Today has been one of those days. One of those days where you SERIOUSLY contemplate going home and crawling back into your bed and sleeping until this nonsense passes. There is an old saying that is a corollary of Murphy's Law that applies here:
"Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse."
Speaking of Murphy's Law; as I understand it, most of us have Murphy's Law incorrect. It is often stated, "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"... or something similar, which is more likely from Finagle's Law which states, "Anything that can go wrong, will." Murphy's Law more accurately has a slightly different twist, stating: "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those things can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it." That is not really the kind of thing that I am talking about when I suggest that today has been one of those days.
I am talking about the scene that I will illustrate for you now. (This is simply for illustrative purposes and not what has actually happened to me today.) Picture this: You pick up your coffee cup and put it to your lips to partake in your ritualistic cup of Joe or cup of Joy as it were, when you turn the cup a split second too early and spill a couple of precious drops onto your shirt. You look down and notice that the one and only white part of your shirt must have had a target surrounding it and your coffee had perfect aim, hitting the bullseye. As you begin to wipe your newly formed brown spot on your shirt, you pull the napkin from the table which apparently had one tiny piece of the corner ever so slightly under the creamer and you inadvertently pull the creamer off of the table and onto your pants. Not wanting to smell like sour creamer for the remainder of the day, you go to change your outfit. Once chosen, you remove your breakfast laden clothing and snag your pants on your heel and tear your pant leg rendering those pants even unworthy of the Salvation Army donation bag. As you change into your new outfit you pull your shirt over your head, messing your perfectly coiffed hair requiring at the very least another can of hair spray to get it back to "just so". As you are re-creating perfection you notice in the mirror that you have a large smudge of deodorant all down the front of your shirt from pulling it over your head moments ago. After far too long re-dressing and fixing and fluffing and cleaning you head back to get your now essential cup of joy. You reach to pick up your cup when the handle breaks off. All of this is calamitous to be sure, but nothing catastrophic. Simply annoying, frustrating and inconvenient, but not too terribly troublesome. Now it is finally time to go to work, but you bump your elbow on the door frame as you are heading back into the bathroom for a quick brush of the teeth where you clumsily drip a small amount of toothpaste down the front of your shirt, but you cannot be bothered with that now, so you decide that no one truly notices you in the first place and you don't have time to deal with this any more. You walk out the door only to have forgotten your keys and must go back inside to get your keys, return only to find that your car won't start. This is pretty well how my day has gone today. I am working on the afore mentioned adage that "left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse."
Do not hear me wrong though, I do not believe there is any outside force or black magic or even Karma or Kismet controlling these things. I do not believe that "the heavens", "mother nature" or "the gods" are conspiring against me. I do not believe my God works that way. I believe that all or much of this is entirely my fault and my perspective, as it is all in how one views the "happenings". I see it more like Hanlon's Razor which states:
"Never attribute malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
You will potentially notice that several of the things that "happened" in the above example were not exactly the "fault" of the protagonist, but things that just seemed to just happen in the midst of all of the other happenings that CAN be attributed adequately to stupidity, further exacerbating the situation. For instance, I was nearly run over... TWICE today on my ride home from work. Both times I was on the sidewalk where, presumably cars should NOT be driving in the first place.
Either way, I am STILL contemplating crawling, carefully back into my bed until all of this nonsense passes.
You will notice that none of this has anything to do with running or my 50 in 50 goals, but the truth is... two things. 1. I am a little scared to either go outside and run, or even to stay in, for that matter, and 2. I just needed to write this down so that I could reconcile just how ridiculous this all is, and then I could continue on with the rest of my life as normal. I am now refusing to participate in this calamitous, just-one-of-those-days days. The four or five of you can now carry on with the remainder of your day. Thanks for "listening". Carry on. Nothing to see here.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Memphis
St. Jude's Classic -- Memphis, TN
State #32
Noble and I travelled to Memphis for the St. Jude's Classic Half Marathon in Memphis this past weekend.
The long and short of it is that it was a good race. I did not get another PR, but was still under 1:40:00 and I am happy with that.
Memphis has certainly changed, but at the same time, it has remained exactly the same. I went to college and dental school in Memphis somewhere around a hundred years ago. I have not been back there since 1996. Noble and I had an opportunity to walk around the University of Memphis campus. We went into the old athletic dorm where I lived for three years. I showed him some of the classrooms and places I used to hang out. We went over to the Tiger's practice facility and saw where I used to go for football practice every day. It has changed a bit, but brought back a great number of memories, fond memories. We had a $75 lunch at Houston's.
Since we had eaten a late lunch, neither one of us were hungry for dinner, so we just went to the grocery and picked up some snacks for the night and breakfast the next morning and went back to the room to watch a movie. We had a bit of an early night, in bed by 9:30pm.
I woke up about 5:00 am and got some breakfast and made sure I had everything in good working order, then began to look at the weather. It was raining and it was lightning. They had already pushed the race back 30 min, and by 6:00am they had pushed it back another 30 min.
It finally stopped raining about 8:00am, which the original start time of the race and looked like we were all good for a clear race... and it was. The course was wet, but it did not rain. I had a pretty good race until about mile 9, then struggled again about mile 12. I was running about 7:15 per mile, but there were some pretty hefty hills toward the end that really zapped my energy. There was lots of fan support and cheering and people thanking all of the runners for running. This was a charity event for the kids of St. Jude after all. All of the cheering was motivating and the scenery was very familiar. I knew all of the roads and exactly where I was throughout the race, which actually was a bit of a negative because I knew how far I was going and how far I still had to go. Noble walked around the course and was able to see me, and I was able to see him several spots on the course and at the finish. That was a nice treat. He also got some pictures of me struggling... er, I mean running.
