Palm Coast Half Marathon: Starting the New Year on the Right (Fast) Foot

I have to admit that my confidence was rattled a bit after back-to-back disappointing performances in my last two half marathons.  But this time things actually went well from start to finish.  In my third half marathon in the past four months, I ran a 7:49 pace for the race, which was a vast improvement from the 8:13 pace I ran in October (Jacksonville Marine Corps) and the 8:11 pace in November (Philadelphia).   Not a bad way to kick off the 2012 racing season.

I had a good foundation for this long-awaited success.  First, I managed to get some decent training in during the two weeks leading up to the race.  Second, I was feeling great on my training runs as I reaped the benefits of coming down from high altitude trekking through remote corners of the Andes on the Inca Trail in late December.  Alek has enjoyed similarly euphoric benefits in his track season training for the past two weeks.  Third, after much lobbying from Alek for the past two years, I finally caved in and bought a pair of lighter sneakers (Adidas Adizero), which are the lightest racing sneakers that I’ve ever owned (about 6 ounces less weight on my feet compared to the weight of sneakers I usually wear for racing) and that really helped me.

This race was my 27^th half marathon.  I ran a 1:42:28, which is my third fastest half marathon since 2003.  My splits ranged between 7:42 and 7:56 for every mile except mile 12, which was still strong at an 8:01.  The field was incredibly small but competitive (I placed 29^th of 190 finishers, 5^th in my age group and top 15% overall).  My two faster half marathon times in Florida came in 2009 on flatter courses and perfect weather.  This course was not flat and didn’t have perfect weather.  It included two major bridge spans at miles 2 and 7 that rival the challenge in the Jax Marine Corps Half Marathon course.  In addition, while the weather on Sunday was pleasant for the most part, there was a strong and cold headwind that slowed me down a bit in mile 12.

Runner’s Highs

“Pacer Alek”:    Having Alek as my pacer throughout the race really helped me avoid my recent nemesis of late-race mental and physical collapse.   I ran virtually even splits for the entire race, which is very rare.  This was the first time that I’ve run an entire race with Alek since 2008, when I paced him through his first half marathon at the age of 12 in Miami.  It felt good to run stride for stride with Alek for most of the race and to hear his tough love encouragement.  I could tell he was impressed and pleasantly surprised by my performance after my recent disappointing races in the fall.  I knew that I was running a good race because he wasn’t berating me much at all.  In fact, the only berating came from me directed toward him at mile 7.  We had just blazed up and down a massive concrete bridge and Alek had hammered the pace down about 5 seconds in that mile.  He then proceeded to push the pace even more in mile 8, and I lost my cool.  I was struggling to regain my rhythm, and my breathing was getting ragged.  I used what little available oxygen I could gather to shout at his back, “I need you the most in the next three miles.  Don’t be a jerk.”  He promptly complied.  And running the race with me was a good training run for Alek.  It was about 15 minutes slower than his best time for a half marathon that he ran in 2010, but he was as sore as I was the day after the race (both of us just had mild stiffness in our legs).

Back injury and vegetarianism:  This race finally put to rest two burning questions that followed me during 2011.  Was my new vegetarian diet hampering my speed and endurance?  Was my back injury something that would follow me into my old age?  After this race, it turns out that the answer to both of these questions is a resounding NO, which is very good news.  I feel more energetic than ever and my back feels good as new.

Post-Race Party:   Pizza, Cheez-its, cookies … and the ghost of Jimi Hendrix … all in a nice courtyard setting with fountains on a nice sunny day in the low 60s.  You just can’t beat it.   Even though the food options read like a bachelor’s grocery shopping list, it was quite good and plentiful.  The most pleasant surprise by far was the pizza provided by Mezza Luna restaurant.  As a pizza snob born and raced in New Haven County, Connecticut, I can attest that an English muffin with ketchup and a slice of melted American cheese on it can pass as pizza here in Florida, and you pay through the nose for it, too.  But this pizza was excellent … and free.  It was New Haven style thin crust with a nice blend of sauce and real mozzarella cheese that actually had basil and oregano in there, too.  So, I treated myself to about six slices of it and chased it with two bottles of Gatorade and an ample supply of Cheez-its and chocolate chip cookies.  No wonder I woke up from my post-race nap that afternoon with a gastrointestinal hangover.

And the musical entertainment was another eye-opening surprise.  The “band” was one guy, who was billed as a Caribbean steel drum band.  And the steel drums provided a nice laid-back tropical vibe.  But for a few songs, this guy was channeling Jimi Hendrix as he was jamming like nobody’s business on his electric guitar.  I was waiting for him to play the guitar with his teeth, but I’m not sure if he did because I was too busy inhaling pizza and stuff.

Runner’s Lows

Improperly measured course:  I’m no math whiz, but I can count.  This course was a full two-tenths of a mile short.  How is that possible?  So, I crossed the line in 1:40:43, which would have been my fastest half marathon in Florida, but I had to “project” my actual finishing time to be a 1:42:28 by taking my 7:49 pace and seeing what the half marathon pace chart yielded for a finishing time.  This projection is accurate (+/- 5 seconds), but I shouldn’t have to calculate differential equations to determine my finishing time in a race that set me back $75 (and several tablets of Tums).

Navigation free-for-all:  Here’s some advice for the race organizers from a road racing veteran.  If you are setting people loose on a course that is 13.1 miles long (or something close to it for those who can’t add), and it’s a very small field of runners, you need to have SIGNS posted at every turn in the course.  My vision starts to blur in the second half of a race of this length and I’m not going to slow down and strain my weary eyes to try to read faded chalk arrows on the pavement.   If signs with arrows are too much to ask, maybe plant a few people at those turns to point runners in the right direction.  Anyone above the age of 5 can handle this task.  Thank goodness Alek was pacing me in this race; otherwise, I may have crossed the finish line in Ft. Lauderdale.

Ran out of t-shirts:  And last but not least, the hefty $75 entry fee didn’t yield the long sleeve tech shirt that was promised.  Why?  Because they gave too many away to the volunteers, or so they claimed.  But they said they will mail the shirt to me.  Whatever.   I’m not holding my breath.   Is there any of that pizza left to help me forget that I got screwed out of getting my shirt?

For the next two weeks, I will be focusing on enhancing my speed with some interval work and tempo runs.  I plan to shatter my time from last year at the Winter Beach 5-Miler on February 4 in Jax Beach.

An Unforgettable Experience in Cross Training: Trekking on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

One of the drawbacks of enjoying a nice family vacation is that my distance running training regimen is disrupted and I invariably lose some fitness.  Our trip to Ethiopia in July 2010 was an exception to this general rule since it was a fitness-focused vacation.  This month, however, we did something in between a “traditional” sightseeing vacation and a fitness-focused vacation.  We traveled to Cusco, Peru, to help organize an inaugural road race (see the “Inca Dash” entry below) and we also booked a four-day trekking excursion on the Inca Trail to visit the world-renowned Machu Picchu site.  The trekking was meant to be an opportunity to have some quality family time away from the distractions of our work-related and social-networking-obsessed world and experience the wonder of this special place featured on the list of the “Seven New Wonders of the World.”   However, we didn’t expect the rigorous fitness challenge involved in this trek, which came as both a welcome and unwelcome surprise.

I’m no stranger to challenging hikes.  My father instilled in me a passion and appreciation for hiking, camping, and experiencing the great outdoors.  I hiked throughout my childhood in Connecticut and during college and law school in Upstate New York and Northern New England.  Virtually all of those hikes were fewer than 5 miles long and were conducted on mountains in the 2,000 to 7,000 ft. range.  But the Inca Trail is in an entirely different class of hiking.  It involves 50 kilometers (31 miles) of challenging hiking in four days while braving some not-so-friendly weather and high-altitude conditions (ranging from approximately 11,000-13,200 ft.)

