Week in Review: 15-21 January, and Winter Beast of Burden 100-Mile Race Report

Okay, getting the "boring" stuff out of the way . . .

15 January: 12 miles (90 minutes), partly as a "victory lap" to, from, and around M&T Bank Stadium, to celebrate a Ravens victory, and partly to and from yoga.

16 January: 15 miles (105 minutes), to, from, and with the Fed Hill run.

17 January: 10 miles (70 minutes), APG lunch run.

18 January: 8 miles (56 minutes), APG lunch run, then 8 miles (56 minutes), to, from, and with the Wednesday night run from O'Donnell Square

19 January: 9 miles (60 minutes), APG lunch run

20 January: 2 miles (20 minutes), run from Maryland Transit Center to Greyhound Station to make the bus to Harrisburg, PA, to meet up with my ride to Lockport, NY for the Winter Beast of Burden 100-Miler

21 January: 85 miles (840 minutes), Winter Beast of Burden 100 (yes, I'm counting the 15 miles that I technically ran on Sunday towards Sunday . . .)

Total time: 1,192 minutes

Total distance: 149 miles


And now, the race:

Why the Winter Beast of Burden 100? Well, forgive me father, it's been three months since my last 100-mile race, and with a busy year of 100s ahead, I didn't want to go too long and forget what it feels like to run that distance. Plus, the race director was bugging me to come back for a rematch with Valmir Nunes, and this year, there will be a "Double-Beast" buckle awarded to runners who complete both the Winter and the Summer edition. So once I figured out the work travel logistics to make the race possible, it was a go . . .

I won't dwell on the convoluted method by which I arrived in Lockport, NY (hinted at in my mileage summary for this past Friday), or the random stop at the "Victorian" McDonald's in Pennsylvania, or the part where I got to the Lockport Inn and pretty much went straight to sleep (except for an unexpected visit, which I also won't go into detail about here). Let's leave all of those things mysteries, and just skip to race morning . . .

Mark Rodriguez and I got to the starting area around quarter to 9, which was way early for a race which started at 10 a.m. We wandered around, used the bathroom repeatedly, checked and double-checked gear, and made small talk with the other runners until it was time to line up at the starting line, and, with absolutely no fanfare (I wasn't even sure that we had started, except that the clock had started, so I guess it was time to go), we were off.

The weather was "good" for a Winter Beast of Burden - the past couple of years, high winds and blizzard conditions were the norm. This year, it was cold (in the teens), with snow flurries, but only an inch or two of accumulation, and very little wind. So naturally, everybody started off too fast. I started out fast-ish, but I felt under control: a little over 3:30 for the first lap (25 miles - 12.5 miles out, 12.5 miles back, along the pancake-flat Erie Canal Towpath). At that pace, a time in the 14-hour range was within reach. So I decided to hang on the best I could.

But for whatever reason, I just wasn't feeling that fast. Maybe it was the shoeprints in the snow making the surface uneven, maybe it was fatigue from being out in the cold for an extended period of time, or maybe it was just not enough taper before the race. (EDIT: I also strained my right Achilles tendon somewhere in the first 10 miles, and while the cold numbed the pain away before I could seriously consider quitting that early in the race - although the thought crossed my mind - the weakness in that ankle as a result of the injury was probably also a factor.) Whatever the reason, I gradually slowed down on the second lap, coming through in around 7:40 - a 4:10 lap. I didn't feel bad exactly - I just felt slow.

The highlight of my second lap was when I was walking briefly, as it was the most efficient way to fiddle with my pants and jacket pockets to take out gels, Endurolytes, and Sports Legs, and Mark Ott, who apparently has some speed, caught up to me and asked me "Is this your first 100?" I was feeling particularly insulted - maybe the clearly false encouragement from people who were behind me, going the other way on the towpath, asking "how are you feeling" in that way that was fishing for me to say that I felt terrible, thereby validating their miserable experience (which I wouldn't say, because, as a general rule, I am brutally honest about how I am feeling, and, in this case, it wasn't bad at all), was getting to me, or maybe for an instant I just felt tired of the disrespect, so I responded, "Sure, why not?" Since this was clearly a sarcastic remark, he followed it up with "Well, we're back here trying to figure out who the hell you are . . ." which was even more insulting, considering that the first time that I passed him, he introduced himself and we shook hands. I later found out that he claimed that he was going to beat Valmir and win the race, so I guess somebody who would make such a brash claim shouldn't be expected to be above such remarks, but, knowing only the little that I knew at the time, I responded "Let's just keep it at 'who the hell am I?' for now . . ." and ran off, to which he responded, in fifth-grader fashion "aww, c'mon!"

