race – Page 6 – Sexy Hermit

Tour de Champaign

Following the Buffalo Trace trail race on Saturday morning I took Will for a three mile walk in the hot sun (hot for me, he was covered) to get a smoothie and some lunch. The smoothie really hit the spot. After we got back home I packed up my camera gear and headed over to the Tour de Champaign, the first of two days of bicycle racing in town last weekend. I had already pre-registered for the Sunday race. I didn’t plan to race on Saturday because of my running race that morning. Plans change.

After getting there and watching my friends in the cat 4-5 race I just had to do it. I borrowed some money, registered for the later cat 3-4 race, rode home on my commuter bike, changed clothes, swapped the wheels on my race bike (which also involved swapping the cassette and brake pads), rode back to the race, pinned on my race number (thanks Karl), handed my wallet and phone to Melissa (who had since walked over to the race), and went straight to the starting line with just a few moments to spare. It was hectic–probably not the best way to prepare for a race… particularly my second race of the day… in this heat… with this many good riders (I’m a cat 4, but this was my first race against cat 3 riders)… after walking three miles… I’m getting good at making excuses.

Needless to say, I didn’t have a stellar performance. I stayed with the main pack for a few laps, but the brutal accelerations wreaked havoc on my tired legs. I popped off the back and began chasing. Eventually I started working with my teammate Scott who was in the same position. Frankly this was probably better for us as we both have a lot more experience with time trial racing than with criterium racing. We worked hard together, though Scott was a little stronger than I was. After 20 minutes or so the main pack lapped us, at which point we stopped. It was too hot and I was too exhausted to keep racing that far behind.

DNF

It was fun anyway, and good preparation for Sunday’s race. I haven’t raced a criterium in almost two years. I was definitely not accustomed to the fast cornering in the pack and the accelerations out of every corner. So, if nothing else, it was good practice.

Alexei in a breakaway in the cat 4-5 race

Art in the cat 4-5 race

Shea in the cat 4-5 race

Luke finished 3rd in the cat 4-5 race

Jonathan (Olympic silver medalist speed skater!) in the cat 4-5 race

Jason finished 2nd in the cat 4-5 race

Buffalo Trace

Back in 2002-2003 I used to run on the Buffalo Trace trail at Lake of the Woods Park in Mahomet every Thursday evening with the Buffalo. We used to live on the northwest corner of Champaign, and it was quicker and easier to get to Lake of the Woods for the Thursday night runs than it was to get to Meadowbrook Park in Urbana for the Tuesday night runs.

The running club eventually started a race on this course, apparently in 2003. I didn’t run it that year and I have no recollection why. I must have been out of town. The following year I had just torn cartilage in my knee. The next two years were the same story. The year after that we were in Nicaragua. The year after that I opted for a bike race instead that day. Last year I ran the Rockford Marathon instead that day. To make a long story short (too late), this morning I finally got the chance to run the nearest trail race to my home in its eighth year.

I won’t bore you too much with the details, because it turned out like pretty much every other race I’ve run in recent years (with a few exceptions). I started too fast. I gradually slowed down. I felt dead by the end. My last mile was over one minute slower than my first mile. Decent race, but not great. I ended up about 45 seconds slower than my fastest time on that trail. I finished 5^th overall (out of 188) and 1^st in my age group.

Cham-Pain County TT

This morning was the Cham-Pain County 40km Time Trial bike race organized by Wild Card Cycling. It would have been really great to participate, but I’m still not 100% recovered from the marathon and I’d probably just injure myself if I tried. I may be up to racing again by next weekend… we’ll see.

Anyway, I showed up to see if I could help out and to take some photos. I ended up taking around 500. Whoops. I normally don’t like to dump every photo I take somewhere online (I prefer to just post the best ones) but this was simply too many to sort through in any reasonable amount of time. I also figured the racers would like to see all the photos I took of them rather than my favorite one.

Here’s a few of my Wild Card teammates.

Humidity

I find running a marathon to be a lot like eating at Pizza Hut. Every so often I crave it. Midway through I realize what a terrible decision I made. I finish out of shear stubbornness. Afterwards I vow to never do it again.

The marathon is a harsh mistress. Of the six previous marathons I have completed I would say two were good, two were mediocre, two were awful, and all were painful. I hoped this year’s Illinois Marathon would be good. But we don’t always get what we want.

Last year I ran the Illinois Marathon and it didn’t exactly go according to plan. Six weeks later (and with a completely different outlook) I ran much better at the Rockford Marathon where I set my marathon PR of 3h09m. I then promptly spent most of the summer recovering from a knee injury. In August I reset and started over from scratch. I trained and raced well throughout the fall and winter, and by spring I was looking to run another marathon PR. My marathon training went very well. I was prepared.

The race day forecast called for rain (which didn’t particularly bother me) and relatively high temperatures (which did bother me). I awoke on race morning to wet roads, muggy air, overcast skies, and a temperature of 64˚F… which at 5:30 AM was already too hot for running a marathon.