I knew that the Inca Trail would be a challenge if for no other reason than that it would engage muscles that I haven’t used for several years.  But I never imagined the multi-faceted challenges the Inca Trail trek would present in our brief four-day adventure.  This fair-weather Florida flatlander was in for a rude awakening.  And the rude awakening was well timed.  It came at a time when my mental toughness and the endurance in my legs had failed me in my most recent competitive distance running efforts (two half marathons) in October and November 2011.  These four days away from the rest of the world would toughen me up mentally and physically in ways that running 30 miles per week in Florida never could.  And this experience would remind me that cross training is an essential component to my success as a competitive distance runner.  We plan to purchase a family membership to the YMCA next week so I can return to a regimen of weight lifting and ergometer (indoor rowing) training to supplement my weekly mileage so I can prepare more effectively for my upcoming road races in Florida.

Day 1:  “It’s a Beautiful Day”

Our day began with a two-hour, white-knuckle bus ride to reach “Kilometer 82,” the start of the Inca Trail trek.  We were brimming with energy and enthusiasm as we posed for our group picture and prepared to embark on our journey.

We were told that our first day of trekking wouldn’t be too difficult.  However, once we saw the beginning of the trail (see photo below), we worried that if Day 1 is not difficult, what was Day 2, which our guides warned us would be very difficult, going to be like?  On Day 1, there were challenging stretches of terrain that taxed the legs a bit, but the biggest challenge was the altitude.  Just walking on city streets at 11,000 ft. in downtown Cusco makes you feel a little short of breath, so when you try to walk up steep inclines under those conditions, you get tired rather quickly.

The combination of altitude and some steep inclines posed enough of a challenge, so the surprising and pleasantly warm temperatures on Day 1 became a nagging annoyance as the day progressed.  By the time we were within 20 minutes of our first camp site on Day 1, I could feel the ugly head of dehydration peering over my shoulder.  I started to breathe more heavily and I was feeling very fatigued.  I didn’t have much water at all during our seven hours of trekking that day and it was really taking its toll on me.  I had too many layers on and was sweating profusely for hours.  By the end of our hike, the temperature started to drop and I was beginning to feel cold.  And the unpleasant weight of the monkey on my back (a.k.a. the backpack) didn’t make things any easier as it only make me sweat more.  Nigara and I purchased a bottle of Gatorade at our last checkpoint (about an hour before our campsite), but we only drank half of it.  We felt that Alek would need it more that we did because he was carrying Nigara’s backpack in addition to his own by that point in the journey (and he would for the next three days).

“Shiver Me Timbers”:  A Near Case of Hypothermia

I was very thirsty by the time we arrived at the campsite, which is a very bad sign because I have been severely dehydrated in the past in my distance running training and racing even before feeling thirsty.  I went directly to our tent and crawled inside my sleeping bag wearing my warmest jacket and fleece, long pants, a wool hat, and gloves, and I was still shivering uncontrollably.  Nigara wondered if I would need to be evacuated by helicopter for medical attention and urged me to drink hot coca-leaf tea with milk, which she brought from the dining tent to warm me up.

At dinner that evening, I was wearing that same warm clothing and yet I was still shivering.  I was very uncomfortable during dinner and didn’t eat much.  I was sure to drink plenty of water that evening and the following morning.  Fortunately, that did the trick and my dehydration symptoms did not return for the remainder of the trip.  However, Alek had a brief shivering episode at the end of Day 2 after standing for 30 minutes earlier that day at the highest point of our trek at 13,200 feet in a snow shower while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.

Before turning in for the night on Day 1, we were instructed not to leave our footwear outside our tents because the fleet foxes that were endemic to the area could run off with them as they had with the footwear of many unsuspecting trekkers in the past.  That’s good advice because confronting the challenges of Day 2 while barefoot definitely was not an option!  After all of the challenges we confronted during Day 1, we quietly dreaded what lay in store for us on the notorious Day 2.  And fear was the appropriate response to anticipate what we were about to endure.

Day 2:  “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Ain’t No Valley Low Enough”

The challenges awaiting us on Day 2 were not the stuff of urban legend.  They were very real and, if anything, they were even more daunting than any of us had anticipated, even after all of the hype from the guides about how tough it would be.  Our nine hours of trekking on Day 2 featured the worst of both worlds – steep uphill climbs that never seemed to level off, and scary descents that felt like tip-toeing down a gutter pipe from a rooftop.  But that’s not all – to add insult to injury, we were treated to a snow shower (not entirely inappropriate considering it was Christmas day) as we neared the summit of our Day 2 journey at 13,200 ft.  For those of you in the Northeastern United States, this mountain is twice the elevation of Mt. Washington, the highest peak in New England.

The Florida flatlander contingent was terribly unprepared for what we encountered on this trek overall, and particularly on Day 2.  Alek and I were wearing sneakers (at least his were “trail sneakers,” whereas mine were worn-out regular running sneakers).  We didn’t own or rent the standard pair of trekking poles.  Instead, we purchased a single makeshift wooden pole for each of us from the locals.  I used to think that trekking poles are all show and had no value – WRONG!  We also didn’t have proper clothing.  My gloves were circa 1993 and they weren’t even waterproof, which proved to be a problem because I couldn’t wear them again after they got soaking wet on Day 2.  In addition, unlike most of our fellow trekkers, our pants weren’t waterproof, either.

Many marathon runners will tell you that after your legs have been taxed for hours, the downhill segments of a race can be as difficult, if not more difficult, than the uphill segments.  This pearl of wisdom was even more relevant as applied to this trek.  Not only were the downhill segments brutally hard on the quads because you had to hold back your entire body mass with every step, but it was compounded by the fact that most of those downward steps were insanely steep and slippery, unlike the mere downward slope of a paved road.  As I write this entry three days after the conclusion of our trek, Nigara’s legs are still throbbing with pain, and she has been running about 10 miles per week for the past year or so.

Another marathon analogy is relevant at this juncture to capture the mood of Day 2.  Marathon races have “sag wagons,” which are vehicles that patrol the back of the pack and sweep up runners who elect to drop out of the race.  If there had been a sag wagon available on Day 2 on the Inca Trail, I surely would have hopped on board and allowed myself to be transported back to the comforts of civilization.  So, I’m glad that such an option wasn’t available.  All I could do was “shut up and suck it up,” as Alek told me to do on several occasions, and that was the right thing to do (at least I can say that with confidence now that we are enjoying a brief stay at a nice hotel in Lima).

Nigara’s efforts on Day 2 were inspiring.  She doesn’t have nearly the athletic background or conditioning base that I do and yet she pushed herself to stay with the trek during times when most would have given up (even I almost gave up on more than one occasion).  I should also mention that Nigara and I were the oldest members of the group by a significant margin (apart from Alek, all of the members of the group were in their 20’s and 30’s).

No hard work is done in vain, and this trek was no exception to that rule.  Our hard work was handsomely rewarded at the end of Day 2 with a breathtaking setting for our campsite.  It’s not every day that you get to wake up to a vista like this, eh?

Day 3:  “Welcome to the Jungle”

The whole group, especially our two guides, whose livelihood depended on bringing us all back to Cusco alive, breathed a collective sigh of relief after surviving Day 2.  But we weren’t nearly out of the woods just yet (pardon the pun).  The Inca Trail is home to several micro-climates that trekkers experience within a very short period of time.  After braving the snow and wind of the high point of our journey on Day 2, we descended 3,000 feet into the “jungle” on Day 3 and had to apply liberal amounts of repellant to fend off the mosquitoes.  We also saw earthworms that were the size of small snakes and moths that rivaled the size of small bats.

 “There’s Just No Joy in This”

I heard this sentiment from a fellow trekkie at the end of Day 3.  There were several moments during Day 2 and Day 3 when I felt the same way.  Day 3 became a royal pain in the neck for me… literally.  I developed a severe stiff neck from carrying that monkey on my back.  The pain radiated into my shoulders, mid-back, and arms.  Even with the help of my dear friend, Advil, I still struggled with discomfort.

There was no getting around it …this was hard.  Each trekker spent a fair amount of the journey feeling too warm, too cold, too wet, too sore, or just generally too miserable.  If anyone claimed to have made it through four days of tip-toeing on steep steps and slippery rocks without falling, they would be lying.  Alek and I fell about five times each, fortunately without broken bones or bloodshed, and Nigara managed to stay out of harm’s way, too, with just a few slips.

