Races

Race Report: Hoof n Woof 5K

I ran a race for the first time since 2019!

Official Results:
N/A (non-chip timed, actually not even sure if there was any timing)

Watch Results:
Time: 30:53
Pace: 10:14
Distance: 3.02 mi
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
A: 29:29
B: 31:59
C: 36:59 (faster than my first 5K)

Food:
What I ate the night before: pot roast sandwich and cajun tater tots
What I ate on race morning: Clif bar
What I carried with me: nothing

Gear:
What I wore: tshirt, long-sleeved quarter zip, leggings, ball cap
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker

Discussion: I finally forced myself to race again. Racing hasn’t appealed to me that much since the pause for the pandemic; I hated the idea of giving up a precious day to sleep in, and I just couldn’t stomach the cost of a lot of races. I decided to force myself back to running races a few weeks ago, and searched for a local race that didn’t cost too much. The Hoof N Woof 5K was only $25 (plus I made an additional $10 donation to the charity) and was in Falcon Heights at the vet school/State Fairgrounds, so it was easy to get to.

Wednesday (when it was still boiling hot!) I did a workout where I practiced “running fast.” I wanted to know what certain paces/efforts felt like, because I haven’t tried to run fast in a long time. I had no idea what I could even do, or how long I could sustain a hard effort. Since it was hot and I was tired when I ran, I don’t know if that run actually told me much, but it gave me an idea of what paces were out of my reach and which were more reasonable.

I rested on Thursday, and on Friday I meant to do an easy shake-out run. I accidentally picked a pretty hilly route in Highland Park, which I mitigated by walking some of the steeper or longer hills. I wasn’t really sure if I was going to run, because the weather forecast predicted rain in the morning and much chillier temps. I didn’t want to get soaked and frozen for a race I hadn’t invested much in. The race organizer sent out a course map the day before, showing the start/finish was right next to a parking garage; knowing there was shelter next to the race start helped reassure me the race wasn’t going to suck before it even started. It turned out packet pickup was indoors, so the problem was totally nonexistent.

I woke up before my alarm and tried to go back to sleep, but it didn’t work. It was raining when I got up, but I decided to take a chance anyway. I had plenty of time to get dressed and out the door and still arrive about 20 minutes before the start. It rained most of the drive but it did start to let up. I picked up my bib, put my cell phone and featherweight jacket back in the car, and did a very short warm-up in an extremely light drizzle that was gone before race start.

The race start was so casual that I didn’t even have my watch ready. This was more of a fun run atmosphere, so I actually think I was at the front of the finishing pack (though well behind the winner, a woman who absolutely blazed ahead of the rest of us and continued to put distance on even her closest competitors.) There were a lot of people with dogs or people who had come to support the cause and have a relaxed walk/jog. I was one of the first ~10 or so people who crossed the start line (since the start took us by surprise), and after maybe the first minute or so, no one passed me.

The race started with a short but fairly steep uphill and I realized that was probably going to sap my legs for the whole race. After a brief downhill, another prolonged but more gradual uphill followed – directly into the wind. I accepted that this was not going to be an indicator of my raw speed, and decided to focus on the effort instead. The course didn’t have any road closures, and only one crossing that was monitored, but there wasn’t much traffic and we could easily run on the sidewalks most of the time. In the second mile, there was a nice prolonged downhill, but it was followed up by a steeper uphill at the beginning of the third mile that really didn’t feel fun. I had an interval runner behind me and I couldn’t seem to get separation; I could hear his heavy footsteps behind me for most of the race, and he would a few times get ahead of me for a moment before stopping for a walk interval. Intervals are a valid race strategy that I wish I was better able to incorporate (I found myself focusing too much on the next interval and not in the moment and it would make me really frustrated), but it’s really hard to have someone that close constantly catching up, passing, falling back, catching up, etc. The third mile had a prolonged downhill onto the State Fair campus and I thought I could speed up and shake him, but the overwhelming scent of the ag school kept me from taking advantage. The morning rain and the humidity really made that manure scent powerful, woof. I did finally shake him in the final quarter mile, because it was uphill and I somehow charged up it as best I could and that put some seconds between us. It’s only fair I get to go in the chute first if I’ve been your rabbit all race!

Despite the difficulty of the course, I had a great time! It felt so wonderful to challenge myself again, to push and then push some more. Somehow despite fairly significant variations in pace, my mile splits were very close together: 10:14, 10:12, 10:16. I can’t be that consistent when I’m trying! I am going to look for another 5K in May to give myself a shot to beat this time, and maybe the sneak under 30 mins? I’m a masters runner now, time to establish masters PRs! (And I hope overall PRs eventually! I’ve still got a lot of room to improve.)

After the race I picked up a latte on my way home, chilled out for a bit, and then went for a second run. My legs were pretty tired, and I made it worse by having to hurry because I added about 0.7 mi to my planned distance by accident, and had to book it to get home in time to meet my friend for a walk. Now it’s bedtime and despite MYRTLs and foam rolling, my lower half is pretty achy. Tomorrow’s run is going to be rough.

Race Report: Twin Cities Marathon (Solo)

That was an experience I don’t care to repeat.

Watch Results:
Time: 7:02:58
Pace: 15:12
Distance: 27.81 mi
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
A: 6:00
B: 6:30

Food:
What I ate the night before: solo deep dish pizza, slice of cheesy garlic bread
What I ate on race morning: cereal, energy bar
What I carried with me: water (2L), gels

Gear:
What I wore: t-shirt, shorts, trucker hat
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker, hydration pack

Discussion: Well. Nothing went as anticipated, which is to be expected when I do almost no planning.

I thought I could be footloose and fancy-free about this race since the stakes were low, but when I turned the lights off to go to sleep on Friday night, anxiety descended upon me just like it does during a regular race. I don’t know how much sleep I got, but it wasn’t much and it wasn’t restful. Since I was making my own schedule, I figured I could set my alarm for an hour or so later and eke out a little more sleep. Nope. I woke up before that alarm, despite being exhausted. Disappointing.

