Hello

June 5, 2008

Hello!

After almost a year of blogging under the subdomain blog.gonesomewhere.com, and thinking I was going to do something with it, I never did.

So, I’ve made the executive decision to move my blog to it’s new home, www.gonesomewhere.com.

I’ve moved all the posts there already, and will be posting all new material there.

Once this has been up for a few days, I’ll set this up to automatically transfer over there.

Let me know what you think. I’ll be modifying everything over the next week or so, and be all ready to go with plenty of new material. (Especially since we’re taking a trip next weekend.)

3 Comments | Running | Permalink
Posted by bigrahn

Where ideas come from

June 1, 2008

As you know, last weekend I had some serious knee problems. Getting up on Tuesday, my knee was still throbbing enough that I decided to take the week off. (I did some stretching, but no running or walking.)

Now, this is all well and good, but without actually doing anything, a couple things happen:

  • I put in an extra few hours into work, since I don’t take much of a lunch break if I’m not working out. My boss loves this, and doing it occassionally doesn’t bug me. However, I start to get grumpy, because I’m not burning any physical energy off.
  • Being at my desk, or at home, or anywhere else, since I haven’t done anything, I tend to daydream about doing something. These “ideas” pop in my head, and things start happening.

It’s the second bullet that’s more interesting. It was one of these idea’s last January that led to the 29 Cubed challenge, where I thought it would be a good idea to do 29 miles in 29 hours on February 29th. As we all know, that came out a raving success, with a people around the world joining in and completing it.

This last two weeks have generated two new ideas. The first is, on the last weekend of June, we should go out and do some sort of crazy miles. I was thinking of 36, since a race that’s tenatively planned in September involves that mileage. And, conveniently enough, there is a local trail that is 6 miles, so doing 6 laps seems reasonable. Now, this idea is still in formation, and may be put on hold because of my knee problems.

The second idea is all about my knee and the Darkside marathon course. Because the course is essentially flat, it’s perfect for walking. And by walking, I don’t mean a leisurely stroll around the park, I mean race walking. Fast, funny looking, and smoking by slow runners (such as myself when I run).

The next 3M race is on Labor Day, which gives me 3 months to train. (However, due to another race, I may not do this one. Will have to wait to see the schedule later in the summer.)  Even better, in October, they have a 50K on the same course. This is more appealing for a couple reasons; It’s fully supported and it’s a 50K.

I’d like to do the 50K in under 5 hours. This will be tough, since adding 5 miles onto my best marathon time puts me well into 6 hours. I’ll need a plan, and some training. Matter of fact, it would probably be safe to say I’ll need a lot of training. And it’s going to be hard. Maybe even really hard.

The basics of what I need are:

  • Strength and flexibility training.
  • Serious VO2/Heart Rate improvements.
  • a lot of work on form and technique. Maybe even trying to fit a clinic in somewhere.

Now, I need to go figure out how to do that…

5 Comments | Running, race | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by bigrahn

My first DNF

May 26, 2008

This morning, I attempted to run the Darkside Running Clubs 3M marathon. This is a small (~15 people) race in Peachtree city. The 3M stands for Monday Morning Marathon, and they have one on Memorial day and another on Labor Day. It’s billed as race where you show up, they give you a course.

I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple months, since it just sounded exciting and the Darkside members sound like interesting folks. This proved to be true, as we pulled up and noticed on Scott’s truck there was “134.4″ sticker. Roman asked, and he responded with “I got tired of seeing all the 26.2 stickers, so I had my own made.” Hilarious!

We hung out for a few minutes, the course was described and we walked to the starting line. It was low key, where everyone looked at their watch and someone said “lets go”. So, off we went.

I hung with the lead group for the first couple miles, not so much because I wanted to go fast, but I was afraid of getting lost and I wanted to try to make one lap with someone in site. Eventually I decided they were going too fast, and I dropped down to my speed.

