Niantic Bay Half Marathon

I haven't raced very much this year and for the most part, when I have raced I've raced long. A marathon, a half, a 20K, a ten-miler. I didn't have a great 20k, but I felt like I could have a decent race at Niantic Bay.

First, the conditions were favourable, that is hot and very humid.

No, hot and humid are not prime running conditions. However, I tend to respond well on hot and humid days, partly because of the way I'm built and the the degree to which I can dehydrate before suffering a significant decline in ability, and party because I carry a bike bottle full of sports drink with me.

It's the biggest thing that separates me from the other A and B level runners out there. I'd say 'elite' runners, but I am not an elite runner. I am in that second level of competitive athletes and it is baffling to me that you would go out to run a half-marathon and not carry a bottle with you. I'm not talking about an ironman fuel belt with the little bottles that you see people wearing. Just a bottle- 16 or so ounces of whatever you train with- Heed from Hammer nutrition in my case.

I also carry a cliff shot for around 6 miles or so.

The race is tough in that you have to get off to a fast start. It starts in a remote parking lot which leads to a very wide starting line. Within 75 meters though it narrows down to a one lane road, while going uphill and through several turns. It widens out a little after about 500 meters, but if you aren't up front and on a good line, you're going to lose time, so you either have to run a fast first mile or risk running a really slow one.

This is tough, because the whole theme for me at this race is to pace myself. Still, I feel like you can blow up the first mile of a 1/2 marathon and still settle in and have a well-paced opening half.

I was running just behind the group with Jesse as we headed down towards the finish line and they were talking about why Jesse wasn't running with the eventual race winner, who went on to win by 4:30 something.One of the guys said 'Is it because he could drop you at 4 miles ?' to which Jesse replied 'he could drop me any time he wanted.' I looked at George Buchanan after this exchange and said 'We're too old to be running with this group.'

We went through mile one at some crazy fast time and then right away I started to back it off. I had to. I was planning to run the whole 13 miles, not run the first 11 and stumble through the last two.

I tried to pour some water over my head at the first aid station, however, all the water got grabbed up. I took a cup of Gatorade and dumped it down my back, although not over my head. Probably sounds gross, but you either regulate your body temperature or you don't.

By the time we'd taken the turn back of the main road after exiting the park, people were passing me. This is the hardest part of a long race, the part where I am being passed by people I ultimately want to beat and have to force myself to just let them go. George passed me, Maureen passed me, and another guy passed me.

I got mixed up in a group with a guy that seriously into green- green racing flats, a green singlet- and three other people. The woman who would eventually finish third also got mixed up into the group as as we were running towards the sea wall, I clipped the green man's heel slightly because he got off his line as I was trying to run right in the middle of the road, just to the right of the cones that were dividing the road. I mumbled an apology and thought he didn't notice. Then the woman clipped his foot and she apologised and he went off on her about how sorry didn't cut it.

Both she and I moved away from the green man. I lost pace with her for a bit. We went into the back section, where the only real hill is. I just couldn't really hold on to Maureen, George, and company and I was kind of back and forth with the green guy, but I also wasn't concerned. I was watching that group's back because I had a plan.

As we came out of this little back loop we were headed back on the long straight road that parallels the park. I was waiting until we got back in the park to make any kind of move. George starting coming off the back, then reconnected with Maureen and the other guy, then started to fall off again. Last year I had passed George just passed the halfway point where you run by the finish line. I was planning to pass him again there. At each aid station I was dumping water (or if I couldn't get it, Gatorade) on my head and toros. At around 6 miles I took the cliff shot, tossing the wrapper at the aid station and heading into the park. It seemed like there was five or six of us in a group, sort of jockeying. We went past the finish, around and back out. I tossed my now empty bottle, 16 ounces of fuel consumed. I passed George, put the hammer down a bit and started to separate from the other guys around me, for the most part. One other guy was running ahead of me, closing on Maureen while I was still marking time.

Once I hit mile 8 I steadied again. Yes, I was running out of time with just 5 miles left, but I still had my plan, and no one was getting away from me. I was slowly picking up the pace as we headed back out towards the sea wall. For two miles I just slowly closed on the people in front of me, starting to feel good, my stride lengthening, and at mile 10 as we went into the back loop Maureen and the guy between the two of us were getting closer. Other people were falling back, losing time on me. We broke through the loop and back out onto the straight away and I made my move.

I passed the last guy between Maureen and I and then pulled up next to her right at mile 11. We exchanged brief greetings and then I was off again, chasing the two guys in front of me, trying to hold off the people I'd just passed.

I was back in the park soon after, and before I knew it I was at mile 12. I took as much water as I could get and dumped it on myself and tried to zip up my Zane's cycling jersey. The jersey was so wet and had slid so low on me that when I zipped it up I felt like I was choking and had to unzip it again. The last mile was not easy. I was running as hard as I could but I wasn't catching the guys in front of me and I was little concerned about the people behind me. That last mile seemed to stretch out in the way the last mile always does there, whether it's the half or back when it was the marathon.

I got through the final turn and I knew no one behind me was coming. I was disappointed not to be able to catch the last two guys I could see, but I'd gone from mid-30s to 25th overall on the 2nd loop. Still, it's funny how much time 2 seconds a mile costs you between the guy in front of you (who ran 6:36) and yourself (I ran 6:38) over that half-marathon distance.

I put more than 30 seconds on some of the people behind me in just the last few miles, so my strategy to hold something back for the second loop, plus staying a little better hydrated, and just being an ornery runner, all kind of played in to help me have what I thought was only my second good running race of the year. Not because of who I beat or where I finished.

I finally felt like I ran a good race, and that's been way overdue this year...

Bridgeport Olympic Triathlon

One word. Mosquitos. I parked my car across the road from the beach aviation area that serves as the transition area and finish line. I started waking over with my bike and gear and at first I thought I was imagining a bug on my leg. Reaching down and slapping I killed 3 Mosquitos.

This is how I spent the pre-race, whether it was getting marked, or waiting to go to the bathroom, racking my bike.

I got in the water early. I hadn't raced a tri since Hammerfest almost a year earlier. I had a very poor swim in the team 'race' in very rough water the week before. I needed a good swim, and by good I don't mean fast. The water was flat, eerily flat. I had a really good warm-up and was feeling very confident. The first bout was far from shore, while the tide was out.

I was pretty calm for the start of a swim, and finally as the last stragglers were getting out of the water, and why are there always stragglers, who put their warm-up ahead of starting the rac on time, I actually wanted to start. When I say that I'd had a bad swim the week before, it was crazy bad, really choppy seas and insanely rough. We did this little two loop swim and one of the team members coordinating the race tried to stop me from doing the second loop. So I'd gone out in the sound a couple of time after that and had very good swims, and finally the race started.

