Racing in the Rain - Frostbite 15K report

I signed up for the local Frostbite 15K in order to use it as a training run/workout where I could do some marathon-paced miles.  It's always more fun to do race-paced miles in a race environment where you have the company of others and a great opportunity to practice fueling/hydrating at pace.   I didn't taper for the race, but was hopeful that I'd get to race day and feel pretty good maintaining marathon pace for the duration.  Since the race was on Sunday, I shifted my recovery miles to Saturday and ran 12 miles with my Dad and a friend at a good recovery pace (9:15/mi).    After a good dinner of spaghetti and a (fairly) decent night of sleep, it was time to roll.

Race morning dawned and was RAINY.  I ate my breakfast (english muffin - half with peanut butter, half with cream cheese), had a serving of UCAN, and tried not to stress about the fact that I could hear the rain pounding on the roof.   With wipers going full blast and cars going 45mph on the interstate, I slowly made my way over to the starting location for the race.  It was shaping up to be a very, very wet morning.

A friend of mine had (very kindly) offered to meet me an hour or so before start time for some extra mileage.  I'd wanted around 16-17 for the day, so we were going to get in 6 miles beforehand.  I was so loathe to get out of my nice warm car, but knowing that I'd have company for those miles was a huge help.   Two minutes into our warmup we were SOAKED.  Soaked to the point that we didn't even try to avoid the puddles - there was no point!  We were as wet as we could possibly be.  A cold and damp 6 miles later, I hopped back into my car and used my two towels to dry off and change into my next set of clothes for the race.  I was feeling pretty decent after the warmup, and hopeful that it wouldn't be so bad.  After changing and taking one of my Honey Stinger gels, I threw a trash bag on to shield my second set of clothes until the start and hopped back out into the rain.  I was doing ok until...all of the sudden I could not stop shivering.  My teeth were chattering so hard that I had a hard time talking.  With only 3-4 minutes until the start I just wanted to GET THIS OVER WITH!!

Thankfully, we were soon off and underway.  My friend was hoping to run around the same pace as I was for the first 5 miles and it was wonderful to have him there to help pace me.  We started a tiny bit fast (but not terrible) and I was so cold and wet that it was actually feeling pretty decent to be generating some heat from the faster pace.

Miles 1-4 (6:42, 6:43, 6:45, 6:42)  Miles 1-4 were wet, but pretty close to my goal pace.  Since we'd gotten so much rain overnight there was so much standing water in places that the race marshals had us hop off the road and onto the muddy ground to try and avoid the huge patches of water.  It was definitely a first for me in a race!

Mile 5-7 (6:46, 6:43, 6:56) I was feeling pretty decent at around mile 5 when my friend decided he was going to go on ahead.  I was content to just continue to try and run my pace.  But then...the hills started.  There were some hills on the first half of the course as well, but I think the hills on the back half are worse - most likely they just feel harder because of the fact that you've already run 5 miles (or a total of 11 in my case) and are a bit fatigued.   I tried to take my gel, but only managed to get about half of it in my mouth since my hands were so cold and I was uncoordinated.  By mile 6 I was finding it harder to maintain my pace without putting in quite a bit more effort.  I was bummed we had over 3 miles to go but tried to stay positive and run the tangents.  I leap-frogged a bit with a girl in front of me.  She was in 5th place and I thought it would be cool to come in 5th so I passed her.  But a mile or two later she caught me and by that point my legs were pretty toast.  Mile 7 was a welcome sight but I had a moment of panic when a volunteer shouted out "Only a 5K left!!" and I thought "I think I'll die if we actually have a 5K left" - thank goodness his math was wrong!