Meanwhile, back in the race, Valmir was about four miles ahead of me, and looking strong. As I was gradually fading, I realized that, barring some kind of horrible mishap, Valmir was going to, quite literally, run away with this one, and the race would be for second place, where I currently was. So I devoted the last 50 miles of the race to hanging on to second place. In a way, it was gratifying to finally get in that "grind" gear and sit there - except that that gear has no place in a theoretically flat, fast race like this, except in times of desperation.

I wish I could say that the race was more eventful, but for the most part, it wasn't. And actually, this turned out to be a good thing. I ran the first 50 miles in the daylight, through light flurries, and the last 50 miles in the dark, under the glow of my headlamp. Aside from the continued disbelieving, disgusted looks from the people I was passing (although, towards the end of the race, these turned congratulatory, as some of them were finally willing to concede), it was a calm, quiet, peaceful run in the snow next to a mostly-frozen canal. During moments when I wasn't distracting myself from my gradual slowing by playing a 5-second clip from Nine Inch Nails' "Discipline" literally thousands of times in my mind, or saying decades of the rosary, when I was simply accepting that I was out on a cold, clear, beautiful night, with the sky bright red on the horizon and flurries gently settling on my face, sticking in my patchy beard, I felt truly in harmony and at peace with life, the universe, and everything.

But that said, the second half of the race wasn't totally without its drama. Mark Ott had drastically fallen off, and was walking much of the course, but Ryan O'Dell, after a tentative start, was making a strong comeback. At the 75-mile turnaround, when I passed him, I had about a 2-mile lead on him - not bad, but not totally comfortable. 12.5-ish miles later, at the far end turnaround, the lead had shrunk to a mile. It didn't take a math genius to figure out that if I kept doing what I was doing, and if he kept doing what he was doing, he would pass me in the final mile, and I would be mortified, Sweet Valley High-style. So I very gradually starting picking up my pace in the last 12.5-mile stretch, to the extent that one can do so in the course of a lap that wound up being just a shade under 5 hours. I resolved not to walk, and to dutifully force down the "Tropical" Hammer Gels (by far, the worst flavor, but the only ones left at this point, as other runners apparently already knew this and had picked through them to take the "good" flavors) on the run, instead of walking and fumbling with them as a means of delaying the misery of ingesting them.

I crossed the Exchange Street Bridge, about a mile from the finish, and finally the people I was passing were unquestioningly congratulatory, but I wasn't sure where Ryan was, and for the last 12.5 miles of the race, I had been assuming that he was gradually gaining on me, even though I had no visual confirmation of this fact. So as I came off the bridge, completely assuming that he was right behind me (I thought I had heard a snot rocket about a half-mile ago that sounded like him), I broke into the fullest-tilt run I could manage at that point, which was probably somewhere in the slightly-sub-7-minute-mile neighborhood. My stomach immediately began to protest, but this was neither the time nor the place. I backed off only enough to quell the feeling of imminent vomit, and then I saw him on the other side of the canal, under the "Niagara Fiberboard" sign, looking fairly strong and charging hard. I was not giving up second to Mark Ott's apparent colluder in refusing to know who I was, especially at the end of this race, when I knew Ryan had family and girlfriend waiting for him. Call me a jerk if you must, but this was about burying him and making a statement. Maybe he saw me hauling on the other side of the canal, got scared, and conceded, or maybe he just didn't have that kind of charge in him, but in any case, I hauled through the finish line in 17:20, sort of surprised that the last lap took me nearly 5 hours, but whatever, I was done, on the verge of vomiting right then and there, but satisfied with my final push (which perhaps suggested that I had more in me than I thought, and I could have pushed harder earlier, but again, not the time or place to second-guess). I managed to compose myself for this finish-line picture:



And then I stumbled into the heated tent at the finish line, where I sat and pretty much didn't move for the next three hours or so. Eventually, I showered, changed, and packed my things - off to Buffalo, for a noon flight to Newark, on the way to Tel Aviv, Israel for work. The fun never stops with me, apparently.