The men in the first wave tried all strategies- swimming, running, and everything in between. I kind of watched it and then didn't. I sort want to concentrate on keeping my heart rate down at the start of the race and that requires me to focus on, well, me. Finally our wave was off. I started swimming right away. Because the first buoy was a long way off, it was a nice wide spread and I had no problem getting my own water and working out to the first buoy and making the turn. Frankly, I was surprised at how easy getting there was, how unlike my last crazy swim. Because the course was counter-clockwise, the low sun was in our eyes, and if there is one thing the course could use more bigger, it's buoys. Still, there were enough people around me that I could follow the course, about the halfway mark I found myself coming up on the stragglers from the first wave.

There's not a lot to say about the swim really, because it was surprisingly unremarkable. .

I got out of the water after yet another swim that I'd feared would be a disaster yet was completely ordinary.

I could probably end the race report right there. I needed to have a good, confident swim, and while my time was crap- 28 minutes- I did just that. Now the next athlete with a worse swim time finished 20 places behind me, I still got out of the water and on the bike feeling pretty good, relaxed, and knowing I needed to Hammer.

There could not be a worse bike course for me. Board flat with a bunch of turns, including two 180 degree turns. I mean, I still have a good ride there, and I like the relentless time-trail nature of the course, but honestly, all I could think of as I was plowing through the five loops was that I had not done enough time-trialing this season and Leopard-Trek jersey or not, I was not ready for this course.

Unlike most races, this course is kind of a mess from the get go. The very top guys from wave one are half a loop ahead of you, and the people in front of you are everywhere- and that's just the first lap. Starting with lap two, the chaos is all-encompassing. You can sort of tell who you are competing with, but not exactly. I have to say that I did get passed a few times, and that there was some drafting, but overall, I didn't feel the drafting was as bad as it has been in past years. I think having two engaged officials on the course really helps. On A few occasions I got re-passed by people who just couldn't let it go that someone else was out-riding them, but for the most part it was one of the cleaner races I've ridden. Of course, my bike split totally left me aggravated. It was in the 23 mph area, which is not really acceptable on a flat course. I definitely felt that a lack of racing really hurt me on the bike, where I was working hard, but lacked the fluidity, or the anger, or whatever the hell it is that makes me good on the bike.

I had left transition with only a few bikes on my rack- and my rack was full of people around my age. So when I came back in on the bike and had changed the equation quite a bit, even though I was pissed about the ride I had, I was satisfied I could do my job. I threw on my hammer nutrition cycling cap, grabbed two gels and started running.

Right away I was catching people, both guys in their 40s, and a lot of younger guys. There's something about this run. The sun always comes out and it gets as hot as the proverbial and because it's a 10K, people start walking. I'm more of a long-distance athlete and the thought of walking while running a 10K is kind of- well, whacked. As I headed down the path, the athlete wearing number 1 came back in my direction, who knew how far ahead- only he was walking. You want confidence ? #1 is walking and you are walking. That's confidence.

This is my part of the race. I am looking for one thing at this point, numbers on calves. I have to pass those 40+ men that were in my wave, and the more younger men I pass as well, the better. Still, for all the run is flat, in some ways a long flat 5k with long sight lines, especially when the summer sun comes out and starts beating down on you, is formidable than you might think it would be. I drenched myself at the water station at the quarter point turn around and then simply went back to the task at hand.

The second loop was a lot like the first, only more congested. More people were on the run and I wasn't always sure if I was passing or lapping people. I didn't care either. If you were in front of me, I was passing you, no questions asked, no answers given. I hit the turn around again and somewhere I pawed #[ 1, I think, but I have no idea when. Heading back, I was not thinking about how thrilled I was to be finishing another tri, but rather I was thinking about how damned far away the finish line was.

Good thing too. I passed a couple more guys in my age group and then I got close to the finish line. There was a guy with grey hair in front of me and I was thinking this guy could be in my age group. I really was spent but I found the turbo and passed him 50 meters before the finish line. I was so spent I just stood in the finish area until a volunteer go me a folding chair and a wet washcloth and I then happily sat in the finish area, wet washcloth and ice on my head, the best damn seat in house as I watched people finish.

The guy was 50+, so i'd saved embarrassment, not a place. Just as good.

So I was back- as a triathlete. And liking it....

Hammerfest Triathlon

I might actually be getting back into a rhythm of racing every other week or so.

Hammerfest is a great race- my wife Margit is one of the organizers and she works very hard on the race. But the race has been a difficult one for me. It's the week after the Firmman Half-Ironman, so I've come into the race frequently still in recovery mode. I've also struggled with the swim almost every year- I can usually count on having my worst swim of the season there- blinded by the morning sun and crushed early by the competition on the long slog out to the first buoy.

I spent last night working on the race's website and went to bed around 12:15 AM. I'm not sure what time you should go to bed the night before a race, but I'm pretty sure it's not 12:15 AM. Between then and when I got up I snagged maybe 4 hours of sleep, so by this morning I was really wondering if if today was really a good idea. Certainly after having such a good swim at Bridgeport, the thought of being exhausted, still from whatever respiratory infection I'd had, and jumping into the sound, well, I didn't want to have my usual Hammerfest swim today, because my next triathlon will probably be IM Florida and I wanted to go in confident.

I dropped Ian off with Margit and started prepping for the race- setting up my transition area, followed by standing in line for the bathroom, listening to 3 Doors Down.

The water was stunningly flat and then I got some great news- the swim was going to be clockwise this year, because the ramp the athletes usually run up at the end of the swim had been smashed by the hurricane. So instead of a long swim out to a far away buoy followed by a turn into a blinding sun, we'd be going out to a very short buoy, maybe 100 meters, and then turning to the far bout with the sun at our backs. Granted, the second buoy was far out and the swim was going to be 6/10 of a mile at least, but that first near buoy was going to be huge. We were second wave and as usual when I am not in the first wave, I completely ignored the first wave after about a minute and started to focus on what I needed to do. I did notice some of the 1st wave men walking practically out to the first buoy.

Then it was our turn. I started swimming right away. A lot of the guys around me were walking, but I was getting comfortable in the water, staying relaxed, and unlike when we go out on an angle to a far away buoy, I was not losing ground to the walkers. Now, when everyone started swimming there was a moment where it was a big mix with a lot of swimmers and I got a little skittish, but it didn't last. I made the first buoy easily and started straight towards the second one. Meanwhile most of the wave was swimming in an arc off to my left- I was psyched because I knew I had a better line than they did, which was odd. It's not like me to pick a superior line anywhere but in the grocery store.

The swim out to the far buoy was unremarkable, which is how I like it. While I'd be faster if I was in someone's draft, the knowledge no one was going to kick me in the head was much better. I turned that buoy and sighting the next one was a little harder but I was still inside almost everyone else and very happy about that. I was halfway to the buoy when I realised I had to cough up so phlegm and that's exactly what I did. I had to skip a beat breathing, but it was worth it. I felt like I was swimming really well for me, and before long I'd made it to the 3rd buoy and turned. That was the hardest part of the swim. I saw people in front of me but they were spread out all over the water. I thought I saw the buoy on shore and aimed for it, but it was a real crap shoot whether I was actually going in that direction. I'd asked Margit to make the second wave green caps, because they are easy to follow in the water. I had to cough up some more phlegm on the way in but it was really one of the most low-stress swims I've had, and although I haven't see the splits yet I think I had a good time.

