sometimes i listen to old country music and i think "hey, wow, they used to drink wine. not just whiskey!" and then i'll be like "hey, wow, and tequila." and then like "hey wow beer, too!" and then i realize "oh yeah...they were all drunks." and then i realize "hey wow, i'm drunk!" and then i realize that i've been horseback for about 2 days without rest and it's the year 1880.
ran in a local 5k yesterday. 18:38 on a funky course (meaning it had 1k of uphill). i dunno. i was disappointed not by the time, but that 3rd place was never more than 5 seconds ahead of me and i couldn't pass him. it was all mental, bro. i just wasn't feelin' the flow and i couldn't stay calm and bear down.
what? me worry (about a fanny pack)?
hey! there's one of my students getting 2nd in her age group. atta girl, Evelyn! la rompiste!
"she's my cherry pie! put a smile on yer face! 10 miles wide!" ...nah, just kidding. it was military jams.
This week I indulged in the novelty of novelties: Running with other people.
It was quite a thrill and something I had almost wholly forgotten about over the past 5 months...
On Thursday, the university where I work held a 4K cross country race around the campus. In traditional Chilean racing-style, the lead pack went out at a suicidal pace and completely blew apart in about 400 meters. It was twice as funny as it sounds. About 1K in, I passed the remainder of the guys still hanging on and eventually won overall. I have no idea what time might have been because (in true Chilean race fashion), there was no count down or "gun" to signal the start of the race...we just sort of milled around until people got antsy and started running. There was no timing. I didn't have a watch. It was just...whoever crossed the finish line first won. I was only minimally slowed by the stray dogs constantly underfoot.
On Friday, I went to Santiago to meet up with Daniel and the awesomely supportive Vanessa early on Saturday morning for the K42 race in Cajón del Maipo. The race featured about 6,000ft+ in a 13 mile up-and-down course. I wrote a long race report but instead I'll break down into bulleted points.
-I slept for two hours the night before.
-I vomited white foam after just 10k. I had not eaten any white foam that morning. Huh.
-Daniel gave me some rice cakes with Marmite on them.
-I drank some Gatorade.
-I held a tiny Chilean flag.
-I fell during the descent twice.
-I saw a tiny pure-bred Cocker Spaniel puppy in the mountains twice.
-I learned that I really like Marmite and I spent $14 on an imported jar of that hideous tar.
4th place overall, 5:20:00. Yeesh. 1st place came in around 4:15:00 and was immediately whisked off to a clinic in an ambulance. So...I think he really wanted it quite a bit more than I did. It was a tough day for everyone, although Daniel finished just a couple spots back of me looking very relaxed and fresh. The 80K in October ought to suit him pretty well.
Pictures!
Laguna de Aculeo, Cajón de Maipo
The little bump up there was roughly the half-way point.
Daniel approaching the 21k turnaround.
Sunday morning brunch. Marmite was involved.
I hope that everyone in the world is doing as well as they possibly can be doing given their situation in life!
Proceed with your hell-giving! Those unforgivable cretins surely deserve it!
La Maratón de Santiago: Informe de Carrera (Race Report?)
Thousands of us wait in the marathon starting corral, shuffling our feet and anxiously bobbing in place. I need to escape from the electric tentacles of this monstrous tension. I stare up at the sky, wide-eyed, for the early morning rays are but still emerging from their peaceful slumber behind the mighty protection of the Andes. There is no need to squint. I see everything with crystal clarity.
I lift my arms towards the gentle warmth of our Mother Sun and whisper a prayer: "Lord Jesus, I wanna win this motherfucker today. You help me and I'll stab a rapist later this afternoon." I lowered my arms and got my game face securely fixed in the "on" position, already psyched at the prospect of a potential mid-day stabbing.