We work hard in our daily lives.  Vacation is supposed to be a break from the “hard” stuff.  But character building can and should happen outside the office.  And nothing worthwhile and meaningful in life ever comes easy, right?

I should also mention that all of us felt quite grungy during the trek.  It’s rare to go four days without a shower or shave, especially while engaging in rigorous exercise all four days.  But we did.  And we emitted the pungent odor (and abundant whisker stubble and greasy hair) to prove it.

These challenges notwithstanding, Day 4 finally came.  We eagerly prepared ourselves for our long-awaited opportunity to come face to face with Machu Picchu.

Day 4:  “And You Know it Don’t Come Easy”

So, Day 4 was supposed to be “easy street” for our weary cast of trekkers … just coast to the finish line (or so we were told).  But nothing comes easy in this experience, and that’s why you choose to do it, right?   You could have opted to sip tropical drinks at a resort in the Caribbean but you CHOSE to be here, for better or worse.  And so the “tough love” rewards of our excursion persisted on Day 4.

A challenging 3:30 a.m. wake-up got things underway on Day 4.  This obscenely early start was tempered by the fact that we were served a nice banana pancake breakfast.  But that benefit was soon lost as we had to stand and wait in the “public herd” check point line for almost an hour after breakfast waiting to begin our trek inside the national park in which Machu Picchu is located.

Then it rained.  A steady, cold, pre-sunrise rain that makes you want nothing more than to return to a warm bed or a hot shower to escape this purgatory.  And then we had to endure some more challenging “Inca flat” terrain (extreme rolling hills by anyone else’s standards) as we sloshed in puddles and mud toward our final destination.  To make matters worse, there was a thick layer of fog in every direction as we approached Machu Picchu, and our hearts sank.  Had we really overcome all of the challenges in the past four days only to have our ultimate destination shrouded in clouds?

Oh no — it appears that Mr. Banana and Mr. Pear have escaped from the set of the Fruit of the Loom commercial

The rain and fog finally did subside.  “Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light….” It was the sun finally peeking through the clouds, exposing an increasingly vast expanse of blue sky.

The blue sky exposed the glorious setting in which Macchu Picchu is located.  “And I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be …” Brigadoon, the kingdom of the Wizard of Oz, or perhaps some other fantasy dreamscape, but this surely cannot be part of the natural world.  It was unlike any part of the natural world that I had ever experienced, including the past three days of breathtaking scenery on the Inca Trail.  It became clear to me why the Incas chose to locate their sacred city in this location – this was literally the garden of the gods.

The only thing that was more awe-inspiring than the setting for Machu Picchu was Machu Picchu itself.  It was just pure magic.  Pictures can likely convey the sheer beauty and mystery of the place better than I can in words.  We snapped billions of pictures, which was yet another challenge because our lips were so brutally chapped from the elements that it was difficult to smile by Day 4.

A Few Words about the Cast and Crew

The Tour Guides:  Aldo and Oscar were great leaders for our journey. Experienced, supportive, and fun, they helped us understand what to expect and enabled us to get the most out of the expedition by providing us with valuable cultural, historical, and ecological information about what we were witnessing on our journey.  We highly recommend SAS Tours for your journey to Machu Picchu, www.sastravelperu.com.

The Chefs:  You wouldn’t expect to eat well while on a remote trekking trip tucked away high in the Andes Mountains.  But the food was excellent; definitely not your typical “heat up a can of baked beans” camping cuisine with which I was familiar.  We were treated to excellent homemade soups, gourmet main course dishes such as stuffed chicken breast, Peruvian beef stew, and a tantalizing array of delicious vegetarian options for this hungry trekker.  Breakfast was outstanding and featured pancakes, omelets, and porridge.  There was also a wide array of tasty comfort food that you wouldn’t expect while camping that added a nice touch (e.g., pizza, cake, and delicious popcorn). All of the ingredients that comprised our daily nourishment, even the eggs, were carried on the backs of the porters all the way from Cusco.

The Porters:  These brave souls churned up daunting inclines and ran down treacherous slippery rocks while carrying massive 50-lb. payloads on their backs.  Simply put, they were like oompa loompas on steroids (powered by the mysterious “energy drinks” of Peru — coca tea and chicha).  They quietly went about their business in an efficient, courteous, and humble manner.  They never complained and never let us down.  And many of them did it all while wearing sandals that had absolutely no traction on that treacherous terrain.

The Participants:  Fourteen of us from all corners of the globe (Australia, Ireland, England, Denmark, France, and the U.S.) came to Peru to work toward the common goal of conquering the Inca Trail and embracing the wonder of Machu Picchu.  We bonded quickly and the time and conversation we shared made the experience much more meaningful and enriching.

Despite all of its challenges, this experience was amazing.  As crazy as it may sound, we are seriously considering tackling another (even more challenging) trek in Peru next year.  Alek is determined to “work his way up” to climb Mt. Everest one day.

To conclude on the lighter side, I believe that this life-changing experience can best be summarized with the following Top 10 list:

Top Ten Reasons Why You Just Might Be an “Inca Trail Trekkie”

10.       You managed to acquire frostbite and sunburn in the span of 24 hours.

9.         You smell like a bar of soap has never touched your body.

8.         Your fashion ensemble is likely to be perceived as a cross between the wardrobe for “Castaway” and “Into the Wild.”

7.         You would do anything for a flush toilet with a seat.

6.         You talk about bodily functions more often and more explicitly than most civilized people would deem acceptable.

5.         You feel an overwhelming sense of disdain for the throngs of well-groomed, fresh-smelling, day trip tourists who arrive at Machu Picchu by bus or train.

4.         You are convinced that chewing gum before bedtime is an adequate substitute for brushing your teeth.

3.         You have no idea what day of the week it is.

2.         Your legs feel like they have been pummeled repeatedly with a lead pipe.

1.         You are awestruck by the magic and mystery of the Inca civilization.

The Inaugural “Inca Dash” Road Race: The Joy of Running Reaches the Highlands of Peru

This entry does not describe my competitive distance running adventures for a change.  It’s about something much more meaningful.  It describes my experience as a volunteer at a not-your typical road race (for kids from 4-11 yrs. old and their moms) in a not-your-typical road race destination (Cusco, Peru).  The experience was an inspiring and memorable grassroots undertaking.  For example, it’s not every day that you see a handmade, bilingual start and finish line banner suspended with the assistance of a handmade “escalera” (ladder), about 10 feet of spare rope, and some spit and a prayer:

This event was the joint brainchild of Rosa Gutierrez, the founder and director of Helping Hands School and Pharmacy, http://omprakash.org/partner_profile/p/49  and my wife, Nigara, co-founder and co-director of The Pebble Foundation, www.pebblefoundation.org,  an organization that promotes grassroots outreach and cross-cultural exchange for children and adults.

Rosa Gutierrez maintains order during pre-race registration.

Race director, Alek Abate, used his trusty Garmin running watch to precisely measure a 500-meter course for the 4-5 year olds, the 6-8 year olds, and the moms.  The 9-11 year olds faced the challenge of an “Alek-certified” 1500-meter course.  I should mention that Cusco is perched at 11,000 ft. (yes, that’s 3,000 ft. higher than where we stayed in Ethiopia where there was barely enough oxygen to walk, let alone run).  The 1500-meter course also featured a brutally steep hill that was more challenging than any I had faced in 30+ years of competitive running in the states.

Perhaps the most daunting challenge of all for the race organizers and the participants was the plethora of stray dogs that flooded the course.  And this was despite the valiant efforts of a young Peruvian boy who ran through the streets prior to the race with a megaphone declaring in Spanish to the local residents:  “Take your dogs inside so we can run our race.”  But the dogs apparently hold several seats on the Cusco City Council because they basically run the city and do as they please at all times (kind of like “Planet of the Apes” with dogs).  In light of this grim reality, we almost succumbed to adding a canine category for the race and affixing bib numbers to their cold, wet noses so they could do something other than chase cars and people for a change of pace.  But they probably would have eaten their finisher medals, which would have exceeded their recommended daily intake of iron, even at this high altitude.  Fortunately, there was only one incident in which one of our brave volunteers had to whisk away a rabid pack of dogs engaged in a tornado of a fight to make sure that our tiny dashers didn’t lose any limbs en route to completing their first road race.