I think his photos with my iPhone are just as good as the race photos from the professional photographers. Of course they are all just boring pictures of me running, so maybe it is the subject rather than the photographer or medium.
After the race, we went to another hotel and that is when we toured around the University of Memphis and I took him back downtown to the dental school and showed him around there as well. Then we went to Corky's BBQ. He has been to the Rendezvous already with his mom and siblings, so I took him to the "other" BBQ joint in town. It is all about the food ya know.
Look at all of those ribs!!! They were super good. He did not actually eat them all, but he put a huge dent in them. I had the Sweet Tea Fried Chicken Sandwich. It was pretty good.
Later that evening, after all of the touring around Memphis, we went back downtown and had dessert with a friend from dental school, Dr. Joe Ruder, who also ran in the race and his wife. It was a nice evening and good to see him again. We had a great time in Memphis. I do not feel the need to go back. I like it there. It holds a lot of good memories for me, but I have no need to go there for anything. I am happy that I was able to spend the time with Noble. He is a fine young man. We had some great conversations.
My next Half is not until Jan. I have two races, one week apart. Although, thanks to Tommy Medlin I am running a 10k this weekend in Daytona... on the Daytona International Speedway. Two laps around the track. Tommy is racing the triathlon 70.3. Good luck Tommy and thanks for the race entry. Should be fun, although I am certain to get smoked by the super speedy Craig Shimkus. :)
Next up, Oregon and Alabama.
Friday, November 23, 2018
Photos, Broken Transportation, Other Randomness
Photos from Philly
So, here are the race pictures from the Philadelphia race.
Other Randomness:
I took a look at the statistics of my blog and got a little chuckle. From the beginning of this blog, I have been averaging about 150-250 views on each post. There are a few in there that were only viewed 50-100 times, maybe the titles were boring, maybe many of you have grown weary and bored with me and my blog and my goal. I completely understand. Then there are other blogs that get a couple hundred views.... hard to say why, but I got a chuckle from looking at the stats today as my last post only had 15 views, and that is not even the funny part. I became curious if there were periods of time where there would be more or fewer views, or maybe there was some other statistic that I could find a trend that would help me better understand my "audience". -- that is kind of funny in it self.... but the part that I found the most funny was my blog about Hurricane Irma. A couple things I found funny about this: That post has exceeded the views of every other post by at least five times. First thing I found funny -- that blog has nothing to do with running or my goals. Second thing I found funny -- I am imagining that it received the most number of views because of people's morbid curiosity. Presumably if you think I am gonna die in the hurricane and not be able to blog anymore, you may be more willing to read "my final blog". Maybe even treat it as a "snuff film". I don't LOL all that often, I tell my family that LOL is not really my personality, but if I find it humorous, then I will give a GQ (grin quietly). This information was definitely GQ worthy.
Broken Transportation
I have not had a car for about a year and a half. When Keeley turned 16, I gave her my truck. Truth is, I bought the truck after my vette was wrecked, and I bought the truck because that is what Keeley wanted. I had every intention of "giving" it to her when she was able to drive it. So, I drove it for about a year, and then surrendered it to her when she became of legal driving age. I figured I would buy myself a new car when I decided what I wanted. In the time frame that I was considering a purchase, I was riding my bike and running as my mode of transport. I soon discovered that I did not have that much need for a car, so I just never got one. My bike was serving me well... until yesterday. It is a mountain bike that I bought somewhere around 2000. I would ride it every once in a while, but not terribly frequently. I bought a new saddle for it and had it serviced to make sure it was transportation worthy and rode it to work every day and back for lunch most days and back to work after lunch, then home... most days. It was obviously around 18 years old, but it was working... until yesterday, Thanksgiving Day. I ran to the gym to go for a swim. I swam nearly a mile at the gym pool and then ran home. I thought I was done for the day, but Thanksgiving happened. I am betting most of you will understand exactly what I mean. The Thanksgiving Day festivities began. There were house and food preparations and then there was a descension of family and other guests. I, personally get a little "stir crazy" in these situations, so I decided to go out for a ride. I rode for about a half an hour, then turned around. I figured this would give me an hour ride and I would be back at just the right time to get the turkey in the oven and meet the dinner time frame. I was cruising at about 16 or 17 mph, when my front wheel broke.
It was not a dramatic crash or anything, just cam off the pedals and scratched up my leg a bit, but decided it would not be a great idea to try to ride the rest of the way home. I was still about 5 miles away, so I decided to just run home. I tried carrying the bike, but it was cumbersome. I tried holding the handle bars, but I kept hitting the pedals with my foot as I ran. Eventually, I found a way to hold the saddle and simply push the bike along ahead of me. I found that I could steer it fairly well and the only real downside was not being able to swing my right arm. No big deal. I made it home about 40 minutes later. All of the Thanksgiving Day preparations and Thanksgiving Day dynamics were all still happening, and if I did not mention my adventure to anyone, they would not have even noticed. Funny how that works.
So, now I need a new wheel. Would you believe that every mention of these wheels on the internet refer to them as vintage or retro. I feel the same way. Vintage AND retro.
I still have to find a way to get to work on Monday morning. I will probably go buy a wheel at the local bike shop. It will not likely be the vintage/retro version.