Margit told me I looked like I was working too hard though.

So I went into the race thinking I shouldn't even be out there. I came out of the swim in the mix with the other green caps thinking the opposite, that I had a shot. I knew though, the bike was going to be a challenge. I had snapped off one of my aerobats riding a week earlier and had just made some additional adjustments to the new ones Saturday that I would only be testing out in the race. I had a fair transition, but my feet were cold enough that I did something I rarely do- put socks on. So my first transition was probably slow.

I know this bike course better than any other course I race, with IMLP coming a distant second. I time trial it, in both directions, maybe 10-12 times a year. But the two loops are completely different. I like the first loop the best because you are competing with people in your wave and the one in front of you and you can make sense of what is going on. I got out of the box quickly and wasted no time passing people. My new aero bars were set up with aggressive time trailing in mind, and that was a good decision. The lack of sleep was not. My hamstrings were shredded, and I could tell as I struggled to find the right gear. Also, as usual, I was breathing hard. Still i was making up ground. Not a single cyclist who came out of the water today passed me on the bike, unlike Bridgeport. And for the most part I was able to ride down everyone in front of me.

Down by Linden Avenue I thought there was some wind, but I cam around the POYCC and pushed hard up the hill and really felt like I was having a good first loop. Then I came up on a guy in his 50s and after a little bit of work, I passed him. I kind of felt like he was riding in the middle of the road, but I'm picky, so whatever. I thought that would be the end of it. After all, this guy had started in the wave behind me, out swam me, and my job was to bury him along with everyone else I passed. I was passing a lot of guys with 20s and 30s on their calves and that was making me feel good- guys that were 3 minutes ahead of me and I was already passing them on the first loop...then the guy with the 50-somthing on his calf passed me. This would go on for the rest of the ride. My hamstrings never stopped hurting, or feeling spent is maybe a better term, but I just kept the turnover up and tried my best to really keep passing people. There was some traffic on the course and I had to do a few dodgy things along the way. As I went by the Armory I established a better angle on the turn and go in front of the 50 something. Then he passed me again....

The second loop of the bike is different then the first. A lot of other athletes have fed out onto the course so you are interacting with 1st lap riders, trying to maintain your sight on second loop riders. It's a tremendous challenge to stay focused while still outputting your best cycling. I was mostly affected, however, by the continual back and forth with this older guy. I was getting really annoyed. I just do not want to cheat, not under any circumstance. But I was having to slow down after being passed, and it was costing me time. I passed him going up the hill past the POYCC, really powering up the hill. It's a downhill on the other side and as I went down to the bottom I went to go wide to avoid the manhole cover in the road, only I couldn't because the 50-something, in the middle of the road, was passing me. Now I was really annoyed.Again, my problem, probably, but when you go to move somewhere and someone is in your way it's aggravating. I actually fought a little here, but I had to let the pass happen. Then I waited. I passed him again after the stop sign, I think.

He passed me again.

This whole time I was passing other guys in their 40s, as well as 20s and 30s. This was the big moment on the bike. We came to the 3-way intersection before the middle school and I used stopped traffic to outmaneuver my shadow. That only lasted a short while and he passed me again.

I relaxed and settled back. Pounding the crap out of my legs was not going to help me, I didn't want to cheat, so I dropped off a bit. I started thinking about having a good run. I kept passing other people in my age group. Still, the opportunity to pass him would come one more time. I'd noticed some hesitation in tight spots, so I took him at the left-hand turn at the armory. It was a good pass, but thirty second later he passed me, and then another guy I had just passed passed me.

That was it, I was done. I rode into transition behind both guys. I'd had a good battle with this 50-something but now I was ready to run after a top-ten bike.

As is tradition in the Hammerfest, my feet were numb when I came into transition. I wedged my shoes onto my feet, put one cliff shot in my singlet and tore open the other one and started taking small amounts from it. As a rule, I take an entire shot at once, but I didn't think that was the right move, so I started milking it, and I found that worked a lot better. I started out, getting by several people that had ridden in ahead of me leaving transition. There were plenty of guys right in front of me, and I started picking them off. When I run, there's none of the emotion that fuels the way I ride the bike. On the run, when I catch someone, I expect to drop them and that's it, it's not arrogance, it's just math. There's not the drama and speed of the bike. I was passing mostly guys in their 30s and 20s, but there were some 40-somthings. I was disappointed to get down to Bayberry and hook a right- the out and back at the end of the road was not in use, so I had a short run to make my catches. I saw Dick Korby and ran him down and then as we were way out there in the back a kid yelled 'Hey, you're Ian's dad.' Not how I expected to be defined on the race course, but it's true. There are a few short hills in the back of the course and I felt like I was making good time catching people.

I saw Scott Roth coming out of the loop you can see Branford Point from, so I that gave me a good idea where in the mix I was. I rounded that loop and bore down on two guys in front of me and the next thing I knew, taking occasional small portions of my cliff shot, I was back on the main road and headed back to the Owenego. I had four guys in front of me and the third one had grey hair. I'm at that age where a guy with grey hair might be in my age group, or worse, older, and either way, they have to be caught. I reeled in the first two and was on the final short downhill before the short uphill that leads back into the finish and that was where I passed the grey-haired guy. On his leg was a 48 and I knew that I had to catch him. Once I was in front of him I just turned up the run half a notch and took it home.

Not my best stuff- only top-10 on the bike, but I was 16th individual overall, 3rd in my AG instead of my usual 4th.

I'll take it.

New Haven Road Race

No excuses.

I firmly believe that, that if you step up to the line, and you start the race, you have to live with what happens. I was sick- I'm on antibiotics now, but that's not an excuse for why I ran slowly, and hey I had some fun along the way...

The last time I was tripped at the start of a race and went down was the Troy Turkey Trot in 1983. This was my first road race ever. I remember telling Rich Goyer that sometimes people get tangled up at the start and bam, someone tripped me coming off the line. I'd never been tripped since.

Well, I can't say that anymore. I ran a long warm-up before the race, almost two miles, because I was trying to get my adrenaline up. No excuses- but yes, I felt like someone had whooped me pretty good. My legs were dead, my head was fuzzy, and a long run was just the ticket to get some positive energy flowing again.

I got on the line with same goal I'd had last year. Negative split. Now, this wasn't going to be one of those glorious kick-ass splits. This was going to be one of those OMG I finished the race negative splits.