Three of the approximately 10 dogs on this short course are pictured here.  Whooo let the dogs out?  Who, who, who, who, who?

We had many cheerful and helpful race volunteers from all over the world (Austria, England, Ireland, Australia, Peru, and the U.S.) that helped make the race a big success. The tireless efforts of Teresa Schwartz from Austria and Alicia from Australia were indispensable in ensuring the success of the event.  They were actively involved in pre-race and race-day planning with registering runners and coordinating race logistics from beginning to end.   I was assigned the nearly impossible task of trying to keep traffic off the race course.  Having to rely on what little Spanish I could speak, it’s a good thing that hand gestures are universally understood.  No, we didn’t have the luxury of a police escort on motorcycles for our lead runners and a course closed to traffic by the local police department.  Instead, we had race director Alek who served as the “rabbit” (front runner escort) for the 9-11 yr. old race.  And I have to say he wasn’t looking like the ‘Energizer Bunny” by the end of the race as he struggled to hold off the front runner in the 9-11 year old age group (who looked more like 13 years old) who was well adjusted to the extreme altitude as a Cusco native.

Alek has his hands full with hills, altitude, and a fast 11-year-old breathing down his back.

Teresa sets a lightning-fast pace as the rabbit for the 500-meter moms’ race.

Keeping track of who finished in what place was challenging to say the least.  As you guessed, we didn’t have the benefit of electronic chip timing.  So, in a continuing effort to be as resourceful as possible, Alek assembled a tightly spindled string of masking tape in which he would hand me the detachable part of the bib number with the runner’s name and age group information on it and I would slide those onto the string of masking tape using the pin hole on the number as if I were making a charm bracelet.  This way we could keep track of the order of the finishers and have their age group information handy.  Pretty clever tactic, eh?  That’s why Alek is the race director.  While I was receiving several of these “detachables” from Alek, one of the other volunteers gave me a detachable for another runner who somehow missed our makeshift finish line “chute.”  This interruption distracted me and caused me to let go of the end of the charm bracelet and all of the “charms” fell to the ground.  Alek was quick to call me a “bonehead” for that momentary lapse of reason on my part, but I only have two hands.  Not surprisingly, I was promptly demoted to traffic control duty after that screw up.

Somehow we generated results for all age groups (though we couldn’t swear by their accuracy).  The top three finishers in each age group for boys and girls were summoned to a makeshift “awards podium” to receive a certificate, medal, and photo.

All of the runners (approximately 120) received a t-shirt, a medal, and a parting gift (from a truckload of nice toys, dolls, and soccer balls in the gift tent).  I suspect that most of these underprivileged children will remember this day for many years to come.  It was rewarding to see the gleam of appreciation in their eyes.

The event would not have been such a success without the generous race-related donations from 1^st Place Sports in Jacksonville, Florida.  They provided more than 100 new race t-shirts, bib numbers, and medals for our event.  1^st Place Sports also provided us with a generous supply of new race shirts and used sneakers for our trip to the Running Across Borders Training Camp in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July 2010.  We are grateful for their continued support of these worthy causes to promote running across the globe.  For more information about 1^st Place Sports, consistently ranked as one of the top 50 running stores in the United States, please visit their website at www.1stplacesports.com.

Race director Alek is already making plans for next year’s event, which will be bigger and better than the first.  This year’s ambitious undertaking only involved about two months of planning from idea to execution.  With a full year to plan, the second annual Inca Dash promises to be a huge success.

Festival of Lights 5K: Dashing through the Darkness to “See the Light” of Competitive Running Inspiration

Alek (Mr. Ethiopia) patiently awaits the start of the race.

Merely two weeks after the “Phiasco in Philly” (see my previous entry on my disappointing outing at the Philadelphia Half Marathon), I crawled out from under the rock of competitive running despair and toed the line of my next race, the Festival of Lights 5K in Jacksonville.  My battered and bruised male ego wasn’t willing to wait until January to restore some competitive running confidence. All things considered, this undertaking paid off.  I turned in a respectable performance in this race and now feel optimistic about seeing big progress in my upcoming “prime” racing season in January-March.

I ran a 22:16, which is 20 seconds faster than my only other outing in this race in 2006.  I placed 122^nd  of 2538 overall (top 5%) and 9^th  of 89 runners in my 45-49 age group.  Alek ran an 18:54 (4^th in his age group and 32^nd overall), which was 3 seconds faster than his time last year in this race.

This race featured a large field of runners, narrow streets, multiple turns, and PITCH DARK conditions – oh my!  Not exactly a recipe for the fastest 5K of your life, but at least the weather was pleasantly cool.  I only stumbled and nearly ran over other runners maybe five or six times during the race – not bad under these circus-like conditions.  I also endured the misfortune of being crammed like a sardine near the front of the field at the start, closely sandwiched between weekend warriors dressed as Santa; Dasher, Donner, and Blitzen; and some perky elves with candy striped running socks in front of me, and some guy behind me with a baby jogger lodged in my butt (he was apparently unfazed by the race director’s announcement that all walkers and baby joggers should assemble at the BACK of the starting area).  But rules are made to be broken, right?   Hopefully, Mr. Baby Jogger will find some coal in his stocking this year.

After dodging, bobbing, weaving, stumbling, and bumbling through the first mile at a 6:48 pace, I was struggling more than I expected.  With every turn on the course, I found myself slamming on the brakes to avoid yet another runner who didn’t know how to accelerate and maintain position through turns.  My quads were failing me by mile 3, just in time for several more turns within the last half mile of the course.  I was almost dizzy from all the turns.  I’m not known for my sprinter speed, so trying to regain what little momentum I had after all of those turns in the dark on this course really drained me mentally and physically.

Nigara faithfully supported us near the finish on this damp and drizzly night and tried to take photos, which is hard when you can’t see your loved ones approaching more than three seconds in advance in the pitch dark conditions.  She managed to get a shot just before the start of the race (included in this entry) and a nice shot of Alek’s back as he approached the finish.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening was stopping on the drive home to devour a Taco Bell meal in the car.  I don’t recommend eating Cheesy Rice and Bean burritos while driving, but I was eager to get home for a hot shower.  I also couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting innocent diners at Taco Bell to the post-race stench that engulfed Alek and me like the dust cloud that follows the character, Pig Pen, from the Charlie Brown comic strip.  Within hours after that delightful post-race feeding frenzy on the go, it was “Yo quiero Pepto Bismol” for the rest of the evening.

The Winter/Spring race calendar is filling up fast.  True to my word, I will take a pass on the Gate River Run 15K in March after my unsavory experience last year (see my blog entry from last year’s race).  But there are still plenty of races on tap for me in the coming months in Northeast Florida, so stay tuned for many more blog entries soon.

Jan. 15:  Palm Coast Half Marathon

Feb. 4:  Winter Beach 5 Miler  (Jax Beach)

Feb. 18:  Pirates on the Run 5K  (Fernandina Beach)

March 24:  Nocatee 5K  (just 5 miles from our home)

Philadelphia Marathon: I’m Half the Man I Used to Be

Let’s get one thing straight at the outset.  This entry was supposed to describe my performance in the Philadelphia Marathon, for which I have been training since June, but my aspirations for Boston qualifier glory got stunted at about mile 8 of the race.  In fact, they got chopped in half.  After the hills in miles 7-10 of the Philadelphia Marathon sucked the life out of my legs, I exercised the convenient and safe option to drop down and complete the half marathon course instead of suffering through the full misery.  That choice proved to be wise as my legs were completely spent when I crossed the half marathon finish line in 1:47:16.  I placed 1051^st out of 9398 finishers (Top 11%).   My time was 15 seconds faster than my last half marathon six weeks ago, but my expectations were much higher than that modest level of improvement.  To make matters worse, Alek also got robbed of his chance for a long training run in my race.  He was planning to run with me during miles 14-24.  Instead, he got to jog back to the car with me (about 2 miles) from where he was waiting for me at mile 14—some great reward for waking up at 4:00 a.m. and supporting Dad on race day.