I hadn’t done much prepping the night before, and while there wasn’t much to do, I wish I’d spent that little extra time putting gels and supplies in my pack and writing out the race route, just to shave off a bit of time. I ate part of a bowl of cereal, until I couldn’t shovel any more food into my mouth, and during the drive to the race start, I ate an energy bar. This was definitely not enough food! I generally underfuel for races (not on purpose, I just haven’t figured out what works), but this was exceptionally bad. I wanted to have my usual bagels but I dawdled on Friday and the bagel place was already closed. Since I started running much later in the day than I would for a regular race, I wasn’t able to rely on residual fuel from my dinner the night before. I didn’t consider that either.

I was able to conveniently park directly at the corner of Portland and 6th, the start of the race. It’s funny because to me, the race “starts” in front of US Bank Stadium, because I’m all the way back in the third corral. Here I was in the first corral, all by myself! (Side note: because the run took so long and then I relaxed at home for awhile, I had to pay $16 to park. Not my worst parking mistake ever, but woof!)

I made it all of a block on 6th before I hit a traffic light. I did not anticipate the impact that all these traffic lights would have on my run. When I was doing my solo 50k, I made up my own route, so I could skip the busy streets and the traffic lights. The TCM route goes down major streets, and without the street closures I was often stuck waiting at lights or stop signs. There were a few times I had to veer off course a bit to find the actual crosswalk or traffic light to safely cross the street. I probably could have crossed against the light a few times, but I am a rule follower by nature and as the race wore on, I didn’t trust my legs to be able to quickly get out of the way of an unexpected car.

While the first few miles of the race were fairly faithful to the race course, things started to get complicated when I got the Lake of the Isles. I couldn’t always count on a sidewalk or trail to be close to the road, and often times the trail that was closer to the road was the bike path. I ended up running on the curb or on the grass for most of the sections around the lakes as well as along Minnehaha Parkway. I hate running in grass, and while the curbs were wide enough to run along, I felt too close to traffic and worried all it took was one wrong step and I’d fall right in front of a car. Once I got past Minnehaha Falls and onto West River Rd, I was able to use the running path (for the most part), which was fine in some ways but also annoying because I was constantly stepping onto the grass or into the bikeway to try to maintain social distance. I am curious how much of the extra mileage I added as a result of adapting to the course without the closed roads, and how much was a result of normal GPS errors (like the giant error at the beginning when going under the Government Center). When I ran the marathon in 2018, my watch read 26.76 miles, which would imply that I added an extra mile of running with the little detours and deviations. That does seem a bit extreme – although I did also add an extra little bit by not remembering where the race ended.

This was my first time using the navigation feature on my watch – I created the route on the MovesCount site, uploaded it to my watch, and then used navigation mode for the race. I ended up not needing it, as the only time I got “off course” was the turn off Lake Harriet onto Minnehaha Parkway, when I took the right side of the creek instead of the left side of the creek, and yet I was still within the tolerances of the program. It did once tell me that I was going off course, but that was when I was finding a safer way to cross Lyndale. It also told me when I was at the end of my course so I knew when to stop running. (Silly me, it was past the actual finish line, but oh well.) It did also drain the battery quite a bit so I don’t really intend to use it that much. My watch went from nearly fully charged (maybe? It does fluctuate quite rapidly, it’ll say 85% charged and then when I attach it to the charge, will change to 71% or something – not thrilled with Suunto lately and probably won’t buy another watch from them, more on that at another time) down to 20%, and for a watch that’s supposed to be for ultrarunners, I feel like it should last a bit longer.

The run itself was nothing special. I walked a lot, although I definitely forced myself to run at times when I wanted to walk, so I guess I did some work on my mental game. I wanted to quit about a thousand times, but I didn’t, so hooray! I was clearly not trained to run a marathon, especially not lugging 2 liters of water with me (and yes I needed that much, I had less than 500 mL left when I finished), though I had hoped to finish it faster. I’m not sure if all the stops for traffic were a help or a hindrance to me – did the pause to recover help me go faster later, or did the pauses just increase my fatigue by drawing out the run longer?

I guess somewhere in my mind I was hoping I’d run faster, that my untrained self would somehow still be able to keep up a decent pace. I ended up running the exact same pace (per my watch/GPS) as I did for my 50K in the spring, which is kind of interesting. I do miss having something to train for – I suppose I could have trained for this, but eh. I’m never going to be able to treat a virtual/solo run like a real race and give it that same effort, so putting in a tough training block seems like a waste.

Maybe I do miss racing. I’d like the chance to train for and run a regular old marathon, and see if I can knock down my PR, get under 5 hours, etc. It’s sometimes fun to do big challenges like this on my own, but when the world emerges from this pandemic and we can have big events again, I’m going to be shelling out the $$$ for races again.

Race Report: FANS Virtual 24 Hour Run

It’s somewhat ironic that when I finally sit down to recap my August adventures at Fort Snelling, it’s about 47F outside compared to the average temperature of 147F (approximately) I suffered through during my race segments. The weather changed on a dime over the weekend, and now I’m huddled in a sweatshirt in my home office, refusing to turn on the heat out of principle, trying to conjure up the misery and fatigue I fought through last month.

My “official” results for my virtual FANS stage race: 100.58 mi in 23 hours, 26 minutes, 50 seconds. I ran all of my segments on the FANS course at Fort Snelling; 100.58 mi translates to 47 2.14 mi loops around Snelling Lake, which I completed in 10 efforts on 9 different days. My friends and family helped raise $1660 for the FANS scholarship fund, part of an overall $27,094.44 raised (as of today) by the race participants. That’s pretty exciting! I’m not sure how it compares to years past, so maybe it’s actually horrible in relative terms.

This race was a HUGE wake-up call for me in terms of my capabilities in a true 24 hour race. At first, I had planned on running one big day and a couple of smaller days; I foolishly thought I could complete this in 3 or 4 days. I mean, I could have, but the results would have looked a lot different. I quickly realized that I could either have a big mileage day or I could get the maximum mileage credit (100 mi), but not both. It was rather humbling to realize just how difficult it would be for me to come close to 100 mi during the actual race. It works out to about 2 loops per hour (bearing in mind that the first FANS loop is longer than 2.14 miles in order to ensure that a runner can reach exactly 100 miles as they’re finishing a loop), and for the first three days, that was about what I was averaging (doing 5-6 loops those first three days).