BTW... my left shoulder hurts from my swim, my right lower leg hurts from the pedal scrapes, my right IT band is fairly uncomfortable, my left upper leg is sore from the run, my right meniscus is informing me that it is still there, and saddle sores are real.
Thanks to the 14 of you who have nothing better to do. Hope you can GQ at some of my calamity.
I have not had a car for about a year and a half. When Keeley turned 16, I gave her my truck. Truth is, I bought the truck after my vette was wrecked, and I bought the truck because that is what Keeley wanted. I had every intention of "giving" it to her when she was able to drive it. So, I drove it for about a year, and then surrendered it to her when she became of legal driving age. I figured I would buy myself a new car when I decided what I wanted. In the time frame that I was considering a purchase, I was riding my bike and running as my mode of transport. I soon discovered that I did not have that much need for a car, so I just never got one. My bike was serving me well... until yesterday. It is a mountain bike that I bought somewhere around 2000. I would ride it every once in a while, but not terribly frequently. I bought a new saddle for it and had it serviced to make sure it was transportation worthy and rode it to work every day and back for lunch most days and back to work after lunch, then home... most days. It was obviously around 18 years old, but it was working... until yesterday, Thanksgiving Day. I ran to the gym to go for a swim. I swam nearly a mile at the gym pool and then ran home. I thought I was done for the day, but Thanksgiving happened. I am betting most of you will understand exactly what I mean. The Thanksgiving Day festivities began. There were house and food preparations and then there was a descension of family and other guests. I, personally get a little "stir crazy" in these situations, so I decided to go out for a ride. I rode for about a half an hour, then turned around. I figured this would give me an hour ride and I would be back at just the right time to get the turkey in the oven and meet the dinner time frame. I was cruising at about 16 or 17 mph, when my front wheel broke.
It was not a dramatic crash or anything, just cam off the pedals and scratched up my leg a bit, but decided it would not be a great idea to try to ride the rest of the way home. I was still about 5 miles away, so I decided to just run home. I tried carrying the bike, but it was cumbersome. I tried holding the handle bars, but I kept hitting the pedals with my foot as I ran. Eventually, I found a way to hold the saddle and simply push the bike along ahead of me. I found that I could steer it fairly well and the only real downside was not being able to swing my right arm. No big deal. I made it home about 40 minutes later. All of the Thanksgiving Day preparations and Thanksgiving Day dynamics were all still happening, and if I did not mention my adventure to anyone, they would not have even noticed. Funny how that works.
So, now I need a new wheel. Would you believe that every mention of these wheels on the internet refer to them as vintage or retro. I feel the same way. Vintage AND retro.
I still have to find a way to get to work on Monday morning. I will probably go buy a wheel at the local bike shop. It will not likely be the vintage/retro version.
BTW... my left shoulder hurts from my swim, my right lower leg hurts from the pedal scrapes, my right IT band is fairly uncomfortable, my left upper leg is sore from the run, my right meniscus is informing me that it is still there, and saddle sores are real.
Thanks to the 14 of you who have nothing better to do. Hope you can GQ at some of my calamity.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
State #31
Philadelphia Marathon Dietz & Watson Half Marathon
TLDR
Generally, I wait until the race photos come before I post. Many times the race photos take a few days to a couple weeks to show up on a web site somewhere. Then I have to find some time to write (type) something and paste those pictures into the body. The last half in St. Louis was two weeks ago and still no pictures. Of course, the truth about that race, it was a bit of a low budget race and it was all rainy anyway, so I doubt there will be any pictures to post... and I did not take very many pictures myself. I posted the blog anyway with whatever pictures I did have... and the truth of the matter is that there are just a select few of you that actually read my blogs in the first place... so, I am going to post my blog now, without the pictures. It takes time, and I currently have the time... and you and I and possibly my mom will be the only ones who read this anyway. Even my children don't read it... which brings me to explain the TLDR in the title. I learned a couple months ago of a "word" that has made it into the dictionary. That "word" is TLDR. It is actually an acronym for the phrase Too Long, Didn't Read. If TLDR is mentioned in the post, the point is to provide a summary of the lengthy text so that someone can skip to the TLDR section and get a quick overview of what the story talks about without having to read the whole thing.
I have come to understand that in this Insta-Snap, FaceChat, and YouTwit generation, 140 characters may still be too much. In the spirit of connecting with the youth, I will offer the Twit-a-gram version of this race in the next paragraph and then elaborate for the somewhat more "mature" of you who are interested. (For the record, I recognize that there are an even larger subgroup who did not even make it this far.) BTW... I had to look it up to remember, but did you know that if only part of a sentence is parenthetical, then the punctuation is placed outside the parenthesis, but if the entire sentence is parenthetical, then the punctuation is placed inside the parenthesis? Who knew? Who remembers?
The Snap-o-Gram version:
Philly. Cold and crowded. Funny thing happened at the start, but didn't matter. Old buildings and streets, historic. Got a PR 1:36:38. Carry on.
