ready for that load because two easy runs later I injured a muscle in the lower right calf area. After 4 days off, I learned that the calf was still in rough shape when I had to turn back and cut a planned 6 mile run down to a 3 miler. The calf was given an 8 day hiatus from running, but I was able to keep my fitness up with 6 sessions on the bike. During the taper week leading up to Dallas, I was optimistic that the calf would hold up after a pain free five miler and an easy 3 mile tune-up. Bring on the White Rock!

We headed down to Dallas Friday afternoon and were greeted by great friends at the airport. Friday night included just a bit of liquid carbo loading, some entertaining hibachi tricks, and some healthy laughter. Saturday was a great pre-race day with some good chow, relaxing, a little manual labor, hanging at the race expo, and some delicious pasta.

Sunday’s wakeup call came at 5:00 AM. When I headed down to the kitchen to fuel up, I was greeted by a half asleep Mike Lopez shoveling oatmeal into his mouth. Mike gave a caveman like grunt. Mike would later wake up in time to rock out his first marathon. After some coffee, banana, bagel, water, and perpetuem I was good to go. We headed over to pick up Monty and Julie Hardy – they would be running their first half marathons – and we were off to the race start.

After the usual pre-race routine...

... we headed over to the starting area.

With a single start for the 20,000 marathon, half marathon, and relay runners, the place was a zoo. I quickly lost Mike, Julie and Monty. I have to say this race was night and day from an organizational standpoint when compared to NY. Everyone was grouped according to their estimated finish time/pace with the faster runners in the “A” group and the slowest runners in the “E” group. I was assigned to start in the “C” group even though I entered 3:30 as my estimated finish time. At the start area, I noticed that the 3:30 pace team was lined up at the very front of the “B” group. I worked my way up there seeing that was the group I planned on running with. It turns out that either lots of people went to the wrong starting area, overestimated their pace, or the race organizers really messed up. The first 4 miles were spent weaving around lots of slower runners that started in the “A” group – It had to be literally over 1000 people. Everyone was pretty frustrated with the need to weave for 4 miles.

Not willing to make the same mistake as New York, I planned to stick with the cliff bar 3:30 pace team led by Vince from Cleveland. I actually shared my New York story with Vince and we made a deal – I agreed to stick with him longer than 2 miles and he agreed to not pass me like I was standing still at mile 22. We were off!

Mile 1: 8:14
Mile 2: 8:10
Mile 3: 7:41
Mile 4: 7:44
Mile 5: 7:37
Mile 6: 7:53
Mile 7: 7:43
Mile 8: 7:52

I had been running with Vince for the entire time, and at this point I realized he wasn't the most consistent pacer. I pulled away from Vince a bit and ran with a guy named Tim who was running his 5th White Rock and was hoping for his first sub 3:30. We only ended up about 100 or so yards ahead of the 3:30 group and were running about the same pace as them – we were hoping to be a bit more consistent though.

Mile 9: 7:52
Mile 10: 8:08
Mile 11: 8:19
Mile 12: 7:36
Mile 13: 8:22
Half Marathon: 1:44:03
Mile 14: 8:12
Mile 15: 8:03

15 miles into the race my legs really started to fatigue. Hamstrings and quads started to ache quite a bit.

Mile 16: 8:07
Mile 17: 8:01
Mile 18: 8:03
Mile 19: 7:47

19 miles into the race we completed our loop around White Rock lake and were on our way back to the finish area at the American Airlines center.

Mile 20: 8:10
Mile 21: 8:07

At this point we hit the “Dolly Parton” hills – two short steep hills that follow each other. There is always an unofficial aid station with large men dressed up as Dolly Parton (use your imagination) at these hills. It was the perfect time for a good chuckle. Unfortunately, Tim dropped back here. This was also the point when I was wacked in the shoulder by Vince’s 3:30 balloons – he had made up the 100 yards. I told him I had been waiting for him. Truth was, my legs were really throbbing. I couldn’t convince myself to slow down though. No excuse I thought of - especially the throbbing legs - was good enough.

Mile 22:7:36

Once again Vince proved that he wasn’t the most accurate pacer. Really nice guy, great runner, but he couldn’t hold that even 8 min/mile I was hoping for. I figured I would stick with him and the group anyway (by now there were only about a half dozen in the group, down from well over 20) - just in case I came up with better excuses to slow down.

Mile 23: 7:52
Mile 24: 8:05
Mile 25: 7:44

At this point, I knew I would beat 3:30. I was in quite a bit of pain. I opted to enjoy the last mile as best as I could rather than try to pick it up. In reality, I probably didn’t have much pick-up in me.