My 2 loops per hour pace started to break down during the middle of the month, when the weather really started to boil. (Don’t tell me to run in the morning before it gets hot – that’s not going to happen. I’d rather suffer in the heat than get up at 6 AM on a day off.) During my fourth run, everything was going okay until the fourth loop (of six), when it started to get warm. I made it through the fifth loop okay and should have stopped there, because I ended up walking/shuffling my way through most of the sixth loop, and felt pretty yucky when I went home. If that had happened during a race, I’d have been shuffling for hours afterward (just like I did in 2017, although I was also struggling with chaffing and blisters). This happened during a couple other segments – once I quit after four loops, went home to rest, and then returned to do two more; then the next day I did 6 loops and ended up 11 minutes over 3 hours – by far my slowest effort, although at that point I had discovered that I had a small cushion of time, so I wasn’t pushing as hard. Even my final day, I was over that desired pace for the three final loops I needed to reach 100 miles, and I decided not to attempt a fourth loop to get in a bit of extra mileage (for my own purposes only, as I couldn’t get any additional cumulative mileage credit).

Of course there were things that worked against me that wouldn’t be present in a race. I was wearing a 2L hydration pack for most of my efforts, in order to avoid stopping. During a race, I’d be able to refill a water bottle at an aid station and also drink stuff other than water. I’d also have access to more food (beyond the gels I was muling) and I’d have eaten more pre-race (vs. eating a normal amount because I’m trying to shed a few pounds here). There would be a better atmosphere, with other runners to chat with and a big pick-me-up from the lap counters each time I came through. And there would be nice clean biffies to use, instead of… well, just going home. (TMI but the restrooms are closed due to the pandemic, and the existing biffies seemed… shady, and there’s not really a great place to jump off the trail for a minute, especially since there were a lot of other folks on the trail.) And of course in a race, I would be starting in the cooler morning hours, and would be several hours into the race before the heat of the day hit me. I’d have been rested, and I certainly would have put in more training hours.

While that’s all true, so much more would be working against me. The compounding fatigue of hours on the trail. The likely sleepless night beforehand. Mental lows that slow me down. Distractions like crew and aid stations and chairs. Chaffing and blisters and sunburns and upset stomachs. Fear and self-doubt. You know, all the fun stuff. I am telling you, it really sucks to be slow. Everyone deals with all the baggage I just rattled off, but man, it would be like 100000x easier to deal with that if I wasn’t also starting off like 3-4 minutes slower than the average runner.

My friend Jamie posted on her coaching and physical therapy page asking people to consider how their negative thoughts might be impacting them, especially negative thoughts about their own speed. But that’s in relative terms. We all have days when we don’t feel our best, but I wonder what it must feel like to not do your very best and still fall within the middle of the pack. It probably sucks but also it can’t suck as much as not doing your very best and therefore falling off a cliff into the abyss of cutoffs and sag wagons and results that are so many standard deviations from the mean that you’d rather they just didn’t exist.

Trying out a 100 mi/24 hour pace on the actual FANS race course really drove it home how hard it would be for me to actually keep that up during a real live FANS event. And yes, this is ultrarunning, it’s supposed to be hard, and obviously my past results should be evidence that I’m going to struggle mightily to maintain that pace consistently for longer than 3 hours – it still ate away at me. I’m at this point in running where I either need to get serious, like really really serious, or just accept my limitations. It’s probably going to be the latter, because honestly I can’t see myself agonizing over my diet, paying for coaching, and spending even more time running and doing strength workouts, when it’s still likely going to result in marginal gains.

Not training or racing has triggered a descent into nihilism, it appears. I’m at peace with this.

I don’t have anything else on the calendar in 2020, so this plus the Bigger Than The Trail 50K will conclude my racing season, unless another virtual event comes along that promotes a worthy cause and/or is priced appropriately for a virtual event. I know in-person races are starting to crop up again, but I’ll leave those spots for folks who are really hungry to race. I’m not, and I also don’t really feel like it’s worth the risk. These are strange times, and I’ll just let them be strange.

Race Report: Bigger Than The Trail Block Party (50K)

Virtual Insanity

Watch Results:
Time: 7:53:16
Pace: 15:12
Distance: 31.12 mi
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
A: 7:00
B: 7:30

Food:
What I ate the night before: beef curry with rice, Oreo cookies
What I ate on race morning: cereal, nitro vanilla latte
What I carried with me: water with electrolytes, gels

Gear:
What I wore: t-shirt, shorts, trucker hat
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker

Discussion: That was certainly a new experience. I heard about the Bigger Than The Trail Block Party from my friends Jeff and Amy, and I spent a few weeks hemming and hawwing about which distance to sign up for (they had options from 1 mile to 100 miles), before finally settling on the 50K. I considered doing a marathon and then just continuing if I felt like it, but I decided I would sign up for the ultra distance for accountability. I haven’t run an ultra since last year’s FANS, so it’s been almost a year! Hard to believe.

I didn’t do very much to prepare for this race, which ended up being to my detriment, though all it really affected was the overall time it took to complete the race, and my general attitude during the race. I planned to get going right around 8:00, the “official” start, just so I could get the race over with. I got up at 7:30 or so, and planned to prep two handheld water bottles with electrolyte tabs so I’d easily be able to swap them out. One of them smelled not great, so I filled it with soapy water and left it. I forgot to apply sunscreen before leaving. I also discovered my watch, which I thought I’d charged to 100% the night before, was only at 71% (and then showed up as 95%… and then back to 71% — thank you, Suunto, I think my next watch will be another brand), and had trouble getting a satellite lock when I did try to start. I actually went back inside, plugged it back in, and then re-started. I got going for real at 8:30. The weather was cool-ish, mid-50s F, and a bit humid. I was just hoping the rain would hold off until I was almost done.