For the rest of you with a slightly longer attention span:
Of course, by now you know that I have a goal for most everything. My goal for this race was to run steady and treat it like a training run. I travelled alone. Valerie drove me to the airport. I snuck out of work about 30 minutes early just in case there was a lot of traffic. Made it to the airport in no time and was easily an hour early for my flight. I flew SouthWest and it was an easy, uneventful flight. I was wearing shorts and flip-flops which was not appropriate attire for the 40º Philly weather. It was super crowded at the airport. I attempted an Uber, but they cancelled on me. I attempted a Lyft, but the driver cancelled. This happened another 3 times. I cancelled the last one myself because I had already been standing out there for 27 minutes waiting for a ride share, and the app let me know the driver would be there in 17 min. So, I walked over to the cab station and picked up a taxi. It cost $15 more than the ride share, but at that point I did not care. I had the cab take me to the Expo, which was 0.7 miles from my hotel.
The Expo was at the Philadelphia Convention Center and it was a fairly big one. There were lots of people there too. Lots of vendors. I would have browsed the vendors, but I was tired and hungry and I still had not run for the day... so, I just got my race packet and left... on to the hotel. The hotel was a Sheraton, which is a Marriott and it was called Hotel 201. It was a fairly inexpensive, 3-star hotel, but the accommodations were nice and clean. I waited in line to check in behind 15 or so other people, and they were ALL part of the "marathon weekend." (Periods and commas are placed inside the quotation marks in the US, BTW.) I was starting to get a sense that this was going to be a large and crowded race. Good thing I was not intending to race it, but simply "go out for a little jog", that is use it as a training run.
I needed food and I needed to run. It was cold out, so I decided to go run, in my jeans, to the restaurant. Two birds, one run. I found a TGIFriday's and decided some french fries sounded like a good pre-race dinner. As you can see, my Garmin had a hard time finding and keeping my location during my run, which also proved to be a "bit of an issue" during the race. I sat at the bar at Friday's and ordered the Salmon with steamed veggies and rice, a water and a side of fries. It was really pretty good. Three ladies sat across from me and were eying my food when it came, pointing, nodding and smiling. One of them turned to me and asked if I was running the marathon. I don't bother trying to explain the half or the full anymore, I just nodded and smiled and said, yes ma'am. She said, "We are too. That is why we ordered the same thing. We are carb-loading." I said, "Well, have a great run tomorrow." She said, "Oh... No... we are running Sunday, the full. Are you just running the half?" -- Ugh... Yes, I am just half a man... only running the half. After talking with them, I only wish I had ordered the sweet potato fries that they ordered. Enough conversation, back to the room. I watched a movie and went to bed.
I woke at 4:30 and got some food, then watched another movie. The starting line was about .5 miles from the hotel. It was dark out still and the police had already blocked off the roads. I could see the flashing blue lights from my room. I left the room about 6:50am. As I was walking to the start, I noticed two very long lines of people. At first I assumed this was the line for bag drop, but I noticed many of them were not even carrying anything, so I started to get nervous that I was gonna have to go stand in one of those lines. As it turned out, it was a security line. There was a metal detector and security guards checking for something... a bomb maybe. I just used the old trick that if you act like you know what you are doing, people will assume that you know what you are doing and leave you alone. I walked right in and one of the guards asked me if I could unzip my jacket, which I did and he said, "OK", and waved me on. I am not sure how some of those people made it to the start on time. It was a very long couple of lines.
The starting corrals were delineated by flags. The flags were different colors and corresponded to the corral color on the bibs. The corral assignments were as follows:
There was the elite athletes, then the maroon group, etc. I was in the maroon group. Interestingly I saw several with a black bib and there was even a few that had White. Not sure what that meant, but they situated themselves in front of the maroon group. Oh well, I am just out for a little jog anyway.
The starting line was just in front of a roundabout. So, there were two starting lines. One on the left side of the street and one on the right side of the street. After the official start, the runners could go around the roundabout on either side. It was the same starting line, just broken up by what I would call a median... it was a median created for this event, created by barricades so that the runners could not be in the middle and create a "bottleneck". There was a celebrity runner who was in charge of the starting horn, Mebrahtom "Meb" Keflezighi . He is a retired professional runner, very well liked and respected, but is not so good at the starting horn. The short story is, Meb had a little premature announciation of the horn which apparently confused the left side runners, the side I was on. The right side started the race, the left side did not begin for another 27 seconds. As I stated previously, I was just out for a little jog, so it did not bother me, plus it was a chip timed race, so your chip time did not start until you crossed the start line, but I am certain that it was a bother to some of the runners as they were pushing and yelling. This also created a bit of a traffic jam at the start, so it was a bit slower start for many as we had to navigate around all of the runners who had incorrectly self seeded as well as those who were on the other side once we all came together after the roundabout... which went directly into a right-hand turn, BTW.
I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. My Lulu lemon yoga pants, a running jacket and gloves. I wore them all the entire race. It was in the 30's. Maybe it hit 40º in the sun towards the middle of the race... maybe. I had to lower the zipper on my jacket at one point, then I zipped it back up. For the most part I was comfortable. My Garmin proved to have some issues as we ran through the Philadelphia streets. The same thing happened in NYC and the night before in town in Philly. I looked down to check my pace and my watch showed that I was running a 5:15 per mile pace. I was certain that was inaccurate. So, I could not count on my Garmin. Also, this race had a clock at every mile. After a couple miles, I realized that we were behind the official clock by 27 seconds because of the start SNAFU, and my Garmin was calculating my mile splits about 0.25 prior to the mile. It became consistent after mile 3, so I just had to do a little minor math to understand where I was at each mile, which wasn't so bad. I realized at about mile 7 that I was on pace for a PR. So, I still felt good and decided to keep this pace until the last 3 miles and then pick up the pace a bit and try to shave a minute off my previous best time. All went great, according to plan. I got to mile 10 and started to try and increase my pace, but it was uphill at that point, so I decided to wait. I was not able to find the energy to up my pace until I hit mile 12. Then I realized that I could still PR, but it was gonna be tight. I picked it up a bit, running mile 12 at 7:09 and mile 13 at 7:11, and the last .1 at 6:45, finishing 18 seconds under the PR set two weeks earlier. Official time 1:36:38. That is a 7:22 per mile avg. pace. I am happy with that, especially considering I was not really shooting for a fast race.
