The swim was the first open-water distance I’d done since Boy Scout Camp (and the mile swim) back in the 1980s. This meant I had to learn “sighting” (aka keeping your eyes on where you are supposed to be going) on the fly; the first turn ended up being a little wide, but after that it sorted itself out. (When I got to that turn and realized I should be making a much tighter turn, another swimmer next to me stopped, looked, and said, “I think we need to start turning a little tighter.” At least I was not alone.) On the bright side, I never did get kicked in the head, something I was expecting. On the down side, the water was disgusting and at the end you actually swam through weeds. Ugh. Still, I was happy with my finishing time for this leg; it was actually the one out of the three where I ended almost exactly where I had thought I would.

After a really slow transition (I was mentally in “all done!” mode for too much of it), I headed out onto the bike course, which is pure hill from start to finish. Biking is still my weakest part of a triathlon, and this was a struggle. It didn’t help matters that the road was still wet and slick from all of the rain. I did pass one person who had wiped out on the course, badly; adding to the experience was that just earlier on that very steep downhill stretch, I’d felt my own bike slide a tiny bit on the course, but I had regained control almost immediately. I spent the entire bike ride eating spray from other bikes as they passed me (ugh), hoping I wouldn’t wipe out, and wondering how far along the course I was. I hadn’t brought my Garmin GPS, which was a mistake; next time I’ll just switch watches and call it a day. (It can’t go in the water.) I’d convinced myself that I was barely more than halfway through (and inching through the course) when I suddenly made a turn and realized I had about three miles to go. Oh, what a wonderful moment that was. I came in on the bike about half an hour faster than I’d expected, which was a really nice surprise.

The one downside to doing better on the bike than expected was that I didn’t have as much energy left for the run as I needed. If the course was flatter I might’ve been all right, but just like the bike course, it had large and steep rolling hills, and I’ll admit that I ended up walking a few of them because I just didn’t have the power left to move any faster. It was a disappointment, and while it wasn’t a bad finish time, it was the part of the race where I came in slower than I’d wanted.

I’m looking forward to my next race (the Washington DC Triathlon on June 20th) being a much flatter course, though! Ask me in a month if I’m willing to do this race again. Right now sanity is telling me no, but we shall see.

That said, it was an odd feeling going into the race. With multiple blizzards this winter (and then my community center/gym being closed for weeks at a time because of said snow), I knew I was not as well-prepared as I could have been. I had a feeling that a PR was not happening, even as I kept hoping it would. After yet another pre-race night’s sleep being not very good (when will I learn to pack benadryl?) coupled with my body deciding to try and remove all moisture from itself beforehand, though, and I should’ve seen the writing on the wall.

I actually had an ok time for the first 8.5 miles, but after that I started dragging a bit, and just feeling out of energy and enormously thirsty. During mile 10 I ended up walking while drinking a cup of Gatorade, and while I rallied a bit for the next mile, miles 12-13.1 were the pits. A pity, too, because that’s when you finally get to the concrete boardwalk and it’s a pretty finish area. So, no PR, and not even under 2 hours (also disappointing) but at least the 2:01:51 was nowhere near my first race in Virginia Beach so no complaints. I’d told myself last month this would probably happen, so at least it wasn’t a surprise. You just move on and try and do better the next time.

It was a nice, quick race. I started with Butch and Chris, but after about half a mile I remembered that it’s only a 5K and I was moving way too slow for a race that I wanted a PR in. (The GPS said around the 1/2 mile mark that my time was 4:30. A nice “going for a run with friends” pace, but not a racing-just-three-miles pace in the slightest. A 5K is just such a small distance that a too-slow first mile will never really get made up.) I picked it up at that point, and it paid off; a 24:27 finishing time, which finally replaced my old 25:40 from two years ago (the post-marathon-injury race). I like to think that had I not had a few weeks off I could’ve gotten even faster, but that just gives me a new goal for next time.

I still don’t think I’ve mastered running a 5K, but that’s something I’d like to work on next year once I’ve (at least temporarily) bid marathons adieu.

