Turkey Trot 10K

It has been a couple of years since I have done a 10K, or at least a 10K by itself.  I would have to dig up the old bib number to just to see if I could find a time scrawled over it.  In fact, other than the half in OKC this year, I can't remember the last time that I actually ran in a road race, without something else, like a swim or a bike, or even a canoe accompanying it.  This also marked the first time that I actually took part in an Erie Runners Club event.  Since I started racing again, I've been very selective about my races, well run races at least, but I think I may have to change that in the future.

First of all, there were a butt load of people for this event.  I'm not sure the total count, but I know that there were a lot of folks out on Turkey day to put in some mileage.  I got there an hour early and still had a hard time finding a place to park. I guess I could say these thoughtless people should've been enjoying family time, but then maybe I should have too.

Anyway, I found a place on the road, and since this is an iPod friendly event, set myself up and decided that I just was going to run and see how the time came out.  I didn't see anyone that I knew or anyone from the Tri club either, other than Terry Fuller, who raced in Kona last month and was still feeling some affects from the race.  He was running in the 5K and so, as far as I knew, I was an island unto myself. From where I was standing to the start line took 33 seconds for me to cross.  I started the Pod early so I was fairly sure that I wasn't going to get much out of it.

The first mile and a half was spent dodging and weaving through traffic and realizing that my legs felt pretty good and that I was really sort of in the mood to put in some faster splits.  As I came within a half mile of the turnaround, I saw the leaders and started to notice a couple of friendly faces that I had missed.  Even though I knew that they probably had a better than half a mile advantage, I was still going to try and get myself up the road a little faster.  The actual turnaround was actually at 3.75 miles, and as I reached it, I noticed a little girl, couldn't have been older than 10, just plugging and chugging along, not really breathing hard, and keeping really good form.  I told her how impressed I was and passed on by, but I'd be curious to know just how she did.

I never did catch the people I knew, but I did manage to negative split the last half of the race.  So I was pretty much happy with that.  My final time was 47:39, which is about a 7:41 pace.  If I had known that I had some ETC compadres on the course, I might have been a little faster, but I'll take the results.  I was 11th of 30 in the AG, and 121 of 580 overall. I still remember how I could race sub 35's and not think about it, and part of me wishes I could do it again.  Regardless, I will keep working at it though.

My birthday was yesterday, and this will be the last year that I can race with the youngsters. After this, I will qualify for the Masters catagory and a whole new range of deranged fanatics.  I will admit though, I feel better now than I did a few short years ago.

Training Alternatives...or A Good Excuse to Drink.

Back in 1994 and continuing through the rest of my Navy enlistment, I found a lot of reasons to love racing and not love the training.  I was single, living in San Diego, and after racing for the past couple years out of Japan, sort of burning out where running is concerned.  Being a member of the Seventh Fleet Striders was a lot of fun and I was able to race in places that most people will never get to see, let alone get some run time in.  But we also raced, and raced a lot.  I am the first to admit that I hate stretching, and have gone to great lengths to avoid it like the plague.  It's been amazing to me how many times I had to visit the restroom while the rest of the team went through the Gumby sessions.  Now, I am still paying for that. When I transferred to San Diego I took my bike with me, hoping to start racing a couple triathlons in the mecca of the sport.  After a stunning 8 - 9 month deployment to Somalia, I was in fairly decent shape for the 1994 racing season.  In San Diego though, the race season really never stops.  On board a ship, training is limited to running on the decks, which is more like steeplechases on a helicopter assault ship, the weight room, and a couple very poorly maintained exercise bikes.  I started slowly, with a couple of 5K's and then a 10K, but then it started to fall apart as a misdiagnosed IT Band injury kept me sidelined for most of the summer.  Should have known that an overweight Navy Corpsman wouldn't know an MCL from an IT issue.  Truth of it was, I was also getting burned out as well.  Since I started running in 1985, I pretty much went at it without much stopping or even that much rest.  After I started stretching again, I was back in action and had started riding more and swimming as my work schedule permitted.