The fan support at this race was the best that I have experienced so far. There were spectators everywhere and they were playing loud and inspirational music and they were yelling and encouraging. Water/hydration stations were about every three miles, but they were very well manned and efficient. There were bands playing, drummers, cheerleaders, all sorts of "entertainment" out on the course. I was impressed. As I mentioned, there was a clock at every mile marker and the finish line was large and elaborate and full of cheering spectators. The medal is very nice. A working liberty bell replica. Other than the start problems this was a great race. The only disappointing part for me was the post-race food. There was water, fruit cups, bananas and pretzels. That was it. Nothing else. Every other aspect of this race was big and well-done, but no food (to speak of). I was really hoping for something more. I went out and got myself a burger and fries... and a chocolate milkshake.
I intended to walk around the city a bit after my post-race meal and take some pictures. I set out to do just that, but it was cold and windy, so I quickly abandoned that idea and got an Uber to the airport. I did capture this picture from my hotel room so you could see what I could see. Otherwise, I guess you will either have to go there yourself or you could browse the internet and see other peoples photos... maybe google maps. BTW. If you zoom into this picture you can see the two long lines to get to the security check point, or you can simply take my word for it.
In all it was a fun race and a nice course. I enjoyed my time and am happy with my performance. Although I am not yet to my goal, I have made some baby steps toward it. Maybe I will get there. Next race is in Memphis. Noble and I are going together. Should be a good time. I have not been back to Memphis since dental school. I am betting it has changed a little. Thanks for reading to the end... or at least skipping to the end. lol.
I have come to understand that in this Insta-Snap, FaceChat, and YouTwit generation, 140 characters may still be too much. In the spirit of connecting with the youth, I will offer the Twit-a-gram version of this race in the next paragraph and then elaborate for the somewhat more "mature" of you who are interested. (For the record, I recognize that there are an even larger subgroup who did not even make it this far.) BTW... I had to look it up to remember, but did you know that if only part of a sentence is parenthetical, then the punctuation is placed outside the parenthesis, but if the entire sentence is parenthetical, then the punctuation is placed inside the parenthesis? Who knew? Who remembers?
The Snap-o-Gram version:
Philly. Cold and crowded. Funny thing happened at the start, but didn't matter. Old buildings and streets, historic. Got a PR 1:36:38. Carry on.
For the rest of you with a slightly longer attention span:
Of course, by now you know that I have a goal for most everything. My goal for this race was to run steady and treat it like a training run. I travelled alone. Valerie drove me to the airport. I snuck out of work about 30 minutes early just in case there was a lot of traffic. Made it to the airport in no time and was easily an hour early for my flight. I flew SouthWest and it was an easy, uneventful flight. I was wearing shorts and flip-flops which was not appropriate attire for the 40º Philly weather. It was super crowded at the airport. I attempted an Uber, but they cancelled on me. I attempted a Lyft, but the driver cancelled. This happened another 3 times. I cancelled the last one myself because I had already been standing out there for 27 minutes waiting for a ride share, and the app let me know the driver would be there in 17 min. So, I walked over to the cab station and picked up a taxi. It cost $15 more than the ride share, but at that point I did not care. I had the cab take me to the Expo, which was 0.7 miles from my hotel.The Expo was at the Philadelphia Convention Center and it was a fairly big one. There were lots of people there too. Lots of vendors. I would have browsed the vendors, but I was tired and hungry and I still had not run for the day... so, I just got my race packet and left... on to the hotel. The hotel was a Sheraton, which is a Marriott and it was called Hotel 201. It was a fairly inexpensive, 3-star hotel, but the accommodations were nice and clean. I waited in line to check in behind 15 or so other people, and they were ALL part of the "marathon weekend." (Periods and commas are placed inside the quotation marks in the US, BTW.) I was starting to get a sense that this was going to be a large and crowded race. Good thing I was not intending to race it, but simply "go out for a little jog", that is use it as a training run.
I needed food and I needed to run. It was cold out, so I decided to go run, in my jeans, to the restaurant. Two birds, one run. I found a TGIFriday's and decided some french fries sounded like a good pre-race dinner. As you can see, my Garmin had a hard time finding and keeping my location during my run, which also proved to be a "bit of an issue" during the race. I sat at the bar at Friday's and ordered the Salmon with steamed veggies and rice, a water and a side of fries. It was really pretty good. Three ladies sat across from me and were eying my food when it came, pointing, nodding and smiling. One of them turned to me and asked if I was running the marathon. I don't bother trying to explain the half or the full anymore, I just nodded and smiled and said, yes ma'am. She said, "We are too. That is why we ordered the same thing. We are carb-loading." I said, "Well, have a great run tomorrow." She said, "Oh... No... we are running Sunday, the full. Are you just running the half?" -- Ugh... Yes, I am just half a man... only running the half. After talking with them, I only wish I had ordered the sweet potato fries that they ordered. Enough conversation, back to the room. I watched a movie and went to bed.I woke at 4:30 and got some food, then watched another movie. The starting line was about .5 miles from the hotel. It was dark out still and the police had already blocked off the roads. I could see the flashing blue lights from my room. I left the room about 6:50am. As I was walking to the start, I noticed two very long lines of people. At first I assumed this was the line for bag drop, but I noticed many of them were not even carrying anything, so I started to get nervous that I was gonna have to go stand in one of those lines. As it turned out, it was a security line. There was a metal detector and security guards checking for something... a bomb maybe. I just used the old trick that if you act like you know what you are doing, people will assume that you know what you are doing and leave you alone. I walked right in and one of the guards asked me if I could unzip my jacket, which I did and he said, "OK", and waved me on. I am not sure how some of those people made it to the start on time. It was a very long couple of lines.