Mile 26: 8:32
Last .2: 2:02

Finish time: 3:29:31 – 7:59 minutes per mile
1st Half: 1:44:03
2nd Half: 1:45:28

Finished 390th place out of 4,063 finishers
Finished 351st place out of 2504 male finishers
Finished 49th place out of 376 male 30-34 finishers

PR by 4 minutes and 43 seconds!

Interesting statistic…. Over the last 6 miles, I passed 83 runners and 15 runners passed me.

I was greeted at the finish line by a smiling Sara who ignored the sweat, salt, and stank that only 26.2 miles can create and gave me a big hug. I was hurting pretty badly, dehydrated and cramping – the worst was a 30 second calf cramp during which I couldn’t put my heal on the ground even though I was applying all of my force with two hands pushing down on my knee. Ouch.

Recovery was handled Dallas style with some Tex Mex and Tacate at Mi Cosina and hanging with friends. Congrats to Mike, Monty and Julie on their respective 1st time marathons and half marathons – I look forward to your thorough race reports ;).

Only a little over 8 months to go until the next big event – Timberman 70.3. I foresee some quality time in the pool and on the saddle in my future.

It probably makes sense to share a little background on the training leading up the race. They say you should be running a few times a week for about a year before training for a marathon. According to my 2008 training log I ran 781 miles and my 2009 log was about on that pace with 335 miles through June – not bad considering the challenge of running through winter in NH. Over the course of the 16 weeks leading up to the marathon I logged additional 479 miles – about 65 hours of pounding the pavement. My training plan was an intermediate plan from Burt Yasso CRO (Chief Running Officer) of Runner’s World magazine. The plan consisted of 5 runs a week ranging from easy runs, long runs, intervals, hills, and marathon pace runs. The plan called out for 562 miles of running; so I was pretty happy hitting most of the plan given work and life schedules.

Sara and I headed down to New York on Friday afternoon. We stayed at the Hilton in Manhattan on 6th Ave, which was one of the two main marathon headquarter hotels. Arriving on Friday was great because it allowed me to head over to the Expo for race number pick-up and avoid the Saturday crowd. The number pickup process was incredibly quick, the organizers did a great job of keeping things streamlined. Back at the hotel I met Abdi Abdiraham, one of the top US runners and a super nice guy. He told me he was shooting to break 2:10:00. Abdi would go on to run a 2:14:00 for 9th place, sub 2:10:00 would have put him on the podium and in contention – the winner ran 2:09:15. The rest of Friday night was pretty uneventful, dinner – blah, walked around a bit, hit the hay.

Earlier in the week I saw a twitter/tweet from Lance Armstrong stating that he was planning on going for a jog in Central Park on Saturday AM and invited folks to join him. There was no chance of me passing up that opportunity. About 100-200 people showed up at NikeTown on 5th Ave Saturday morning. We were all hanging around when all of a sudden Lance appeared, someone whistled, and we were running. This was probably the most dangerous run of my life, everyone was trying to get up front to run next to Lance. I was able to run side by side with him for 1-2 minutes at a couple points during the run. Got to talk with him a bit and thank him. Joan Benoit Samuelson also ran with the group. She was super nice, and at the age of 52 she would go on to run a 2:49:09 to finish 17th overall for the women. The run lasted about 4-5 miles through Central Park, Lance said a few words, and jumped in a Taxi before being swarmed. Lance wasn’t running the marathon on Sunday, but was in town for Livestrong promotions.

Lance giving some advice which I promptly ignored....

The rest of Saturday was spent eating great food and walking around the city. We walked to a point where my legs were sore and my knees ached a bit. Probably not the smartest thing to do a pre-marathon, but we were in New York and weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to take in the city. We met some great friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant called Supper. Dinner was great; the company was even better. My abs got a good workout from belly laughing. After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and I was asleep by 10.

Dinner with the Fusco's at Supper

Sunday started with a 4:30 AM wakeup call. I was very well rested thanks to the clock change and the early night. Although I wasn’t racing until 9:40 AM, I was on a 5:00 bus to the starting line. You can imagine the logistics of getting 42K+ people over to the start of the race. The temp outside the hotel was pretty warm, so I opted to leave some of my warmer clothes behind and just wore a through away long sleeve T-shirt over the shirt I was racing in. I realized this was a bad move when arrived at the start where it was about 10 degrees cooler and windy. The smarter folks had sweats, blankets, etc. It was amazing arriving in Staten Island at 5:40 AM and being cheered by about 30 screaming volunteers. The starting area was huge and setup with Dunkin Donuts coffee, bagels, water, and hundreds of porta potties. I spent the next 3 hours doing my best to stay warm. I drank a little coffee, ate a bagel, drank my bottle of Hammer Perpetuem (electrolyte drink with about 400 calories), drank some water, visited the porta potty a few times, met some really cool people, etc.