The course was very comfortable…it was all flat, something I didn’t know was possible in this state. It was along a multi-use path that would throughout the community. Peachtree City is a golf cart community, and there were plenty of golf carts cruising around. At one point, I saw a caravan of about 30 of them heading towards the city center for the Memorial Day parade. The course was marked with chalk, and I managed to not get lost.

One neat thing was little tunnels going under the roads. I couldn’t help myself for a while, and felt the need to talk in them just to hear the echo.

A tunnel going under a road.

There was plenty of little lakes we went around, and lots of people fishing. In the morning, it looked nice with steam coming off the water.

The lake.

Okay, enough of the site seeing and back to the race. The course was 5 laps. The first one we all went the same direction, and the others everyone could go either way. This provided us a chance to have a change of scenery, and high-five each other as we saw each other. Everything was on the honor system. (Number of laps completed and time. Grab a finishers medal if you complete them all, and leave your name.)

Now, as I mentioned in the title, I didn’t finish this race. That’s okay, I didn’t think I would. Due to the knee problems I’ve been dealing with, I haven’t been training much. (I think for this month until today, I only had 48 miles logged. That’s definitely not the type of miles to complete a marathon.)  My plan was to do as much as I could, and finish about the same time as Roman (whom I carpooled with). I was hoping he wouldn’t lap me too many times, and was successful there, since he only passed once. I managed to finish lap 3 about 5 minutes before he finished his last one.

My first lap, after running the first couple miles (at about 9 minute miles), I slowed and started mixing in walking. I finished in 1:07, which isn’t bad for just over 5.2 miles. Overall, I felt pretty good during this one.

The second lap, I mainly race walked, and mixed some running in as I needed to stretch my legs. It took me just a little longer, at 1:15. Toward the end of this, my knee started hurting, but not too bad of a slow down.

My third lap was race walking the entire way. (Until I had to slow down for moments because my knee was hurting.) About half way around, my knee felt pretty bad and I definitely slowed down. Amazingly to me, I did this lap in 1:15 also, only 8 seconds difference from the second lap. (But to be fair, some time was wasted in lap 2 looking for an appropriate bush to borrow.)

I\'m at the rest stop

I was real happy with these times. If I come back for the next one, I may consider race walking the whole course. Because it’s so flat, it’s a perfect course for it.

One thing I tried new this time was using a “Buff” to keep the sun off my head. I thought it worked good, and I got the cool pirates look, which is almost like having a costume. Even through they are known from Survivor, at no time during this race did I have to win immunity or eat bugs.

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Posted by bigrahn

ChickEkiden 2008

April 26, 2008

Last year, I heard about a run that sounded like a lot of fun, but for various reasons, I couldn’t do it. However, this year I was determined to make it onto a team and do it. Today was this day! The 2008 ChickEkiden, part of the Gainesville chicken festival. It’s a marathon length (26.2 miles) relay with a team of 6 people. The best part? The relay baton is a rubber chicken.

Our group was able to come up with 12 people, so we entered two teams: “Runners Fit” and “Runners Not So Fit”. The “fit” team was made up of the fastest people, and the rest of us, who weren’t so fast, were the other team. Needless to say, yours truly is not so fast…

Each of us had was responsible for approximately 4.3 miles. I was a little worried when Ryan told me the last mile was tough. Of course, I asked him if that meant it was his-tough or my-tough. It took him a moment to think about, but decided that it was his tough. Uh-oh, that doesn’t bode well.

Starting off, there were a lot of big rolling hills. Running next to a lady, whom I ended up doing almost the whole leg with (Coach Carmen), we joked that if this wasn’t considered the tough part, we need to really worry about the last mile!

Well, we ran. Without going through the boring step-by-step of the entire route, it was a good course. I actually didn’t think the last mile was that bad at all. The thing that makes it tough is just that you’re tired. Especially me, since I was like white lightning, running 2 minutes faster than my average. And yes, that’s two minutes faster per mile! I finished my leg in 37:50, when I was planning for 45 minutes. WooHoo!