Miles 8-9.3 (6:51, 7:07, 6:48 (0.47mi on my watch) Mile 8 was my worst thanks to two big hills it made my pace tank by quite a bit.  I was getting discouraged by seeing a 7:xx on my Garmin and was upset at myself that I couldn't quite find the energy to care about catching the #5 girl in front of me (who I could still see).  I know that's something I need to work on for future races.  I don't have much of a "finishing kick" and I just mentally couldn't turn that switch on today that would encourage me to hunt her down.  It was more like "Meh.  It's nasty out here and I'm struggling to hold my pace - I don't have the extra energy to chase her down.".  And I know that's probably not the best way to be towards the end of the race!   I did manage to pick up the pace when I knew we only had less than a mile to go.  The thought of getting into warm, dry clothes was spurring me on but the legs were definitely feeling the fatigue.  By the time we hit the hill to the finish (cruel, isn't it? We finish on an uphill!), I was toast.  Happy to be done, I ended up at 1:04:31, 6th female overall.    My Garmin pace was 6:49/mi (I had a total of 9.47 mi for total race distance though - perhaps due to the off-roading we had to do in order to avoid all the standing water), but the official average pace per the 9.3 course was 6:55/mi.

A cool down mile and a half in the rain (thanks again to my friend for being there to make me do this - I was sorely tempted to just go to my car and get warm and dry!) and I was done for the day.  My warm clothes felt so awesome and I was so happy to get inside for the post-race awards and attempt to warm up.   I was 1st in my age group and won a ribbon and a gift card to a local running store!

Now that it's done, I have acknowledged that there were some good and bad things about this run.   The good:  I pretty much held my goal pace for this race if you use my Garmin time. (Yay?) I got to practice running that pace in the rain, and fueling and drinking at that pace as well (which was more challenging than I thought!).   The bad:  It was a nasty day.  My clothes and hat and shoes and socks and EVERYTHING was completely soaked by mile 2 and felt very heavy as the race went on.  I was mad at myself for not chasing down the #5 girl, and bummed that I was as fatigued as I was at the end of the race.  And it was tough to swallow that my time was close a minute slower than last year's.   It's hard not to get discouraged when you realize that this pace that feels challenging for 9.3 miles is supposed to be the pace I'll run for 26.2 miles in two months!

I am not yet revising my goal pace, but recognize that I may need to.  I've got one more marathon-paced workout (12 miles at MP) coming up in two weeks and we'll see how that one goes.  I'm hopeful that it goes well and will give me a little more confidence about the pace.  In the meantime, I'm going to try and work on some positive visualizations/affirmations to help try and get my head out of the way.  I feel that mentally (consciously or not) I had already determined that this wouldn't be a great day and therefore I didn't push as hard as I probably could.   I need to get more of that fire in me that helps drive me to chase down those people in front of me when I'm at the end of the race - rather than sit there complacently and run it in.  But!  I am still so very thankful that I'm healthy at this point in the season and am able to run and push the pace at all.  Rain or not, it's so awesome to be out there.

Total mileage: 83 miles for the week.

Any tips for how to cultivate that fire in you that helps you to go "chase 'em down"?  

Any positive visualizations/affirmations that help you wrap your head around a goal pace that feels challenging?  

Shamrock Marathon 2014 Race Report

I always enjoy reading race recaps from other runners (especially when I'm killing time in the taper!) so I thought I'd post mine here. Shamrock Marathon 2014 - 3:09:52

Race Week: I ran the Shamrock Marathon on March 16th of this year.  Four days before the race I caught my daughters' stomach virus and it threw me (and my race preparation!) for a loop.  I was so sick with the girls’ stomach bug on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday I was feeling better, but couldn’t really eat any solid foods until Thursday. Tried my best to force down the carbs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and just prayed that my stomach would hold it together on race day.  It definitely was an anxiety-filled week as I wasn't sure if I'd be able to race at all - much less to race for the time goal (sub 3:10) I wanted.  I knew that was a pretty ambitious goal going into this race (almost 9 minutes off my current PR from the fall) and that in order to have a good shot at it, the day had to go pretty well.  A stomach virus that prevented me from eating as much as I normally do before a race was not part of the plan!