After some chanting and counting in Spanish, I hear "UNO!" and the deafening bang of a pistol. "Ha!" I think to myself, "I'm not the only one who plays Uno for keeps!" I look around for my card-game-comrade-in-arms, but all the hyphens obscured my vision...plus, at this point, I'm running. I'm running for the win. Jesus is my running shoes. In case you wondering, Our Lord and Savior has a full-synthetic upper, a low-profile stack-height and a very modest drop. The Lamb of God is neither minimal nor gluttonous. He comes in a fairly rocking colorway, too...ah duuh.
This report will now shift to the vantage point of my hamstring:
"I hate Patrick and I want to be very clear: If I could ever manage to detach myself from his body and somehow implant myself into another person's body, I would do that and then I would use that new body to beat the shit and the stupid out of Patrick's fool head. Then I'd sleep for 2 days because I'd be so tired from such a mammoth physical effort."
Now, from the vantage point of my foot:
"Patrick sucks shit through a straw and can go fuck himself. Prick."
My foot is considerably less verbose than my hamstring, apparently.
So, yeah the race went. This lady with asthma passed me. Seriously. I think she finished around 3:05-ish, but still, I saw her using an inhaler.
Eh, I knew that if I could get to the start line without any major aches or pains, that I could get under 3:00 hours. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I held 6:45 pace for the first 10 miles and felt fine. Breathing easy and just trucking along. At around mile 11 or 12, my legs felt like they locked up. It was fairly painful and they weren't moving right. I decided not to worry about and just jog in. I think I had a couple 8:00 miles in there. We reached the start of a 10K descent to the finish line and my legs opened up a little and I began to hit a few more 6:50 miles. I finished the race while shouting Beatles lyrics along with the post-race cover band. I crossed the line after about 3:11:00. Oh well. It was a good time anyway.
Ran into Markus from the very well written and extremely well photographed runssel.blogspot.com in the marathon VIP lounge afterwards. We tried to meet up for some beers, but somehow couldn't cross paths. It was for the best, however, as I was inclined to start an all day drunk...and would have easily succumbed with slightest encouragement.
Week ending 3/25/12
-42 miles, 6:40:00. 6,000 ft. I didn't run Saturday and Sunday because the World Enduro Championships were being held in Talca. The first ever world championship of any kind in Chile and it was right here in little ol' Talca. I opted to spend those two days furiously hiking around the trails where I run, watching guys flip their motorcycles into trees.
Week ending 4/1/12
- 42 miles, 5:30:00, 1000 ft. ran only twice before the marathon.
I have really felt shitty for about 2 weeks, aside from the hamstring bullshit and this growing pain in my heel, right about where the achilles attached becomes the bottom of my foot. Yeah, in addition to these new pains, I have also felt totally wasted and run-down. We'll see what sort of mysteries this week holds.
14.5 hours of running, 50th place out of 66 finishers.
Well, this was an interesting time. I ran this race with my friend Quim, which was a last minute decision that ended up paying off in ways that I did not anticipate (despite death-marching the last 10 miles). I also lost my fancy camera, which was a bummer...but whatever, man, fuck it.
I want to remember a couple of things, so I may just start jotting things down before I forget them...
I met Ellie Greenwood before the race (although I didn't realize it, I just saw a Canadian flag on her pack and felt like chatting in English). I see that she has a pretty thorough race report up already, if you want a better idea of the course than what I am about to provide. I will say, though, that the route is incredibly fun and features some beautiful running (and hiking).
Overall, the course features two climbs at the beginning, a long descent and then a concerted climb from about mile 23 to 30. That said, there is essentially no flat running at any point in this race and about 12,500 ft of gain (with the same amount in loss).
Quim had been training hard in the cerros of Talca for at least as long as I have and, coming from a life of focused futbol training, is in better shape than I am. His previous long-run experience has been a marathon in the Canaries and a 100K in Andorra. Both were mountain slogs that he did with friends and with a pretty relaxed approached, as in the 100k took them 27 hours or so. This race he wanted to "run" more. As in, try to push the pace and achieve the best possible time for the course. Fair enough.
The race started at 4:00am, which had been changed a few weeks earlier from the originally scheduled time of 2:00am. Excellent.