Valmir finished in 14:56, a new Winter course record, and the fastest time on the course. But I now hold two of the three fastest times on that course (17:20, Winter, and 16:19 Summer), in part thanks to the ghost of Ryan O'Dell, who ended up finishing 9 minutes behind me (so maybe he did concede), but didn't bother to congratulate me (and neither did Mark Ott, who stumbled across the finish line in the mid-21-hour range or something, but I guess if they don't know who you are, it's asking a lot for them to congratulate an apparent stranger who beat them). Had I not been immobilized, I would have gone up to them, but, oh well.

Overall, it was a pretty good day. Not bad, not great. I spent perhaps too much time in the bathroom (20-30 minutes, maybe enough to have put me in under 17 hours), and fumbling with my pills and gels, I didn't have the speed I wanted today, and, in some sense, I didn't push myself hard enough, maybe. But I felt pretty beaten up after the race (although as I type this, I think that my estimation of how much the race took out of me may have been a little excessive), and, for what I believed that I had, I feel like I gave it all.

And I had Papa Leo's Pizza, and a Corona, and an Egg McMuffin after the race, and those are the things that really count. :)

EPILOGUE: I've since extended the proverbial olive branch to both Mark and Ryan. Because for as rotten as I (or anybody else) might seem in the heat of competition, at the end of the day, it's your competitors that push you to run faster and to be better than you thought you could be, and win or lose, if they weren't there, you wouldn't be where you are, either. So I'm completely thankful for, and I wholeheartedly welcome, the mind-games, the posturing, the trash-talking - it makes a real sport out of what might otherwise be branded a pointless pissing contest.

100 Miles Per Week, the Hard Way

Okay, first some stuff you don't really care about:

1 January: 15 miles (105 minutes), Patterson Park and wherever

2 January: 12 miles (85 minutes), out to the Fed Hill Monday Night Run and back

3 January: 10 miles (70 minutes), lunch run with Luke at APG

4 January: 10 miles (70 minutes), another APG lunch run, then another 4 miles (30 minutes) out and back to yoga

5 January: 8 miles (55 minutes), abbreviated APG lunch run, yoga later

6 January: 1 mile (10 minutes), in the Detroit International Airport, in cowboy boots, in a vain attempt to catch my flight to San Antonio, which had already left

7 January: 62 miles (617 minutes), Bandera 100K, 11th place overall

Total Time: 1,012 minutes
Total Distance: 128 miles

8 January: 1 mile (10 minutes), real lazy

9 January: 15 miles (105 minutes), out to the Fed Hill run and back, chasing the pack because I was about two minutes late (caught up in a couple miles)

10 January: 10 miles (70 minutes), APG lunch run, yoga later

11 January: 15 bitter miles (105 minutes), in dark, cold, windy rain (yes, that is a type of rain), in part with the Wednesday Night Canton Run crew

12 January: 1 mile (10 minutes), because life was too busy to allow for more . . . on the best-weather day of the week, no less . . .

13 January: 21 miles (127 minutes), Druid-Hill-ward, in moderate cold (35-ish degrees), but ridiculous wind (35-ish mph, probably) . . . almost intolerable

14 January: 27 miles (183 minutes), all over the industrial east side of the city (and a little bit of Fells Point in there, in a nod to civilization), less cold and windy than yesterday, but still no picnic

15 January (early, still within the 7-day window): 12 misguided miles (85 minutes), 25-degree weather, 15-mph winds, in a flimsy pair of boxers because I didn't have access to running shorts - that hurt in the wrong way, but felt great otherwise . . .