As always, the first several miles of the race unfolded as planned.  I was running with the 3:30 pace group and holding a comfortable 7:54 pace for the first 6 miles.  The weather was pleasant in the low 50’s, definitely no complaints.  But then the wheels fell off.  I was told of hills that began in mile 8, which I was prepared to confront.  They forgot to mention that the hills didn’t really stop until mile 11, though.  I was in hunch-backed agony and almost walking as I crested the last of the hills in Fairmont Park in mile 11.  At this point, I knew I would need to bid farewell to this undertaking at the earliest possible opportunity.  Even the bystanders – you know, the ones who are usually filled with unrealistic dimensions of supportiveness (i.e., shouting “You’re almost there” at mile 2 of the marathon) – were secretly willing me off the course.  One coach-wannabe spectator shouted at me, “Maintain good form” as I schlepped up a daunting hill like an overloaded U-Haul driven by someone learning to drive a stick shift for the first time.   These hills were as intense as the treacherous Jacksonville Symphony twin bridge span that drained me in the past two years, but that was only a 4-mile race.  With hills of that magnitude in this long race, it’s game over for this runner.  And then there are the hills from miles 18-20 in this race, too.  Fortunately, I was smart enough to spare myself that living hell this time around.

Everything is relative.  I chose this race as a potential Boston qualifier candidate because I had run it twice before (in 1997 and 2001).  I ran a great race in ’97 and an average race in ’01, but my memory of the course was quite clear – a basically flat and fast course that’s good to run a target time.  Really?  After living in Florida since 2006, this was the hilliest long race that I’ve run in at least a decade.  The rules have officially changed now.  I simply can’t race on courses with hills anymore.  I can’t train on bridges in Florida to get ready for hilly courses because pounding down those concrete monstrosities likely contributed to my back injury in May.  So, it appears that I’m left with “Florida flat” as the terrain for my races in the immediate future.   

With the season of New Year’s resolutions just around the corner, I have vowed to have more realistic expectations in moving forward with my competitive distance running schedule for 2012.  First, there will not be a marathon on my race calendar in 2012.  And for good reason – I’ve entered three marathons in the past two years and dropped out of two of them.  Any questions?  I will not register for another marathon until I can break 1:40 in a half marathon.  I really have no business registering for marathons with the hope of hitting a 3:30 when my half marathon times simply haven’t been where they need to be in the past two years.   Second, I plan to keep my races local in 2012.  Only runners who are well trained and following a disciplined training regimen for months should travel for races.  My training regimen for the past five months was respectable given the circumstances of my crazy schedule, but it wasn’t even close to where it needed to be to run a strong half marathon, let alone a full marathon.  Especially after sustaining my back injury in May and losing a month of training in June, I should have had more realistic expectations of what I could accomplish in the second half of 2011.  Hope springs eternal, but reality has a way of prevailing in the end.

So, expect to see me continuing to post blog entries in 2012 (likely starting in January) describing my experiences in races from the 5K to the half marathon in Northeast Florida.  I’m planning to do a few of the same races I ran last year just to get a good gauge of my fitness compared to the “glory days” of the first half of 2011 when I was running some very good times.  My mileage for 2011 will be about 1,250 based on my projected mileage for December, which is about 200 miles short of my career-best 1,400+ miles in 2010, the year of training that propelled me to success in late 2010 and early 2011.   I plan to develop a solid training base in the first half of 2012 so I can be prepared to run a very strong half marathon in Florida by November or December 2012. 

But the Boston qualifier dream is officially busted until further notice.  I’m too old to “fake it” and run a great marathon without proper training.  And I’m too busy in my career now to train by the book and do it the old fashioned way.  And I keep getting older and wimpier, too, which doesn’t help.  I just didn’t have a marathon mindset when I toed the start line last Sunday.  In fact, I had an overwhelming urge to fast forward that morning and go back to bed.  No guts, no glory.  I’ll just crawl under a rock for now until the physical and psychological endorphins start pumping through my system once again.

Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon: Dial M for Mediocrity

Settling into a rhythm at mile 5

My long-awaited return to the start line of a race finally happened yesterday.  I hadn’t raced since April, which is a long dry spell for this incurable competitor.  Much to my chagrin, however, this important step on the comeback trail did not yield the outcome I had anticipated.  After three months of hard work getting back on track with my training in the wake of a lower back injury that sidelined me for the entire month of June, I had high hopes for my performance in yesterday’s race. This race was a landmark 25^th half marathon for me.  For some added motivation, Jacksonville served up ideal racing conditions for this reunion I would have with the world of competitive distance running.  Yet for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, I turned in a disappointing performance yesterday that seriously jeopardizes my hopes of qualifying for Boston at the Philadelphia Marathon on November 20.  I ran a ho-hum time of 1:47:31, which is only my third best time of the 5 times that I have run this race, and I placed 307^th of 1766 finishers (top 17%).  This performance was faster than my times on this course in 2006 and 2009 (1:49), but not as fast as my times in 2010 (1:44) and 2008 (1:45).   The deafening sound of underachievement was ringing in my ears when I crossed the finish line.

I’m still sorting out all of the factors involved in trying to make sense of my performance.  First, I ran a smart race.  I was cautious in the challenging first three miles, which featured two significant bridge spans.  I held an 8:00 minute pace for those first three miles, and then ran negative splits for the next several miles.  I was holding a 7:57 pace by mile 9, which was where I needed to be to run my best time on this course.  But that’s where things unraveled as they have in previous years on this course.  My legs started to get very rubbery and I struggled to maintain my pace.  My lungs felt great and I was mentally focused, but my legs just checked out.  I literally felt like I would collapse if I had to run on an uneven surface.  It was clear to me by mile 10 that I would not run a best time on this course yesterday, which was terribly demoralizing.  I struggled to resist the temptation to drop out of the race at that point.  I just stayed with it as best I could, trying to set realistic goals for my finishing time based on my slower pace.

Second, I’m battling the lingering undermining effects of missing a full month of training in June, not racing since April, and not being able to get as many quality long runs (13+ miles) at a sufficiently fast pace because the weather has been miserably hot and humid for most of the past two months.  Ever since moving to Florida in 2006, I have always struggled with my training in August and September.  To quote Robert Hays in the classic movie, Airplane, my training in August and September can best be described as “Sluggish, like a wet sponge.”  After about 5 miles on any given day of training in Florida’s relentless summer humidity, my sneakers and clothing feel like I’ve taken up residence in a car wash.

Third, other factors make my performance yesterday particularly confounding.  One thing that makes me suspicious about not performing better yesterday is the fact that the weather was so ideal (mid-60s with low humidity).  It’s incredibly rare for me not to perform at least reasonably well, if not very well, when the Florida weather cooperates.  In addition, I have lost about 10 pounds since I ran this race last year, and I have been following a disciplined training regimen as closely as I can given my crazy work schedule in Orlando.  In addition, while my transition to vegetarianism since June is indeed a transition, it has been entirely positive as far as I can tell.  I have plenty of energy and I recover quickly from my training runs.   Just to be on the safe side in the next two months of intense training, however, I plan to increase my intake of protein (in energy bars and smoothies) and take a daily multi-vitamin.

While I have averaged 30 miles per week for the past 7 weeks, which is one of my longest stretches of uninterrupted high mileage since high school,  I still need to push my mileage higher in October and November to make up for the lost month of training in June.  Here are my mileage totals for the past three months and my projections for October and November:

July – 107 miles

August – 113 miles

September – 122 miles

October – 150 miles

November – 140 miles

A lack of quality long runs has really held me back in the past two months.  My long runs have been shortened due to fatigue and dehydration on some days, and on other days because of scheduling issues in coordinating long runs with my son, Alek, and his cross country teammates on Sunday mornings.  My longest training run this year is 14 miles.  I need to log at least 4 training runs in the 16+ mile range in the coming weeks to be ready for my marathon.  The good news is that I will be able to attend training runs with Coach Paul McCrae’s training group for the next two Saturdays and I plan to make the most of those outings.  It has been very difficult to make the most of my long runs on my own in oppressive humidity.  I have been doing well with my interval training sessions on my own, but they have been confined to the treadmill because of my work schedule in Orlando.  Coach Paul’s marathon training plan has given me the tools I need to succeed.  Now I just need to fully execute the plan.