The starting corrals were delineated by flags. The flags were different colors and corresponded to the corral color on the bibs. The corral assignments were as follows:
There was the elite athletes, then the maroon group, etc. I was in the maroon group. Interestingly I saw several with a black bib and there was even a few that had White. Not sure what that meant, but they situated themselves in front of the maroon group. Oh well, I am just out for a little jog anyway.
The starting line was just in front of a roundabout. So, there were two starting lines. One on the left side of the street and one on the right side of the street. After the official start, the runners could go around the roundabout on either side. It was the same starting line, just broken up by what I would call a median... it was a median created for this event, created by barricades so that the runners could not be in the middle and create a "bottleneck". There was a celebrity runner who was in charge of the starting horn, Mebrahtom "Meb" Keflezighi . He is a retired professional runner, very well liked and respected, but is not so good at the starting horn. The short story is, Meb had a little premature announciation of the horn which apparently confused the left side runners, the side I was on. The right side started the race, the left side did not begin for another 27 seconds. As I stated previously, I was just out for a little jog, so it did not bother me, plus it was a chip timed race, so your chip time did not start until you crossed the start line, but I am certain that it was a bother to some of the runners as they were pushing and yelling. This also created a bit of a traffic jam at the start, so it was a bit slower start for many as we had to navigate around all of the runners who had incorrectly self seeded as well as those who were on the other side once we all came together after the roundabout... which went directly into a right-hand turn, BTW.I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. My Lulu lemon yoga pants, a running jacket and gloves. I wore them all the entire race. It was in the 30's. Maybe it hit 40º in the sun towards the middle of the race... maybe. I had to lower the zipper on my jacket at one point, then I zipped it back up. For the most part I was comfortable. My Garmin proved to have some issues as we ran through the Philadelphia streets. The same thing happened in NYC and the night before in town in Philly. I looked down to check my pace and my watch showed that I was running a 5:15 per mile pace. I was certain that was inaccurate. So, I could not count on my Garmin. Also, this race had a clock at every mile. After a couple miles, I realized that we were behind the official clock by 27 seconds because of the start SNAFU, and my Garmin was calculating my mile splits about 0.25 prior to the mile. It became consistent after mile 3, so I just had to do a little minor math to understand where I was at each mile, which wasn't so bad. I realized at about mile 7 that I was on pace for a PR. So, I still felt good and decided to keep this pace until the last 3 miles and then pick up the pace a bit and try to shave a minute off my previous best time. All went great, according to plan. I got to mile 10 and started to try and increase my pace, but it was uphill at that point, so I decided to wait. I was not able to find the energy to up my pace until I hit mile 12. Then I realized that I could still PR, but it was gonna be tight. I picked it up a bit, running mile 12 at 7:09 and mile 13 at 7:11, and the last .1 at 6:45, finishing 18 seconds under the PR set two weeks earlier. Official time 1:36:38. That is a 7:22 per mile avg. pace. I am happy with that, especially considering I was not really shooting for a fast race.
The fan support at this race was the best that I have experienced so far. There were spectators everywhere and they were playing loud and inspirational music and they were yelling and encouraging. Water/hydration stations were about every three miles, but they were very well manned and efficient. There were bands playing, drummers, cheerleaders, all sorts of "entertainment" out on the course. I was impressed. As I mentioned, there was a clock at every mile marker and the finish line was large and elaborate and full of cheering spectators. The medal is very nice. A working liberty bell replica. Other than the start problems this was a great race. The only disappointing part for me was the post-race food. There was water, fruit cups, bananas and pretzels. That was it. Nothing else. Every other aspect of this race was big and well-done, but no food (to speak of). I was really hoping for something more. I went out and got myself a burger and fries... and a chocolate milkshake.
I intended to walk around the city a bit after my post-race meal and take some pictures. I set out to do just that, but it was cold and windy, so I quickly abandoned that idea and got an Uber to the airport. I did capture this picture from my hotel room so you could see what I could see. Otherwise, I guess you will either have to go there yourself or you could browse the internet and see other peoples photos... maybe google maps. BTW. If you zoom into this picture you can see the two long lines to get to the security check point, or you can simply take my word for it.
In all it was a fun race and a nice course. I enjoyed my time and am happy with my performance. Although I am not yet to my goal, I have made some baby steps toward it. Maybe I will get there. Next race is in Memphis. Noble and I are going together. Should be a good time. I have not been back to Memphis since dental school. I am betting it has changed a little. Thanks for reading to the end... or at least skipping to the end. lol.