Total Time: 695 minutes
Total Distance: 102 miles

Two weeks into 2012, and I'm 2-for-2 on 100+ mile weeks. Yes, I know that the mileage mark is sort of arbitrary, and maybe in some cases counter-productive (and maybe, by some accounts, 30 or 40 miles too low as goals go), but for the most part, I think that being able to get out there and make 100 miles happen in the span of 7 days, even with a couple of days that were pretty close to a total loss (like Sunday and Thursday of last week) says something about the type of shape you're in, and the type of results you can expect to see when you jump into a race without any particular planning or strategy . . .

Which brings me to Bandera, and my next adventure, the Winter Beast of Burden 100-Mile Run, next weekend in Lockport, New York. While my result at Bandera was good, and I was more or less happy with it at the time, I can't help looking back at it and feeling more and more disappointed. Sure, I finished in a time that, many years, would have won that race, and, by all accounts, is some of the fastest running I've ever done on such nasty trails, but I finished the race feeling basically okay. I wasn't hobbling away from the finish line, I didn't need help up and down stairs, I didn't pass out in my car. I drove to San Antonio and back that night, took pictures at Riverwalk and fielded jeers from drunk, boisterous Texans (maybe because of my black puffy coat and dark blue skinny jeans?) . . . I came back to camp at 4 a.m., and was out of it for the rest of the day for lack of sleep, but not for effort in the race. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that that's the best I've felt and the quickest I've recovered from an ultra.

And, in a way, that's a good thing. I want to be able to run like this for a long time, and I want to feel fit and ready to compete in a lot of different races and have a lot of fun experiences and all that jazz.

But in another way, it's a disappointment. To see some of the top-5 finishers hobbling away from the finish line, barely able to walk . . . sure, that sucks for them, temporarily, but, at the same time, I can't help feeling that if I had been truly willing to submit to that level of pain, I could have been hobbling back to the car from the finish line, just ahead of those guys . . .

Which brings me to Beast of Burden, a race where I won the summer edition in 2010, and where I set my 100-mile PR (16:19 and change). I was in good shape then, yes, but probably not better shape then than I am now. I'm not convinced that back then, I could have woken up in a place that's not my home, put on a pair of worn boxers (backwards, so the fly didn't come open, at least not in the more-indecent front), and braved 25-degree temperatures and relentless winds to drop mile after mile sub-7-minutes as if it were no big deal.

So it seems that I am in great shape physically, but perhaps mentally, I'm not ready to make that leap. I'm not ready to submit to the kind of pain that, in the past, allowed me to do more with less. So this week will be focused on mental preparation (although running will happen, undoubtedly . . . I'll be throwing down another, hopefully Ravens-victory, 10 miles or so after the game, to officially kick off the week). I'll spend some time thinking about how it feels to RACE 100 miles, to run out there fearlessly and not look back, and, perhaps most importantly, realize that now that I have even more, I need to do even more with it.

Because experiences are all well and good, and for as much as I run, in the colorful places where I run, I have no shortage of them. But the thrill of going all-out and duking it out with top-notch competition doesn't come along every day, and not being able to sieze that moment when it comes . . . well, that's REALLY 100 miles the hard way.

Week in Review: 20-26 March, and National Marathon Race Report

Okay, running the numbers:

20 March - 11 miles (79 minutes) around Canton, Fells, and whatever. Highlight was all of the people standing around freezing, waiting for their free first-day-of-spring Rita's (of which I was one after my run).

21 March - 13 miles (89 minutes), out to the Fed Hill run and back, not exactly running it with the group, which, given how I felt after yesterday, was not exactly bad.

22 March - 9 miles (60 minutes), Tuesday Night Track - workout of 4x(1000 @ 5K pace, 200 @ mile pace, 400m jog @ 8:00/mile pace) represented a minor miracle, as I went 4:25, 4:30+ (watch stopped), 4:30, 4:25, first time ever that after being "done," I actually came back and hit the paces.

23 March - 15 miles (105 minutes), on a rainy, vaguely miserable Wednesday night run from Canton, with tack-ons at either end. Wasn't entirely feeling this one, but wasn't feeling bad, either.

24 March - 10 miles (73 minutes), as part of my mini-taper for National, at APG, where I included a little run up and down a stupid-steep Barkley-style hill, which, given the climbing shape I'm in, didn't feel bad, and made me really wonder about doing the race for real . . .