Doing the chickendance after the handoff

One thing that may have slowed me down just slightly is I did what was appropriate: At each mile marker, I had to slow down to do part of the chicken dance. And of course, after I did the handoff, I did it again.

A shout out goes to my wife who came out to take pictures and support us. (She acted as the “team mom” for us, although she drew the line at holding our used Kleenex.) The rest of the team was great to hang out with and we all got our fill of chicken jokes in.

And for the record, this race gets a big thumbs up! The course was good, a lot of support and volunteers. The post race food was good. (I’ll let other people give their comments, but I liked the Panera breads.)

Afterwards, we planned on going to the chicken festival, but ended up shooting up to Brenau Academy, a girls school associated with the university there, where Dianna graduated from. We thought we’d take a picture of her there, but turned out they were having an open house. We ended up spending plenty of time talking to a lady who was touring it with her kids, and talked to the headmaster and a couple other people there. We also got to wander around and see the rooms and classes and stuff. It was a lot of fun.

We then stopped at RunnersFit for their spring sidewalk sale. Turns out that a number of people from our group was there, so we hung out a bit. (Felt sorta like going to Cheers, where everyone knows your name.) I met David, who ran the Sweet H2O 1/2 marathon this morning.

Note for team members: The pictures are uploaded to my gallery: photos.gonesomewhere.com. Go to the races folder, and choose the Chickekiden 2008. If you want full size shots, let me know so we can figure out how to get them to you.

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Posted by bigrahn

Intimidating hill of the day (and other funny things)

April 21, 2008

Saturday, I had the first half of my exciting weekend running, getting ice cream. Now, as exciting as this was, it was all roads, shoulders and sidewalks, dodging cars and breathing exhaust.  So Sunday, the plan was miles of trails.

Our group planned to meet at Ft. Yargo State Park at 7:30. This is when we usually meet, and has the advantage of getting us off the trail by the time the bikers are started. Clay, Joe and myself made the early hour. Everyone else was AWOL. Now, normally I won’t name drop like this, but it comes back later.

For a change of pace, we decided to go counter-clockwise. This will be against the bike traffic, which is good so we could get out of the way as needed. Off we set, and the speedsters rapidly take off. Because I screwed up my knee the day before, I decide to play it by ear. I made it through the first mile and was ok. At the end of the second mile, I thought about turning around, but decided it was just as easy to go forward to get back to the car. (Okay, never mind the fact that it was 2 miles back or at least 6 miles forward. Hey, I was in pain and not thinking clearly. Yeah, that’s the ticket…pain blurring the thoughts. You did buy it, right?)

Now, not being the total masochist, I did cut across the bridge near camping area B, cutting 3 miles off the trail. I had the vague thought I’d catch Team Speed at some point, but it never happened. I think I heard them talking at one point on the gas line, but I was on the trail in the shade.  At this point, about 4 miles in, I realize I’m almost hiking instead of running, so I adjust myself mentally and decide to take it easy.  Ah, that’s better…my knee only hurts half the time going downhill.

As I headed down the gas line (after the trail comes back out of the trees), I kept going down. And down some more. Boy, I realized that if I was going the other direction, this hill would be REALLY INTIMIDATING!

Here’s a picture of it, so you can feel appropriately in awe. If you look closely, you’ll see a mountain biker powering up it. I had to stay and watch him…he made it up, but I could’ve sworn he was wobbling from exhausting at the top:

(Now, just so you don’t thinking I’m a sniveling whinger who’s all talk, I did run UP this hill once. And, it was at about mile 25 of my 29 Cubed race, so I wasn’t exactly on fresh legs. And yes, it was a long ways up.)

So, as you may have noticed, I mentioned a biker. He passed me at the bottom of the hill. As I continued on, more and more bikers started coming. Now, I knew I was going slow, but that’s okay, since I was packing plenty of water in my fancy new CamelBack. Of course, a few made smart comments, such as “dude, your going the wrong way.” I continued on, and at one point, one of them wiped out right after passing me. (He must have past bad karma, since he only said hello as passing.)