I didn’t have a route planned or any planned stops, and while I had time goals, I didn’t do any math as far as what pace I needed to hit to make those goals. I figured I’d just wing it and do whatever it took to finish, even if that meant walking or resting or what. I took my first break after two hours and 8.5 miles, and stopped to use the bathroom (SO much better than peeing in the woods or using a Biffy), rinse off my face (to prevent sweat/sunscreen from getting in my eyes), refill my water bottle, eat half a Clif bar, take off my long-sleeved shirt, re-apply Body Glide, apply sunscreen, and head back out again. I felt pretty strong, and the miles really fell away at first. While my first mile was mostly downhill, I didn’t have an easy course – who knew you could get 2358 feet of vert in the city? I knew, because all my runs seem to be uphill both ways. I chose to walk almost any incline, and it was a nice way to break up the day and give my hips a rest.

I ate half the Clif bar while walking, and then took off again for a longer segment. It took almost 5 minutes for me to get through my rest stop at home, so I wanted to try to limit my stops to when I really needed them. The sun came out a little bit during this section, and I ran through some busier sections where I was dodging people a bit. I felt a little crappy during this section – not quite nauseated, but definitely “off,” and ended up walking a little bit on a flat section just to calm my body down. I started running low on water and started heading for home (this included a long uphill section) – this segment was 11.4 miles, and I did the same bathroom/face wash/water refill/etc. routine, maybe a little bit faster, and then I headed out again for what I thought was going to be my final segment.

I ended up having to return again after 7.5 miles to use the bathroom and get more water one more time. I didn’t have enough water to make it the final 3.7 miles, and I otherwise needed to stop. I did a lot of walking during the third segment, and my running turned into shuffling, which sucked. I probably should have eaten more – I don’t always get typical hunger cues when I’m running, and I don’t always recognize my cranky attitude as a sign of hunger. I should have pre-made a sandwich or grabbed a few cookies or something.

The final 3.7 miles were pretty brutal. My feet were hurting, there was a lot of uphill (my area of St. Paul is VERY hilly, especially near my house), and I checked my watch a few times to see my instantaneous pace and realized I was running so slowly I might as well be walking (so I walked). I got passed by a couple of chatty women out power-walking (can’t avoid gals chatting about domestic stuff even in a solo race!) and then I realized as I was heading into the final stretch that I needed to tack on a little extra in order to be sure that I was going to get 31 miles (Strava sometimes lops off distance, and I noticed that there were some GPS errors during my breaks – I took off my watch during the first two breaks because I was worried going inside my house would mess up my signal, but taking it off caused errors too, for some reason. Why isn’t there a function where you can pause distance but not time?) That was a morale killer, but I was determined to be running when my watch beeped 31 miles, and I was! And I kept running after that for the final tenth of a mile it took to get home.

I finished feeling pretty good! Especially considering there was no finish line energy whatsoever. My heels and toes have blisters, my shoes are toast after my big toes poked through mesh tops (Mizuno — go back to your old fabric), and I have some chafing around the band of my sports bra, but that’s minor. Of course my legs and hips are stiff, but that’ll sort itself out in due time.

I joined a couple of the Zoom events that were part of the BTTT Block Party. They were really fun, there were a lot of really cool people involved in the event. I even got to see someone finishing their 50 mile event live! It seems like a really great organization, and this virtual race raised over $15k! Not bad for a race that only had a $20 entry fee.

I said right after the event that I probably wouldn’t do another virtual race, but that’s not true. I’d do another one if it was inexpensive or if it was a charitable event. This hit both criteria, but I’d do FANS if it ends up being virtual. I just don’t think I’d do a virtual event that cost like $70 (unless I’d already been signed up for the real event).

What didn’t I like about it? Well, it was lonely out there. It was really weird to do an event without any support or any other runners. I missed the energy at the aid stations and the finish lines. I didn’t like not knowing if I really did 50K (thanks to a few bonus tenths from my watch while I was taking breaks), and I hated waiting for traffic and dealing with pedestrians, dogs, skateboarders, cyclists, other runners, etc. I missed aid station food – there’s much more of a variety and it’s so much easier to get in and out. It sucked not to be able to just duck off the trail to pee and get right back on – since I was in a residential area it wasn’t really an option.

What did I like about it? I liked some aspects of choosing my own route – like if I didn’t want to go up a hill right then, I just turned left or right. If I wanted to go back home and refill stuff, I did it when I wanted to, instead of having to wait for the next aid station or having to stop more frequently than I really wanted to. I liked starting from my house, instead of figuring out the logistics of getting to the race start, possibly traveling overnight, or having to drive home after 8 hours of running. I could have done this on a remote trail somewhere, but that would have involved carrying a lot more stuff – it was nice to just have one handheld and not need drop bags or anything.

Overall, I’m glad I did it – who knew when I set my spring race goals two months ago that we’d be in this place, with races canceled left and right, and no expectation for when they might start up again. It was nice to get in a really long run – I can use this formula in the future when I’m doing long training runs – loops around the neighborhood with stops at home, instead of driving somewhere and hauling a pack full of water. It was a reminder that I need to stop fooling around with 10 mile “long runs” and 40 mile weeks if I want to have a successful FANS in August (if it happens, sigh) — I’m not ready.

I’m going to take a week off now. I haven’t taken much time off other than when I was sick in late February. Normally I let races determine my time off, but with nothing on the calendar, there was no “reason” to rest, even though it’s healthy to take time off running even when there are no races on the horizon. I’m really going to enjoy the break!

The Long Walk

The long walk isn’t a marathon. That’s the whole problem. It’s much shorter. It’s me, fighting my way through the crowds on the Capitol grounds to get to the gate of the finish line area, bib clutched in hand so I can prove I belong back there. Then it’s swimming upstream of runners in their medals and mylar blankets, trying to avoid being noticed while I retrieve my drop bag. My fingers can’t untie the knot I enthusiastically cinched it with five hours prior, so I rip it open and put on the jacket I tossed in there before I handed it over to a volunteer. And finally, it’s leaving the crowds behind and walking a mile and a half back to my car at Union Depot, just like I did the year before, but without a medal and a mylar blanket of my own, because I didn’t finish. Of course, it’s also spending that walk thinking about what went wrong on the race and second guessing my decision to drop out.

There’s no traditional race report to be found here, not just because it was a DNF, but because the entire 13.3-ish miles that I completed before dropping out, I spent trying to figure out what went wrong. I don’t really have splits because the first mile was so jacked up from being in downtown Minneapolis that it looks like I set a mile PR. I promise I didn’t even come close. This will be a list of excuses couched in overwrought language.