When we signed up, you had to give them your approximate time for the swim portion of the race. I’d put down a ridiculously slow number, and then revised it earlier this week to a 9:45. Since the swim portion was in a pool, we would be arranged by our times there, with a new swimmer entering the pool every five seconds, and placed me at #210. It wasn’t until I was sitting on the edge of the pool (with 10 seconds to go) that I started feeling nervous. Fortunately, by that point it’s too late now. Just like a roller coaster, I got the nudge and that was it, I was in the pool. I did good until the third length of the pool, at which point I swam into a lane divider (oops) and then sucked down a lot of water. Fortunately, I didn’t drown, just flailed around for a couple of seconds and coughed. But then I was back off, and as the swim progressed I passed about a dozen people, which felt really good. (And got passed by two, one during my “try not to drown” moment.) When I pulled myself out of the pool, I looked at my watch and it was just at 8:52. Well, no wonder I was passing people!

From there I walked out to the bikes (others were running once they were outside, but I still had a bit of water in my lungs and was trying to get rid of it) and got ready as fast as I could. I’m sure the official splits will be different because the timing mat was outside and not at the edge of the pool, but by my watch between getting out of the pool and onto the bike and riding, it took 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Something to work on for the future! I know I was moving a little slow until I saw #211 (who had passed me during the choking fit) leave and suddenly I was like, “I need to get going!” And then, the biking. My weakest portion.

I knew going into this what I’d have to work on; being more confident on the bike. Our bike course was three loops, and each loop had four u-turns. And with each u-turn, I had to slooooow down and go through it carefully. Once I was back in a straight-away (or just a 90-degree turn) I was fine, but those u-turns killed me every time. I got passed a bunch in the first loop, which didn’t surprise me because those who were stronger in biking versus swimming could use this opportunity to clobber me. By the second loop, though, the number of people passing me dropped a lot, and in the third loop I even started passing some other people. (To be fair, probably people who weren’t on their third loop. But still, it felt good.)

My second transition was much faster, just 57 seconds, but then again all I had to do at that point was get my bike back to its stand, take off my helmet, and start running. But oh, what an experience that was. I now understand why everyone has said that your legs feel funny when switching from biking to running. Oof! Not a good start, especially since the sun was pretty strong at that point and there was almost no shade on the course. I ended up taking two short walk breaks (about 15 seconds each) and at the time I was annoyed at myself. But I was beat, and I felt like I was crawling. Imagine my surprise when I finished and discovered I’d run the 2.62 miles in just 21:58. A good pace for me (8:23min/mile) considering I’d just swum and ran. I thought I was moving much slower than that.

I also saw Julie a couple of times on the course; we waited together until it was time for our numbers to start, and I saw her on her first bike loop when I was just starting my second. Once I was done, I got to cheer her on in the transition area as well as early on in the run, so that was a lot of fun.

Will I do another one? Absolutely! But more biking is definitely required before I do so. And more practice bricks. As an introduction, it went pretty well.

I suppose I should backtrack a bit. After scratching the Philadelphia Marathon in November 2008, followed up by gallbladder removal surgery in early December, I more or less had to start over when it came to training this January. I knew I would need about four months to really get the distance back up, so I signed up for the Potomac River Run Marathon scheduled for May 3rd. It’s a small marathon, in its sixth year, with less than 1000 people signed up.

I got up to 18 miles in early March, then ran the National Half Marathon with pretty good results. Since then, though, I’ve been having some slight issues between a strained tendon and just general free time. After the marathon I tried the run-two-12-milers (instead of one 20 miler) plan, and while I’d hoped to get one more long distance weekend in between it and the marathon, other problems kept it from happening.

So, I knew going into the marathon that I wouldn’t pick up a PR. It was a little disappointing because while 2007′s PR was a good finish time, I also knew I could’ve done better had it not been for the infamous "Greg almost gets hit by a car" incident and I was looking forward to break it. But it just wasn’t in the cards, and with feeling sick and run down the day before, it more or less cinched my feelings that I shouldn’t even try to do so.

Meanwhile, in what was a strange turn of events, seven days before the marathon, the race director sent out an e-mail about the start of the race. It was scheduled to start at 7am and run until 1pm. However, the National Park Service had issued them their permit and instead they had to be done by 11am. So, the start time of the race was changing; there was now an "open start" and you could head out any time between 5:30 and 7am. (The sun itself doesn’t rise until a little after 6am, I might add.) Now, I knew I wasn’t running a sub-4 hour marathon, it just wasn’t in the cards. So, I talked it over with Charlie, and we got to the race site (he was running the half marathon) a little after 5:30, and headed over the start line at 5:44am even as we were drizzled on.