We jigged around in the dark slowly (too slowly, considering the horrible blare of Bon Jovi at the start), heading towards the first climb. After a bit of hiking, we hit the summit and got a great view of Santiago lit up at night. Like a poorly chosen piece of barroom ass, cities are only beautiful at night...
Luckily, by the time the sun came up we were facing away from the city center and towards the looming range of the Andes. We were both feeling pretty excellent, laughing and running the flats and downhills hard. The sun was up, it was dry, not too hot and there was not a cloud in the sky. Gorgeous. After a cup of hot soup, we started the longest decent of the day and I had the single most enjoyable stretch of running I have ever had. There was no trail at this point to speak of, just course markings tied to the branches of trees and the occasional lonely course marshal to point the way.
The climbing began around 23 miles or so and sucked pretty hard. It just kept coming, with very little opportunity to stretch out and run very much. We reached the half-way point at almost exactly 6 hours, which was fine with me. Here, I think, is where Quim started digging himself into a hole. He pushed the uphill pace hiking, which I think was fine, but then he also would break into a little jog every time the terrain flattened out, even if this was just a few feet. Honestly, I think he would have been better off just holding steady with either hiking or running, as those little bursts of running are just needlessly tiring. The day was wearing on, getting warmer and I noticed that he always had a little water left in his single bottle each time we came to an aid station. I, however, was guzzling water like a champ as I was already pretty familiar with how little I sweat in such a dry climate. Quim also didn't eat very much. He felt like the gels caused him to have a sugar crash and, as such, only ate nuts and fruit at the stops. I had been taking in at least 300 calories/hour for the first 3-5 hours and then switched to just gatorade as the day wore on. I should have said something earlier, in hindsight, but who the hell am I to tell him what to do? Dude comes from Girona, has hiked and run in the Pyrenees and is generally fitter than I am...anyway...
The final nail in his coffin hammered itself in when the race organizers had placed a "2K to next aid station" sign waaaay too early and, because we were fucking thirsty, we picked it up a little in an effort to get there. It turned out to be more like 5K with more climbing before we got there and Quim was feeling rough. Still, I was surprised at how quickly things started going downhill for him. After the next climb, he wasn't in the mood to run the downhill anymore and when we got to a flat section, he didn't want to jog that either. I didn't feel amazing or anything, but I still was in the mood to run (I was shooting for a sub-12 hour finish). It was rapidly evident that Quim was starting to stagger a bit and on one occasion when I asked him if he wanted a gel, he looked around like "Huh?" and seemed unsure of who had spoken to him. Fuck. Several times he encouraged me to run on ahead, but it just wasn't that kind of day. We had had a really good time running together up until then and ditching him just didn't seem like epicly bro sort of thing to do. Plus, I've never had the option to run an ultra with someone I know, so that also seemed like sort of a waste. I'm sure I'll have ample opportunities in the future to go back to training and racing alone.
Anywho, the last 10 miles were a fucking drag to end all drags. Mentally, I felt pretty upbeat. Very resolved to help Quim walk in this race and keep him from really going down the drain. I cajoled him into eating a little bit, drinking more water and told him stories about stupid things I've done when I was drunk (lucky for him we only had 4 hours of walking...as I was just getting warmed up when we finished). He seemed pretty vacant and spent, but I give him a lot of credit for never once considering out loud that he might quit. In fact, he complained very little. Righteous.
Yeah, so 14.5 hours after starting, we jogged in the last 100m of the race.
Gabbo, Stephanie and Emma were waiting at the finish line and helped get Quim some water and some food. I was in a remarkably good mood and felt more or less completely fine. I had several blisters, which for me is odd. One of them had gone ahead and exploded in my shoe, which was gnarly looking. While Quim was recovering a little, I went and said "hi" to Tim Twietmeyer, Ellie and Ian Sharman. Each remarked that the course had been very hard. Word up.