I slept poorly the night before, as I usually do, but I did manage to get a couple hours of sleep. I’m not sure how many, maybe as little as one, maybe two and a half, but either way it was enough that I didn’t feel completely woozy like I do on no sleep. I got up, got dressed in clothes I’d put together the night before for the cliched “flat lay” for my Instagram, and completed the remaining items I had on the obsessively detailed checklist I made for the race. Items on the list include “remove rings” (I don’t race in my rings because my fingers get puffy and they get tight, especially my Order of the Engineer ring, but I forget to take them off sometimes) and “fill soft flask” because it’s too important a task to leave to my forgetful brain. I left a little later than planned and had to park a little farther away from the light rail station than I wanted to because the Union Depot parking lot was unexpectedly full. I had to hustle a bit and got on the train with only a couple minutes to spare before it left.

The start area was absurdly crowded and it took me quite awhile to get to the bag drop. I had to meet my colleagues at 7:45 to take a group pic, and I barely made it back in time. I only met up with one (who had flown in all the way from Houston!) for a pic and then tried to find a spot toward the back of Corral 3. That didn’t work because there were Biffy lines that prevented me from going much further back. I did find my other colleague and he and I stood together until the start.

Right from the beginning, it felt hard. Yes, a marathon is hard, but it felt too hard. I don’t know what pace I was actually running at the beginning because of the GPS errors from running through downtown, I know that I hit mile 1 at about 11:50, so I was about 25 seconds over my A goal pace, and slower than I went out last year, so I know I wasn’t out of control. I chalked it up to the lack of warm-up and the wind through downtown, and then the second mile felt slow because there’s a hill there. But the third mile felt hard, too, and the fourth. I grabbed some Gatorade at the aid station around mile 4, and at mile 5 ate my first gel, thinking that maybe I just needed some more fuel. Through 5 miles I think I was at about 58:40 or something, so just below 12 min/mile pace. The last 5 mile run I raced, my pace was 10:01 or something. I finished the Run Baby Run 10K back in August at a 11:09 pace. I think I was still around 12 mins at the 6 mile mark (I had to glance at elapsed time on my watch and I think I was at like 1:11:XX), and if Run Baby Run felt hard a minute faster in high humidity, there was just no reason to be through 6 miles at a pace 40-50 seconds slower and feel like I couldn’t hold it. And yet I did.

Between Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet, I started taking walking breaks. I thought maybe I could give my body a chance to take in the gel and the Gatorade, I’d start to perk up again. The Chain of Lakes section is supposed to be a section to cruise through, not a place to struggle for no apparent reason. But I thought maybe I could turn the race around. The section around Minnehaha Parkway (which is really nice! I need to run there more often) has one of the bigger hills of the race so that slowed me further since I walked the entire thing. My walk breaks were becoming longer and I wasn’t feeling any better, despite having more Gatorade and another gel at mile 10.

I also wasn’t having any fun. I had a few sections where I gave thumbs up to people who cheered for me by name thanks to my bib, and I saw my friend Laura at mile 4, which perked me up momentarily, but I wasn’t smiling. I smile during races a lot, partially because I’m having fun, partially because it helps keep my spirits from sagging, and partially because it suppresses the gag reflex. I wasn’t thanking as many volunteers or enjoying the surroundings and the music and the general party atmosphere. It was a grind.

As I started the section around Lake Nokomis, I started to think seriously about quitting. I had thought about quitting several times, but I often do when I’m getting settled in to races and then that feeling dissipates once I’m in a groove. But I’d keep talking myself out of it, saying I could do a run/walk and keep on surviving. So what if I didn’t make my A or B goal? Maybe I could still make my C. Or maybe just a PR. Or maybe I’d battle my way to a finish. Instead, I came through the half marathon mark at around 2:50, and at that point knew I’d spend most of the rest of the race chased by the sag wagon. I didn’t have enough water and fuel to continue on the sidewalks on my own (and there would be no value in doing so) and if I got on the sag bus at like mile 16-17 I’d probably be bus-sick all the way to the finish. I’d gotten nauseated on the light rail on the way to the race and that was before running (although it was also because a woman was smoking on the train).

The thought of running down Summit didn’t appeal to me, or that amazing point in the race when the course crosses into St. Paul. I didn’t care about seeing the Cathedral and then heading down into the Capitol to the finish. I love so much about this course and nothing was giving me joy at all. I didn’t want to learn a lesson or tough it out or force them to cut me. I just wanted to be done.

Conveniently, my mom was spectating at the half marathon mark and I was able to drop out and get a ride back to the Capitol with her. I didn’t know you could just drop whenever, so I continued past the half marathon timing mat to the drop station, thinking they’d need to take my number or my bib or whatever. I guess they don’t do that in big races! Weird. I’ve never dropped out of a road race before. So I added probably an extra half mile of walking to my daily total because I’d walked to the drop station and then back to my mom. Then she and I walked back to her car, which was parked like… maybe another mile away, maybe a little less, at my cousin’s house. This ended up giving me time to cool down and stabilize so that I didn’t get so claustrophobic when I got in the car. I felt sort of crappy in general at that point: my lower back hurt, and my face was sunburned (if I had continued this would actually have become a huge problem, because I wasn’t carrying any extra with me), and I’d been feeling slightly breathless the whole day, likely due to the wind and the cold-like symptoms I’d had earlier in the week (as well as the overall labored running).

I’m so disappointed, and I can’t really tell what the cause of my dead legs/low energy was. I didn’t have a designed taper, but I also didn’t run a lot of mileage so I didn’t think my legs had been overly taxed, and this week I ran like 15 miles with two rest days so I don’t think I overdid it. Of course the converse could be true, that I didn’t run enough miles, but that would become evident later in the race, not from the get-go. I didn’t sleep, sure, but I never sleep before races. I had a bit of a cold last weekend, but I got over it and it was never in my lungs. I don’t eat very well, but I never have and I’ve still managed to run a couple miles without my thighs turning to cement. Maybe I put too much pressure on myself for this one event, but I didn’t really.