One night at a bar, some friends and I met a couple girls that told us about the Hash House Harriers, a group of alchoholics with a running problem.  Sounded like a group for us.  So the next Monday night, we went to the California Larrikins and the running career was saved.  A Larrikin is defined as comical or outlandish behavior or a mischievious person, and this group pretty much personified it.  It was comprised of a lot of military folk, several professional folks, doctors and lawyers, quite a few college students, and an older gentleman who sat on a board that selected candidates for the service academys, like Annapolis and West Point, but whose real claim to fame was that he was a porn actor.  Even had some copies of his movies in his Geo Metro to prove it.  For those not familiar with the Hash, you start off with a group of people called the Hares.  They would get a 5 minute head start and leave flour trails along the way until they got to the final destination for the "down-down," a ritual that involved drinking and embarassment.  The rest of the group, armed with chalk for marking the trails, running shoes, and the Hash Shit, who was elected at the previous meeting and wore an old green dress with packets of Vagisil stapled all over it, would follow after in pursuit.

The key of the Hash, if you had to have one, was for the hares to not get caught before they made it to the bar at the end.  The pack, which was unencumbered by a real trail, could shortcut the entire course, or just follow the trail and let the faster guys make the chase.  There is a lot of jargon and other nuances involved, but the point is, the Hash was a lot of fun.  You don't use your real name, but are rather assigned one by a committee of your peers, and have no choice/say in the matter.  My name was/is Chicken Choker, and all I can tell you that it had something to do with wings.  Regardless of your station in life, you were considered an equal at the Hash, you drank beer at the Hash, were embarrassed at the Hash, and you put in a run from as small as 3 miles to as many as 8.  I remember one particular Hash where we started and finished within a block of the finish and ran 6 miles in between.  It was also the one where I ended up kissing some girl whose name was "Any-Dick'll-Do"  Good times.  Maybe that is why it was so memorable.

There is a Hash in Erie, but I never went to it even after my enlistment ended and I moved back to NW PA for college.  Why?  I can't tell you, but could it have been because a new group wouldn't have lived up to what I had in San Diego? Or did I just decide drinking copious amounts of beer after running was starting to get old?  Naw, I was 25, starting college, and in those days, I could drink just about anyone under a table.

I guess the point of this blog is just to lay out an alternative if you find yourself wanting to augment your running in the future.  Could I see the Tri Club doing this?  Probably a few people, but for some reason, the Hash isn't as strong a presence as it may be in warmer climates.  The runs are always something different, they incorporate speed and tempo workouts, the courses can go from roads one week to almost 90% trails the next, and you can do whatever it is that your little hearts desire.  I remember running five or six parking garages on one night, and through several department stores on another.  The best one I remember was the night we ran through Point Loma Nazarene up the cliffs and down the other side from one beach to the other.

Triathletes, in general, are Type A neurotic nerfbags that are always looking for the next best thing to experience in life. Other than an idea for a future blog, I present the idea of a Hash since it is kind of nice to keep things changed up once in awhile.  Can a Multi-Sport athlete get something out of a Hash.  Oh yeah, plus the bonus beer at the end.

On a sidenote, I'll be running the 10K Turkey Trot tommorrow to kick off the Holiday Weight Gain season, for I already have an amazing head start on.  Even though it's just a 10K, it's still a race and I'll do a race report on it anyway. As for Nanowrimo, will it didn't go so well this year.  I got about 7,000 words when the need to take care of some drywalling hit.  The novel will still go on, but man does the stairway look much better.

On-On.

The "Off-season"

They say that motivation is a terrible thing to waste, and its a good thing that I'm doing my best to conserve for others.  I don't seem to be the only one either judging from the other members of the Tri club.  Save those training for an Ironman next year, it isn't unusual for most to go through a hum-drum period of time.  I guess one of the reasons I signed up for the Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot 10K is just to keep myself honest, and I will try to remember that when I'm cursing myself on the 26th wondering why I just didn't sleep in.

Sadly, I also learned that most likely I will miss the Edinboro Triathlon this year because of a work related trip to Oklahoma.  If the race is the first weekend in June, I will miss it, but we'll see when the schedule pops up.  Regardless, I did find a sprint tri in OKC for one of the weekends I will be there and who am I to pass that up.  There are quite a few races coming up next year that I'm looking forward too, but I have decided that I need to stay focused on what I promised the family when I started on the Ironman endeavour, and that is, to basically not be so selfish.  You sort of have to remember that in a family, there are other central cast members that make it successful.  Besides that, I have a lot of house projects that need completed, and my two year old son is still living in a pink room.  Now that, is just plain sad.