A while later, a group of three passed. The first guy, in a proper a English accent, said “two more behind me.” So I hang on the side of the trail, and see the other two coming. I tried cheering them on with a “Come on! You can take him!”, but they didn’t understand me. As they get closer, it was two women, and one of them says with her accent, “hey, where’s your bike?”.

Well, to cut it short, I finished in a dreadful 2:21. My GPS said about 8.5 miles, but reviewing the tracks, it did lose coverage a little bit, so I’ll call it an even 25 miles. :)

Getting home, naturally I did want every team player does. I sent an email to the group, something along the lines of “Hey, where the heck were y’all? And you missed British accents! everyone loves accents. “

A while later, I get this message back from an esteemed member of our club, and nearly fell out of my chair laughing:

That’s funny, that was my wife asking about the missing bike. she was
out riding Yargo this morning and came across a runner with a camel
back. I saw your message and just asked her, she replied - “how did
you know about that”! She’s from Liverpool, UK.

(Thanks Simon, that made my whole  day! Say hi to the wife from the idiot who forgot his bike. Sorry for confusing the accent, but you now how us dumb Americans are so culturally insensitive to these things.)

Ah, and to complete the mood of the weekend, I treated myself to an ice cream shake in the afternoon.

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Posted by bigrahn

Ice cream run

April 19, 2008

Watching the weather report yesterday, it was supposed to be raining all morning today. This left me with a delemia, do I get up and meet the group or sleep in and go running whenever I get up?

I decided to sleep in…and it was pretty nice. For my run, I decided to make it kind of long, and go up to Bruesters to get ice cream. I thought it was about 8 miles away, so the distance would work good and I’d hit it right when I’d be about ready for a break. Perfect.

So, off I went. At about mile 2, a fresh biscuit and coffee sounded pretty good. But, alas, I set out for ice cream, so that’s what I’m going to get.

About mile 2, I passed the Golden Pantry.

Continuing up the road, it felt like I was in the county. There’s a big field that has alway looked pretty nice, but there weren’t many cows around enjoying it.

One thing y’all should know, down here in Georgia, hogs are taken very seriously. They have whole mountains of them.

Bruesters was just around the corner from here, but checking my GPS, I barely had 5 miles, so instead of going there, I headed up the highway to a subdivision and cruised around it for a while. I thought about stopping at a garage sale they were having, but decided that I’d be better off not. Otherwise I’d end up buying something I didn’t need and having to figure out how to get it home.

After adding the mileage, I headed off for my reward. I got in just under 6 miles when i got in. I got a single scoop of New York Cheesecake on a sugarcone. The guy looked at me pretty funny, pouring sweat and it had just finished raining, but I didn’t care…that first lick was great. So was everyone after it!

I chuckled when I saw their napkins. Guess I earned this because my shoes were on the right foot…would have been a long 6 miles if they weren’t.

Instead of going back the way I came, I headed down Braselton Highway (124). The shoulder was pretty small at times, but traffic wasn’t too bad. I got a chance to snap a shot of this old house. According to an article I read a while ago, this is one of the oldest standing buildings in the state. The owners are donating it to a local center, so soon it will be disassembled and rebuilt at some park.

In the end, I ended up with 10.71 miles. I guess I really underestimated it how far it was to the ice cream shop, but still worked out okay.

On a side note, I recently bought a new Camelback, and this was the first chance I’d have to use it. I was real happy. a lot of room and my back didn’t get too hot. I’ll look forward to using it on tomorrow’s trail run.

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Posted by bigrahn

Funny story of the day (April 16th edition)

April 16, 2008

As y’all know, occasionally I am caught up in something that strikes me as funny. Today, another one of those moments happened.