25 March - 5 miles (35 minutes), still tapering down, passing a fire on South Clinton Street on my way back, dropping the "pace" quarter 7 seconds below 7:00/mile pace, which maybe meant plenty in the tank, or no sense of pace (yesterday's run ended with a 6:17 mile, so I was hoping the former) . . .

26 March - 27 (?) miles (181 minutes) - Okay, fine, 26.2, I guess, but with the last-minute course changes, lack of course markings, and the numerous GPS tracks reading even longer than GPS tracks typically do for this type of race, I question the accuracy with which the National Marathon course was certified. Also, dozens of times during the race, I felt bad enough to want to quit. Water under the bridge now, though, because I didn't quit, and redeemed myself after last year's debacle here.

Total Time: 622 minutes
Total Distance: 90 miles

Officially, my longest week distance-wise in 2011, capped off with a "marathon" that was 4.5 minutes short of my PR, feeling no particularly debilitating ill effects (cripplingly cramped left calf aside, but that will hopefully work itself out in time enough for my now-traditional 10 or 11 mile Sunday "recovery run"). The hidden stat here is that from 17-23 March (or up until my mini-taper), I logged 113 miles in 7 days, which might actually be a record for me (although granted, 40 of those miles were slower trail miles during the MMT Training Run).

But anyway, enough paralysis by analysis, and on to the race report:

Ever since the spring of 2006, when I entered the National Marathon on a whim, in spite of having crashed spectacularly at mile 17 of a 20-mile run just a week prior, and taking the entry mostly because Charm City Run was giving it out for free with the pair of Asics that I bought there, then proceeded to run a 3:08 and change on the then stupid-hard course that actually put runners on a rolling highway in PG County at and around the 20-mile mark (their attempt at simulating the "Newton Hills" at Boston, but really, the effect was just to make both runners and the stopped traffic irritated) . . . deep breath . . . the National Marathon has been, to me, the first running rite of spring. It's the race where I've reaped the first fruits of cold, wet, dismal days of winter training, it's the huge confidence boost that I need heading into Boston, and it's the race that I've vowed to return to every spring, from then until one of us dies.

All that said, it's been good to me, with (from 2006 forward, not on the same course every time, since the course seems to change every year) times of 3:08, 3:03, 2:59, 2:56:32 (my PR) . . . and then last year. Last year, I was supposed to pace the 3:00 group, and I gave it my best effort through 16 miles, at which point I tanked, took a bathroom break, walked a bit, and finally wound up finishing around 3:15. Which, still, compared to other crashes I've had in marathons, was a far gentler one, but, with the stakes being higher, an emotionally damaging one.

Naturally, this year, I jumped at the opportunity to pace 3:00 again. Because in case you haven't noticed, a major theme of my 2011 is redemption (if such a thing is possible) from my many failures in 2010, this being one of them. Last year, I raised the stakes here and failed, but this year, I would need to succeed to return this race to its rightful glory in my mind.

With the ghosts of last year flitting through the fog in my mind (the result of a full week of an average of 3 hours of sleep per night, something that really needs to change), I drove down at way-too-early-in the morning, and couldn't help contemplating all of this. In the pacer/elite tent before the race, I did my best to sound cheerful and confident about the prospect of hitting my ambitious 3:00 goal, while I stood next to elites (such as Falls Road's own Christine Ramsey, who went on to win the half in 1:17:01), and fielded questions from people who clearly thought my marathon PR was much faster than 3.5 minutes under the pace I was trying to hit.

To make things more interesting, nobody else wanted to take 3 hours. Sure, nobody else was signed up to do it, but considering that we had a 3:05 and a 3:10 group, surely somebody might be willing to step it up a few minutes . . . Nope. 3:00 is definitely one of those "mental block" sort of times, that seems infinitely faster than a 3:05, and adds to the pressure of the pace.

Finally, to raise the stakes as high as they could conceivably go, I would be carrying this stupid pace flag (perhaps I'll update with a picture here) and wearing a balloon on which I wrote "3:00" tied around my waist, two annoyances that had the potential to take their toll. And let's not forget the orange "3:00" bib on my back, making me a moving target for the entire race.