The Potomac River Run Marathon is a slightly odd course; you run along the Mount Vernon Trail, and if you’re tackling the half marathon option you head out approximately 6.55 miles, turn around, and run back. If you’re running the full marathon, you do that twice. Once the rain stopped about two miles into the course, it was actually really pretty. Just a lot of beautiful scenery involving the Potomac River and wildlife. A lot of rolling hills, unfortunately, but oh well. Also, bizarrely, no mile markers aside from miles 1, 13, 14, 25, and 26. (And of course, me without my Garmin.) So, I just look my time, and enjoyed the experience.

I got back to the start and prepared to head out a second time, when Charlie ran up next to me and started jogging along side. "I need to let you know something," he said. "They cancelled the race."

I almost stopped dead in my tracks. "What?" I sputtered. Was my attempt to run my eighth marathon forever doomed to failure?

"The National Park Service shut them down and they turned off the clock," he said. "But the water stations and such are going to still be out there, so don’t turn off your watch."

I was flabbergasted. And for a split second, I seriously thought about quitting, I was so angry. Had I been going for a personal record with this race, I might have actually done so (and regretted it later). But instead I shook my head and kept going. But the wind was definitely out of my sails. The second half was a bit slower in spots for me, especially because I was worried about the mystery calf twinges that happen if I push too hard on hills—and this is one really hilly course.

So, I took it easy on the hills, taking short walk breaks sometime as necessary to make it up their inclines. I had a nice surprise around what may or may not have been mile 19, with Julie at one of the aid stations. I’d not told anyone to come out, because of the whole rain factor. I hit the turn around, got a salt packet from Julie on my way back through and then pushed on.

That’s when it started pouring rain. Between the rain and needing to take some walk breaks on the hills, it was an ugly return; it rained the entire way back, over six miles of it. But the one nice thing was that because I wasn’t pushing myself as hard as I might have otherwise, I wasn’t exhausted or beaten down. One knee was a tiny bit sore, but nothing that would’ve kept me from running. Mostly I was just trying to avoid injury, and heading through. I ended up running part of the last mile with Charlie who was waiting for me there; it was with maybe half a mile to go that I finally got my first "calf twinge" of the race, and all things considered that’s not too bad. I hit the finish line at 4:43:05. Not a PR, but also faster than my second-best race (4:46 in Florence, Italy), and that other race was one where it was pulling teeth to get that finish time.

One funny thing was when I hit the mile 25 sign, I looked down at my watch, and it said 4:29:06. In other words, my PR from a year and a half ago. If only there was some way to skip that last 1.2 miles.

After the race was over, Charlie had some additional information about the race closure. A Park Service employee told him that there were too many people compared to what their permit said, and that there were problems with some of the other technical aspects of using the trail. I haven’t heard the race’s version of what happened, and no doubt the reality is somewhere between the two. (For instance, the NPS employee told Charlie that the number of people was "600 more than allotted" but with all the threat of rain, and having actually been out there, if there were even 500 people actually running this morning I will be shocked and amazed.)

Apparently Charlie saw about five full marathoners come to the turn around and discover that it was officially cancelled (but that they could keep running), and three of them promptly quit. Which does, if nothing else, explain what happened to the two really fast runners I saw heading back while I was heading out the first time. (I’d figured they were just running the half marathon.) I can certainly understand, especially since the two I saw were both clearly professional runners. Why push yourself when you can save the effort for a different marathon in a week or two instead and try and pick up that cash prize?

Afterwards, I picked up my medal across the street from the hastily erected post-race tent, tried to warn people away from the nasty HEEP sports drink the race director kept pushing on people, and went home. If the Potomac River Run Marathon survives to next year, will I run it again? Absolutely not. It’s too bad, it’s a beautiful course if difficult. But honestly, just the lack of mile markers is reason enough to avoid it in my book. All the rest of the difficulties this year just flags it in my head as a race to skip, unfortunately. And for all I know, it won’t even exist next year. Time will tell, but it’ll do so without me.

To make matters slightly tougher, even though I’ve run the National Half Marathon all four years, now, starting last year they changed the course for the half marathon option. In past years, it was an almost entirely flat course. 2008 and 2009′s course, though, has a long slow climb for miles 5-8 (followed by a swift drop for miles 9-10), and then one more hill at mile 12. When I ran this course in 2008, I ended up several minutes slower than my previous year’s time, thanks to burning out on the hills and choking at the end.