At 9 AM I headed over to the starting corral. I was in the 1st wave going off with the Pro Men. The Pro’s were actually on the upper deck of the bridge and I was on the deck below them – with about 10K of my closest friends. I was given some good advice as we made our way on to the bridge – stay to the middle. It turns out that some people pee off of the top bridge, so you can get a not so nice surprise if you are on the outside of the lower bridge. Although I didn’t see anyone get sprinkled on, I was happy to have been given the advice. After a few minutes of waiting on the bridge, we were off.

My plan was to stick with the 3:30 Timex pace group – 8 minute miles – for the first 10 miles and then pick it up a bit if I felt good. From my training, I knew that when I went out a little slower on my long runs I could pick it up and still feel good around 19/20 miles. I also knew from experience that going out at 7:50 and 7:40 led to bad things at mile 19/20. All I had to do was stick with the Timex guy and I would keep myself out of trouble.

The first mile was slow uphill and extremely crowed and the second mile was downhill and fast as the Timex guy tried to get us back on pace

Mile 1 - 9:90
Mile 2 - 7:18
Mile 3 - 8:03

At this point, I got sick of running with the pace group – way too crowded – so I picked it up a bit. As I replay this moment in my mind, I keep yelling at myself “Noooooooooooooooooo”, but the outcome is always the same….

Mile 4 - 7:35
Mile 5 – 7:34
Mile 6 - 7:38
Mike 7 -7:38

I knew I was running too fast, but I just hoped that the energy from the enormous crowds would allow me to keep this pace up.

Mile 8 - 7:42
Mile 9 - 7:54
Mile 10 - 7:37
Mile 11 - 7:55
Mile 12 - 7:48
Mike 13 - 7:52

13.1 - 1:42:43. This was faster than my previous standalone half marathon PR by 2 seconds.

Mile 14 - 7:54
Mile 15 - 8:09
Mile 16 – 7:57
Mile 17 – 7:46
Mile 18 – 7:46

At this point I was almost 3 minutes under my goal pace of 3:30 and on track to get close to 3:25. Unfortunately, this is also the point when the wheels started to come off the bus

Mile 19 – 8:07
Mile 20 – 8:28

Fatigue really set in at this point as I smashed right into the wall. How did it feel? It is hard to describe. My heart and lungs felt great, but my legs were heavy, slow, and achy. I much as I willed them to, they just wouldn’t turn over quickly.

Mile 21 – 8:35
Mile 22 – 8:47
Mile 23 - 9:07

At this point, my legs started to cramp up. The pain and heaviness didn’t go away either. On top of the pain I had been dealing with for the past 3 miles, I would get a sharp cramp in each calve as I pushed off. My quads were kind enough to only cramp up every few strides. I’m still not sure why I cramped up. I hydrated well leading up to the race, had water and an electrolyte drink pre-race, alternated between Gatorade and water at every aid station, took Hammer gel every 45 minutes, and the temp was in the 50’s. The cramps made the next three miles about the most painful of my life, but I made myself keep going.

Mile 24 – 9:43
Mike 25 – 9:15

The crowds in Central Park were awesome, unfortunately I was in too much pain to really enjoy them.

Mile 26 – 8:56
Last .2 – 1:52

Just like that it was over. My final time was 3:34:14 – 8 minute and 11 seconds per mile. Just 4 minutes and 15 seconds shy of my goal. That put me at:
• 6190 out of 43,374
• 5323rd overall male finisher
• 878 out of 3924 in the male 30-34 age group
• PR by over 32 minutes

Over the last 5/6 miles it felt like thousands of people passed me, and it turns out that they did. If I kept up my pace and ran a 3:25 I would have finished around 4000th place, so about 2K people passed me in the last miles. Looking back, I obviously went out too fast and should have stuck with my original plan. Even if it didn’t change my finish time by much, I’m sure I would have enjoyed the last miles much more if I had started out more conservatively.

New York is a must do race for marathoners; I highly recommend it and would do it again. The course was much tougher than I expected, with long climbs and long descents that trash your quads. The crowds are unbelievable ;their energy and the excitement the create is amazing. My recommendation to anyone running New York would be the following…. Slow down, don’t try to PR. Enjoy the sights and the crowds. High five people in the Bronx, Queens. Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Raise your hands in the air as you run that final mile through central park. If I ever run New York again, my goal will be 4 hours, giving me enough time to really enjoy the experience.

December 13th in Dallas is another story though. There my goal will be to break 3:30. 6 more weeks to prepare….