On Monday, a coworker mentioned he signed up for a sprint triathlon. “Cool for you” I said. He’s a big biker…brought his own trainer into the gym to use all winter and goes out whenever the weather is good. So the swimming and running will be new for him. He was getting ready to head out for a run. I went back upstairs and had lunch.

Today, I was getting dress and he comes in:

Him: “Rahn, I don’t know how you do it?”

Me: “Me neither. What are we talking about?”

Him: “Running! I ran 3 miles, and I felt worse than going on a 60 mile bike ride.”

Me: “Oh that. Not sure what you could possibly mean.”

Him: “The pounding! How do you handle the !#)$! pounding?!? “

Hehe, this was pretty funny, in my opinion. Since neither one of us are built like the Kenyans, of course we have these types of issues to deal with. We talked a bit about technique and getting shoes and what-not. (So, the other funny part of this is here, big guy giving running advice. Who would’ve thunk it? Especially a second time in less than a month.)

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Posted by bigrahn

And Zen, I was back.

April 12, 2008

Now that I’m officially recovered and all, it’s time to start preparing for the next race in a couple weeks. So, I got up early and met with Roman to get some extra miles in before our group run. For some dumb-ass reason, we decided to meet at 6:20 AM. I can’t complain too much, since this allowed me to sleep in a whopping 25 minutes later than during the week. And happily, the pouring rain, thunder and lightning from the night before was taking a break.

I had recently mentioned to my comrade that I wanted to pick up some time and try to break a 4:30 for my next marathon. He, who is very wise in these things or at least lets us all think that, had some sage advice to offer. “Stop walking.”

Uh, sound simple, so I decided to give it a try. For our 3.25 miles, there wasn’t any walking. Not down the hill. Not up the hill. Nowhere. Okay, that’s cool and if I can keep it up for 23 more miles, we’re in business.

After finishing, sitting around waiting for everyone else and taking it easy, we headed out for part two. The first mile was no problem.

Then, the strange thing happened. I remember passing the club house at the golf course (they were having a tournament). I remember seeing everyone else in the group in the distance. I was thinking about the Blue Ridge relay and stuff. Then I looked up. WTF! Oh. Shit. I’m a mile and a half down the road, and don’t remember any of it. I was completely caught up in the running and focusing on it, I was unaware of the passage of time.

Pretty dang cool. Very Zen like. I know there was moving over for cars and stuff, but the usual landmarks, I don’t recall passing them, or thinking about being tired or any of the other things that normally occupy me.

Unfortunately, once I came out of it, I couldn’t get back. Oh well…it was way cool, in a very hippy like way.

The rest of the run was relatively plain. I stopped to watch a horse competition for a few minutes. (The rest of the group saw me stop and waved, but I didn’t see them.) There was a light rain, then Thor told me to go a bit faster. (i.e. there was thunder directly overhead.) Did just over 6 miles, which gave me just under 10 for the morning.

And I’ll end with the following observation:The problem with not walking is that it means you’re running the whole way.

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Posted by bigrahn

After Action Review-Marathon

March 31, 2008

Way back when I was in the army, after field exercises and training, we used to have an AAR, After Action Review. This was a time to review what went right and what went wrong and basically, how can we learn from our mistakes. Back then, I didn’t appreciate them too much, I think mainly because at my rank, I was very unaware of the bigger picture.

ING Marathon finisher medal and shirt

Happily now, I can do an after action review on my own stuff and since I know the whole picture, I can pretend to be objective about it and critique myself. Normally, this is an internal dialog where I tell myself how great I am and never do anything wrong. However, in this case, I thought I’d continue talking about my marathon and share with you what I thought went right and wrong.

- I don’t think I’ll do a road race again with racing flats. I think the lighter shoes made a huge difference both in this race and the 17 road miles I did on Feb 29th. I’d recommend running a couple miles in them to get used to ‘em before your race, because they do feel different. (If you’re a severe pronator, you’ll have to think about how to do this since these don’t generally have a lot of medial support.) Look for them on sale, since they’ll probably only last for a 100 miles.