Maybe there’s nothing to figure out. Maybe it just wasn’t my day. I’ve been stressed at work and that’s probably taken its toll in ways I didn’t realize. The good news is that I am not hurt or sick or otherwise impaired in the long-term, so I can go out and run some other fun races and try to make at least a few of the goals I’ve made for myself this fall. The bad news is that I didn’t have an amazing Twin Cities Marathon experience and I’d really been looking forward to it. Next year, I’ll be ready.

Race Report: Run Baby Run 10K

Surprise! I ran a 10K.

Official Results:
Time: 1:09:09
Pace: 11:08
Placing:
Overall: 47/60
Gender: 25/34
AG (F30-39): 10/11

Watch Results:
Time: 1:09:10 (Not bad for a non-chip-timed race!)
Pace: 11:05
Distance: 6.24 mi
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
A: 59:59

Food:
What I ate the night before: tacos, chips and guacamole
What I ate on race morning: gel, crackers
What I carried with me: water

Gear:
What I wore: t-shirt, shorts
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker

Discussion: I guess I’m a bit delusional. I thought somehow I was in shape to run a one hour 10K! It turns out, not even close, although conditions were not ideal.

I signed up for this race only a couple days ago. I knew I wanted to run a 10K this summer but it never seemed like there was a convenient one that I wanted to do. I actually heard about this race via a Facebook ad, so congrats on that, Zuckerberg. The race was in White Bear Lake, a place I’d never actually visited until I picked up my packet on Friday. The guy running packet pick-up was wearing a Chippewa Moraine t-shirt and had just run Voyageur the previous weekend, so I knew this would be a good race for me.

I didn’t sleep very well the night before. I kept worrying that the race would be so small that I’d be 30 minutes after the second to last runner and would annoy everyone. I don’t mind being last at races, but I do mind being last by so much that I’m an inconvenience. I don’t worry about it at 5Ks anymore, but 10Ks are a different animal, especially when there’s a shorter 5K option. 10Ks are a big commitment! I have to stop worrying so much about races.

I woke up in the morning and thought about not running. I even woke up before my alarm! That was annoying. I told myself if I could fall asleep before my alarm went off, I could skip it. Of course, I couldn’t — I was too busy worrying about how much I’d be angry with myself later, and how I’d still have to get in a long run, and blah blah blah. So I got up, got dressed, and drove the 20 minutes to the start of the race. It was really easy (and free) to park, and there weren’t a whole lot of people there (only 105 racers overall).

I did a mile warm-up and was already sweaty. Like, not just a few beads of sweat, but really sweaty. It was in the mid 70s and humid and wasn’t even 8 a.m. yet. Not a great sign. The race started basically at 8, and we started with a loop through a neighborhood before coming back around through the start and heading the other way around the lake. Since I’m not really familiar with the area and the course was a bit unusual, it’s hard to describe. The course was a mix of sidewalks and roads, and mostly flat. They didn’t close the roads or have any crossing guards (except for at one spot, where we turned onto a busier road), so that was a bit unusual. I didn’t love running along a 40 mph road with a rather narrow shoulder, but it wasn’t exceptionally busy. I did have to stop once in the last third of the race because of a car, which was slightly annoying. There were quite a few other pedestrians, dogs, non-racing runners, and a few bikers on the sidewalks/paved paths. At one point, I was following some people I thought were in the race, and almost went the wrong way. Fortunately, there were signs along the route as well as volunteers at every turn, so I didn’t get lost when those people went right and I was supposed to go left.

The race itself was miserable for me. I hated most of the first 2 miles, and I fell off 59:59 pace within the first mile. The humidity was killer; my shirt was drenched in sweat and clung to me within the first couple miles — that is NOT normal. So maybe I should give myself a pass on not nailing my first 10K, but I also know that I could have pushed harder. My average pace for this race was only like 20 seconds off what I want to run for marathon pace! It seems like maybe sub-5 is out of my hands right now. Yes, it was humid and warm, and yes I was tired and hadn’t taken a rest day since Monday so I didn’t have fresh legs, but still. It was a wakeup call.

Each mile was progressively slower than the previous one — no consistency in pace at all. Mile 6 was 11:55 average! I mean, come on, what is wrong with me? Slowness and laziness, I guess. There was a woman ahead of me who had passed me but stayed in sight, and she was taking walking breaks. If I had been more driven, I would have made a little goal to try to pass her. Well, I kind of did make that goal, but I didn’t work very had to try to achieve it. I managed to pick up the pace for the last quarter mile and finish with some pride, but overall it was a disappointing effort.

I did set a goal to run a 10K this summer, and I achieved that. And I guess I have a PR that I can chip away at, even though I spent a lot of the race thinking how much I disliked the distance. It’s hard! I prefer the half marathon for a middle distance type race, and I prefer the 5K for when I want to push the envelope. But now that it’s over, I don’t mind as much, and I’d like to do one again in better weather, when I’m rested, to try for a faster and more consistent effort.

I went home and took a two hour nap, something I almost never do, and I still have like 7 miles of running I need to get done this evening (this is my long run day — the plan called for a half marathon but I didn’t feel like racing a half marathon and I AM SO GLAD I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR ONE even though there was one run practically in my neighborhood. It was nice to run a race – I haven’t raced since FANS, which was two months ago! Weird.

Race Report: FANS 24 Hour Race 2019

Little by little, brick by brick.

Official Results:
Distance: 45.4 mi
Pace: N/A, but I tapped out at about 15:14, so 20:08
Placing:
TBD once the results are published

Watch Results:
Time: 15:14:02
Pace: 16:12
Distance: 48.1 mi (once my watch even beeped off a mile while I was sitting in a chair)
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
Big distance PR, short laps

Food:
What I ate the night before: Gyro pizza
What I ate on race morning: bagel with cream cheese
What I carried with me: gels, mints (I had some Oreo cookies at my tent), water bottle with electrolyte tabs

Gear:
What I wore: t-shirt, shorts, arm warmers for the first few laps, ball cap, hydration vest (without a water bottle – used for storage), buff as headband (in the afternoon)
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker

Discussion: It’s pretty amazing how much the events of the week preceding the race can affect the race itself. The cumulative effects of a rainy and chilly Twins game on Monday, another Twins game on Tuesday that wasn’t rainy or cold but got out late, a lot of deadlines and stress at work, a really poor night’s sleep on Wednesday, air quality issues late in the week that left me feeling sick, and temperatures over 90F on Friday ended up putting me in a significant sleep debt. To cap it off, despite being tired when I went to bed on Friday, at a very decent hour, after avoiding caffeine most of the day (just like I did at Ice Age), my bedroom was so hot and stuffy I couldn’t fall asleep. I had a built-in excuse right from the get-go! Lucky me!

