Marty's Races!

Index

Nothing planned for December, but I may jump in a small race or run in the Christmas Relays. Mostly a training month.

Very disappointing performance. I really thought I was ready for a major breakthrough on this course, perhaps a PR of a half a minute or more. Instead, I ran the slowest time on this course in at least the last 5 years. I was even slower than when I ran the 4.2-mile course in October.

I came through the first mile in my usual 5:45, but felt totally dead by the halfway point. By the time I got to Mile 2 at 12:07, about 15 seconds slower than I'd hoped, I was all by myself and feeling totally out of it. I ended up 16th out of 81 people, one of my worst finishes for this race in several years.

Another day of feeling totally dead early in a race. I felt a bit tired from the cross country race yesterday, and it was pretty warm (75 or so during my leg), but, again, I died after only about 2 miles. I started off with a 6:15 on the first full mile of my leg, but then tailed off with a 6:30, then some 6:45's -- way slower than I should be running. I finished my leg in 45:29, which is about 6:36 per mile pace.

Despite running poorly again, we had a lot of fun. We had hoped to break 3:10, but I think the heat really took its toll. Our strategy worked perfectly, though, as we had our slowest guy first so that the rest of us would be passing people during our legs. John Martin put us in 34th place out of 85 teams on the first leg. Then Mark Bowman passed 8 teams to get us into 26th. Christopher Pride cranked it up and passed 4 more teams, and I passed 6 more to finish in 16th. Our time was 3:14:41, and we were 12th among the 32 men's teams.

Poor race for me. I started out OK, but died after only 2 miles. Can't quite figure out why, but I just couldn't get going once I hit the flat part of the course. Several guys beat me that I beat at last week's race. One interesting thing that happened was that me and four East Bay Striders teammates finished within about 7 places of one another. I had to remind them that we're supposed to run together like that near the FRONT, not the BACK! My time was 28:50, only about 5 seconds faster than I ran last year, when I was sick.

I was a bit sore from the cross country race the day before, so I didn't quite have the zip in my legs I would have liked. But the reason I ran slowly in the race was the lack of other runners. There were only 15 guys in my heat, and the 10 who finished ahead of me were WAY ahead of me by the half mile point. It turned out that a few of them ran between 5:00 and 5:15 (where I wanted to be), but they must have totally crashed and burned at the end to have run that slow.

I could tell right away that I would be in some trouble. Eleven guys blasted out from the start much faster than I would have liked, but, like an idiot, I tried to stay with them for fear of finishing last. My first quarter split was 72, about 4-6 seconds faster than planned. And that 4-6 seconds was likely all in the first 200 meters, meaning that I probably ran something like 33/39. That, of course, spelled doom for me, and I followed that with a flailing 87 and 90 (actually just under 90), before "kicking" it in with a 79.7 final quarter. My time was a personal worst 5:29 -- yuck!

The fun part, though, was "hanging out" with the elite runners. After my race, I spotted Steve Scott warming up, and went to ask him for an autograph. He gladly obliged, asking my name so he could personalize his autograph (including writing down his still-standing American record 3:47.69). Then, he asked me how my race went. When I told him I ran a personal worst, he pointed out, "Well, we've all been there. . . . "

Cameron ran in the kids race, which was very well organized, unlike the ones at the Pac Sun 10k last year. He ran with other 4-year-olds, and, although they didn't keep track of places, he'll be glad to tell you that he came in 2nd place out of about 15 kids. After his race, we watched the men's and women's elite races. In the men's race, two guys went under 4:00. Unfortunately, one of them wasn't former world record holder Phillommen Hanneck, who got tangled up with another guy at the start and had a pretty bad fall. They started over, and Hanneck was able to "manage" a 4:01. While he was getting patched up by the EMT's, Cameron went over to congratulate him, and Hanneck offered to sign Cameron's number.

Overall, a really fun event, although I will definitely think twice about running it again because of the sparse field.

Pretty good race for me. I actually just missed my PR for this course, which is 25:36.9. I ran 25:36.98 -- ugh! My splits were, as expected, pretty close to my splits the previous 3 times I ran it, although I did a bit better on mile 3 than in past years. I was fairly aggressive during the race, and ended up passing 3 guys during the last half mile or so, including one guy right near the finish.