So, even if the Triple-T triathlon seems like it might be awesome, I might as well think that the cost of entry has to be added with the lodging, meals and other incidentals.  My wife and kids know that I will still race, but I need to realize that a real family vacation does not, or rather should not revolve around a bike, my wetsuit, or have a bib number attached.  Maybe an incidental vacation, just not a real vacation.  However, I think the Triple-T may be in my race plans in the future, a four race, three day event totalling 140.6 miles.  It's gotten some high praise from some of the other guys I race with and a trip to the Shawnee State Park in Ohio would be kind of nice.

As for Nanowrimo, it would be going even better if I actually could sit down long enough to crank out more than the 6,000 words I have.  I've written a whole lot of them in my mind, but haven't been anywhere close to the computer to put them down.  I'm not giving up the ship, I will see what I can get out by the end of the month.  Seems that work and house projects are killing my free time.  That, and Call Of Duty - Modern Warfare 2, that game is just plain addictive.

In Memorium...

 Last Saturday, I had to attend a funeral for Ron Harry.  Mr. Harry was a man that was quiet, until asked what he thought about the Pirates or the Steelers.  In particular the Steelers. A man who attended every event of his children, grandchildren, and if he had lived long enough, would've done the same for his great-grandchildren.  I enjoyed talking to him, and I'm glad that I was able to stop at the Care Center before his death of pancreatic cancer.  My only regret is that I didn't get the chance to see him a few more times before then.  I will miss him, he was an awesome man.  To my best friend Paul and the rest of the family, my heart felt condolences.

Revision 3.0 to Site.

While signing up, after a year hiatus, for another go round at National Novel Writing Month, I decided to try and make a couple of updates to this site. As I mentioned when I started this blog in September of last year, I'm not doing this for anyone else but me. My problem with this site, is that my mind works faster than my hands, and when you have to backspace as much as I do to correct spelling errors, it gets even worse. My best writing always seems to come in the pool, the bike, the run, pretty much wherever I'm not anywhere close to a computer or even a piece of paper and writing utensil. And as computer savvy as I may be with hardware, I'm pretty much software stupid because I haven't figured out how to get hyperlinks to work (not that I've put a lot of thought or research into it either.)

So anyway, I've decided that since my profile had 350 hits, yes its a puny number but a start, I might as well try and make it at least worth the click. If someone does have an idea or suggestion, I'm all for it, let me know. I've been trying to make a new change to the blog every time I add a post, it might be small, but it is a change. Maybe one day, it will actually be a site that has some interesting training information or some helpful aids on nutrition and racing. That is one big maybe, but life goes on, and even I need to make a course change once in awhile. But the main purpose of this blog will be for training and racing, but with the occasional miscellaneous entry thrown in.

As for training, will, it's been a mixed bag in the past few weeks. I am looking at a 10K run in Thanksgiving, just to keep my training going, and I find when I don't have a goal, then I'm most likely an every other day kind of guy. Next month, I will be busy with my 50K expose on my training for the Ironman. Like the actual training for the Ironman, my wife, who I can't stress how supportive she is, can't understand why I want to write a novel that long when its probably not going to go anywhere. The first two years I did it, I started a story and then continued it one in the following year. One day, I may think of self publishing the thing, but it still needs some work, polishing, and even finished. The people at Nanowrimo, especially Chris Baty, are very passionate about the month of November and they do a good job of trying to get as many people interested as possible and making it enjoyable while in the process of writing. So while I'm writing about the training and racing leading up to the Louisville Ironman, I will be training in the mornings as part of my winter upkeep.

So at this point, I will apologize for having a painfully generic, fairly bland looking blog. Hopefully, the next posting will have something useful and more importantly, interesting. That is, if I care what you think.

My New Heroes and Pacer Duty.