I snuck into the starting corral at the last minute, maybe 5 rows back, just about where I belong on a good day. this was a good day, but no one but Margit knew that, so I was was right where I wanted to be. JB started the race with a confusing two command start. We all reached down and started our watches, even me, because hey, negative split. I took maybe two steps before someone behind me clipped my foot, my right foot. Clipped it good. I went down, careful not to reach my arms out . I tucked my arms in and let myself hit the pavement. I've had a lot of practice as a ball sport athlete taking falls and after one dislocated wrist and one dislocated shoulder I got the message that the chance I was going to break my fall with my arms was not as good as the fall causing a serious injury. So I went down, sustaining only one set of cuts on my left hand below the pinky. I really do fall well.

The thing is, your instinct is to scramble immediately back to your feet. This is not the right thing to do. When you first go down, everyone else is as surprised as you and if you go to pop up you will likely only trip and stumble again and take out more people. Instead, give the people around you a second to adjust, then stand up.

This is the most scary moment. The New Haven Road Race is not a small race. It's a freaking national championship and there are literally thousands of athletes behind you, people who potentially could trample you. It takes discipline not to panic.

Of course, I like a little contact. I am, at heart a ball sport athlete. Getting dinged makes me feel more like 'yeah, now it's on'. Which doesn't explain why I hate being touched, much less hit, while swimming....

So I waited about one full second then I popped up and started running. No one else tripped over me. I had some cuts on my fingers, but other than that I was fine. It was on to the first mile of the race. Of all the first miles in races I run regularly, New Haven is at once one of the easiest- flat, flat, flat- and hardest, because the pace for the first mile of a 12.4 mile race tends to be overly aggressive. It's also a smorgasbord of everyone you know, running in front of you, behind you, past you, you past them...

I saw Dave Pantin and Maureen Terwilliger and a bunch of other people I knew and I went through a little over 6:00. For New Haven this is great. I've gone through the first mile under 5:45 and that is the set-up for disaster. Still, for the physical condition I was in, it was a fast mile, made harder by working my way up after going down. Still, my goal was to run the first three miles at a normal race pace, and to negative split, both of which I felt possible after this first mile. I ran a solid second mile, going back and forth with some people but Dave and Mo both started to pull away. We hit the hill by Southern and I tried not to run hard up it, because I knew digging into the energy stores this early on a short hill was bad. By the end of the third mile, I knew I was not running that well, and I was right in that area, between 3-4 miles, where if I continued to push too hard, I would end up completely spent by the time I hit the bridge.

I came off that hill, and we headed for Route 10, and as I got on route 10 I could feel the cord starting to snap and people getting away. I let them go. I knew better than to fight in here, but it was tough as people I knew that I should be showing my back went by. I was dumping lots of water on my head and at some of the intersections I was seeing people I knew. It's always disappointing when people call out your name while you are running slow. I feel embarrassed. I saw the one Milford Road runner guy that had passed me duck behind a pillar of a pedestrian overpass to pee, and despite that allowing me to gap him, he was quickly back on and then passed me. I was watching people's backs now. I hadn't given up or anything. I was trying to keep people close because in this race, I have come back on more people more often than any other race.

We went up the 'hill' on Route 10, which is actually a bridge rather any kind of natural rise in the terrain. I took a cliff shot just before getting on the hill, not wanting to eat while on the climb but wanting to toss the wrapper as soon as I was done. I lost a little more ground in here but I watching two people's backs, Maureen and Dave. I was holding my own about 20 seconds behind them. As I got to the bottom of the hill and then the aid station, I saw one of the top runners walking. This would become a theme- attrition and plenty of it. It was hot and humid, but not that bad. as I went under the 95 ramp underpass and then turned the corner by those waterfront condos, I saw another person walking. He then started running again. As we hooked the next left, still short of six miles, yet another person was walking.

I found myself mostly running alone, in between groups, being passed and yes, now passing people. I was running alone and suddenly someone bumped my elbow. Now we were running up a four lane street, which was closed to traffic, and I was in the middle between the two travel lanes and a guy bumps my elbow as he goes by. Out loud I said 'How much f*cking room do you need ?' I mean, it was just a graze really. It's the concept. If you can't run by my when I am in the middle of the damned road running all by myself,and not touch me, there is just something wrong with you. I'm not a good luck charm or a leprechaun.

I went through the 10K, according to my watch, at 42:47. I have no explanation for my reported 10K split time except that it's wrong. Maybe I can't read, but I don't think so. Whatever.

Right after the split, you go under 95 and end up on Long Wharf. This is normally one of my favourite parts- bands, plenty of race support, you get a chance to gage the wind. However, the tide was max out and with all the nasty remains from the hurricane the low-tide smelled worse than I have ever smelled low tide there. It was nauseating. Chris Schulten ran up alongside me and we chatted about how we were both having poor races. I was really struggling, and then something happened. I hit a water station, dumped three waters over my head and the sun went under a cloud. I realize now I was running a fever at this point and couldn't really think straight, but as soon as my body temperature, and especially the temperature of my head, dropped, I felt great. I turned that corner off Long Wharf and started running, and I mean, really running. It was a completely different experience- people started coming back to me immediately. Dave and Maureen had gotten completely out of site but I was still looking for them, and I was no longer being passed by people- maybe one or two now and then, but not groups of three as had been the case before.

The course has a few short hills in here and then it gets flat again, and what I really took away from this section was how well I was running. Everything went pretty well until the water station between 8-9 miles. I was being tailed by a woman in black shorts and singlet/jog bra and just as I got to the water station she cut right in front of me and took the water I wanted and needed to knock back my fever. This was bad enough, but as went along the line of water bears I went straight for the last one, and she decided she wanted a second one and even though I was lunging for the cup she got there first. I was pissed off. I think she was so obliviously inconsiderate that it just never occurred to her that a) passing someone in the water stop is rude and b) after taking one cup of water away from me, she should have let me have the last one.

All I said was 'Really, really ?'

We kept running and I got ahead of her again and waited. The next rest area is just before the hill into East Rock. I had to work a little too hard to keep myself in front of her, but I had a plan.

This is a big water stop, with tables on both sides of the road, although the road is wide. you go for one side or the other. I was watching over my shoulder and once I was convinced I knew which way she was going, I broke that way. I let another lead into the water stop. He got the first cup. I slowed down just enough to take each of the next 6. I got them all and by the time I exited the station, I was literally dripping wet, since they all ended up on my head and chest.

It was petty, and probably wrong. But it felt good.

I got up the hill and then started down it, holding back. The girl in black started to pull away and I couldn't keep up. But I was still watching in front of me and both Maureen and Dave were just visible. I was holding my own and maybe clawing back a few seconds. I went by the bagpipers, then I was in the turn and running uphill slightly, looking for that final real turn in the race and the 11 mile mark.

Then you just run, and run and run. I was slowly closing on Dave, and Maureen was pulling away from him, and the people around me were coming back to me more than they were getting away. I finally forced myself to take a second cliff shot at about 10.7 miles, way too late, but still good experience for my next long race. Someone was handing ice out of a colander. I grabbed the colander, out it on my head and ran, then tossed the colander away.