Before this week, I was really excited for the race. I imagined that I was going to really enjoy myself out there, that the shorter loops and the even surface would mean I could really cruise and even walking would be a lot faster. I pictured myself taking selfies with all my friends at the start and having a great time. I even allowed myself to imagine, for a moment, taking a few short loops at the end, dead tired but triumphant. It’s disappointing now to look back at how excited I was the week prior, and how optimistic I was, and see that I let the days preceding the race wholly throw me off my game.

I spent most of Friday preparing for the race, after doing almost nothing earlier in the week. I was just so darn tired. I meant to sleep in as late as possible, but ended up waking up at 7 to feed the cats and had a hard time truly falling back asleep, so I got up around 9. Very annoying, I used to be a champ at sleeping in. I realize that 9 am is sleeping in to a lot of people, but it’s all relative! I felt sick most of the day; my eyes itched and my head felt stuffy. I hoped it was due to the air quality and not due to an illness. Allergy pills didn’t help at all. I felt so listless I didn’t want to run any errands before the race, but I managed to get everything done that I needed to. I bought a bunch of gels (yes, I waited til the day before the race to replenish my gel stash!), picked up some bagels and vanilla Coke, packed my gear bag (I got a free duffel bag at the Twins game on Tuesday, which was the perfect size for my gear), re-stocked my supply kit, and went to packet pick-up to get my number and my t-shirt.

I tried to be as minimalist and self-sufficient as possible for this race. It stresses me out to rely on others for this event. It’s a lot to ask people to get up early/stay up late and sit around bored while I run in loops, whine and grump, and then throw in the towel early. It’s also very embarrassing to me to pack a lot of stuff, set up a tent, etc., and then have to haul it all away in a walk of shame when I tap out before the event ends. So this time, I brought hardly any gear at all, no tent, and I drove myself to the race. I told my dad he could stop by (this was a big mistake for him, because I was cranky every time he got there, which I feel badly about), and my husband came in the evening to support me overnight (the two of them also ferried my car back to our house, so that I wouldn’t have to figure that out later on), but other than that, I didn’t make a big deal of the race or invite a bunch of friends to do loops with me. You would think that this would make it easier to quit, but it actually worked out in my favor. The first year, I quit early in part because I knew that my dad was leaving and that would mean I’d have to haul a bunch of stuff back to his house in the morning, so I chose to quit so that we could send the tent and chairs and stuff back to his place when he left. I find that the more inconvenient a race is for others, the less likely I am to run it, or in this case, complete it. It’s sort of funny because in other spheres of my life, I am pretty self-centered, but in running I can’t seem to muster any of that selfishness.

I showed up to the event at about 7:00, a little later than the year prior, but I didn’t have to stake out a tent location. Instead of bringing my own tent, I was lucky enough to mooch off my friends’ tent. Through my race volunteering adventures, I have made friends with some incredibly awesome people who are also much more serious runners than I am. My friends Jeff and Amy had a whole set-up going, with a canopy, tent, tables, chairs, etc., and right next to them, my friends Tyson and Stefanie had a similar camp. I was able to lug my chair, cooler, tackle box, and duffel bag over to their site in one trip. (One benefit of the last-minute change of venue due to flooding at Fort Snelling: the new location has a parking lot close to the “camping” area.) I took over a little corner at the front of Amy and Jeff’s tent and walked over to get weighed in at the start. (The timing tent was actually about a quarter of a mile from the tent area, which was a little strange. I technically ran like 45.6 miles before giving up, boo, I was robbed of mileage!)

I felt really tired and out of it at the start, and basically wanted to quit right away. I have a serious running attitude problem that I need to fix if I ever want to improve. This self-defeating nonsense that gets inside my head on race day is seriously hampering my fun. Since there was no actual reason for quitting, I soldiered on. My legs felt kind of heavy, which was to be expected because I felt sleepy and because I hadn’t run since the previous Sunday (due to feeling sick/overwhelmed/tired). Overall, things just sucked for the first few miles, but I figured I’d get into a groove and go from there.

The new course is a bit different; it’s much hillier than the Fort Snelling course, and it’s all pavement. It’s also much busier; while I wouldn’t say it was crowded, there were a lot more non-racers on the course at any given time. There’s still a bit of plane traffic overhead since it’s close to the airport, and there was a lot more street traffic noise, since it’s much more urban. While I was glad not to have the painful gravel from Fort Snelling, I didn’t realize how much the asphalt would affect me.

For the first few loops, I used the hills as a natural point to switch from running to walking. I was drinking and eating gels fairly regularly; I didn’t want to get behind on my nutrition since that has been an issue for me in past races. There were Rice Krispie bars at the smaller aid station, and I probably ate three or four of those (or more) throughout the day – they were a bit sticky but they were a nice change from the usual cookies/chips, and they were surprisingly easy to eat, I thought they might be a little dry. The sun came out fairly early on, and while it was much cooler than it had been the day before, I started to heat up quickly. I decided to change my strategy to manage the heat; I told myself I’m here to stay, I’m not going to let myself get overheated, and I started walking entire laps. My friend Amy, who was entered in the 6 hour race but not really racing, joined me for a lap and perked me up. After running along in relative silence for close to 4 hours, I was glad to have her to talk to, and it changed my mental outlook. Talking to her also helped me release some of my expectations and anxieties about the race. I didn’t have to do anything, there was nothing I was supposed to do. I could do whatever I wanted.

I ended up resting a lot between laps, something I hadn’t done in the two previous races. I sat down and put my feet up a few times during the day, just to take the weight off my feet. I was having blister issues, which was unsurprising – I got them in the exact same spots I did at Ice Age, so my feet likely didn’t have a chance to recover entirely. I stopped and dealt with the first batch of blisters, drank some pop, and then got back out there. If this race has taught me anything, it’s that I need to get a much better handle on blister prevention. Time to start experimenting with the tips from Fixing Your Feet.