I came down with a cold on Friday, so I was feeling far from my best. Still, I did fairly well. Curiously, the course ended up as a 3-miler, more or less, instead of the 4-miler that was advertised. This was good news for me, actually, if for no other reason than it provided a change from the other courses in the series, which are typically 4-5 miles. Besides, the difficulty more than made up for the shortness of the course. I really enjoyed the course -- it had some killer hills, a long stretch of heavy sand we had to slog through twice, and some downhills with lots of stuff to trip over, just to keep you honest.

They ran separate open and masters races, so my finish place looks terrible, but it's actually more because of the lack of less-competitive runners. I finished 49th out of 60 open men runners. I finished immediately behind a guy I know from other races who usually beats me by a wide margin. Also, I was the only open runner from my club, and my time was faster than both masters runners from my club, so I was the first EBS finisher (woo hoo!). I think I gained a couple of places overall during the last couple miles, although 2 guys passed me on the final downhill before the finish.

I did OK in the X-C series opener. My time wasn't super fast, 25:32 (6:23 pace), about a minute slower than my PR for that course. But I did some good things. I went out a bit too fast, but I sort of did so on purpose, to be aggressive. More importantly, my Mile 2 and 4 were the same time (the course is 2 laps of a 2-mile loop, the second mile of which is mostly on a slight uphill, and is more difficult than the first mile). Even better, I held my place for the entire second loop (2 guys passed me, I passed 2 others, including sprinting by an East Bay Striders teammate at the end).

In general, I was able to be aggressive throughout the race, passing guys or accelerating at strategic points along the course. So the race was definitely a step in the right direction.

Possibly my worst road race ever. I should have been under 38:00, probably under my PR of 37:48, and possibly under 6:00 per mile pace. Instead, I DNF'd, the first time I ever did that without an injury. I hit my first 2 mile splits almost on the nose of what I had planned, but was totally out of it at the 2-mile mark, as if I had never run farther than 2 miles before. I felt like I had hit "the wall" in a marathon. My splits went from the 6:12 and 6:01 in the first 2, to 6:20, 6:33, and 6:50. I didn't see much point continuing after that. It wasn't as hot as last year, and not humid, so that wasn't a factor.

I'd say "back to the drawing board" again, but I'm running out of drawing boards.

This was a pretty crappy race for me. Based on my performance on the previous Sunday in Pleasanton, I expected to run sub-18:00 at worst, and possibly under 17:45. Well, that idea was pretty much toast by the first mile, as I crossed it in 5:45 AND felt pretty dead. From then on, I just couldn't get going. I finished with a 6:07 and 6:13, plus :32 for the final 0.1 miles for an 18:37, just barely under 6:00 pace. Ugh!

No apparent explanation for this. Back to the drawing board, I guess. . . .

I should note a couple of things about the race. Very well organized, with lots of food, drink, and other goodies. Great T-shirt. The course was not the downhill point-to-point course that yielded a whole barrelfull of fast times last year, but I liked it. It had some twists and turns at the beginning, which were a little tricky, but not too big of a deal. Then it was a slight uphill to the halfway point. Obviously, since it was a loop this year, it was a slight downhill most of the way back. They ran the men and women in separate races, which I think is a great idea.

Also, the competition was stiff. My 18:37 was only good enough for 60th place! That was the top 16% of the men. The previous week my 18:23 put me in 11th place, or the top 6%. Wow.

I raced yesterday at the Spirit Run in Pleasanton. They had a 5k and 10k - I did the 5. I did OK, although I didn't get under 18:00, which was yesterday's goal. I came in 11th place overall out of 464 participants, about 300 of whom were running (many families and walkers in the event). I was 2nd out of 55 guys in my age group. I probably went out a bit too fast, but I thought it was a decent effort. Actually, it was only my 2nd 5k this year, and my time of 18:22 equaled my best time of the past 2 years.

I went out in 5:39, which was about 10 seconds faster than planned. I felt pretty good, though, so I tried to just keep it up. I hit Mile 2 at 5:48, so I slowed a bit, but probably ran consistently from 0.5 to 2.0. I passed several people in the second mile, too. By that time, I was tucked behind two young guys, one big, one small. Unfortunately, I paid more attention to sticking with them. Since I was getting tired, I didn't try to pass them. They slowed way down, and I wasn't alert enough to notice, so Mile 3 was 6:08. The last stretch (supposed to be 188 yards) was either too long or the Mile 3 marker was misplaced because it took me almost 47 seconds to get to the finish line. Now, I may not be the fastest guy around, but I know I was going faster than 7:20 pace for the final kick.