It's such a struggle that last last section. I went through the bend and I was in the mix with four other guys and I was fading. And at about 12.1 miles there was Will Graustein and he was yelling 'Pump your arms alan.' And that was all I needed. I was fading, I was at the end of a long run that was never supposed to be anything but training and guys were going to beat me and then Will said pump my arms. So I pumped my goddamned arms.

I almost caught the guy in front of me, and I beat four other guys by 1-5 second. So instead of 180, I finished 175th.

But hey, I'll take it.

Another year, another New Haven.

Life is good.

Lake Placid Marathon, Part II

So I'd dumped my bottle, which was dry. I'd taken two Clif Shots, and i'd rounded the cone. I started chasing immediately. I was far back, too far back. I was in the high teens, I wanted to be top ten.

At thirteen miles, with the backs of three men right in my sights, I was at 1:31:34. That left me over 3:05 for the marathon, which wasn't cooing to work. My suspect Achilles tendons and hamstrings, sore for the last year since I hurt the right one on a training trip, all felt good. I opened it up and caught the three of them on the way to the fairgrounds. Next was a younger guy, in white, backwards cap on his head, who i'd seen was struggling as far back as the first turn around at the out and back. I went by him and quickly dropped him and set my sights on the next guy.

This was one of the great running race moments I have ever had. From mile 12.5, I simply turned up my effort a notch and the people in front of me dropped back, and they had no answer. Granted, there was still a guy twenty minutes ahead of me, running the kind of time I was once capable of. But I looked down the guys in front of me, I saw my family out there cheering me on, and I responded. When I got in the fairgrounds I was running hard. I passed one guy at t his point- I think it was here- who would not fall off the pace though. This was important, but not yet.

Popping back out of the trail grounds you almost immediately hit the downhill. I think a lot of runners miscalculate the downhill a bit- it's a serious downhill. You have to attack it, but you can't open up too much. You are pushing 15 miles and if you tear down the hill you will tear up your quads. So you really focus on form, and let a long but reasonable stride carry you down the hill.

You break around the corner and you are on the out and back again and there are a lot of half-marathoners going the other way, and spectators. The ski jump was out of sight at my back, and now I had a shadow, a runner in back pacing me, not like the first half of the race but different. He's using me...

And oh, you're lapping peole. Yes, they are probably walking but you've run 10 more miles than them. The people on the other side of the road are also quite a few miles behind. I reach across the middle of the road and sap hands with Darren McGeary's brother Dean, he yells 'Al' and then it's back to chasing the guys in front of me. From across the road a woman yells to me to drop my arms.

I am probably carrying them high. I know. Still, I have run 8 miles farther in the same amount of time as this woman has, and low so she can't hear me but definitely out load I say 'Bite me.' I am a completive person....

We passed another runner here, a marathoner, and now it was we. Not I. I was a two-car train, reeling people in...

Not what I wanted. I wanted to be working alone, but I wasn't, and there's nothing you can do in that situation but try to run your own race and is there a time it's ever harder than when someone else is working directly off your pace ? Not really. I mean, dictating the pace is easier in some ways to trying to follow someone, but like in a bike race, you would prefer to share the work and the guy behind me was not showing any interest in sharing the work. He was letting me do it all, breaking what little wind there was, giving him the opportunity to sit in behind me.

We head out on the out and back and I was in a really good rhythm. I picked off a couple more runners, and then went by the 'traditional' out and back.

That's right. Part of avoiding having you climb all the way back into town (why ?) is that the second out and back is rather severe out. The out on this route is always longer than you think. I was tracking four guys in front of me, which seemed like two guys too many. We ran and ran and ran. I know the entire length of the road, having ridden and run it all the way out to where it dumps you onto 86.

The turn around cone for the second back was within sight of 86, and the extra two guys I didn't think should be there ? They ran to the cones and kept going, then raised there arms and starting talking to the people camped out at the turn. Grrr....

Yeah, I was less than thrilled, having chased them down for no reason. But I went around the cone and set my sights on the next guy in front of me. The 19.0 mile mark was before the turn, and the 20 mile mark after. I went through that 20 mile mark and I felt really good. I have always been aware of that mark, and although I don't put any stock that there is anything special in 20 miles, I have struggled at that point.

I passed the mark and nothing changed. I was still running faster than the people in front of me, I wasn't struggling, my plan of a cliff shot every 40 minutes was working well, my stomach was good, my legs were holding up.

I was passing people now- occasionally, that were running pretty well, just not as well. I think my next pass came at about 21 miles, then there was more climbing, then I made one more pass on the back. There were still half marathoners all over the road, and on the other side plenty of marathoners headed out. That was the thing that changed after we hit the turn around, and I'll comment on that out of order. As I saw the people I had already passed, I was surprised by how much time I had put on them- no one was catching me.

No one but my shadow, that is.

I decided to attack on the hill back into town, figuring I would have 2 miles to either recover from a failed attempt or hold him off if I did get a gap.

Simply put, it didn't work. I attacked going up the hill, crested first, found myself very slowly gaining ground on the first woman, who was clearly losing time, and then I was passed. There was almost two miles left I think, when he made the pass and although we both started to close down the woman in front of us, he actually passed her, while I just kept getting very slowly and unsatisfyingly closer. We went through the turn-around from the first loop and then up the road you come down on at the start of the ironman bike. Although I was closing on her I was losing ground on my former shadow and I was spent.

I climbed the hill and headed for the speed skating oval and it seemed like maybe I had one more catch in me, but in the end I didn't. I ran as hard as could around the oval, the nearest guy behind me three minutes and change back, but the woman in front of me maybe 20 seconds in front.

I came around the oval, just like the ironman, and I felt pretty good. I was not blown up, I'd run a smart race, and while I was unhappy two people close in front of me were not held off or reeled in, as I crossed the line in 3:02:30ish I knew I'd run the second half of the race with about a 3 minute negative split, and that was something to build on.

I decided then and there I want to go back and do it again next year....

But what did I learn ?

Lake Placid Marathon, Part I

Let me start by saying that I have never been so relaxed at a starting line in Lake Placid.

That's probably because for the first time in my life I was actually standing at the starting line on pavement, as opposed to say, trying very hard to tread water in Mirror Lake.

This was huge really. I was at the starting line, for a marathon, and I wasn't nervous. It's kind of ironic. Despite my questionable swimming skills I usually get in the front at Ironman, so you could say I have about the same 2000 people at my back in that race as I did at the marathon and half-marathon. The difference is in a road race I can get off the line in a manner that encourages rather than inhibits self-preservation.

That's right. You basically can't hold a marathon outside of Boston or New York that isn't also a half marathon, and three-quarters of 2000 runners were in fact wearing the blue numbers of the half versus our bronze numbers. It's the same start and for most of the first loop we all run together. This presents a real challenge. After all, running a marathon and a half-marathon are totally different endeavors. I was doing my warm-ups and evaluating the top end of the half-marathon guys and it was pretty clear- there were some fast guys, college kids and whatnot, and that was going to make for a fast start on Main Street.