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
St. Louis, MO
Missouri
State #30
The St. Louis Track Club put on the
39th St Louis Half Marathon, Clayton Police 5K for Special Olympics & Youth Run on
Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018
It was a smaller race, but well attended and well organized. I decided to race this one because I needed Missouri and it met my time frame. I was in Seattle for the entire week prior and this race was the only one on the way home in a state that I have not already run. At some point, the logistics of this venture dictate that one simply takes what one can get, where and when one can get it. I had originally planned to run a different race in St. Louis (a bigger, more popular race), but when I found this one was on my way home from a long trip, I just decided to take it.
There were some pros and some cons to this race. I'll start with the pros.
PROS
It was only $65 total
It benefitted the special olympics
It was on my way home from Seattle
I was able to pick up my race packet on race morning
I was able to get relatively inexpensive accommodations (AirBnb) within a mile from the start/finish
Easy in and out, to and from the airport
Plenty of nearby "healthy choice" restaurants
I think the course would have been very scenic (see cons)
55ºF -- (this will get a pro and a con)
Race volunteers were incredible
Post-race food was decent
Oh, and I got a PR (personal record) -- Always a plus!!
Oh, and I got a PR (personal record) -- Always a plus!!
CONS
Hills -- many hills
Rain, Rain, Rain!!! It started raining about two hours before the race start (as I was walking to the race) and never stopped the entire race.
Wind, Wind, Wind. Nothing like a lot of wind to accompany a cold rain. Up one of the hills a strong wind blew by and I looked up to see several runners leaning 45º -- looked something like this:
55ºF - seemed like 35ºF when a cold, stiff wind blows by your already soaked body
Fan support was minimal because of the rain, but I was surprised to see several people out there cheering.
Another "free-for-all" start -- see below.
No pictures before, during, or after the race... so, this is what you get:
One other CON that really turned out to be a PRO was the walk back to my room. It was about a mile and it was straight back down the end of the race. As I walked back to my room, I was encouraging the runners who were still out on the course, telling them they were doing great and only had a mile or less to go. As it turned out, they were even more encouraging to me... smiling and yelling "GREAT JOB!" and "CONGRATULATIONS!"... lots of waves and thumbs up. It was a nice feeling. I wanted to encourage them, but they were even more encouraging to me.
Free-for-all Start
The start was really pretty funny. Before the race everyone gathered in the recreation center because of the foul weather. The National Anthem was sung by a sweet young man with Down's Syndrome in the rec. center. Then there was an announcement about 5 minutes prior to the start and everyone filtered out the little door to get to the start. There were self-seeding signs for pace at 10min/mile, 9:30/mile, 9:00/mile, 8:30/mile, then 8:00 and under... which was a tiny little area that would hold maybe 50 people. The announcer was well behind everyone in the starting area and a speaker was being used to amplify his voice... but no one in the front area could hear him. He gave a "ready, set, go" and it took a good 10 seconds for the front runners to recognize that the race had started as the racers toward the back pushed forward and yelled, GO, GO, GO". It did not affect anyone much, but it was fairly humorous.
Police support was really good in most areas, but the streets were not all completely closed to traffic, so there were a couple of times where the cars were turning in front of me and trying to pass. I really prefer to run alone, so I usually find a "pocket" in front of the "pack" so their stomping and wheezing and coughing and spitting do not interfere with my stomping and wheezing and coughing and spitting... so, this must have appeared to be an appealing place to drive or turn or cross for the vehicles. I thought I might get run over a time or two. Should have run faster I suppose.
Once we got into the park, where the majority of the race was run, there was no traffic and there was great volunteer support to give us water and Gatorade and Gu gels as well as proficiently direct runner traffic.
Then the race continued back out on the city streets toward the finish. It was still raining and gusting. Somehow I eeked out a PR of 1:36:56. I was feeling pretty good, although I was fighting cramp for about 5 miles, telling myself I would speed up as soon as I got rid of this pesky cramp. Once I finally did shake it, the course seemed to be entirely uphill and I could not muster the extra effort. This became painfully obvious when a girl passed me followed by a guy who was apparently 20 years my senior, followed by another guy who was likely in my age group. I never caught them, but refused to let anyone else pass me at this late stage of the race and even passed a few others. I did manage to get 5th in my age group, and I was happy with my time.
Next race is Philadelphia this weekend. I will be traveling alone again this time. Just a quick in and out race. I am not really looking for a PR, just a fair, decent race. The one after that in Memphis, 2 weeks later, is the one I am shooting for another PR.
I'll update you after Philly.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Des Moines, Iowa
Iowa
State #29
I ran in Iowa on Sunday, Oct 21. It was a chilly day. My Garmin read 27º F at the start. All of the weather reports showed 30º F. It never really warmed up until after the race. Of course, I was at the airport by the time that happened.
I was on my own this trip. One of three things happened.
1. Nobody wanted to go to Iowa
2. I snuck this one in on them because I have too many races scheduled
3. Everyone is over my traveling and running the country
So, I left Saturday morning super early and arrived Iowa in the afternoon. A quick Uber ride to the expo where I picked up my race packet. There were plenty of vendors there, but I did not really see anything that I wanted or needed, so I just walked around in one pass and left. It was about a mile to my AirBnB and it was pretty chilly and rather windy. I was hoping that race day was going to be better weather. The forecast suggested that it would be. I did not do a whole lot that evening. 
I walked to dinner at a local Vietnamese restaurant called A-Dong. This is a bit inappropriate, but true. (Kids, turn your ears or plug your eyes or something.) Valerie said, "Eeeewwwweee. Don't eat there. It sounds like you are eating A-Dog!" I replied, I would rather eat A-Dog than A-Dong." I think I am funny.