- Dress for the weather. I thought about wearing a light sweater I have (made of suitably breathable material and all), but decided against it because I didn’t want to overheat. Given that I was expecting to get wet, I should have worn it and either tossed it or wrapped around my waist if I got too hot. My shoulders are about as sore as my legs today, I think mainly because I spent the entire race hunched up against the cold.

- Stretching and strength training. I used to think just running is enough to train for running. But over the last couple months I’ve realized other types of training, be it weights, cross training, stretching or whatever, it makes a big difference. Likewise, I’ll probable start adding in more standard running drills, such as fartleks and speed drills or sorts.

- Long runs. As I may have mentioned before, my training this time was completely different than a standard regiment. The longest run I did was around 13.5 miles. However, I was doing back-to-back runs. This meant I’d go do 10 miles one day and 8 the next. Or in the case of my longest one, I did 8.5+8.5 in the same day with a few hours in between and 13 the next. I like this routine. Time wise it’s easier to fit in and its a lot easier on the body. However, next time I’ll do longer ones (like 13+13, or 18+10). This should prepare me for the last 8 miles better than I was prepared this time.

- Take paper and a pen. I thought about it this time, but didn’t do it. Sometimes I want to jot down names or bib numbers so when I do a recap later I can remember who I talked to. Or even just to look up someone else’s finish time…there’s probably a better way to do this, or I should just stop being so social, but it’s part of what I enjoy.

- Try to hydrate better. I need to figure out how to do gels without getting that ball of sugar in my stomach. The pretzels helped, so maybe I need to carry a small bag of them with me to eat.

- One thing I am absolutely thrilled with is ending up with no chafing and blisters! Even after soaking my feet in a puddle before the race started, I had no problems. Yup, and to me, that makes for a successful race. One thing I did was carry a tiny container of vaseline and some paper towels, just in case. I actually stopped at mile 16 to put a dab on the the ball of one foot as preventative measures, but I don’t think I would have actually gotten a blister. When lubing up in the morning, I went all out. No skimping anywhere, and I think that’s the key.

That’s about it…

Oh, if anyone is interested, I was bib 2747. (If you want to go look at pictures or anything. They’re not posted yet, so I don’t have a link.) Feel free to say hi if you recognize me. :)

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Posted by bigrahn

Ruhn! Rahn! Ruhn! - 2008 ING Georgia Marathon

March 30, 2008

Rahns bib

Sunday started cold and wet, about 43 degrees and raining as I left the house. The forecast was for the rain to stop by 7, then get colder for a couple hours (down to 38) then come back up to 43 or so. With that in mind, my wardrobe consisted of 2 technical shirts, my standard yellow vest and shorts. I also strapped on my new waist pack I got yesterday and my racing flats (which feel like they’re 1/2 the weight of my regular shoes). A lot of Powerglide and Vaseline, with my Injinji socks rounded me out. Ipod with Nike+ was my timer, sans headphones.

I took Marta down, catching a train about 6:15. It was absolutely packed with other runners and I had a good time socializing a bit. I was sitting with a bunch of gals doing the half, then one of them noticed my bib number was a different color, and was very thrilled that I was doing the full. She nudged her boyfriend and said “Hey, he’s doing the full” in reverent tones. I thought it was kinda funny, but hey, that’s cool.

Getting off the train a guy started talking to me who was doing the half. He asked a bunch of questions about training for the full and how does someone who’s uh, on the bigger side, do it. He was also well built, about 10 pounds less but a couple inches taller. After talking the whole way to the starting area, he was pretty motivated to give it a go. Good luck buddy. Again, I chuckled that here I was, being the role model as a runner.
Starting Area

We showed up a couple minutes before the start, as they were singing the nation anthem. I ran off to try to find the bag drop, hit a puddle that soaked my shoes, and ran probably 1/2 miles looking for it. Finally managed to find it, and got back to the crowd waiting to start just as the gun started. It took about 10 minutes to make it to the starting line, and we were off.