When the race began at 7:30 AM the humidity was 93%. After one mile of easy running I was drenched with sweat. I looked at my watch at the one mile mark, expecting to see a heart rate in the low 140’s. It read 162. The good news was that my perceived exertion was pretty low. The bad news was that either my heart rate monitor wasn’t working or the extreme humidity was having the effect on me I knew in the back of my mind it would. I chose to believe my heart rate monitor was broken and I cruised on.

Aside from the massive sweating, the early miles were really very easy. I ran much of the way with the 3:10 pace group. I ate and drank reguarly. At no point was I running hard… I could comfortably breath through my nose the entire time (though I didn’t). The clouds disappeared, the sun came out, the temperature soared into the mid-to-upper-70’s. Now, not only was it ridiculously humid, the sun was beating me into submission. Around the halfway point I started to feel terrible. Really terrible.

I wasn’t dehydrated, I had been drinking frequently. I wasn’t lacking energy, I had been eating regularly. I wasn’t lacking fitness, my training went superbly and both my long and short runs had been right where they needed to be. I wasn’t tired, I stayed fairly disciplined in my 2-3 week taper prior to the race. I wasn’t running too fast, I was absolutely certain I could maintain the current 7:10-7:15 minute per mile pace for much longer than I had. I just felt terrible. The combination of the heat and humidity was simply more than I could handle.

I desperately wanted to quit. I’m still not exactly sure why I didn’t. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I guess I just don’t like seeing a DNF next to my name in the results. Of maybe 150 or so races I’ve done in my life I can only think of one I didn’t finish, and that was a triathlon where I got two flat tires on the bike.

I slowed down to around 8 minutes per mile, knowing the slower pace would be the only way I could finish. Then at mile 17 I just started walking. I needed to collect myself. About a quarter of a mile later I began running again, just a little over 8 minute per mile pace. I stopped at each aid station (one every mile or two) and walked through it while I drank vast quantities of water and gatorade. Then after I gulped down the liquids I ran on to the next aid station.

After the 20 mile mark, where most runners (including me) typically fade away, I actually started to come back to life. I had already hit rock bottom and I had nowhere else to go but up. I still walked through the aid stations, but I was able to run slightly faster between them. Finally, after reaching the top of the hill on Armory street, less than two miles from the finish, on streets I have covered dozens of times before, I picked it up. I ran the final miles around 7:30 pace. It was the first time in the race when I actually felt like I was running hard. It hurt.

I finished in 3h28m, even slower than last year when I thought I had a bad race. But whatever, I finished marathon #7. Looking at the results today I noticed the average finishing times seemed to be around 15-20 minutes slower than last year. Talking to and hearing from many other runners, I don’t think anyone had a good race. The conditions were just too poor.

Blue: 2009 finishing times, Red: 2010 finishing times

So now I’m sore all over, sunburned like crazy (I chose not to wear sunscreen due to the supposed likelihood of rain which somehow never materialized), and a bit disappointed. If this were last year I would vow to run another marathon to redeem myself. But this isn’t last year. And I’m not going to run another marathon to redeem myself. And I’m never going to eat at Pizza Hut again. Until I do.

Many thanks to my parents for watching Will while both Melissa and I ran the marathon.

April 2010 Stats

Photo of the Day

Running

Long runs early in the month, taper for the marathon late in the month.

Month	Distance	# Workouts	Avg per Workout
January	109.05 Mile	10	10.905 Mile
February	76.18 Mile	8	9.5225 Mile
March	84.86 Mile	10	8.486 Mile
April	83.15 Mile	9	9.23889 Mile
Total	353.24 Mile	37	9.54703 Mile

Cycling

Will went on his first few bike rides in April. My one race (Hillsboro) sucked, but my training has gone much better. I’ve been feeling stronger and stronger each week.

April 2010

Bike	Distance	# Rides	Avg per Ride
Bianchi	112.05 Mile	8	14.0063 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird	206.93 Mile	5	41.386 Mile
Total	318.98 Mile	13	24.5369 Mile

January-April 2010 by bike

Bike	Distance	# Rides	Avg per Ride
Bianchi	172.8 Mile	21	8.22857 Mile
El Fuego	40.9 Mile	11	3.71818 Mile
Pocket Rocket	31.27 Mile	2	15.635 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird	889.76 Mile	29	30.6814 Mile
Total	1134.73 Mile	63	18.0116 Mile

January-April 2010 by month

Month	Distance	# Workouts	Avg per Workout
January	166.25 Mile	20	8.3125 Mile
February	140.67 Mile	12	11.7225 Mile
March	508.83 Mile	18	28.2683 Mile
April	318.98 Mile	13	24.5369 Mile
Total	1134.73 Mile	63	18.0116 Mile

Walking

Month	Distance	# Workouts	Avg per Workout
January	28.66 Mile	9	3.18444 Mile
February	51.45 Mile	16	3.21563 Mile
March	34.7 Mile	10	3.47 Mile
April	44.35 Mile	11	4.03182 Mile
Total	159.16 Mile	46	3.46 Mile

Dehydration, part one

Saturday was my first bike race of the year. Hillsboro-Roubaix was my first bike race last year as well, and thanks to a knee injury following my two spring marathons it also happened to be my only bike race last year. Last year’s cat 4 race was 44 miles with a field size of 100 riders. This year’s cat 4 race was 58 miles with a field size of 125. I’ll start by saying this is too many people and too long a distance for a cat 4 road race.