Day Before the Race: My parents and uncle were running the Shamrock Half marathon, so I kissed the girls & my husband goodbye and drove down from Richmond to Virginia Beach with my parents on Saturday around noon. I’d done a shakeout run that morning with a brief interval (3 minutes HARD effort) to prime my body to store some glycogen. After a quick lunch at Panera, we headed down to VA Beach to stay at my uncle’s house. He’d picked up our packets so we got to avoid the expo. We had spaghetti for dinner, and I had a piece of birthday cake (it was my birthday on Saturday) to round out the meal. Went to bed around 9:30pm after listening to my visualization program (mental prep). Woke up in the middle of the night (2am) because I rolled over on the “inflate” button for the air mattress and it started inflating more!!! It scared the life out of me (and out of my parents who were sleeping on an air mattress in the same room!)! By the time I figured out to unplug it, I was wide awake and worried I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Thankfully, I managed it.

Race Day: I woke up at 5am when my parents’ alarm went off. The half marathon started 1.5 hrs earlier than the full marathon (7am vs. 8:30am) so they had to get there before me.I got up and had 1 serving (2 scoops) of Hammer Perpetum (UGH – so yucky, but effective – just had to get it down) and then just chilled out for an hour or so on the sofa. At 6:45 I tried to get down my bagel and banana. I had a hard time (stomach did not want to eat), but I managed all of the bagel and probably 3/4ths of the banana. Some Gatorade and water as well. My aunt drove me to the start (one of the HUGE perks about running a race near family) with about 40 minutes to go. It was 40 degrees with 15-20mph wind from the NNE, so it felt a bit colder. Even still, I wore shorts, a singlet, gloves and long socks that I cut off to use as arm warmers. (because I didn’t want to throw away my actual arm warmers - ha!) I used the restroom, warmed up for 5 minutes or so, ate 1 gel (Honey Stinger) and then got in my corral. They had a 3:05 pace group (too fast) and a 3:15 pace group (too slow), so I kind of stood in the middle and nervously asked people around me if anyone was shooting for a 3:10 or so. No takers. The gun went off, and I did my best to keep it reasonable.

Miles 1-5: 7:21, 7:11, 7:14, 7:08, 7:14

Ran a 7:21 for the first mile and had a few talkative guys around. Tried to see what they were running but they were targeting a 3:05 or so, so I knew I needed to let them go. Miles 2-5 passed pretty uneventfully. The wind was blowing pretty good but it was mostly to the side or at our backs during this part so I tried to relax and conserve energy. Somewhere in this stretch I found a group of 2 guys and a girl that were looking for around a 3:10. One of the guys (Adam) was a coach of some athletes and was doing a great job holding the pace pretty steady, so I kind of locked on to him and his friends (Aaron & Liz). Another girl (Gina) joined us and she and I talked for a bit. She was also shooting for a 3:10 and (like me) she had been worried that she wouldn’t have anyone to run with. We all joked a bit that we were now the “unofficial 3:10 pace group”. I decided to hang with them as long as I could.

Miles 6-10: 7:10, 7:08, 7:06, 7:10, 7:11

Miles 5-10 were tougher – we hit the turnaround and then started running back up north – so were running right into the wind. I took my first gel at mile 5. Our little group did a good job of blocking some of the wind, but it was coming from the side as well and we were getting a bit pummeled. The two guys “leading” the group at the time picked it up a bit and Gina (the talkative one) started to freak out a bit about the slightly faster pace. She wanted me to drop back with her to the planned 7:15 pace, but I sadly told her that I really didn’t want to lose the pack. I knew we had the boardwalk coming up where we’d get HAMMERED by the wind and I wanted to be with as big of a pack as I could at that point. So I told her I was going to stay with the pack. She ended up sticking it out too. Took my second gel at mile 10.