I had a clear noodle soup with lots of stuff in it. It was pretty good. I was not super hungry, so that is all I had, and it was plenty. Not the traditional pre-race dinner, but tasted good... and plenty of carbs -- I guess clear noodles have carbs???
Race start was 8:00am. I met up with some of the 50 states half marathon club members at 7:45am to take a picture. We we all super cold. I mean, seriously, it was 30º or less, and I was wearing shorts. I did have a light jacket on, and I am happy that I did. Now I had to go find the bag drop location, which was about 3 blocks away and against all of the race traffic. I had to hop the fence to get away from the crowds just to get there in time to get back to the start in time. After bag drop, I jogged back to the start and made it just in time for the lady to forget the words of The National Anthem, four times. I had about 2 minutes to spare. Why did they put the bag drop so far away from the start/finish?? I dunno.I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but it was not quite enough. I was super cold. The shirt was from the NYC half, which you may recall -- I sure do -- that race was 20º F. I should have worn a warmer race shirt. Anyway, both of my hands were frozen. I seriously could not feel my fingers on either hand until after I took a shower after the race was over.
At the start of the race, I was running well and feeling good. The first four miles were sub 8 minutes. Just after mile four, I started to notice my heart. I was not having chest pain or anything. I was not in distress or in pain. I could simply feel my heart beating heavily and faster than I wanted. So, I slowed a bit and tried to take some deep, slow breaths to slow my heart rate. I had to stop for a couple seconds, then start again. I did not stop anymore throughout the race, but I was never able to get my pace back. I slowed at least a minute per mile slower than the first four miles. Each time I started to speed up, I could feel my heart racing again. I do not believe there is or was anything wrong, just unable to regulate my heart rate that day. I appear to be so inconsistent with my race times. Crazy. Throughout the race, I continued to try to control my breathing to try and control my heart rate, and I know I was working hard at it, because my ribs are still sore. Every time I breathe deeply, it hurts.... even three days later.
There was good race support on the course. Lots of water stops with Gatorade and water and energy gels. There were several bands and lots of fan support, that is, crazy nuts who came out in the freezing cold to clap and cheer for other crazy nuts who were out running around in this weather.
Around mile 9 or so, there was a bride, shown here that had some interesting lights in it that illuminated the trail. Of course it was day time, and this pictures are at night, but it looked something like this in the day as the sun shown through the lights and projected the color on the bridge. It was interesting. It was not cool enough to energize me into running faster, but pretty cool none the less.
I finished!! Yay!! About 11 minutes slower than my last race, but I finished. After the race there was FOOD! Down the street toward the gear pick-up area there was chips and bananas, chocolate milk, pulled pork sandwiches, ice-cream, some fairly healthy stuff, Q-doba chips and queso, and COOKIES. I grabbed what I could and ate what I could and ate most of it on the walk back to the room. The chocolate milk was in the little containers that you got when you were in grade school. The only problem for me was opening the dang container. I was unable to feel my fingers, so I had to ask for assistance. I ASKED FOR ASSISTANCE OPENING A CHOCOLATE MILK! Ridiculous. 
The race medal was designed to pay tribute to the bridge over Gray Lake that I showed earlier. It actually shimmers when you look at it from different angles. Pretty neat.
Next race is in two weeks in St. Louis, Missouri. I will be in Seattle all next week and running St. Louis on the way home. It is really just an attempt to decrease the number of trips out and back. I think this next race is pretty hilly, and I bet it is gonna be cold again. Sheesh. Oh well. At least I'll have something to whine about.
Oh, I forgot to mention one funny story that happened between mile 2 and 3 somewhere. I felt a drop of sweat hit my lower lip and instinctively licked my lip to remove it. Then I started thinking about it and realized that I was not sweating, so I thought the guy in front of me must have hyperhydrosis or something and was flinging sweat on me. So I moved over, away from him. Then another drop, but that guy was nowhere near me, and I still was not sweating. So, I passed the girl who I thought MUST have been the culprit... and then another drop. Now I was confused until I wiped my nose. It was so cold that I could not feel my nose, but it was running faster than me. I could not even feel that it was running, except when it dripped on my lip. I tried to wipe it, but I could not feel my hands or my nose, so I gave up until one of the water stations. There were people actively passing out tissues from a tissue box... grab and go. Wipe and throw. I would hate to be the guy that had to pick those up. At least I was not being sweat or snotted upon, and at least I was not the only one with this problem.
Oh, I forgot to mention one funny story that happened between mile 2 and 3 somewhere. I felt a drop of sweat hit my lower lip and instinctively licked my lip to remove it. Then I started thinking about it and realized that I was not sweating, so I thought the guy in front of me must have hyperhydrosis or something and was flinging sweat on me. So I moved over, away from him. Then another drop, but that guy was nowhere near me, and I still was not sweating. So, I passed the girl who I thought MUST have been the culprit... and then another drop. Now I was confused until I wiped my nose. It was so cold that I could not feel my nose, but it was running faster than me. I could not even feel that it was running, except when it dripped on my lip. I tried to wipe it, but I could not feel my hands or my nose, so I gave up until one of the water stations. There were people actively passing out tissues from a tissue box... grab and go. Wipe and throw. I would hate to be the guy that had to pick those up. At least I was not being sweat or snotted upon, and at least I was not the only one with this problem.
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