As we stood shivering at the start (well, lots of other people were, but I've developed quite a bit of cold tolerance this winter, so I was fine in a short-sleeved pacer shirt and shorts), I was up-front with the group that assembled around me. I told them that I had broken 3 hours here twice, on a similar course, and that I believed that, barring a bad day, I could do it again today, but no hard-and-fast promises. They joked that they would get me through it (and in a way, they did), and after a disorganized, several-minutes-late start, it was time to throw down.

I should mention that coming into this race, in spite of the high mileage and low sleep I was running on, I was feeling strong. The question was whether or not I had rested enough to be "fresh" enough for this distance at this pace. My longest run this year up to this point at a pace comparable to what I'd be doing was 15 miles, and even then, I wasn't trying to sub-7 all 15 miles. (Of course, if you believe the Brooks-Hansen philosophy, 15 miles at a fast-enough pace - which mine probably wasn't - is sufficient to run fast in a marathon, but I digress.) The point is, I had no idea how my body was going to respond to the accumulated fatigue at that pace beyond 2 hours. Today, I suppose, was a good day to find out.

I told the group if anything, I would go slow and pick it up, and, true to my word, we crossed what was, by vague consensus of GPS tracks and course markings, the first mile in a little over 7:10. Slight panic, as this was about 20 seconds too slow, but felt comfortable. We came through the GPS-consensus second mile (because there was no 2-mile course marker) on a 6:30 mile - oops. After a (GPS-measured; again, no course marker) 3rd mile at 6:35, I remarked that we needed to slow down, which was not just because the pace was too fast, but also because I started feeling hints in my legs that it might be difficult to sustain this.

Sure enough, somewhere between miles 4 and 5, the pain started. Shifting pain, in my quads, in my hips, just above my knees, just on the tolerable side of crippling, and a sign that I was clearly not "fresh" coming into this effort. This was where the thoughts of dropping out begain, every couple of minutes, as the pain pulsated and radiated. Here I was, with my 10-dollar Wal-Mart watch which just tells you the time, and no mile markers on a slightly-changed course, making me slightly uncomfortable with my progress at any given moment, surrounded by a bunch of GPS freaks, checking their watches literally about every 30 seconds and judging me, while the flag was creating unnecessary tension in my arms, shoulders, and neck, and the stupid balloon was periodically getting caught on runners behind me, pulling me back ever so slightly ever few minutes, trying to run an evenly-split near-PR time. When I thought about it that way, the thought of continuing was distinctly unappealing.

Nevertheless, thanks to this week of training, including Monday's Fed Hill run where I sped up on the way out to Ft. McHenry to pass some idiot in Nike Frees who thought he was going to house me, and Tuesday's track workout, where I came back from the dead to goal pace by the end of the workout, I had a few mental tricks up my sleeve. I made minor form adjustments to shift the pain. On the hills, I mustered my best form, powering through the uphills and riding the downhills, ultimately bringing the group back to me every time they started getting away (and there were definitely a few close calls).

At around mile 9, I passed Keith Knipling, and we made small talk about last week's training run, and then I took off - minor confidence boost. Of course, we were still not even halfway through the race, and the 1:30 half group had long since passed us (who knows what they ended up running), so emphasis on minor. And then, a man in black in headphones came up alongside me, and asked me if we were on pace. I said "I think so," and he said "you're my bus to the end," and okay, way to raise the stakes a little higher here. I felt like telling him what I had told my group at the start, that I had no idea how long I would hold on. But for some reason, the way he said what he said (and the fact that he immediately put his headphones back in, and probably wouldn't hear me) prevented me from saying it. Shortly thereafter, on yet another long, straight stretch of the course, where the apparent lack of progress makes quitting an attractive option, Ryan McGrath was on the sidelines, yelling at me to "pace that 3:00 group," and that was just enough to get me over what, in retrospect, was probably the point where I was in the most danger of dropping.