This year, happily, that ended up not being the case. I ended up with a much more consistent pace, and an overall much better feeling about the race in general. I never felt beaten down like I had last year, and while I now look back and think that there are spots that I could have pushed a little harder, it’s ultimately a big victory. With that in mind, though, there were some things I feel like I need to remember in what I did right and what I did wrong.

Things I Did Right

• This year, I successfully found one of the official pace groups to start the race with. I’d used the 4:00 (full marathon) group in 2007 and it worked out really well. Having found the 3:55 group (which is an 8:58min/mile pace), I figured they would be good to run with. Aside from a slightly slow first mile due to crowding, miles 2-4 were good, with the second mile even making up the lost time from the first. That said, when the hill started at mile 5? They took off, so to speak. They were about a block ahead of mile by the time I hit marker 5 (and I was all of 11 seconds off of the pace, so I hadn’t slowed down that much), and were completely out of sight by marker 6. Yeesh. I never caught them, either, and my finish time was only 30 seconds off of their projected finish. Oh well. Still, I felt like I was smart to stick with them, but also didn’t get pulled into the craziness. That said, I now wish I’d latched onto the 3:50 group, who knows how that would have worked?
• This year, I also had the good sense to really think about how I was going to handle the course. I told myself that if I picked up a little bit of time on the uphill that I would just make it up on the way back, and because I had the plan in place that’s exactly what happened. As it was, only mile 7 was where I gained any significant time (33 seconds) and I burnt that all back off the next few miles.

Things I Did Wrong

• I ended up seriously dehydrated this race, and it’s my own fault. Towards the end of last year I started running with Gatorade in my water bottle instead of water. It certainly seems like a smart idea, but the reality is that I don’t actually find Gatorade terribly refreshing. So unless I’m really, really thirsty… I don’t drink it. I ended up drinking less than half of my water bottle the entire race, and at the very end (with about a tenth of a mile to go) it was definitely starting to catch up with me, feeling a little crampy. Then, as soon as I was handled some bottled water, I drank the entire thing in about 5 seconds flat. So from now on, I’ll stick to grabbing a cup of Gatorade at water stops and using that to get the electrolytes back into my body, and carry water. Sure, it was a cool day out, but I sweat a lot and dehydrate easily. Not smart in the slightest.
• Also, on a similar note, I really need to wait until closer to the start to get into the entrance corrals. I spent the entire race needing to use the bathroom, but (unlike last year) ended up just gritting my teeth and bearing it the whole way through, since every available stop along the way had a huge line. Not smart.
• I also really need to drop 5-10 pounds. There is no way around it. I’d gotten rid of a few earlier this year but they mysteriously came back in the past couple of weeks, just in time for the race. Hmph.

Overall, I’m really happy with this year’s finish. I think I could have done better had I really pushed it, but I have a full marathon in six weeks, so this was the way to handle it. And, should I run the race again next year, I feel like this new course is no longer my nemesis. Yay!

(9:15, 8:43, 8:58, 9:00, 9:09, 9:00, 9:33, 8:52, 8:52, 8:40, 8:57, 9:16, 8:50, 0:50)

That said, it would’ve been a little hard as it was thanks to a really slow start. Waaaay too many walkers and strollers that were really far up towards the front of the corral at the beginning, meaning they were blocking people who were trying to run. I have no problem with them being there—I used to be ultra slow after all—but it’s important to also pick a starting place that is appropriate. I think I walked the first 30-40 seconds before I could even start running, yeesh. But still, not too bad. I definitely am not up to a full amount of energy just yet, and annoyingly I had to walk a tiny bit of that hill in the last mile again this year. Yeesh.

At the end of the day, my watch says I was 1:06 off of last year’s finish time. Since I’d told myself it might be as much as 1:30 slower, I’m a-ok with that. It is a little sad to look on the big list of races and note that right above it is a 10K race where my pace was 10 seconds per mile faster. I think that really says it all in terms of where I physically am right now. As I told Alma (who flew by me and looked like a badass), at this point I’m just concentrating on making it to the end of the year and starting over in many ways. It’s a shame because I’d have liked to get stuff rolling now and in December, but that’s just not looking possible at the moment. Still, we’ll see.