I feel pretty confident that I would have run under 12 hours for this race had I run alone, but I'm much happier with how things actually panned out, honestly. I learned a lot watching someone bite the dust like that and it was very rewarding to give a fellow runner a hand when they aren't having a great day on the trails. Honestly, if I wanted to simply "execute" a coldly calculated and predictable race, I wouldn't be running ultramarathons in the first place. The idea, for me, is to have something of an adventure. Experience something previously unknown. By my definition, adventure always includes equal doses of happy and shitty. If that sounds unappealing, I would recommend a sofa. Seriously, sofas are awesome. I'm sitting on one right now. It feels amazing...but it's not an adventure. Whoa...
On the way home, while waiting for a cab, Quim started vomiting up the water and spaghetti. He looked like a cadaver. We got him back to the apartment, gave him some water and he went to sleep instantly. I woke him up a couple hours later to eat some food, which stayed down and he seemed to be doing slightly better.
I ate a metric shitload of food (because the English shitload doesn't exist here) and drank beer until I was falling asleep sitting up.
I am writing this on Tuesday after just having returned from my first run post-race. I feel the best I've ever felt after an ultra and am really really excited about running more in the upcoming months. I really want to spend more time in the cerros around Talca, doing some much longer stuff than what I've been doing so far. In the back of mind, I'm still thinking very hard about running the "W" down in Torres del Paine. Peter Bakwin has an FKT up for the route, which has been describe as anywhere between 80K to 120K, depending on the exact route. There's also a 70K race in January that I'm thinking of doing...but honestly, the Torres del Paine Circuit sounds so much cooler than paying people a lot of money for cutting up my oranges...
Huge congratulations go out to GZ, who finished his first 100 miler in under 24 hours. Cred.
¡¡¡¡ "La Media Maratón por el Medio Ambiente" POST-RACE REPORT!!!!!
Right after I came across the finish line, I met up with my friend Kake and went to her house to eat, watch TV and then eat again. We shared a one liter bottle of Heineken, which went down pretty well. Nothing crazy, maybe equivalent to one and a half standard 12-oz bottles...so yeah, the afternoon was off to a slow, maybe overly cautious start.
Got home around 10pm and had 6 cans of Paceña in the fridge. The first one disappeared in no time. I briefly considered that the pace might have been a little hot, but I felt pretty relaxed and it was easy to convince myself that I could keep it up. I might have felt a little pressure given the late start and perhaps I was trying to hurry to gain some lost ground. Hit beer #2 in sub-10:00. I wasn't sure where I was at regarding my salt intake, but I didn't want to waste any time making popcorn, so I powered through beer #3 with just a carrot. It was right around this point that I got a little sidetracked responding to emails and watching videos about ancient Egypt. At the start of beer #4, I started feeling a little sluggish. I won't lie, I had a flicker of doubt at this point in the post-race, but I dug deep and reminded myself of my training. "Stick with plan, dude. Have faith." ...which I took to mean that I wanted to listen to "Faith" by George Michael. This definitely revived my spirits and beer #5 was open and ready in no time. Wrapped up an especially witty (no, hilarious!) email to an old friend and was busy reviewing a wikipedia entry on performance-artist Marina Abromovic's "Rhythm 0" piece, when I suddenly realized..."Duder, this has been an awesome day and you are now fully god-damned ready for bed. Go claim your prize."
7th place overall in 1:24:12. Half-marathon PR.
80 miles on the week. Best week of running that I've had in ages.
Whether you're resting, racing, riding or just running around in circles, I hope everyone is out there giving the whole world some hell.
Remember: Nobody, nobody, nobody can pull off the same shit as you and still come out all right.
Oh thank god. It must be all these fucking trips up hills to see statues of the virgin mary because running is finally getting awesome again (it's like tagging 14'ers in the rockies or something, but with less mourning mothers. I assume.).