Not just a fast start either. A fast uphill start. Starting basically in front of the top end of the oval, it's a sharp uphill to start out and then a more gradual uphill through town and around to the top of the lake. If you look at the road around Mirror Lake the top of the lake is higher than the bottom, at least the road around it is. If you are doing IMLP, remember that the out on the second out and back at Mirror Lake is uphill going out and downhill coming back.

So it was going to be a quick start, and I didn't want to get sucked up in that. As a potential top ten marathon finisher, I thought I should start right on the line, and I did, but I didn't want to get drawn into the melee.

Overall, I did pretty well. I'd lined up my start up the hill and into town and of course, started running too fast.

I've always consoled myself with too-fast starts at every marathon by telling myself that I could either get the time earlier or later and might as well do it early, or that I could overclock the first mile and then still settle in and be fine. Only I know that isn't true. If the first mile is too aggressive it can throw off the pacing for the entire race. While it's true you should be able to run the first mile pretty much as you like and still recover a normal pace, that requires even more discipline than simply running a solid but unspectacular first mile. And the later option has fewer risks.

At about 3/4 of a mile I saw Darren McGeary, one of my closest friends from high school, on the right side of the road, up past the end of Main Street. I heard him yell my name and kept going.

I hit the mile mark at 6:34, for an uphill mile 1. Now, the worst part of this is that Mile 2 is a downhill. I could have run 6:34 easy on the second mile, but instead I had to back it off on the downhill mile to get back closer to seven minute miles- running hard uphill then easy downhill. Classic bad move. But still, I was able to use that downhill mile to get the race under control. I found myself chatting with one of the half-marathons about how he was carrying his arms too high (more on that later) and trying to run our own races.

This was definitely an issue by this point. Most of the athletes were either wearing race belts- more of us than the typical race, or they had their numbers pinned to the side of their shorts despite repeated instructions that numbers MUST BE WORN ON THE FRONT. (Have I mention how much I loathe the D-Tag and the 'wear on front' BS that comes with it ?) So people were going by me and I was struggling to evaluate half-marathon or marathon. Why ?

That's actually a good question and not one I can answer without admitting that no matter how hard I try to be a good athlete, a smart athlete, I am competitive. I shouldn't have been evaluating people at all, but I was, and yes, it's easy to fight the urge to let someone go when they are running the half. BUt not when they are running the whole marathon. Such as the woman that went by me between 2 and 3. I did check her out and instinct told me, as she put a major hurt on my pace, that she was going too fast. Of course I wanted to believe that....

We plowed out of town and I did a remarkably good job of keeping my desire to haul some ass down the big hill. That hill is a quad-ripper going down and there's no point that early in the race putting a hurt on your legs that you can't recover from.

Then we were on our way out of town, a lot of us, and I knew there were about fifteen marathoners in front of me, mixed in with dozens of half-marathoners. Someone settled in next to me, and despite my dislike of talking while racing, started talking. We started off with how his number was on the side of his pants, where I couldn't see it. He was a full-marathon runner, and he was from the Coast Guard Academy, just graduating. He asked me what I was planning to run as we went down the bottom of the hill and out onto the first out and back- the ironman out and back, and I said under three hours. But somehow, I'd slipped to a point that by around 6 miles, I was running a solid 7:02 pace. This made no sense, but that was that. He was looking to run 3:10. I was about 4 minutes over my pace. He was like 6 minutes under his.

It's a lot of pressure running with someone else in a marathon. You really want to do your own thing and you really, really don't want to talk. But you do. The kid- I mean at just over half my age, I think I am required to call him a kid- was nice. We joked about how when there are trees growing in your fields, you haven't planted crops in a while. I took water at the aid stations, but then just dumped it over my head. I was carrying my own bottle and it would last me through more than 12 miles.

I tried to encourage this guy to run his own pace, but he said he was going to do what he could while he could, which to me is not a great strategy, but hey, I have tried it more than once.

On the first loop the out and back ended at the same place, or about the same place, as the ironman. I had warned the guy I was running with that the 'flat' out and back wasn't. I've heard a lot of people suggest this section is flat, and well, if you take it as a whole, it's not far from flat. However, except for maybe the first mile, it's mostly rollers, and several of the hills are significant as far as what happens to your heart rate when you climb them.

There were a lot of people in front of us, and I wanted to close enough to the out and back to start counting the marathoners. I was steeling myself- at a plus 7-minute pace, it was going to be a lot.

That damn turn-around is always just a little farther than you think it's going to be. I counted more than a dozen guys and one woman in front of us, and the woman was at least 4 minutes ahead of me. That plus the pace I was running gave me pause, but I wasn't worried. I was drinking my electrolyte fizz, and taking a cliff shot every 40 minutes.

Some of the half-marathon people started coming back to me on the back of the out and back. This was a part of the course I was determined to stay disciplined on. There are a couple of short but decent hills and I was absolutely not willing to push. I was drinking regularly for the bottle of Electrolyte Fizz I carried on the first loop- I highly recommend trying some, and taking a gel every 40 minutes, which to this point meant taking one.

I still was running with the other guy from CT and he was holding up well, but I knew the hill back into town was coming. I hit the ten mile mark at over 70 minutes. I didn't panic- not yet, but on the other hand, I had a lot of work to do.

We turned back onto River Road and as soon as you turn, you are on the massive hill that so defines the run in the Ironman. That hill breaks people, that hill coaches tell their athletes to walk up. I attacked it, not hard, but steady, keeping my pace close to what it had been. The guy who had been running with me disappeared off my back. I would see him going the other way after turn-arounds but that was it.

I crested the hill and I felt pretty good, but I was behind and I knew I needed to be steady for a while longer but start taking some risks soon. I was quiet a ways back.

By 12 miles, the leading marathoners including the first woman was on her way back out, half a mile ahead of me in her case (and more for the top three men). I drained my bottle, reached the turn-around, and in about 15th place, tossed the empty bottle on the ground at Margit's feet. I waved to her and Ian as best I could, but as I rounded the cone i was looking at the people in front of me, and I wanted to start catching them.

Which I did....

Kick It Duathlon- April Race report

Sometimes a word can sum up a race.

Mud.

That sums it up pretty well. Michael D'Addetta and I had decided to do the race and despite the rain and the lack of warmth. We'd talked about waiting to decide to see if it was going to be nasty, on the idea that we wouldn't go if it was.

And we each drove there anyway. Michael earlier than me thankfully, as I got lost on the way there.

It was a mess. I ran some of the bike course as a warm-up and it was wet and muddy. I had no idea how wet and how muddy, or what I was in for. Not that I would have been able to do anything about it. I was as ready to go as I was going to get, but warmed up would have been an exaggeration...

We lined up for the start on the grass by the pavilion that served as the staging area. It was a two loop run, a mile loop, and there was nothing fancy. There was a little conversation ahead of the start and then we were off. It was still raining, and damned wet as we headed across the grass.