All of this doom and gloom notwithstanding, there is room for hope.  My training always improves dramatically in October and November.  I really start to see results with the cooler weather.  For example, in 2009, I ran a 1:49 at the Jax Marine Corps Half Marathon (two minutes slower than my time yesterday) and then I turned things around and ran a 1:42 at the Outback Half Marathon in cooler temps just 7 weeks later.  That’s the same stretch of 7 precious weeks that will make or break my performance at the Philly Marathon this year.  With a 1:42 or better as my half marathon performance level by late November, I will have a decent chance of making a legitimate run at a 3:30 in Philly.  But every day counts.  I will need at least three weeks above 40 miles to develop the endurance in my legs.  So, while my Boston hopes have dimmed somewhat after yesterday, I have spent most of my competitive distance running career defying the odds, so why stop now?

Injuries: Blessings in Disguise?

Competitive distance runners can be reduced to two basic categories.  First are those who train and race regularly and are addicted to and giddy from the rush they feel from running.  The other group is the incurably miserable “walking wounded” who are eager to tell any unsuspecting stranger just how much pain they are in from their running-related injury and how much life sucks because of it.   I found myself somewhere in the twilight zone between these two worlds recently, and that is the inspiration for this entry. 

Until recently, I had never sustained a running-related injury in my 30-year competitive distance runing career, and was always happy to boast about that reality.  But that unblemished track record developed a big “pimple” at the end of May – a severe inflammation of the sacroiliac joint in my lower back, which caused excruciating pain to radiate from my lower back to my hip, groin, and knee, and also caused me to lose coordination in my left leg.  Forget about running – I could barely walk.   I struggled to find a comfortable position while sleeping, and even sitting was relentlessly uncomfortable.   I was miserable.  It appeared that I would be taking up residence in the “hating life” camp described above for an indefinite period.  To add insult to the injury that this condition caused me, the prognosis was slow recovery, with likely recurrence.  Great.  Just shoot me now.   The rock band “The Who” and their legendary mantra, “Hope I die before I get old,” has a distance runner’s twist on this sentiment :  “Hope I die before I get injured.”  

People around me almost seemed to derive some sadistic pleasure in seeing my training get derailed.   My son, Alek, said that the injury indicated that I needed to improve my lousy running form, expand my virtually non-existent stretching regimen, and lose my gut and do some ab work to take unnecessary strain away from my back.   Why not tell me that I’m a waste of human life while you’re at it, Captain Tough Love?  One of my uncles, whose Boston-qualifying dreams imploded when he blew out his knee many years ago, had these comforting words for me upon learning of my injury:  “How old are you now?”   To which I replied, “47.”  And his response was, “What did you expect?”  Call me crazy, but I think I would have preferred a warm embrace with a gentle and understanding whisper in my ear telling that everything would be all right.   Nah.  Smack me around some more, please!   I would love to add a few more names to the (ever-lengthening) list of people who laugh at or doubt with all their heart my plan to run the “holy grail” time of 3:30 for my age group to get back to Boston.  What’s life without having an uncompromising purpose to conquer an impossible dream, right?  Maybe I should stop watching Don Quixote re-runs.

But with just over four months remaining in my training for the Philadelphia Marathon on November 20, this injury was the best thing that could have happened to me.  I never thought I would say such a thing, but it’s true.  In every crisis, there is an opportunity, right?    There are two basic reasons why this injury was a blessing.  First, it forced me to rest, which is something I’m apparently incapable of doing on my own accord.  I work around the clock in my career and in my training – always have and always will – and that’s simply not sustainable.  I was logging my highest mileage in more than a decade, month after month of 100+ miles in 2010 and 2011, topping out at 150 miles in May.  And I was reaping some encouraging rewards from those efforts in my race results.  But here’s the problem:  logging higher mileage is playing with fire when you are my age and my size.  You must proceed with caution and be sensitive to your body’s needs.  “Caution” and “sensitive” aren’t in my vocabulary when it comes to training, howver – it’s just push, push, push.   And that unsustainable approach to training finally caught up with me with a nagging lower back injury that first appeared in April the week before I ran the Jacksonville Symphony 4-miler.  It was a loud and clear wake-up call to slow down.  Not surprisingly, I ignored that wake-up call and continued to train hard (with lots of punishing training on concrete bridges) throughout April and May.  Shortly thereafter, while bending down to pick up something in the end of May, I stood back up and felt Sir Lancelot’s sword in my lower back.  I turned around and didn’t see Sir Lancelot, however.  

I now had my first running related-injury and had succeeded in stabbing myself in the back by not being more cautious and sensitive with my training.  So, rest I would take, whether I liked it and not.  I expected the mandatory sentence of rest to last no more than a week, but I was wrong.  The pain waxed and waned but didn’t start to consistently improve until the end of June.  I had rested an entire month from the date of the injury and had only run 8 miles in June– my lowest mileage month ever.  But when I did finally feel liberated from this pain, I felt like a thoroughbred bucking to break through the stable door – my running was exhilarating and effortless, and my runner’s euphoria was back.

Second, and more significantly, my injury prompted a significant lifestyle change.  As of June 1, I transitioned to a vegetarian diet as a way to fight back against the loss of control I felt from my injury.  It was something I had considered for many years and somehow this situation seemed like the best time to give it a serious try.  I also have vowed to eliminate, or at least significantly reduce, my consumption of coffee.  I’ve succeeded in both undertakings and it was much easier than I anticipated.  I plan to consume fish about once a week, but I have eliminated everything else – beef, pork, lamb, veal, and poultry.  I have only had one cup of coffee since June 1.  Eliminating coffee has significant co-benefits, too — fewer Dunkin’ Donuts cups in landfills and fewer massively caloric donuts in my belly.  The biggest advantage of the vegetarian/no coffee lifestyle for my running career, however, is the weight loss.  Eating smarter was all I needed to do to be able to shed pounds effortlessly.  I dropped 10 pounds in June.  And I didn’t feel hungry and didn’t crave meat or coffee.

So, I’m back — injury free, pain free, lean and mean, and ready for action.  I registered for the Philadelphia Marathon today.  Yo, Adrian — cue up the theme song to Rocky.  I can hear my Boston Qualifier destiny beckoning.

Jacksonville Symphony 4-Miler: I Fought the Hills (and the Hills Won)

Looking composed because it's only a few hundred yards into the race.

I may not look like the fastest beast in this thundering herd, but I beat all three of these guys.

Although I'm sure the music was lovely, that's a grimace (not a smile) on my face.

All pain and no glory at the finish.

I think what I love most about competitive running is that it’s full of surprises at every turn, with each race offering an opportunity for the thrill of reaching a new milestone or the agony of suffering a setback.  Today’s race defies easy characterization, however.  If we go “by the numbers,” it was a successful outing.  I finished 25^th of 293 runners (Top 8%) and I ran a 30:08 (15 seconds faster than last year’s time on this supremely challenging course).  But that’s where the sense of achievement ends.  For the second consecutive year, this course swallowed me whole and spewed me out onto the pavement as a partially digested, mass of misery.   After last year’s race, I vowed never to run this race again.  But after my physical and mental wounds healed from last year’s race (about 9 months later), I vowed to conquer this beast.  I had an insatiable urge to capitalize on the wisdom I had gained from my first trip through the meat grinder on those hills in last year’s race but, alas, I succeeded only in becoming a second helping of Hamburger Helper after this year’s race.

If you have read the last several entries in this blog, you know that I have been riding a wave of competitive distance runner invincibility since last fall, hitting some massive personal best times since moving to Florida in 2006.  So, I had every reason to have high hopes for this race.  My target time for the race (28:45) was conservative in light of how I had performed in my other races in 2011.  But those races didn’t include a double shot of the dreaded Mt. Acosta Bridge (a.k.a., the “Stairway to Heaven” and, for this runner, the “Highway to Hell”), served up on the warmest day of my 2011 racing campaign (mid-70s and sunny).

