100 lbs of pure running torture

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST! Download now: TPR Episode 52

The Nashville Half Marathon, the Swamp Rabbit 5K, and the 100K Tour de Cure in 8 days. What could go wrong, right?

Well, as you read (or heard) earlier this week, Nashville went off as a resounding success. I took a few days to rest and relax, dive back into work, and prepare for the weekend. My wife wanted to run the Swamp Rabbit 5K, which I ran last year pushing one kid in the jogging stroller.

This year, I pushed TWO kids in the stroller. Big fun.

Me and my boys, ready to roll!

As with Nashville, the weather was bad. It was drizzling throughout the race, and rained pretty hard right as I finished. There isn’t too terribly much to report from a 5K other than:

• My kids loved it. (Remember that and run a 5K with your kids.)
• I passed my wife at about Mile 2, which pissed her off to no end.

The Swamp Rabbit 5K is a really crowded race with 5,000 people on very narrow streets. It’s a great race for families and recreational runners. It’s a terrible race if you actually want to race.

We got home at 7:30. Ten hours later, I was on the road to Little Mountain, SC for the Tour de Cure. It was chilly and windy, and I HATE riding in the cold. The AccuWeather “real feel” was in the mid-40s. Ugh.

I ride for The Dome Team, a loosely-affiliated cycling group of legislators, staff, and lobbyists who work at the State House. We decided to use our fundraising powers for good rather than evil several years ago and have raised tens of thousands for the American Diabetes Association. This year, we missed our fundraising goal, and really didn’t have a great turnout (it was the same morning as the state Republican and Democratic conventions, so some of the riders were preoccupied).

I got on the bike at 7:30 and left with the 100 mile and 100K riders, with the intention of riding 100K. I started suffering very quickly. As I wrote on Twitter and Facebook later, I was “overtired and underdressed”. My feet and hands were frozen. My core was OK, my arms and legs were OK. I started feeling really crappy and mentally shot.

I couldn’t hold pace with the folks cranking a 20+mph pace. I started slowing quickly and felt like I was turning myself inside out to hold a 16-18mph. My legs were getting tired within a few miles and I started thinking about my options. Two years ago, I did the 65 miles in 3:30. I was now staring at a 4:30-5:00 ride if I tried to finish the 65 miles, and I really wasn’t in the mood for that.

At Mile 17, I hit the 30-mile turnaround, and, well, turned around and rode solo back to the start. The actual 30-mile ride wouldn’t start until 10:00, but I was well over an hour at the 17-mile mark.

I generally suffered all the way back to the start and cruised in at 1:50. Now, when I do a 27-mile group ride, I pull in under 1:20, so there’s a good indication of how tired my legs really were. It took an hour to feel my feet again, and I was freezing. I watched our Dome Team riders leave for the 15- and 30-mile rides and then bolted for home.

The Tour de Cure is a charity ride, and the work was in raising the nearly $10,000 we raised as a team this year. It’s not about the 65-mile ride. I’m OK with it. I achieved my goals and just overreached a bit on the ride.

Oh, and I’m finished with crappy-weather races. I’m going to run in the 82 degree sunshine  this week.

Run long, friends.

FROM NPR: In another editorial cartoon from the September 1905 issue of Physical Culture, the ideal specimens of humanity judge the weak.

A few of the health headlines I’ve been reading this week:

WSJ: Dale Katechis of Oskar Blues Brewery Mixes Exercise With Beer

Another in a good series of “What’s Your Workout?” I enjoy them when they hit close to home.

NPR: Paleo Diet Echoes Physical Culture of Yesteryear

There are no new ideas, just recycled ones.

NPR: A Rare Rejection of the Dead

I don’t know what to make of the rejection of the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, other than it’s an interesting story.

I’ll finish with two quizzes I found on the NY Times site while reading a few stories over there:

Gulp! The Quiz: How much do you know about your digestive tract?

Are you addicted to food?

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST! Download now: TPR Episode 51

My goal for 2013 is to run the Chicago Marathon in under 4:00 and to raise a ton of money for Team in Training while doing it. The first step toward knocking out that goal was to start training and test myself at the Nashville Country Music Marathon.

Training went well for about 6 weeks – I was hitting my speedwork paces (5:30/mile for 400m, 6:45/mile for 1600m), doing well on the tempo runs (8:00 miles), and knocking out the long runs without any distress. My April training was a different matter. Allergies and a severe cold that was passed around the house twice put a major dent in what I was able to do. I missed a long run, suffered through the tempo runs, and scratched a bunch of the cross-training workouts.

I lined up at the start on a crisp, drizzly morning. I chose to stay at one of the designated shuttle hotels out by the Nashville Airport, so it was quick and easy to get to the start line (and not nearly as expensive as staying in the Vanderbilt area). It rained off and on the night before the race, but was only spitting rain…

… until right before the start. It was 50-52 degrees and breezy at the start. I sported the latest in lawn-and-leaf bag fashion which did a decent job keeping me dry and warm. A fellow runner from Chattanooga was in a full Hincapie Sportswear tri suit, which he chose because of the impending rain. He spent most of his time before the race with his teeth chattering.