But at that time, I was far from out of the woods. Questions about the pace and the distance (everybody's GPS was consistently reading 2-tenths long, and increasing, relative to the mile markers, from about mile 5 onward) were mounting within the group, and all I could say was "I think we're on track." When we hit the half (or what they claimed to be the half) in 1:29:45, the mood within the group shifted, and I let out a perhaps-not-too-kind "there you go" in response. Assuming that the half mark was approximately correct, this was dead-on for 3:00, and everybody knew this, and suddenly, other runners in the group were offering me water and food (headphone man in black especially), and perhaps believing in the group. We pushed through to the pivotal straight stretch between mile 16 and 17, where I crashed this year. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel borderline about doing that this year. But oddly enough, a little magic trick I discovered here was to picture myself doing push-ups on the Perfect Pushup gadget (which I've been regularly doing since the beginning of the year), and imagine the pain of the last few. Somehow, this resulted in transfering the perception of pain at least partially from my legs to my arms, enough that I could convince myself that I was fine to keep up my current pace.

And as we passed into mile 18, and the "good" waterfront, I could feel the strength gathering, and the confidence in my pace, in spite of the physical pain, increasing. There was no way to guarantee that I wouldn't, dozens of times between now and the finish, experience the blinding pain that I felt during Club Challenge, and be on the cusp of quitting, but with about 8 miles to go, and the group gaining strength and passing all those people that went out too fast, I had this under control.

We went over the bridge without incident (sigh of relief), although I could feel my legs getting wobbly over the metal grating on the downhill, and passed the 20-mile mark in 2:16, leaving us with 44 minutes for the final 10K, and well within our goal. Still not out of the woods, though, because the nearly three-mile section along the non-scenic Anacostia, with the cold wind in your face, and the particularly cruel "turn around the bucket" at the end, was just ahead. The group, gathered behind me in a tight pack now, was pushing me through this, and as I gained momentum in this section, I could feel others start to drop back. Not surprising, since the 20-mile mark in the marathon separates the men from the boys. The man in black stuck by my side (as he had since we met - disconcertingly enough, he would actually say "excuse me" as he passed other runners to stay right on my shoulder) through this ordeal, and while I could feel my mental resolve weakening, his dogged persistence strengthened my stride with every step.

At last, we left the waterfront, and continued on the rolling road to the finish. At Mile 24 (the marker, anyway), man in black (whose name, by the way, was Daniel) thanked me for my effort and ran off, and I told him to "go for it," and one other guy, who had joined the group mid-stream after fading from his early race pace, went off with him, assisted by a bandit pacer. This left me entirely alone, as the cruel waterfront section had, predictably, caused everybody else to fall off. From here, it was a game of calculating pace against the mile markers, without the aid of the GPS-obsessives, so when I hit 25 miles at 2:50 and a few seconds, it seemed as though I had plenty of time to at least go 3:00 and some seconds in the last (mostly uphill) mile. Unfortunately, somebody's estimate was wrong, as I crossed the line, alone, in 3:00:12, 13 seconds slower than technically acceptable "pace" time, although nobody, except for the two guys who broke away from the pace group, passed me in the second half of the race.

I gratefully accepted my medal, and now, overcome with fatigue and apparent electrolyte depletion, staggered forward, coughed violently for several minutes, and then experienced the most painfully debilitating cramp in my left calf that I had ever felt, which caused me to sit down at the edge of a tent, and not get up for at least 15 minutes. In a way, this was not bad, as it was a good position for me to welcome those from my pace group who made it in near their goal time, and to chat with Keith, who finished in 3:09, and who fortuitiously had salt tablets to give me to ease the cramping. After what felt like far too long, I hobbled back to the armory to collect my things and hobble back to the car, wherever that was.

So as I write this, I assess "mission accomplished." While I would have liked to have a finishing time that looked a little prettier in the results, the fact remains that I have never felt like quitting more times in a race, but then not actually done it, than in today's race, and using every mental and physical trick in my book, I pushed through the proverbial wall, and restored this race to its former glory in my mind. This performance gave me the confidence that if I can keep up my training, and go into Boston on fresh legs, a PR (at least a small one) is well within reach. So now, if the cramping in my calf (which, in retrospect, I think I may have experienced following my 2:59 at this race) would just subside, I could go about the business of building for Boston, starting with my traditional 10 or 11 mile Sunday "recovery" run . . .