My initial reaction was, "If only I hadn't gone out so fast, my overall time would have been better." In hindsight, though, I think it was good to go out in 5:40. That's not horrificly fast, and if I'm going to get down to the 17:30 neighborhood, I'm simply going to have to get used to that kind of effort.

Can't find any major external effects that would have affected my time. It was a bit on the warm side, but comfortably so. (The 10k folks probably had to back off a bit.) There was about a half mile of gravel path, which may have added a few seconds to the third mile -- again, nothing dramatic. The last 0.1 mile length would have accounted for only 5-10 seconds -- no biggee.

By the way, this was a very well organized friendly race. They got several hundred participants, and everything seemed to go like clockwork. I'll be back next year!

Good race for me. The course (with the detour instituted last year) is one of the toughest road races in the Bay Area. To add to that, it was warm -- about 70 degrees at race time. One more negative: I missed the 11:00 ferry because of traffic, so had to take the noon ferry, which dropped us at the dock only 10 minutes before the start. That meant about a 2-minute warmup.

Even with all of the negative things, I ran only 3 seconds slower than last year, and finished one place higher (7th overall, 5th 30-39 man). I only saw two mile markers (2 and 4), and I'm not convinced they were right. I probably went out a bit too fast because I felt pretty dead by the time the big hill came around. That thing didn't get any easier since last year!

The same guy (Hans Williams of Sausalito) who passed me at the bottom of the hill and held on to beat me last year led me pretty much the entire way and finished one spot ahead of me again. Last year I went on to beat him at Bay to Breakers -- we'll see how it goes this year.

After the race, my office mate Christopher Pride and I enjoyed the warm sun for a great picnic. I think, contrary to the usual pattern, Angel Island was the only warm spot in the Bay Area -- just gorgeous! BTW, Christopher was running his first road race ever (although he ran track in high school and college), and finished 13th place overall, 3rd in the 16-29 men age group.

Kind of a glorified tempo run for me yesterday at Lake Merritt. There were only about 30 people for the three distances, including a group from "Rosie's Chub Club," a group affiliated with Rosie O'Donnell consisting of women trying to get into exercise to lose weight.

One guy went out pretty quick, and one of my goals was to not go out too fast, so I let him go. I did actually feel like I hit the beginning of the second mile speeding up, so that was OK. My first mile split was only 5:58, though, so my recent hard training had taken its toll. The guy ahead of me gradually increased his lead, although I felt I had a chance to catch him until about a half mile to go. My 2-mile split was 6:06 -- too slow. My last 1.1 was at 6:07 pace, so at least I didn't slow down any more. The guy ahead of me went on to do the 10k, so, technically, I won the 5k - woo hoo!

In hindsight, my 18:49.6 time wasn't too awful. For the first time, I really didn't taper for the race, like I've always done for every race, no matter how big or small. As a result, my legs felt like concrete while warming up, so I had no zip whatsoever. Also, I had my post-race 7-8 miler in my head, so I wasn't really inclined to bust my butt trying to run a super time. Finally, I just wore my training flats - probably slowed me down 10-20 seconds overall.

My splits were pretty even, really, with my fastest a 5:58 and slowest a 6:07. That's one of the things I've been trying to correct. I think I'm on the right track. Next up: Angel Island, where I'll also be at the end of a heavy training week.

By the existence of this report, you'll know I survived Saturday's "race." I'm pretty damn sore. I think I've only been more sore 3 times - after both my marathons and after last year's (double) Practice Dipsea. It was actually pretty fun, but it took quite a bit longer than I thought it would. My thinking was that it would take me about 50% longer than the winner. I thought, based on last year's times (which I may have remembered incorrectly or may have been for a somewhat different course) that would mean about an hour for the winner and an hour and a half for me. Well, the winner came in around an hour and a half, which meant around 2:15 for me. I came in at 2:18. On target, percentage-wise, but almost an hour longer than I expected. Jeez, that's only an hour short of my marathon PR! I ended up in 22nd place, about halfway through the field.

Terrible performance. Started too slow, then slowed further. 77 76 83 90 = 5:26. Actually kind of gave up on the last lap. Don't know exactly what happened. One thing was that the meet was well-attended, so it took a lot longer to get to the mile than I expected. I was warmed up way too early - don't know if that was it, but it probably didn't help.