My goal for the race was to run a PR – hopefully something below 1:45. With my goal for Chicago in my head, a sub-1:45 would put me solidly in place, 24 weeks before Chicago, of achieving that goal. Nashville is a hilly course. Now, I’ve written before about how the course map lies. The top is the official course map. The bottom is the MapMyRun elevation map. The first two miles is generally downhill, but the three hills not reflected on the official map keep it from being the nice downhill speed-fest that is advertised. My plan was to run to Mile 8 as hard as I could, and then use the downhill to the finish to just hold on and race.

I got to the 5K mark in 24:36, which was a solid 7:55 pace. If I could hold that pace, I would cruise in with my PR solidly in hand. I felt strong and was running without too much effort. My breathing was normal and I decided to ditch my heart-rate monitor so that number didn’t freak me out.

Now, it’s time for the real hills. The next 5K is a relentless uphill until you get to this little neighborhood and it slows down to an easy roll. I was checking my watch to make sure I was holding my sub-8:00 pace at each mile marker, but not worrying about the pace my watch said I was running. At this point, I was still running strong and I was feeling really confident about the goal.

At Mile 5, the iPod died. I guess water got into it to kill it, (which is shocking since my previous iPod Nano survived a trip through the washing machine and the dryer). No matter. I enjoy listening to music on the run, but I don’t need it. In hindsight, I probably should have left it home.

I hit the 10K mark in 49:07, which is only 22 seconds off my 10K PR. I was still running a 7:55 pace, and I was nearing the top of the hills.

I had ditched my trashbag at about Mile 4 – much later than I’d planned, but the wind combined with the cool temperatures and the rain forced me to keep it on. I’m a “princess and the pea” kind of runner. The slightest things get into my head and throw off my mental game. Until about the 10K mark, I was cold. I was regretting the decision to ditch the garbage bag. I wish I’d brought gloves. I was soaked. And the rain had turned from a mist/drizzle to a steady rain.

No matter. I hit Mile 8 – roughly the top of the course – still on pace. I did some quick mental gymnastics and knew I was well under a 1:45 pace. Even if I slowed down a bit, I was going to PR. So I sped up.

The next few miles are mostly downhill. I remembered there was a wicked uphill at Mile 12, but I kept on pace and ran hard. At the 15K mark I was still on my 7:54 pace and rolled in at 1:18:38. with only a 5K to go, I knew I had my PR, even if I ran close to 10:00 miles.

When I hit the hill at Mile 12, the wheels almost came off. I stopped to walk a section of the hill for reasons completely inexplicable to me now. The rain was relentless, and as we got to the top of the hill, the course takes a ridiculous one-block jog that aggravates the s**t out of me for some reason. There is another slight (but by this point agonizing) rise before you run a steep downhill across the bridge and into the LP Field parking lot.

As I turned the corner into the finishing chute, I saw the “1:44″s still on the clock and knew I had nailed my PR on this very challenging course.

Yeah. 1:42:44. Beat my previous PR by more than 5 minutes (and still makes me wonder what I might be able to do on a flat course).

Anne Hutto and I at Soulshine Pizza after the race.

I waited under the Michelob Ultra dome for my South Carolina friend Anne Hutto who was also racing, but started a few corrals behind me. She also PR’d with a 1:53, and we froze our tuchas off together waiting for her other friends to arrive.

I was shivering and my teeth were chattering. I’m not someone who ever really gets cold, so this was a new experience for me. I eventually scrapped the idea of meeting her friends and walked through the now pouring rain to the hotel shuttles (where I also waited for what seemed line an eternity in the rain).

I joked when I walked into the hotel that if the maid was in my room there was going to be blood. I soaked in a very hot bath for 20 minutes or so and took a quick nap. Then, it was off to celebrate!

I mean come on, you’re in Nashville. They had the traditional country music concert following the race, but I chose to go to Jimmy Buffett, who happened to be playing the same night. I bought the tickets through the race, got club-level seats, and the folks in my section sat the entire time. Now, I’m not one to sit during a concert, but I wasn’t arguing that night.

1:42:44. Good food. Beer. And a (scratch) margarita at the Jimmy Buffett concert. Folks, rain aside, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.

Run long, friends.

Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville… the seats weren’t great, but they were soft.

I should have some sort of celebrity blow out for my 50th episode, but you’re just going to get this normal episode instead.

The episode is in three parts. I talk a little about the tragedy in Boston, move to a long run I did where I talk about my friend Adam Tinkoff and the loss of his son, and I move to a little about my race schedule at the end.

Thanks for listening!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST! Download now: TPR Episode 50

Flags at my office at the SC State House were lowered to half-staff for the victims in Boston.

With any and all apologies for those who may disagree with my religious beliefs. I specifically stay away from expressing that part of my life here, but I am a devout Episcopalian Christian and felt called to write this down and share it. The first three paragraphs and the final paragraph are a prayer attributed to St. Francis and inspired my feeble attempt to add to it.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

Grant the community of runners throughout your Creation — a group of people who thrive in the spirit of friendly human competition and personal betterment — the Peace to stand up to aggression and the evil forces at work in this world.

Grant the innocent people of Boston the Peace to continue with their daily lives without fear for their safety. Protect them as they attempt to rebuild their daily routines in the face of evil.

Lord, we ask your continued blessings on all of the people who ran into danger on Monday, the first responders and volunteers who comforted the injured.

Grant the victims of this tragedy the Peace of spirit and soul that may only be found through your Grace.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.