It didn't take long for the first fall, but ironically in a race that was filled with ups and downs and mud and puddles, the fall came on almost the only section of pavement on the course. One guy, wearing a lake placid marathon and half-marathon t-shirt, had gone off like a bomb at the starting line, running like he could win the race in the first few hundred yards. He roared down the pavement, which was a sharp downhill. At the bottom was a 90-degree right-hand turn. He successfully completed 0 degrees of the turn and went down.

He scrambled back up and was right back in the mix. In fact, I admired his attitude, which was 'did you see that ? I really took a fall, huh ?' In fact, it was a little too much in the excited vein. He was bleeding, but nothing too severe. I was in third place pretty quickly, and running very steady, so I started to move up, finally passing everyone and getting to the front. I went back by the pavilion in first and opened the lead up, running steady, but not too hard.

While I'd tried to stay on dry ground the first loop, I gave up the second loop and just went through puddles with no concern.

I got back to my my bike, jumped on, and worked my ass up the first hill, which was not too steep to force me to get off. It was quite a little climb but then you went down and around, over some planks covering a stream, and back to a bigger hill.

This hill was not worth climbing on a mountain bike with fat tires. It was so slick that any attempt to climb with authority immediately rewarded you with wheel slip, so I leapt off the bike and ran up the hill. I climbed back on and hopped back on the bike, still in first. The wooded section dumped you out on a long wide 'trail' that was rutted from some (past?) life as a vehicle road. I'd lost first place coming out onto here, and as the guy went by me on an Allez with drop handlebars and skinny grey tires. It would be charitable to even call it a cyclocross bike. It was a bike with 25s for tires, nowhere near fat.

This part of the course was an out and back and after the guy that had passed me got to the turn he went back the other way, he asked me if he'd got the turn right. I was tempted to say no, but of course I said yes. I was really struggling. The trail was basically packed mud, wet mud, and puddles, with a lot of skull-sized rocks mixed in just to make sure maintaining a straight line was impossible. I was losing ground fast to this guy. As I went by one of the two race directors I said 'Hey, they let someone on a cyclocross bike onto the course.' I was trying to be cavalier about it but let's face it. I went out on the bike course in first and now I wasn't. Grrr.

After we left this track, the really technical section of the course started. It was a sharp downhill, a 90 degree turn, uphill, another sharp downhill.

Og course, you can never lock your wheels on the trails. The split second you lock a wheel it takes a sideways vector. So I was going too fast and hit a root with my front wheel. the wheel turned sideways, and eventually completely backwards, knocking my front derailleur out of service. I went right over the handbars, landed on my right arm and shoulder and hip. I saw rocks- more skull-sized rocks- all around me, but I hit nothing but dirt. I scrambled back onto the bike again and I was still in second.

Before I knew it I was on the second lap. I climbed the first hill out of transition and got to the top and my heart rate from the climb was somewhere it hasn't been in- who knows ? What I do know is that as I keep moving I started to think I was going to throw upThat never happens during a race. I got back to the hill you have to run up (one of two actually, the second being right after where I fell) and I ran up it. I was slipping even on foot.

The guy on the cyclocross bike- yes, the application said 'fat tire'- was kicking my ass. He hit the turn around on the out and back way before I did. I had two guys breathing down on me and this was enough to get me to stop trying to find dry ground to ride on and go right through the puddles.

I was in third when we got to the back section and as we went at one of the big downhills I did something I never do. I told the guy in fourth right behind me to go around on the left.

Trust me, it wasn't altruism. I calculated the odds- what would happen if I went down and he went into me, how much time would I instead lose by letting him by. The truth is, he and the guy right in front of me in second I wasn't worried about. I had beat them both on the first run, and I would beat them on the second run.

I told him to go around left and he went around left. I did not fall on the downhill that had claimed me as a victim the first time. I then climbed the resulting uphill on foot while they rode it. They didn't pick up any time on me.

They were leaving transition together when I got into it. I used toe clips in the race, so it was easy out and I started to close on the pair. The leader was nowhere to be found. We went down around the killer turn that had eaten the race's first leader and I quickly passed the pair, exchanging pleasantries and moving into second. For the second straight duathlon, I ran really well on my second run. The guys I passed were gapped right away. The race leader was nowhere to be seen.

I continued to pick the run up, came through the back section, passed a volunteer at a 90 degree right hand turn saying to be careful as people had fallen down. I mad e it through, finished the loop and was out on my second. I was spent, but I ran hard, plowing through puddles and mud- it was not an easy run. The ground was soft in lots of places, there was mud in most places. Every step that was not on pavement was hard. But I felt good and before I knew it, I was on final approach. The same guy was at the corner warning me to watch the turn.

He also told me I was in fourth. 4th ? WTF ?

I was in second. I crossed the line and I did go right to the race director and ask about the bike. She said it was a mistake that the race winner had been allowed to race on it. It would turn out the only award was for the male and female race winner.

Oh well. I didn't give her grief. I just pointed out it was the only cyclo-cross bike in the race. She agreed. I wasn't asking her to do anything, and I didn't push it. I even said 'Hey, he still beat me.' But...

I waited for Michael D'Addetta to finish, then I hosed off my bike, changed my clothes, talked to the guys that finished 3rd (lake placid half-marathon/big fall guy) and 4th, and headed home.

Let's face it. I am not a mountain bike rider. I know that. But I had fun, I finished second, and I raced really hard on a crappy cold and rainy day. Normally a race does not replace a long run, but this one was much better.

I'm glad I went, and hopefully I can go back again some time.

Way Too Close

You know as a long time distance athlete I've come to terms with the fact that I 'play in the road'. We're not so much in the road as on the side of the road, but I do the vast majority of my training on the road.

Close calls are pretty common, what with cars passing less than a meter away from you. Sometimes even less than a yard. But 'close calls' are usually not really that close. And running is much safer than bike. You get hassled now and then but it's your job to live with it.

A lot of days, especially when I ride, I'll come home and tell some story to Margit, who will just roll her eyes, maybe because I'm not just living with it as much as I should.

I took the day off Friday because you could tell by Tuesday that it was going to be a beautiful day. This time of year, with a lot of days off stored up, I start using Friday for long rides. However, I have a marathon coming in six weeks, so deep down I know that I need to be getting in long runs. So I got up planning to run 90 minutes.

Before I'd left the house I'd upped that to two hours.

Then I got outside. It was more beautiful than I expected. I had the music cranking in my new headphones, I felt really good, I was setting a decent pace and I was running in my Zoots with no socks. The sun was beaming down and I decided I'd run to the end of 146 and back- giving myself one hour and ten minutes to do it.

The run was going really well. I got to the centre of Guilford, ran through it, and headed towards Madison, looking forward to climbing that nice hill that 146 ends on.

There's a 4 way intersection at the base of the hill. It's about 90 seconds or two minutes short of the turn around- you can see the top of the hill where 146 runs into Route 1 and ends. I was headed for the intersection and as I always do, I was evaluating the traffic. It's a four-way stop and there was traffic in the lane opposite me, and a truck coming from my left, an 18 wheeler.