I thought things were going better for me after I taped up my feet, but then I got either sweat or sunscreen in my eyes. It doesn’t matter which, it just matters that it hurt like crazy and the sun and wind didn’t help. One eye was burning so badly that I had to run about half a mile with it mostly closed, tears running down my cheeks. I had to stop for probably 20 minutes to rinse out my eyes and let the stinging subside. I put a buff on my head under my hat after that and didn’t have any more problems, so maybe it was sweat (or sweat and sunscreen mixed together). Just as I was ready to head out after dealing with my eyes, my colleague (who was running the 6 hour) came by and said he’d walk the last lap of his race with me. We talked about strategy, and he told me screw it, just walk until it cools off or you feel better. He’s done the 24 hour race before, so I trusted his judgement. Once again, just spending a lap talking to someone changed my mindset for the better, and I was able to pick up the pace to match his.

After my colleague peeled off to do some short laps, I continued right into another lap. I knew I was getting close to a marathon, and I dialed in on that milestone. I told myself no more breaks til I was beyond the marathon. I hit the 26.2 mi mark at 7:13:24 (they had signs marking a marathon, 50K, 50 mi, etc.), and then focused on hitting 50K. I was feeling more motivated, so I switched to running the shady sections and walking the sunny sections, and was really motoring (for me). I could tell I was getting more blisters, and I had switched to straight water because I didn’t stop for more electrolyte tabs, but I wanted to get to 50K before I took another break. The 50K mark was between the timing tent and the camping area, but I wanted to do the entire loop to get “credit” for reaching 50K before I took a break.

I hit 50K in 8:44:37 and finished that loop for 31.6 miles. After that loop, I was looking forward to stopping, dealing with my feet, eating some spaghetti (yes, really) and chilling out. My dad was there when I reached the tent, and for some reason that was making me super anxious. I don’t know what it was, but it made me feel like a zoo animal, like he was just watching me and waiting for what I was going to do. Which he kind of was, but mentally at that point I just couldn’t take it. He said he was going to wait to leave until I was on my next lap, and that seemed like too much expectation. I ended up eating a couple cookies instead of the spaghetti, and basically told him to leave by saying I was going to start my next lap soon. Oh look, there was some of that selfishness coming out. After he left, I dealt with my blisters and hung out for a little longer talking to Amy before I headed out.

I ate my spaghetti on the following lap, as well as part of a piece of ciabatta. This was one of the biggest benefits of walking through the afternoon – my stomach was feeling great, as was most of the rest of my body. I was eating and drinking like normal, everything was going down fine, I wasn’t losing weight (I’d lost 2.5 lbs between the morning weigh-in and the 4:00 PM weigh in, but at the 8:00 PM weigh in, I was stable), and I didn’t have any dehydration issues (total TMI but because I wasn’t worried about time, I used the real bathroom at the pavilion a couple times, so I can confirm I was staying hydrated). I also didn’t have any issues with finger swelling like I did at Ice Age.

For a little while, things started to look up. The sun was still hot (I reapplied sunscreen at 6PM, and Amy asked “Are you sure you need that? It’s after 6.” I’m just that pasty) but I was able to run a lot more than I had been able to when it was hotter. I felt like things were going well. Then my feet started to hurt a lot. Not just the blisters, but the balls of my feet, as well as the side/top of my right foot, which hurt like my left one did last year. I was getting worried. I switched to completing a loop, then putting my feet up to rest, then heading out for another.

And it got dark! I made it past nightfall! That was huge for me. Last year I was still there at night, but I didn’t actually do a loop with a headlamp on. This year I did two. And they were hard. I ran quite a bit of them, mostly because it hurt more to run, but I was starting to get frustrated with how much my feet hurt, how much I wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed, and how futile the rest of the race felt. I passed last year’s total on lap 24, and started to feel better about how things were going, but I was also annoyed with how long each lap was taking. I was past last year’s total, but it had taken me so long to get there. I didn’t know how many more laps I had in me, and I started thinking about what it would take to even get to 50 miles. I finished what ended up being my final lap at about 11:00, and realized that it would probably take over two more hours, maybe even three, to do the three more laps I needed to get to 50 miles, and I decided it wasn’t worth it. I just didn’t feel like the effort was worth the result. I could go home and go to bed, or I could shuffle through a few more laps. I don’t think I could have even made 100K if I’d stayed there til the finish, and I didn’t care.

I don’t feel too badly about it. Of course now I realize I could have shuffled on longer with some tweaks here and there. I could have stopped at the benches along the way, for example. I could have stayed in my chair and just done a lap here or there and stayed there all night. I could have just shuffled along in increasing amounts of pain. But that’s okay. These are all things I am saying in hindsight; in the moment, I didn’t think of them, or I just didn’t want to do them. But I still did a lot.

I figured out a survival strategy when things were going wrong. I fixed my blisters (kind of) and got back out there. I ran when it hurt. I got back out there when I didn’t want to, over and over again. I didn’t chafe. I didn’t get sunburned. I ate and drank like I should have. I spent time with my friends. I got a distance PR and lasted longer than I ever have at this event. I ran night loops. I did all this on really minimal training – the only truly long run I did was another race.

I’m left with a lot of the same questions in my mind as I had last year. Am I cut out for these really long races? Is this event a waste of my time? Should I just do the 12 hour or 6 hour next year? So much helpful self-doubt and self-flagellation. Yet I do keep improving. And I do love this event. And there’s something so special about the loops after 8 PM and that solidarity that the 24 hour runners have that I don’t think I want to give up. I think I really need a big success at this event before I’ll feel comfortable trying for 100K or longer (I could probably still give 50 miles a shot, though it would need to be the right race), so it’s probably going to be on the docket for next year, even though I said last night that maybe I’ve finally scratched the itch this race has given me.

I completed 45.4 miles and was still running at the end. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t even run the entire mile in gym class because it seemed too hard. Five years ago, I couldn’t even handle marathon training. When I feel like a failure, it helps to remember where I started.