Plagued by mysterious lower spine and neck pain in the week leading up to the race, I wasn’t even sure that I would compete until the morning of the race.  I also had intermittent pain in my kidneys for two weeks leading up to the race.  I had to take four days off from running in the week before the race to let this grand buffet of bizarre ailments take their course.  I finally ran an easy 3 miles on the day before the race.  Within the first 50 yards of the run, I felt an abrupt shifting and crunching feeling in my lower back that made we wince and yelp in pain.  Seconds later, I felt instantly better.  So, who needs to pay big bucks for a chiropractor anyway?  Just get out there and run!  I thanked Mother Nature for that healthy dose of “Tough Love:  Spinal Realignment Edition,” and how fortunate I was in that it arrived just in time to enable me to get smacked down once again on race day.

I had trained well for the five weeks since my breakthrough performance at the Gate River Run 15K in March.  I wasn’t doing high mileage because my work schedule was crazy, but I was hitting solid 25-30 mile weeks with lots of focused workouts geared for peak performance (e.g., mile repeats, hill work on bridges as part of my long runs, and tempo runs).  I fear that it may have been that extra mileage pounding up and down the concrete bridges near my home that caused my spine to go out of alignment.  Rest assured, I will be limiting that component of my training for the next few months.

The race started with a serious sense of déjà vu.  Like last year, I struggled mightily in the first mile with that massive bridge as the second half of the mile.  But I fought hard and managed to run a 7:09 for the first mile, right on track for my goal time of 28:45.  Well, the party ended shortly thereafter.  Mile 2 did me in last year and I unraveled at this point in the race once again.  I was grunting like a sea lion in heat as I churned up that second massive bridge span, and by the time I reached the top I sensed that I had significantly fallen off my pace.  And I was right.  My second mile was a 7:44.  Are you kidding me?  How was that possible?   I tried to regain my composure and worked the downhill hard to my advantage, but my legs had already checked out for the day.  Just like last year, the last two miles were slower than the first two, even though the last two were significantly flatter than the first two.  By the middle of mile 4, I had already resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t even going to beat last year’s time and I gave some serious thought to dropping out of the race.  The only thing that kept me going was my anger.  I had lots of work waiting for me at home and there was no way I was going to go back to that work without a personal best time.  So, I summoned every last shred of energy and finished strong in the last half mile, only to be tormented by my disappointed conscience, “You would have broken the 30-minute milestone if you hadn’t checked out mentally in the first half of mile 4.”  Why does everything have to be so hard?

I buried my face in a towel after the race and sulked for about 10 minutes.  I was too sore to crawl under the nearest rock, which was my preferred destination.   To add insult to injury, “Coach Alek” had the following comforting advice for me:   “Dad, you need to train more on hills.”  Ya think?  I‘m always deeply grateful for those earth-shattering insights from “He-Man and the Masters of the Obvious.”   But he’s right .  My performance today yields only one conclusion:  racing on massive concrete bridges does not bring out my best.   Based on my recent race performances, my time should have been much better than a mere 15 seconds faster than last year.  But I just couldn’t get it done.  It was so frustrating.  And the final nail in the coffin was, you guessed it, I placed 4^th in my insanely competitive age group for the second consecutive year at this race (and for the second time in my 2011 racing campaign).  Despite the mental and physical torture I endured, however, the race was well organized and enjoyable.  It featured concert musicians serenading the runners on the course.  It had a fun and festive atmosphere and a friendly hometown flavor to it.   So, cue up the Ah-nold accent:  “I’ll be back!”

Gate River Run 15K: The Bitter-Sweet Taste of a Massive Personal Best Time and a Family Record

My experience at the Gate River Run this year was memorable in both pleasant and unpleasant ways.  On the positive side, everything that was under my control was flawlessly executed.  I ran even splits for the three 5Ks in this race on a challenging course, which is a first for me.  Second, I ran a 1:09:15 today, which is almost 3 minutes faster than my previous best time on this course from last year.  I placed 927^th of 14,971 runners overall (Top 6%) and 84^th of 792 in my intensely competitive age group (Top 10%).  Third, not only did I run a personal best, I also claimed the Abate family record for this course, beating Alek’s time of 1:09:56 from 2009.  He ran that time in 8^th grade, placing 4^th of 87 in his age group that year and earning a Top 10% finisher’s cap.   So, while it may seem like taking candy from a baby to claim this family record, I will nonetheless be puffing out my chest like a proud peacock around the Abate family household for weeks to come.

Here is the progression of my performance at the four Gate River Run races that I’ve run:

2007 –  1:24:25  (Recovering from food poisoning endured the night before the race – that will teach me not to eat Taco Bell as my pre-race meal)

2009 –  1:12:48  (Top 9%)

2010 -  1:12:07  (Top 8%)

2011 –  1:09:15  (Top 6%)

Today’s race was an out-of-body experience of running euphoria that is hard to come by on a challenging course like this one. First, the weather was PERFECT for running, which is exceedingly rare at this time of year in Jacksonville.  It was sunny and 60 degrees with low humidity for the start and it didn’t warm up much during the race.   Second, my body responded as well as I could have hoped it to in these ideal race conditions presented on a silver platter.  I was bobbing in place and rolling my neck like a prize fighter at the start, muttering to myself, “Let’s make this one for the record books, big guy.”  The woman next to me shot me a perturbed glance with a “WTF?” thought bubble above her head, but I didn’t mind.  I was ready to rumble.

My race unfolded like the instructions in a recipe.  I started at a slower pace than last year because I wasn’t ready to push the pace in the first mile, yet I was confident that my training would allow me to surge when needed.  And I was right.  After a 7:20 first mile (20 seconds slower than last year), I hit my stride in the next two miles and nailed a 23:00 for my first 5K (30 seconds ahead of last year’s pace).  The second 5K is the make-or-break stage of the race.   I felt completely under control at this point in the race, nailing splits in the 7:20 range and hitting the 10K mark in a remarkable 45:56 (almost two minutes faster than last year).  I felt very confident at this point and I knew that a sub-1:10 and family record was within my grasp.  I just had to continue running smart, which I did.  In the second half of the course, I blew past several local rivals who had beaten me in 5Ks and half marathons within the past 6 months.  I was feeling surprisingly good as I tackled the “Green Monster” (the massive Hart Bridge in Mile 9).  I’m happy to report that I nailed a 7:35 split on that daunting bridge and then unleashed a ferocious kick for the last .3 at a 6:45 pace.  All in all, it truly was one for the record books, with three consecutive 23:00-minute 5Ks and feeling ready for more.   I only wish the race could have been longer today because it would have yielded a major personal best in Florida for a half marathon.

And now for the bitterness.  Let me begin by saying that I’m not a fan of huge races.  The Gate River Run now attracts close to 20,000 runners between the 15K and 5K events.  This is just too darn big.  Only the Marine Corps can manage a race of this size with any degree of precision (and they do so every year at the Marine Corps Marathon in DC, which I ran in 1993 and 1997).  Not so at the Gate River Run.  Let’s start with the expo.  I fought traffic and mobs of people to get to downtown Jacksonville on the night before the race to pick up my race “packet” (read:  a race number and a drinking glass that barely fits in my kitchen cupboard because I have so many of these useless items from previous Gate River Runs and other races).  Downtown Jacksonville is 45 minutes from my home without traffic, but it took well over an hour with the expo traffic (and I was treated to a longer version of that misery just 12 hours later on race morning when it took 90 minutes to get to the freakin’ parking lot for the race).  I wouldn’t complain if this race were held in NYC, Philly, or Chicago (which should be plagued by traffic), but this is JACKSONVILLE, which features a “downtown” that is about four blocks wide and long.  I don’t need to spend half of my day in traffic around here.  Enough said. 