I've finally hit a solid week of training for the first time in a month. It was really getting me down, frankly. What I've learned is this: I DON'T regret the extremely reduced mileage and intensity that I put forth over the past 5 weeks. What I DO regret is my attitude regarding that lower-output. I let it become something negative, but I needed that rest. My body needed it. However, I didn't permit my mind to rest, also. I could have seriously enjoyed the extra time I had, but instead I felt guilty and lazy and shitty. ...For no reason now that I can possibly fathom.
IN SHORT: lesson learned. Don't be an asshole.
As if I'll ever learn that particular lesson...
I found some actual trails through the woods near where I live. It's been so nice being able to get out of the city and feel isolated in the forest...especially when the views of the Andes are incredible and there are horses roaming around in herds. The last 800m of the climb is un-runnable. Just hiking. So, that's cool and very different for me.
Racing:
I entered the Talca Army's 10K race yesterday and placed 3rd overall, in 36:33. I was surprised that A) I ran it much faster than I would have guessed given my training and B) that a very so-so time was enough for 3rd place. Endurance sports are a fairly new past time in Chile, I'm told. There was one older guy who ran it in about 31:00. We're gonna meet up for a run on Monday.
Things I like about racing in Chile (thus far):
-No crowds watching, so no cowbells. In fact, no one has any idea what the fuck you're doing. Which, at first, flipped me out, but then...it really brings your race into focus. You're there to beat people, not to show off your orange shorts. Queen.
-The Chilean warm up consists of either dancing to reggaeton or jogging socially in a tight circle. It's even better than it sounds.
-The prizes for the young kids and the masters runners were boxes of meat. Straight up.
-Chilean-style racing consists of running with serious Heart. 100m pace right off the gun.
-After announcing our names as we stood on the podium, the Chilean Army marching band launched into the national anthem. Dudes with giant machine guns stood guard. Awesome.
Three weeks until the half-marathon, supposedly. The weekend after is a 4K (yeah). Then, the weekend after that is The North Face Ultramaraton de Los Andes 80K.
I hope everyone is well! I still obsessively read every single one of everyone's posts and reports. It may be a bad habit, but it's better than doing drugs and/or talking about TV shows.
45 miles, the week before last. 64 miles this week.
The theme for this week was definitely "Extra dark. Extra salty." And fat people.
Gabbo and I are broken up. It was all my fault, but life will do what it does. Namely, grind forward inexorably until I die. So...I've got THAT going for me...
Running this week was challenging. I was on spring break from the school, which meant I just picked up as many hours as possible at the bike shop. That much standing, wrench turning and pretzel eating really did a number on my already shitty-feeling hips and always shitty-feeling shoulders. I got to watch a lady fall off of and scuff up a $1200.00 road bike though. Her fat-ass husband was really pushing her towards a $2200.00 bike right off the bat...thankfully she thought better of test riding it. That kicked off a huge conversation amongst everyone at work about fat people. There's so many of them in this part of the country it's sick. My take: if you're looking for a form of body modification, go for facial tattoos or something. Don't stuff food in your mouth until your body is a swollen blob. While a facial tattoo might say "I have sort of checked out of a large portion of society," being fat just says "I have sort of checked out all those starving masses and I decided that I don't give a fuck. Fuck'em. And fuck my once-healthy body, too. I don't give a shit."
They don't deserve those healthy bodies.
Rant over.
I ran in the Pinckney Marathon this morning and placed 5th overall, 3:38:?? The winner came in at 3:11:00, so no...not a lot of fast guys. More important than not being chicked (which doesn't really matter to me at all) is that I did beat the two Ultra-Clones (bearded, long hair, shaved legs, MT 101's, etc). Actually, it was a fairly eventful run as these things tend to go, but I don't feel like giving a play by play at all.
I finished and was covered in salt crust. I don't know what this means regarding my health, but I'm assuming it has something to do with the photo at the top of this post.
The course was two abbreviated loops of the Potowatomi Trail. This guy knows it well. He spanked it last fall as part of the course for the Run Woodstock 50. The Poto is a great, very runnable trail. Good times. Trainee Jill finished her first half-marathon at the same event. Kill-tastic.