Miles 11-15: 7:08, 7:06, 7:06, 7:06, 7:09

We eventually wound our way back to the boardwalk and then the fun REALLY started. The wind was miserable – gusting so hard that it literally was blowing us from side to side. I was so, SO grateful for our pack at this point. The main “coach” guy (Adam) and the rest of the group had already talked about how we’d all need to take turns leading so that we each shared the wind-blocking duties. I decided to take the first shift and Gina came up with me. It was actually a bit of a mental boost for me to be “leading” – all of the sudden I got to focus on helping the group vs. worrying about how I was feeling my legs slowly growing more tired. I felt pretty decent during this section and kept reminding myself how much better I felt this year vs. during this same stretch last year in this marathon. The group was pretty good about taking turns. Everyone had a go at “leading” and then we kept rotating. I ended up taking 3 turns blocking the wind and felt the best during those times since my focus was on the group (vs. myself). Though it was really nice to be able to relinquish the lead and tuck in to get a respite from the wind. I pretended I was on a normal Saturday long run and my usual training partners were the ones leading the pack! Took my third gel at mile 15. One random observation – though I was in a pack for most of the race, no one was really talking much. I have found that as my times have improved, people around me in races are less and less talkative. I guess because they are all having to focus and work harder and are less inclined to have conversation – but I miss that! It makes the time go by so fast!

Miles 16-22: 7:12, 7:06, 7:05, 7:00, 7:19, 7:33 (WIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!),7:23

The first part of this wasn’t too bad – we were still running into the wind, but we had our little pack and took turns. And at around mile 17, we finally got to the wooded section where we were sheltered from the wind. At this point, our pack disbanded a bit. Two of the guys went on ahead (Adam and Aaron) and I lost the other two girls (Liz and Gina). So I was kind of left on my own. But without the wind, I was feeling much better. The legs were tired and the quads were talking to me, but I was surprised to look down and see a 7:00 split - my fastest ever in a marathon! Yes! Unfortunately, we headed out to the woods to the peninsula and woooooooo boy. Things got ugly. This was the toughest stretch by far. You could see the ocean and the wind was RIPPING off that sucker and just howling. It was so strong that at the water stop it blew the Gatorade out of my cup – I ended up only getting half of it! Took my last gel at mile 20 and barely had the strength to open it and get it down. I had to pull out all of my mental tricks during these miles – I could hear Dr. Asp's (sports psychologist who made my visualization CD) voice in my head telling me to use my reserves and to NOT be complacent – to keep pushing. It was rough seeing my time creep up - I was frantically trying to figure out if I could still make my goal. I passed 3 girls in this stretch, which was good. But man, I missed my pack. Facing that wind all on my own was so rough. I wanted to stop. I wanted to quit. I thought about my friend Meg Menzies and how she was up in heaven cheering me on and I kept going. I could not WAIT to be out of this section and headed back to what I hoped would be a tailwind to finish it up.

Miles 23-26.2: 7:15, 7:16, 7:17, 7:10, 6:44 (last .38)

FINALLY back to the main road with significantly less wind. But unfortunately by this point my legs were so toast and I was just trying desperately to hang on. I was passing guys (no other girls in sight), which was encouraging, but I knew I had a long way to go. At this point I started playing mind games. I told myself that this was a tempo run, that I just had to suck it up and know it would hurt but it would be over soon. For some reason I kept telling myself I had only two miles to go – I told myself that at mile 23 (even though it wasn’t true) and again at mile 24 (when it actually was true). For some reason, two miles seemed “reasonable” – something I could handle, that my brain would accept. I got to mile 25 and just kept pushing. My legs were starting to cramp and I was just praying they would hold on. I tried to pick it up but I was so, so tired. I knew it was going to be close and started to panic a bit. I hit a huge headwind coming on the boardwalk for the final stretch and it literally blew me sideways. Made the turn onto the boardwalk the finish just seemed SO FAR away. I kept looking at my watch and realized it was going to be REALLY close.

Pushed and pushed and made it down the final stretch – heard my dad and mom and uncle yelling for me and saw the clock – already 3:09 and change!! I gave it every single thing I had and almost fell across the line. 3:09:52 – I barely made it, but I did! I was so incredibly happy and thankful!!!  I had three people rush up to me to try and steady me, but I was fine - just exhausted.  I think they were relieved that I wasn’t going to faint or throw up! Ha! Saw my mom and dad who had made their way over and got a bit emotional. I’d been working for this for months and I was just so happy I was healthy enough to do it and had had a good day. Ended up as 10th female overall and 2nd in my age group – new PR by about 9 minutes! What a wonderful day!