My plan was to take it really easy until the crowd broke up, then continue taking it easy. I’d do some preemptive walking when my legs started to tighten up in an effort to prevent it from getting bad. I’ve been training around a 11:45 pace, and would be happy to hold that for the first half.

The first few miles were a gentle downhill, and I thought I was on track. There was a guy dressed as Superman who passed me. I felt good holding speed for the next couple miles too, even on the uphills. About mile 5, I looked up and was surprised to see I was with the 4:30 pacing group! Holy cow, guess I’ve been going faster than planned. Especially considering I continued at the same pace and passed them up, still feeling good.

The first 7 miles were a lot of fun as we hit a lot of interesting areas of the city and the halfer’s were with us so it was a huge crowd. We saw all the Martin Luther King stuff, and the crowds were out in force. In one area, Little Five Points I think, there was a bunch of kids out playing brass instruments. Okay, they kinda sucked, but it was really cool that they were out there. Coming up on the split, they were playing Jenny’s Girl (867-5309) over the PA, which scared me because I thought I was going to have that stuck in my head the rest of the way.

After the split, it was less crowded and the wind picked up. Ouch, it was a little cold…the wind would stay with us all the way through Decatur until around mile 12. At points, it was more than just a little cold. The crowds in Decatur were good, and we hit Agnes Scott College and the coeds did a great job cheering us further. They had a band rocking away and everyone was having a good time.
Around mile 2

I hit the 13.1 mark right at 2:30. Way to go, I was on a 5 hour pace! I made my goal at this point to do sub-15 minute miles from here on out. This shouldn’t have been a problem, and I figured that will get me a 5:30-ish finish. (Yeah, I know the math doesn’t quite work out, but if I picked up 3 minutes a mile for 4 of the miles, it does.)

The next few miles were a blur. I was hurting a bit, but maintaining speed around 12 mpm. Around mile 17 I really started hurting. I felt the wall coming fast and furious. I’d been hydrating really well and taking a lot of gels, but it wasn’t really helping at this point . In fact, it felt like I had a huge ball of sugar just sitting in my stomach. Someone was handing out pretzels at one point, and a few of those helped soak some of that in.

Coming into Piedmont park (mile 22), I was struggling to run at all. I pretty much settled in to the mindset of walking the rest of the way and still meeting my goal. The 5:00 hour flew by at, which didn’t help. (I guess the 4:30 group passed me early and I missed them.) A guy whom I’d been pacing on and off with for that last five miles pulled a lead that I couldn’t catch up, and a woman caught up to me doing a serious power walk. We hung out for a couple miles, and her daughters came on course and walked with us for a while. They were funny as complaining teenagers because they couldn’t keep up with us! This made me feel better. I got the energy to start running a little bit on a downhill and took off.

The last thing of excitement was about 3/4 of an mile later after a uphill where I decided to run again on the downhill. Oh, it hurt so bad I yelled out. It motivated some kid running his first so he said “hey, I’ll run with you. Let’s go!” We motivated each other for a mile or two before my quads gave out. I had to pause to stretch, then eventually lost site of him. I think he was probably 5-10 minutes ahead of me to the finish.

The lady with the kids caught back up to me, I left her again, then she powered up for the last quarter mile and pulled ahead and finished just before me.

Whew! There I am. Chip time of 5:17, which beat my previous best by 22 minutes. Way to go!

Afterwards, as my tribute to Abebe Bikila’s first olympic win, I stretched and laid down on my back and waved my limbs around like crazy. Boy, it felt good.

EDIT (4/1/08): In case it wasn’t implied, I thought I should say it explicitly. Thank you very much to all the supporters out on the course. Hanging out in the cold is hard to do, but for the runners, it really does make a world of difference. Your ringing cowbells, offering food/drink, shouting and everything else helps make the magic happen.

14 Comments | Running, race | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by bigrahn

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