Rhode Island Ironman 70.3

A few people have asked how it went, so here’s a quick race report from the Amica Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island event last weekend. The day started with a 3 AM wakeup call. It was difficult to eat so early in the morning because I was still stuffed from a great dinner the night before in Federal Hill. We took a bus from Providence to the swim start in Narragansett beach. It was 5 AM and still dark out when we arrived, but the transition area was bustling with athletes and volunteers. After getting body marked, I went to check out my bike, pumped my tires, and got my swim to run transition area setup.

The 1.2 mile swim was in a protected beach with jetties that went out from the beach and also a jetty that is parallel to the beach about ¾ of a mile out. Unfortunately, a storm had rolled in the night before and the jetties weren’t doing their job of keeping the water calm. It was extremely choppy and the storm actually moved several of the course buoys – causing the race to be delayed 25 minutes. The water was actually so rough, that they made an announcement stating that anyone wanting to skip the swim because of the rough water could do so. I have to admit, I thought about it.

At 6:25 the pro men went off and the pro women went 2 minutes after them. At 6:30, the age group waves started. Each age group wave was ushered though a coral system with gates. Every 5 minutes another wave would go off and your group would move to the next section of the corral. It felt like we were cattle. Next thing I knew, I was standing at the edge of the water and the cannon shot. The water was really rough which made it hard to get a rhythm. You would swim up the crest of a wave and then come crashing back down the other side of it. It wasn’t fun when I would turn my head to breath and get a mouthful of salt water, and it was also difficult to see the buoys unless you were on top of a wave. Somehow I made it out of the water in 32 minutes, but I was so disoriented from getting tossed around that it took me two minutes to run the 50 meters to the timing mat at the edge of beach. My official time for the swim was 34:11 – 65/186 in my age group.

In the swim to bike transition area, they had wetsuit strippers. You would lay down on a mat and the volunteer would peel you like a banana. I found my bike and was off fairly quickly. I saved some time by jumping on my bike barefoot with my shoes already clipped to the pedals, but I think I lost an equal amount of time fiddling with my Velcro straps while trying to get my feet in my shoes while riding. T1 – 2:41

The bike ride was great for the first 10 miles with nice flat roads and a tail wind. After we hit about mile 10 or so, the rolling hills started. Some of them we pretty tough, but all the spectators on the side of the road made the 56 miles fly by. I was passed by some folks that were absolutely flying – everyone should experience the sound of a disk wheel flying by at greater than 25 MPH. I hit 42 MPH on one downhill section, but I went all the way down to 6 MPH at one point on the climb at mile 45. The last section of the ride was pretty crazy as we went through a rough section of providence – it looked like a triathlon graveyard as people lost water bottles / spare tubes / spare tires / etc from the pot holes and railroad tracks. I ended the bike at 2:58:07 / 18.9 MPH – 112/186 in my age group.

T2 was pretty uneventful. I made a nice dismount with the pedals still on the bike. Dropped off my bike, through on my shoes/visor, hit the porta potty, and was off. T2 – 2:40

I felt great at the start of the run, plenty of energy. About a half mile into the run, I met the hill. The two loop run course takes you up an incredibly steep ½ mile long hill. This hill was used for the street luge event when the X-Games was held in Providence. During a race overview on Saturday, the race director offered to announce the name of any age group competitor that ran the entire hill without walking some point of it. Let’s just say my name wasn’t announced. I ran the 1^st half of the hill, walked the steepest potion, and then picked it back up as the grade became more reasonable. The remainder of the 1^st loop went great, I was just chugging along. My first loop was 56 minutes – 8:37 min/mile – and I was thrilled. At the beginning of the second loop I saw my wife and friends, which was great. I gave Sara a quick kiss – caught on video – and was off for the 2^nd loop. Did I mention, that this was a two loop course and we were lucky enough to meet the hill a second time. After walking most of the hill the 2^nd time, I was off. A short while after the hill my legs started cramping up pretty badly. I didn’t take my electrolyte pills on the bike as planned and I was really feeling it. All I could do was try to take in as much Gatorade as I could to hydrate the muscles and battle through it. I pretty much blew up and had a much slower 2^nd loop of 1:07:06 – 10:19 min/mile. I ended the run in 2:03:04 / 9:24 pace – 93/186 in my age group.

My overall time was 5:40:43 – 687/1306 overall and 90/186 in my age group. It was an amazing event and I can’t wait for my next one. There were some unbelievably inspiring athletes of all ages – men and women their 40’s / 50’s / 60’s that kicked my butt. The volunteers and spectators were awesome. We wrapped up the weekend with an awesome time of kicking back with friends, drinking a few celebratory cocktails, and eating some great food.