Post-race it was time for hot coffee, a shower and clean clothes!  Then a nice lunch at my aunt & uncle's house before heading back to Richmond.

Final Thoughts:

I was very pleased at how this went.  Training had been pretty solid, but with the wind that is usually present at Shamrock and the complications with the stomach bug, I wasn't really sure quite what to expect.  The course itself is pancake flat.  There's one tiny overpass that you go over twice and that's the only "hill" in the entire thing.  Crowd support is patchy (especially since the course takes you onto two military bases where spectators aren't allowed), but the race itself is well organized and well run.  I enjoy the smaller marathons and this one has an additional advantage to me of being relatively close to home, and near family.   This is the second time I've run this marathon and while I think it is a good race, I don't think I'll be coming back for a while.  Mainly due to the WIND and the slightly boring course, but mostly due to the fact that there are so many other marathons I'd like to experience.  But if you are looking for a flat marathon and don't mind some wind, you may want to check it out!   http://www.shamrockmarathon.com/

Anyone out there run Shamrock in the past?  What did you think of the course?

Thanks for reading!

Erie (Presque Isle) Marathon Race Report 2013

Erie Marathon Race Report 2013 - 3:18:51

I had decided to race the Erie Marathon in Pennsylvania after hearing great things from some running friends. It’s a flat, fast course, and the biggest selling point for me was the relatively small field and low-key race logistics.

Race Weekend:

I drove up to Erie on my own on Friday (almost 9 hours in the car) and finally arrived at the Glass House Inn around 6pm. It was a nice place to stay and best of all it was only 5 miles or so from the start of the race!   I went for a quick shake-out run of 3 miles and was LOVING the chilly weather. My 8:12 pace felt easy and I was excited.   Grabbed spaghetti takeout (eh – not great) for dinner and then went to bed around 10pm (had some trouble getting to sleep) and woke up at 7:30 the next morning. I went for a quick 20-minute shakeout (again, the cooler weather and no humidity was AWESOME) and then had a bagel and cereal for breakfast at the hotel. I took a quick trip to the expo with two awesome Richmond runners who had come up and we drove the course as well. Seeing the awesome views of the water and the pancake-flat course got me excited about getting to race the next day.

The expo/packet pickup was small – basically a few tents set up outside of the pavilion – but boasted some awesome cheap gear (technical shirts for $5!!). The shirt that they gave us in our packet was great as well – long sleeved and comfortable, with a beautiful graphic on the front. My favorite part of the shirt was the logos on the sleeve rather than the back.

Besides that quick trip to the expo/packet pickup, I spent the majority of Saturday with my feet up in my motel room, watching episodes of The Office on my laptop.

I was already getting sick of carbs but worked really hard on Saturday to carb up with lunch at Panera plus some bagels & pretzels for snacks. In addition to lots of water I had two bottles of Gatorade throughout the day. That night I went to the pasta dinner put on by the race directors –it was delicious!! They had tons of pasta, several varieties of homemade sauce, salad, bread, and two kinds of yummy cake. I was so impressed with the food and it was fun to sit and chat with other runners. I definitely ate well and went back for a second plate of pasta since the first one was so good!

Race Day:

I woke up at 4am to a fantastic 55 degree morning. I had my bagel & a half plus some Gatorade, got dressed (shorts, sports bra, sock arm warmers and throw-away shirt) and headed out to the Presque Isle state park. It was very close the motel but I wanted to make sure I got into the park and parked in the lot before it got too crazy. I made it there around 5:10am and then just sat in the car and read my Kindle app on my phone until around 6am. Then I headed to the restroom and then sat around for a bit and chatted with others. Most everyone there was there to try and qualify for Boston and I had been talking with quite a few folks the night before at the pasta dinner hoping to find someone my pace to run with. Unfortunately, no dice. But I met some very nice people (lots of them were Canadian - over half the field was!). I hit the restroom one more time checked my bag around 6:30 then did about 5 minutes of light jogging. I stretched a bit and lined up in my corral. Before I knew it, they played the national anthems (both US and Canada!) and we were off!