With this race over, I don't have anything big on the radar for a while. 5K next weekend for a buddy's charity organization. The University of Toledo 10K. Stuff like that. I'm fairly geeked for the Great Lakes Relay in July. I'm captaining our team of 10, which includes several old friends that I have not seen in many years. It should be such a good damn time.
Congrats go out to Lucho and Dave who are killing so hard that I may dig out a bunker under the house in which to hide my dreams...
I hope everyone else is having such a good damn time, too. We're young(ish), very healthy and we live in the easiest, safest country in the whole world. Let's smile a little bit about all of that.
Do let the video/song play in the background while you read the race report.
Arrived in Charlottesville after a 9.5 hour drive. The route took us through about 3 hours of country roads that whipped around the Appalachians. I played a fun game that involved setting the cruise control at 60mph and then seeing how long i could go without either A) hitting the brakes or B) hitting the rumble strips on either side of the road. It was sort of like playing "Operation" but with higher stakes.
Night before I dipped into a number of Yuenglings, as I can't buy it up in Michigan and i love it very much, especially for high-volume nights of drinking, yesh.
The race started at the top of a dam between two beautiful mountains (i'll try to not to gush about how great everything looked, but this was the first time I had run mountain trails, so i was prone to gawking).
We entered the trail system almost immediately and, right on time, my head lamp fucked up. So i ran in the dark for a while, trying to closely follow a few guys so i could leech off of their light. Sunrise came soon enough and I was tempted to throw my headlamp into a ditch...but that would littering...so I opted to eat it, instead. Fucking garbage. Don't buy PTEC headlamps no matter how light and cheap they are.
The aid stations came fast and furious for the first 13 miles, which lulled me into complacency that I would pay for dearly. First, though, we hit a glorious 6 mile decent at about 6:30/mile, HR 140, chasing some guy, dodging rocks and runners and loving life. I should note, here, that the trail system around Sherando Lake has many sections that are extremely rocky. Not like loose stones, but like sharp, jagged rocks jutting out deceptively from the pine needles. Other sections are composed entirely of bread-loaf sized stone without dirt or sturdy place to foot plant. It was an ankle-snapping good time.
Onwards: We hit the half-marathon mark and headed out on 4 miles of gravel roads where i put some time on a few people. Upon turning back to the trails, I came to a section with an aid station that marks the trail heads for two spurs. The 50 milers do both out and backs.
Each spur involved a climb up and a decent. The first spur was a quick up-and-over a ridge and I hole-punched my bib at the bottom and ran back. As I passed the aid station on my way towards the second spur, I didn't realize how long it'd take to summit the second climb. I was running a fairly large calorie deficit and didn't refill my water bottle. What threw me off was 4 miles of flat trail leading to the summit itself, which involved a series of about 8 switch backs, some of which were around 20% or more grade. I started to bonk very hard here, tunnel vision and drunken weaving, limply swinging my empty water bottle. I watched the guy I had been chasing earlier power hike away into the distance. This part was pure suffering of the mental variety, but I stared at my feet and hiked for about 1,000 years until I got to the top. I ate as much as I thought I could handle before turning around and hitting the downhill. I felt better instantly and ran the switches back down as hard as I could.
In the back on my mind, I was also a little nervous about my effort in the race thus far. I was pushing it, I felt good, but like I was really working and I was still under the half-way mark. This was new territory for me.
After returning to the two-spur's aid station, the guy I had chased down that initial 6 mile decent and who had hiked away from me on that shitty summit was sitting down in a chair. I was a little surprised to hear that he, too, was dealing with some bonking issues. I felt rough still, but ate some more and started a slow shuffle away from the aid station, expecting the dude to catch me eventually. I actually walked a bit here on the flat jeep road. I needed to let all that food I had eaten settle. I had overdone it a bit. I also, um, called my girlfriend here. She had enjoyed her 10 mile race that morning and wished me luck. I considered texting her a photo of my johnson. Standard mid-race maneuver.