Finishing time: 26:45
Average pace: 8:38min/mile
Splits: 8:40, 8:21, 8:55, 0:49

I made one small mistake this year; I ran into Emma early on and stuck with her until about mile 2.5. As Emma is normally faster than me, it meant I was starting to run out of gas. Fortunately I realized the error of my ways and slowed down a bit. It went well after that, aside from a misplaced Mile 4 marker that made me really wonder what the hell was going on, and running completely out of gas and walking for about 30 seconds up the long, steep, Capitol Hill. UGH. Not proud of that. But otherwise it went well, and I got to see a whole bunch of my old fellow AIDS Marathon staffers—Rick W, Rick C, Karen K, and Emma. Good times, good times, good times.

(8:19, 7:52, 8:14, 10:17, 7:11, 8:55, 1:33 for the .2. And yeah, that marker was definitely off for that fourth mile!)

And hey! Check out my age group placing!

2005: 315/386 (81st percentile) (30-39 group)
2006: 166/233 (71st percentile) (30-34 group)
2008: 98/192 (51st percentile) (35-39 group)

Well, how I felt matched the weather quite nicely. Within a mile I was regretting running. Within two miles I began to seriously wonder why I was there. And at mile three I was trying to remember when the course swung near the start again, so that I could quit. This was the first time I’d ever quit a race and gotten the dreaded DNF (did not finish). And I won’t lie, at the time I was utterly destroyed by it. I felt horrible, and down, and just… yeah, really really bad. Looking back on it now, the fact that I was in fact in the middle of a full-blown cold (and not just allergies like I’d thought) certainly wasn’t helping matters. But it was absolutely the right thing to do. The fact that about five minutes after I quit, it started raining again? A bit of vindication.

So, my first and hopefully last DNF. Next time? If it comes down to that I hope I was smart enough to not even start.

(8:49, 8:44, 8:42, 9:02, 9:34)]]> http://www.marathongreg.com/?feed=rss2&p=127 0 http://www.marathongreg.com/?p=124 http://www.marathongreg.com/?p=124#comments Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:00:24 +0000 admin http://www.marathongreg.com/?p=124 Just realized I’d never gotten around to posting this. So, the disappointment that was the National Half Marathon this year.

A year earlier I ran the race, had an extra quarter mile tacked on by accident, and finished with a 1:58:17. This year? Two minutes slower, but without the added distance. So what happened? A few things. I hadn’t trained as well, something I knew going into the day. My longest run beforehand was a 10-miler, and looking back to the previous year (as well as this year’s splits) having a 12-miler under my belt really had helped. (I felt soon after hitting marker 10 like I’d run out of gas.) A mistake I won’t make again. In general, though, I just wasn’t feeling as excited about the race, and that can be a bad thing.

It’s also worth noting that this year’s course was much steeper than last year’s for the half-marathon. That climb up through mile 8? It wiped me out, and then once I hit new distance (as you’ll see below) everything just sort of crashed and burned. There was also some self-sabotage going on with what I can best term "bad math." I remember finishing mile 11, seeing the split, and thinking it was impossible to stay under 2 hours. Well, that wasn’t really the case at that point, but it certainly seemed like it. And I am sure that given a mental defeat, my body followed along rather stupidly.

(I’m also kicking myself for needing a minute long bathroom break during mile 3. Had I just peed in the parking lot right beforehand like I’d contemplated, at least being sub-2:00 probably would’ve been in the bag. Oh well.)

Live and learn, live and learn. And hey, it wasn’t a personal best, but I did finish and it was faster than my 2006 time. I’m really glad I ran it.

Mileage	Mile Times	Total Time	Overall Pace	Elevation
1	09:27.7	0:09:28	0:09:28
2	08:47.1	0:18:15	0:09:07
3	09:38.9	0:27:54	0:09:18
4	08:30.2	0:36:24	0:09:06
5	09:00.3	0:45:24	0:09:05
6	09:18.7	0:54:43	0:09:07
7	09:25.4	1:04:08	0:09:10
8	08:57.7	1:13:06	0:09:08
9	08:58.5	1:22:04	0:09:07
10	08:55.3	1:31:00	0:09:06
11	09:20.4	1:40:20	0:09:07
12	09:45.3	1:50:05	0:09:10
13.1	10:11.9	2:00:17	0:09:11

Bleah on the percentile drop this year, though. THAT is humiliating, considering I shifted into a new age group. *sigh*

2006: 133/156 (85th percentile) (30-39M)
2007: 117/212 (55th percentile) (30-34M)
2008: 154/226 (68th percentile) (35-39M)