Last weekend, I played the pacer for the last 14.5 miles of the Oil Creek Trail Race. There was a 50k, 50 miler, and a 100 mile offering, and all three races were full. The Oil Creek region itself is pretty hilly, and the valley could promise to be one helluva endeavour if it rained the week before. Well, it rained. And the course pretty much sucked. My dad and brother ran the 50 miler, well started at least, and by the time they came through the 4th aid station, which was where the 50k finished, my father was dropping out due to his failing knees. I tried to convince him to go on, but he pretty much looked like he was toast. But after 36 miles, I really didn't blame him a whole lot. My brother took a little bit of convincing, but since I had dressed for the event anyway, I was walking into the woods. During the lull while my brother ate and grabbed some gear for the trek into the woods at night, I picked up a 2nd person to pace through the woods. Terri Hayes my be 66, but she is also the race director and founder of the South Carolina Ultra Trail Run Series, and she didn't miss a beat.

Oil Creek State Park is nasty. The trail was muddy, messy, muddy, and very dark. The extra batteries for the headlamp, and the backup flashlight worked out well, since we were out there for almost 6.5 hours. During this time, we were passed by several of the hundred milers, and their pacers, and they didn't look like they were missing a beat. I've read stories about ultra-marathoners, but never met any until then. They are an impressive lot and almost as arrogant as some of the people that I've met at the Ironman and other longer triathlons. The course was steep in places, both up and down, and the distances seem to go on a long time, meaning I can't remember the last time it took me 6.5 hours to go 14 miles anywhere.

Overall, I was proud of my father, 36 miles is nothing to sneeze at, and knees notwithstanding, very commendable. My brother finished in 18:39, his own knees starting to bother him, and Terri, who had left us a few minutes earlier after we hit the bike trail back to the Start/Finish, was only 5 minutes ahead of us at the end. She was amazing, and was a lot of fun to talk to during the night. Am I glad I didn't run this race? Yes, the 50 miles would've killed my feet, I'm pretty sure of that. Will I do it next year? Possibly the 50K, or 31 miles. Our ultra marathoners better than Ironmen? Please. I don't see an Ultra marathon watch anywhere.

Planning on a 10K at Thanksgiving. If the 5 I ran this morning is any indication, I'm in a heap of trouble. Hopefully, whatever is giving the kids their cough and the fever, doesn't have an effect on me. I can think of other things I'd rather do than lay in bed...well, that does have it merits though. Also coaching a soccer team for the Y. My 4-5 year olds seem like a good lot. They're hard to coach, but if they learn to at least like to play the game, then its successful.

The Fall.

The Fall, where the thoughts don't turn to a young man's fancy, but rather how much food can I shove down my gullet. In between dodging the raindrops and then raking up and bagging some leaves, I manage to get a run here and there and have put in some miles on the bike as well. However, I still can't seem to get it into my head that I am not training as much and therefore should quit eating as much as I have. There are times that I just want to eat, and well, with the obesity rate rapidly climbing and causing a health crisis that needs a knee jerk reaction of meteoric proportions, I figure that I would just be a member of society.

I have also been pricing some cross country ski equipment as well, hoping I can pick something up fairly cheaply. There is supposed to be some great cardio value to cross training with XC skiing, but I'm not going to bother putting out some good money in the event that it really sucks. As I get older, I've come to the conclusion that I if I don't like something, then I'm not going to keep up on it even if it is good for me. That would probably explain why I am going to make decisions trail running next year until after I get done doing pacer work for my dad and brother in next weeks Oil Creek 100 race.

However, in the meantime, I've completed my schedule for next year and have decided that with all the home projects that I have on the stove, that I can stuff a few races in there. The base Ironman schedule I created is awesome in the fact that I can make all kinds of changes to it and should I decide to train for one again, just dig it all out. A lot of the reading I've been doing has stated that you need to add weight training to the regiment after the age of 40 since muscle is not sustained by the base swimming, cycling, and running alone. I hate the gym, but I will do what it takes to keep my current shape. I just need to schedule all that around drywall and landscaping.

My next race will probably be a 10K called the Turkey Trot. I'm interested in if the 10K race program I'm using will be effective, or if I need to stick to a half-marathon schedule for 10K races. Either way, I haven't entered the race just yet, mainly since I haven't been able to run with all the stupid rain. Another age benefit, I don't feel compelled to run in the rain if I don't want to.