Lest We Forget . . . Week of 6-12 March

Welcome to a belated update, summarizing last week's antics. Being basically bed-ridden for the past couple of days delayed this, but, better late than never, right?

6 March - 40 minutes (6 miles) in the morning, 55 minutes (8 miles) in the evening

7 March - 21 minutes (3 miles) warmup before weightlifting, 88 minutes (13 miles), in part with the Monday Night Fed Hill Run

8 March - 50 minutes (7 miles) feeling absolutely awful from nothing but donuts to eat at the range all day . . .

9 March - 115 minutes (15 miles), run between 0230 and 0430 - there's some Ash Wednesday observance for you, then later on, another 15 minutes (2 miles), after work, just because.

10 March - 25 minutes, "Kilimanjaro" hill program on the treadmill, which, as I recall, was kinda difficult (3 miles)

11 March - 73 minutes (10 miles), including 5x(3 x 1/5 of a mile, or about 960 meters), on the wacky track (where one loop equals one-fifth of a mile) by Harford Community College. 90 seconds rest between reps, running at just a few seconds over 6:00/mile pace.

12 March - 76 minutes (11 miles), broken up multiple ways, accumulated over the course of helping with the "5th or 6th" Annual Pub Run

Total Time: 558 minutes
Total Distance: 78 miles

A slight drop in mileage from last week, but not too much suffering in the quality department (then again, the "quality" of 960-meter repeats, wherein the exact splits required to demonstrate effective output given level of effort are fairly obscure, is debatable). Also, the first three days of the week (counting the really-late-night Wednesday long run), plus Seneca Greenway on the prior Saturday, represent about 84 miles in four days, which is some of the highest mileage density I've ever put in (outside of a 100-mile race being thrown in, of course). Expect maybe a mileage drop this coming week, as being sick for a couple of days put a damper on my training, and as of right now, it's not entirely clear how quickly I'll ramp back up (although a couple days of rest seems to have done my legs some good).

In closing, I'm following up my discussion of "winning" last week . . . with what will inevitably be an overly-thorough overview of "success." This one has been bouncing around my head for a while, so bear with me while I knock it out:

If you've ever wondered why somebody like me can achieve (at least occasional) success, while somebody (maybe like you) always seems to finish second, then you should probably stop reading now, because this will go in one ear and out the other. And if you aren't really wondering, because you are, by many accounts, pretty successful, then there's not really a good reason for you to read this . . . but then again, a little reassurance never hurt, right?

As I see it, there are three components to success:

1. Talent: Somewhere inside, you need to have aptitude in the area in which you wish to be successful. Either you have natural ability, or you have a knack for picking up a skill quickly. Either way, there is a certain measure of judgment involved here. Knowing how much natural ability is enough, or how fast is fast enough to pick up a skill before you get frustrated and quit and blow the whole thing, is a guessing game worth millions if you're good at it.

2. Opportunity: Relative to your talents, you need to have an opportunity to make them pay off. Whether this is the opportunity that you make or the opportunity that you take is one of those "gray area" debates that I won't delve into here, except to say that in any event, you have to have your eyes open at all times, lest you miss an opportunity.

3. Will: Here's the one where I think people have the most trouble. It's fun and exciting to see that you have a talent, and it's similarly fun and exciting to think about opportunities. What is almost never fun and exciting is having the will to effectively merge the talents with the opportunities. Inevitably, strong will manifests itself in (perfect) practice, patience, and persistence.

In conclusion, to illustrate the above principles, below is a picture of the Canton Can Company Chipoltle on its "Grande Opening" night:



You'll notice that instead of the usual crying and complaining about how difficult it is to put a picture in a location where I want it in a post, I recognized that I had at least some aptitude with HTML, and an opportunity to do it right this time, so with a little bit of will to get the job done, I did it, and recognized success.

(Also note that I only ran by the Chipoltle to take a picture, but did not eat there on opening night, in part because it would have been sacrilege to eat there when I did the "Strides of March" workout on my own, and in part because it was super-busy. However, I congratulate all those who successfully ate there last night.)