The Race:

My biggest fear going into this was that I’d have no one to run with. But I actually ran with several folks on and off through the whole thing! During the second mile or so I found myself with two other guys running about my pace – I asked them about their goals and found they were also shooting for under 3:20. Great! We chatted for a bit but by mile 4 I started to pull ahead. Another guy caught up to me and said he’d picked me out because I was running a steady pace and seemed in control (ha!). He was super nice and I was sad when he decided to let me go on ahead around mile 6 (he was shooting for 3:25).   After that it was pretty uneventful until around mile 8-9 or so when I linked in with another girl and a guy and we formed a little pack that knocked out steady miles until around mile 16. Around mile 9 my Garmin had trouble finding the satellites and it gave me one mile at 7:50 (even though I swear I didn’t run that pace and the girl and the guy in my “pack” confirmed we were running faster).   We all ran together until around mile 16 when the guy and I went on ahead of the girl. We’d kind of leap-frog a bit but we were always right around each other and helped encourage each other up until mile 23 or so when he finally went on ahead (he finished 45 seconds in front of me). That was so super helpful to have another person around for that long and made the two-loop course much better. I didn’t mind the two loops though I must admit it was pretty awful to see the mile markers for miles 24 & 25 (at miles 11 & 12) on the first go around and know that I had to do this ALL OVER AGAIN. The crowd support was pretty minimal, but having water stops every mile helped to break it up a bit. I got into the habit at every time we passed a group of spectators I would throw my hands up and encourage them to cheer for us – the folks around me actually got a big kick out of that and it definitely helped boost my spirits as well. I felt strong and in control for most of this race with was SO MUCH BETTER than the last one where I was working at mile 15. I guess stuffing my face with carbs over the last two days helped because I didn’t start to feel the fatigue really set in until mile 22 or so. It’s always my quads that go first and this time was no exception. The course is pancake-flat (and BEAUTIFUL – right along the water the whole time!) and that always beats my quads up. I told myself that the pace had to feel comfortable through the half and then I could pick it up. I felt great up until the last few miles when it started to get really hard and I started to get very tired. I’d tried something new with gels this time around and took 6 (!!!!) over the course of the race, plus one before the start. (Miles 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24)  I’m glad I got the extra carbs because the “GU Brew” (Gatorade-type drink) they’d mixed was so watery.  I took the GU Brew around every 2 miles or so, then took water with my gels.   I also swallowed some electrolyte tabs around mile 6 I think? At mile 22 my Garmin also conked out – since we were in a state park with lots of trees I hadn’t had great reception, but at mile 22 I got the “lost satelites” message and from that point on I had no clue what pace I was running or what mile I was at – only the total time. I was frantically trying to do math in my head (I’d accidentally dropped my pace chart a while back) and math at mile 22 just isn’t pretty. J I just told myself to keep pushing as much as my quads would let me. The last few miles were HARD but I felt happy because I was pretty sure that unless disaster struck, I was going to get my goal! Mile 25 was the longest mile ever and I kept wishing for the finish line – when it finally came into view and I saw the clock I gave it everything I had to keep it under 3:19. Success!! 3:18:51 was the official time. I was 4^th in my age group (by 11 lousy seconds!! The girl who took 3^rd came flying by me around mile 21, but I could see her up until the end – drat!!) and 13^th female overall.   It was a long drive home right after a quick shower, but the drive was much sweeter with a PR under my belt!

Splits: 7:42, 7:31, 7:29, 7:32, 7:23, 7:25, 7:33, 7:34, 7:28, 7:31, 7:35, 7:32, 7:28, 7:36, 7:50 (watch kept going in and out here - not sure if this is accurate?), 7:31, 7:25, 7:26, 7:24, 7:25, 7:25, 7:31, ??, ??, ??, ??, ?? (no idea on the last few!)