Back to running: I hit the gravel roads and tried to pick up the pace again. Now it was uphill and things were feeling rough. I kept thinking about that guy, sitting in the chair, gathering his strength and plowing past me in no time. I got to an aid station, refilled and lo and behold, here comes dude charging up the road, looking daisy-fresh. Fuck.
Not that I'm super competitive. It's more that I appreciate the added motivation that other runners provide during moments of difficulty. Or something.
Anyway, I refilled my bottle and got the fuck out of dodge. This began the worst part of the race. That fun 6 mile decent early on? Now we had to hike back up it. In general, it was 75% un-runnable for me. I was smoked. So tired. I learned quickly to not look up the trail, as it only continued to climb straight up the hill. Dude did not catch up.
After my 90th birthday, I finished most of the climb, ate some oreos at an aid station and then finished the last mile-ish of the climb. Now it was rolling and very very rocky again. Some parts were so rocky and my legs were so sloppy that I ended up picking my way through the stones rather than try to maintain a true run. I thought for sure that I was going to be passed here. I was just in survival mode, walking at times, shuffling when I could, etc.
Ultimately, I came to the final 2 mile decent off the mountain. This was the steepest and most technical section of the race. My quads felt like they had been worked over with a ball-peen hammer and I was really not looking forward to this part. The first few steps were excruciatingly painful, but I kept running and picking my way over the giant rocks and roots until all of a sudden, nothing hurt any more. I ran those final two miles as hard as I've ever run a downhill and it was by far the most challenging trail running I have enjoyed up to this point in my life. Transcendental. Epiphanic. Spiritual. All of the above.
Hit the bottom, passed an aid station and headed down the final 1.5 miles of mostly paved roads back to the finish. I kicked surprisingly hard with about a quarter mile to go and passed a guy with about less than 100 ft. to the finish...turns out my 10 hour day of running was good for 10th place out of 80-ish finishers. Balloons and cake.
This may be my most straight forward race report ever. I wrote it very early on Sunday morning...early enough that i hadn't started drinking, so that might have something to do with it.
I would post photos and video but my drop bag (with the camera) is supposedly being mailed back to me (or is sitting on the floor of some guy's apartment while he tries to craigslist the contents. if you see a purple dildo with "PDT4EVR" engraved on it, please let me know).
With the race included, I ran 76 miles this week. two 10-milers, a 5 miler the day before the race and 1 mile around the block in some new shoes.
what's that, like 6:40/mile? something around there.
it was a good race. cold today, but cloudless. some wind, but it seemed to hurt other people worse than it did me, so that was a plus in the competition column. i dunno. i mean, i'm not that fast, so what the fuck, right?
it was a smart race, though. i think. i knew i could run it in under 70 minutes and that if i watched my HR for the first 5 miles, i'd be ok with second 5. i never went above 172 the whole time and on long flat stretches (essentially the entire race, as this is the midwest), i could "relax" my HR back down to the mid 160's without slacking on my pace. we passed over the highway 4 or 5 times and each time i was pleased to use the modest ascent/descent to pass people handily. my time in the gym is paying off on the uphills and my time doing 20 downhill repeats at wildwood park are paying off on the downhills.
being that this is january in the midwest and the race was a 10-miler and not the much beloved half-marathon, i had a feeling it would be a straight up kind of race...and it was. all the fast guys in the region were there, with the exception of the african guys who work at the store during the school year. they were probably off racing somewhere for cash. i would be.
but yeah, it was fun. this was the first "real" race i've run since last july's 5k. the 5o-miler i just wanted to finish and everything else i've run has been with someone who i'm "keeping company" and just having a nice time.
this was also the first race i've done in a while completely sober. which is nice, too. in a norman rockwell kind of way, i think. all smiles and pies over here, boys.
bottom line: i got single-chicked. i passed #2 with about 400m to go.
double bottom line: i accurately assessed my fitness before the race and things played out as expected. that, to me, is the biggest accomplishment.
58 miles on the week. creeping. creeping. back up.