Our Wild Card Cycling team had a really strong group of six riders in the cat 4 race. I’m a pretty decent rider (I finished 19th in this race last year) and our other five guys are way better than me. We liked our chances. We headed out onto the course for what I thought was going to be a short warmup ride. We ended up going 10 miles, which is much farther than I should have gone given that I was already nervous about the race distance.

We all started the race in good position–perhaps too good. After the first uphill Luke rode off the front of the group without really trying (the speed was low). I suddenly found myself at the front of the 125 rider group not knowing whether to catch up to Luke (who certainly wasn’t planning to be alone at this point in the race) or slow down and let his gap grow. I slowed down. Nobody came around me. Luke’s lead continued to grow. I slowed down more. Nobody came around me. Finally, after several minutes, a small group surged past on my left super fast. I caught onto the tail end of this group which caught up with Luke just before a turn into a tailwind. We looked around and this group of around 15 riders contained all six Wild Cards. Game on. We pushed the speed even higher and opened up a sizable lead. This was only a couple miles into the race and it was just too early for that kind of move. After a couple miles of chasing the rest of the main field eventually caught up and we were one group.

This is where my race would begin to go wrong. It happened so gradually that I didn’t really notice. I moved from 15th to 20th to 30th to 50th to 80th. The pack was so big and the road was so narrow I couldn’t maintain my position and before I knew it I was at the back of the field. This is not where I wanted to be. In addition to the inherent danger of being directly behind scores of cyclists moving at high speed in tight formation, the back of the pack does a lot of yo-yoing. There’s an accordion effect. There were times when I felt like we were coming to a complete stop, then there were times when I was going flat out to hang on to the group. I knew I need to be eating frequently for such a long race, but there was no time to do it. At one free moment I tried to snarf down a Clif Bar. I got half of it in my mouth before I had to accelerate hard. My mouth was so dry I couldn’t swallow it. The half bar remained in my mouth for several miles before I could finally choke it down.

Making matters worse was my looming dehydration. My bike holds two water bottles. This is enough to get me through 30 miles. The race was twice that distance, this was one of the hottest days of the year so far, and I sweat more than any human being on the planet. I knew I had to conserve what I had, but it was costing me.

The race made its way through the countryside without much excitement. I knew my race would be over if I wasn’t closer to the front by the end of the first lap. The big hill and brick roads in town would definitely split the field. Seizing my only opportunity I found an opening on a straight flat road with a tailwind and flew past about 30-40 riders in one go. Entering town around 40th place or so really only prolonged my agony.

Sure enough the group split going up the big hill in town, and, like every other time I’ve ridden up this hill, I got stuck behind people going very slowly and basically had to stop on multiple occasions. By the time I turned the corner to go back down the hill the leaders were almost at the next corner, almost out of sight. This was bad. I flew down the hill onto the brick road, struggling to keep my bike upright. The group was completely shattered. There was a big group ahead, a big group behind, and I was in no-man’s-land with a couple dozen other stragglers. We remained separate heading back out of town, nobody was able to get organized. The leaders rode away and we could do nothing about it.

At this point my fate was sealed. I could neither get a good result nor offer any support to my stronger teammates. I don’t like seeing DNF next to my name in race results so I was determined to finish the race. It was a real struggle though. I baked in the sun the whole second lap. I was out of water, thirsty, tired, miserable. In retrospect, I would have been better off stopping. Eventually I came upon my teammate Alexei, who was changing a flat tire. I stopped to talk to him and we rode together for a few miles until cramps in my legs (a sure symptom of dehydration) slowed me down even further. I had more cramps on the first hill coming back into town. I actually had to stop and stretch for a minute because I was unable to rotate my pedals all the way around without cramping up. I made if halfway up the last hill when I pulled off to the side of the road long enough to watch the cat 1-2 riders blow past me up the hill on their final lap. Once at the top I basically coasted on to the finish line.

The other guys on the team had done alright, but not as well as they had hoped. We had a couple of guys with pretty good chance of winning who ended up 6th and 11th. They raced well, but it just wasn’t our day.

I crossed the line completely alone in 70th place (which is actually far higher than I thought). I immediately chugged as much water and gatorade as I could find. I felt absolutely terrible–muscles twitching, head aching, disoriented, hungry, and a bit nauseous all at once. The race didn’t go at all how I planned. But that was just my Saturday…