So, I arrived at the expo, telling myself, “Calm down, at least you will get a really cool Adidas technical racing shirt for your troubles, in which you can look fabulous as you train and race for years to come.”   Or not.  When I approached the shirt table, I asked for my usual XL shirt and in response, the innocent 12-year-old girl volunteer at that table replied, “I’m sorry, sir, but we are out of XL shirts.”  In what felt like an involuntary bodily reaction comparable to dry heaves, I blurted out a few not-so-kind words at the poor little girl, but quickly regained composure and told her, “It’s not your fault,” when she said she was sorry about 5 times in a wounded puppy sort of way.  I have run road races for 30 years and I can’t remember ONE RACE when I didn’t receive a shirt in my size.  On those rare occasions when that may have been true at packet pickup, the race organizers assured me that I could receive a shirt in my size at a later time.   Not so at the Gate River Run.  So, my $35 entry fee got me a useless glass and a souvenir paper race number.  Great.  And you might be thinking, “Oh, stop your whining and just take a large shirt and move on with your life.”  Well, trying to cram myself into a large t-shirt is the upper-body equivalent of sporting a pair of Richard Simmons short-shorts.  I’m afraid I’m just not THAT sexy and I wouldn’t fare too well modeling the latest in bare midriff apparel.

But it gets better (or worse, as the case may be).   So, I work my butt off to run a personal best time, drooling at the prospect of collecting my second consecutive Top 10% finisher cap.  This award seemed like a sure thing because I received one last year when I was THREE MINUTES SLOWER than this year, and Alek received a cap when he ran a 1:09:56 in 2009.  But, just like the “too bad, just deal with it” rip-off treatment with my shirt at the expo, I was now about to be treated to Round II of “Run Over by the Gate River Run” today.  I crossed the finish line with delight as I saw my time displayed on the digital clock.  However, I didn’t even pause to raise my hands in triumph because I was on a mission.  I saw the guy standing with the box of Top 10% finisher caps and I knew that there was one waiting with my name on it, so why waste a moment in claiming my prize, right?   So, I approached the “man with the box” with a purpose. I was within three feet of him and I saw that he had an enormous stack (at least 50) of stylish-looking Adidas racing caps to hand out.  He was the designated volunteer to distribute the men’s caps and a woman standing nearby was the designated volunteer to hand out the woman’s caps.  Well, things did not run so smoothly from this point forward. 

As I reached out my hand to claim my cap, I was instantly surrounded by a swarm of worker bees returning to the hive.  Throngs of sweaty, cranky, demanding men had come up behind me and around me demanding their caps.  This, apparently, was too much to handle for “Harold” (the name I will give to the man with the box).  As the pack of hungry wolves grew larger and more demanding, Harold decided to fight back.  He started to run away from us, holding the box at his side like a pre-school kid who has the kickball and is refusing to play nicely with others.  This response turned the angry mob into a lynch mob and it was nothing short of remarkable that Harold made it out of there in one piece.  By running away laterally from the initial angry mob, he had managed to position himself in a way that enabled men who finished later to be closer to him to try to claim their (less-deserved) caps.  Needless to say, the men in the “original” angry mob (including me) felt outraged by this development.  All of the bloodthirsty men (in the “original” and “new” mobs) now started to reach angrily for Harold’s treasure chest of caps and were tearing at it with consecutive rips like the relentless pack of sharks, one bite at a time, that moved in for the kill of the abandoned couple in that awful movie, “Open Water.” 

I thought to myself at this point that I needed to be drunk or at least almost-drunk to take part in this scene surrounded by raucous and sweaty men, seemingly teleported from a British pub after the home team just lost the big soccer game on TV (only the violent attacks with broken beer glasses weren’t transpiring here … yet).  I was getting elbowed, shoved, and cursed at by this point, and Harold was getting angrier and more defensive as he completely lost control of the situation.  His futile commands to “stand back” were repeatedly ignored (and would have been ignored even if he had been equipped with the necessary anti-riot gear).   I felt like we could send footage of this scene to Anderson Cooper and it would easily be confused with the uprisings in Egypt and Libya.  It suddenly occurred to me that I still had my fantastic time in today’s race and (what’s left of) my dignity, so I reluctantly decided to extract myself from the “slam dancing” in this “mosh pit” of angry runners. (Didn’t that crazy ritual die in the late 90’s anyway?  If I had known that it was still alive and well, I would have worn my “parachute pants” for the occasion.)  I prefer to choose my battles carefully and this wasn’t one on which it was worth my time and energy to “go to the mat.”  I left the race feeling frustrated and angry, and bypassed the less-than-impressive, post-race refreshment spread so I could get in my car as quickly as possible and avoid as much of the annoying traffic as possible on my way home.

Am I just overreacting?  Chew on these facts for a moment.  Last year, I placed in the Top 8% of the field and received a cap.  This year, I ran 3 minutes faster and placed in the Top 6% of the field and did not receive a cap.  Math was never my strength, but something is very wrong here.  In the future, perhaps the race organizers should implement a system where Top 10% finisher caps are distributed at the AWARDS CEREMONY based on ACTUAL OVERALL PLACE, rather than being based on how well you can “box out” in the rugby scrum at the finish.  Just sayin’.

So, I will take my massive personal best time, and my family record, and bid a not-so-fond farewell FOREVER to the Gate River Run.  I’m eager to move on to bigger and better things, like running a 3:30 at the Philadelphia Marathon in November and punching my return ticket to the Boston Marathon in 2011 or 2012 (depending on the “registration roulette” system in place at Boston).  The ever-reliable McMillan Race Calculator projects a 3:29 marathon based on my time in today’s race (and today’s course is much more challenging than the Philly Marathon course and the temps are even cooler in Philly in November than they were today).  So, I’m on track to reach my “Boston or Bust” goal, but much work remains.  Next on the race calendar is the Jacksonville Symphony 4-Miler on April 17, where I plan to crush my miserable time from last year by 2 minutes or more.   Stay tuned.

At the moment, there are no pictures to accompany this entry because my “pit crew” was not with me for the race.  My wife, Nigara, was visiting her family in Poland and my son, Alek, was participating in a math competition for his high school.  I may post a few after-the-fact photos later.

One final note:  It took me four tries to do it, but I finally beat three-time Boston Marathon champion, Bill Rodgers, in today’s race.  The legendary “Boston Billy” blew past me in mile 7 in last year’s race and beat me by two minutes.  This year, however, I managed to hold him off and beat him by a minute.

Abate Family Places Two in Top 20 at Nocatee 5K

Powered by Ethiopia (and by Alek's "Billy Idol" snarl)

Jockeying for position in the chase pack in the first mile.

Making it look miserable and painful...

...while Alek looks like he's posing for a Runner's World magazine photo shoot.

The Gate River Run 15K is just one week away.  My training efforts since December have been focused on preparing for this race.  My competitive juices are flowing and I’m eager to run a big PR there next Saturday.  Today would have simply involved an easy 8-mile training run in my ongoing preparation for that race, but plans changed.  Alek was scheduled to compete in a high school track meet today and I was going to be among the parents sitting in the bleachers for that race.  Two days ago, however, Alek learned that he didn’t meet the time standard to race in the 1-mile race at that elite meet, so he turned his attention to the prospect of running a local 5K race today instead.  The relentless competitor in me couldn’t resist the opportunity to jump in and race today as well.

This unscheduled tune-up race yielded a course PR for me and helped build my confidence for next week’s showdown at Gate.  I ran a 21:29 today, which is 10 seconds faster than my time at the Resolution 5K in January.  I’m very pleased with this time because it was 20 degrees warmer and much more humid today as compared to race day for the Resolution 5K.  I placed 20th overall of 326 finishers (Top 6%) and placed 3rd of 23 runners in my insanely competitive age group.  My time today would have earned me 1st place in my age group by a 25-second margin at this race last year.  I can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to running races in the right year.  I was 4th in my age group in the Winter Beach 5 miler last month, yet my 36:17 time that day would have earned me 2nd place in my age group in that race the year before.  That’s it for my whining today, though.  As long as my times keep dropping with age, I can’t complain.  At least the clock doesn’t lie.

Here is the progression of times that I have run at the Nocatee 5K since 2008:

2008 – 22:05
2009 – 21:45
2011  – 21:29

The last time Alek and I were summoned to the awards table in the same race was two years ago, so today marked a long-overdue end to that dry spell.  Alek represented his high school and the Abate family well today by placing 1st overall in the race in a cruise-control time of 18:35.  Hopefully the win will give him some confidence to break out of his slump and start dropping time in the 1-mile and 2-mile events at his high school track meets in the next two months.