I looked at the truck and was a little annoyed. I was going to get to my stop sign before he did- and I'm a pedestrian, so there was no question I'd have the right of way. So would the car coming from the opposite direction, I thought.

But instead of slowing down, the truck was, I thought, speeding up. Trying to beat me to the stop sign. Or the car or both of us. So I sped up. I was going to assert myself here, not let this guy take advantage of me.

So i was running hard and I got to the sign and-

That was when it hit me. The truck wasn't trying to beat us to the stop sign.

I was about to hurtle into the intersection. I stop short. Just short.

The truck didn't stop. It didn't slow down. It just barreled through the intersection at about 35-40 mph.

I threw my water bottle at it, hitting the back of the trailer, up high. And then watched the spinning bottle, gatorade spurting out of it, thinking not about how close I'd come to being run over, but rather about how I was losing valuable nutrition.

As I started to run up the hill, three people stopped to ask if I was all right, which I thought was kind of funny, because it's not like the truck did hit me. But it gave me an idea just how close this particular encounter was.

Way too close.

It also made me realse that maybe, just maybe, I've developed adequate discretion out there. Or at least I know enough not to mess with an 18-wheeler.

Brian's Beachside Boogie

Well, this is alway a big race for me. I've won the race twice, raced against a lot of pretty good athletes for a small race, and it is usually a good early-season test of where I am.

Where I am ? That's an interesting thought. With a June marathon and a November Ironman, it's hard to decide where I am, or where I even should be, but with only 3 road races under my belt all season, where I was, in my opinion, was not in race shape. A lot of it was this weird winter. I have a good base but I would say the speed just isn't there. Speed comes from racing and I haven't been.

So I was looking forward to racing. And I wasn't.

I saw Charlie Hornak before the race and barely grunted a hello. I just was't feeling it. This was going to be a hard race. It was cold, overcast, windy.

The race started without a lot of fanfare, just a countdown from 10 and a horn.

The start of a duathlon can be the hardest part. The instinct to go out, to blow up that early part of the first run and establish yourself, is always there. The funny thing about that though is the more people go out hard, the less inclined I am to match it. If I have a chance to establish myself as the guy, or one of two or three guys, then I do it, but if ten guys are going to push it early, then I am not going to.

That's what happened. A lot of guys went out hard, and just settled in with a group of about ten people. I knew a lot of the guys in the mix, and two or three exploded into the front, including Mark Hixson. My goal was to just hang in fifth or sixth and wait for the bike to see where I really was. As we got around half a mile into the run, past the campground, I started to move up. There was one young kid who'd gone out hard and I'd expected to fade, however, after falling off slightly he recovered.

I hate that. Making an evaluation of someone that's wrong. But as Eric says 'all you can do is do all you can do'.

I felt better than I expected on the first run, although I was fighting back and forth with one guy to come in from the first run around that sixth spot. I came in and hopped on my bike and I was gone.

Early in the first loop I had to deal with two guys, one who had passed me (for shame, alan!) and one I was about to pass, fishtailing and nearly crashing into each other in the sand.

I was aggravated to have to slow down.

After that, there was no place changing out to Meigs Point. I caught sight of the people in front and behind me at the tear drop. I saw Charlie Hornak was standing in well and chasing.

I also saw a number of people with either aerobars or horns. That's something that people have learned from me. I was the first guy to stick aerobars on his bike and take it to Brians and now a lot of people do it and that's cool. It's an advantage and it's legal. I hauled as much as as I could from the Point to the woods, and then I started the hardest part of the race for me. I set the bike course up but I'm not a great mountain biker and I lost time in the woods. How much time ?

After emerging from the woods, Charlie passed me on the grassy backside of the course. Maybe this should have engendered some panic, but I always get caught by someone back there, and it's about discipline for me. Staying close (but not drafting) and waiting until I get back to the part of the bike that my strength is on (the road).

That's exactly what I did. Charlie led me back through transition but then I passed him on the harder sand. I thought I'd solved the issue, but the Charlie surprised me but he passed my after the point, really going for it, full out. At this point, my race was with Charlie, and I knew it. As long as he was in front of me, he was the only guy I could pass.

We headed into transition one behind the other and went of transition shoulder to shoulder. He said to me 'I don't expect to be able to hold on' or something like that and as a teammate I should have said something like 'Nah, you can do it, come on.'

But I didn't. At that point, we were competitors and we know each other.

Instead I put the hammer down, trying to set the fastest pace I could maintain. Now, I was chasing Mark Hixson. For the rest of the run, he was my focus, and at first, I thought maybe, maybe....

Nah. I'd closed the gap on the run but he crushed me on the second run.

I ran well, my second run felt like the best part of my race and I definitely did what I had to do. I was surprised to not fall apart that second run, after so little racing, however, I was also disappointed. Despite cutting 18 seconds off last year's time, I was just 6th, and a distant third in my age group.

Not a great performance, but I want to give props. Everyone who finished in the top ten had a really good race. It was fun, and it was a wake-up call for me.

I'm looking forward to what the rest of the season has in store...

Shamrock 5 Miler (Madison)

Finally, my 3rd race of the season.

I have to say, I really wasn't looking forward to this. When you race as seldom as I have this year, the idea of stepping out and running a 5 mile road race on a Sunday morning when I should probably have been running for two hours. After all, I have a marathon to run in June.

I got there with my son Ian in tow, and I'd managed to convince him to actually run the kid's race. That was great. Ian has been all over the map about fun runs and probably the best part of the whole experience to hear him still saying later that day that he a) wanted to run more fun runs, and b) it would make him in better shape. Getting him ready and signed in and handing him off cut my warmup down, however, it was worth it to have him out there (out in the back, to be honest) and running- and enjoying it.

I got my warm-up in and then I was standing at the line talking to Maureen Terwilliger and Martha Merz. Yes, the Martha that was in DC is now back in CT. We were all downplaying how well we were or weren't going to run.

Ken PLatt came up to me before the race and asked me if I was planning to swing my number round from back to front. If you know me, you know this is a pet peeve. One of the reasons that I hate the B tag is that it is supposed to be worn on the chest in fromt of the body. When are the people who make these things realise that a good portion of us would be caught dead before we'd drive four pins through a singlet we've paid more for than we pay for our clothing. (Disclosure: I spent more on training gear last year than actual clothing. I know. Lame, right ?)

I did indeed swing my race belt round to the front.

And then we were off.

As I get- more experienced (read older)- I get more frustrated with young kids that bolt out at the start of a race. I know, it's youthful exuberance. It's also silly. I can see it in a 5K, but we're talking about a 5 mile road race. I expect a little discretion but of course that never happens. The kids go nuts and you are left trying to figure out which ones are bat-shit crazy and which one or two are going to eat your lunch and make you look like the aging man you really are.

I know every inch of the course. There's one short loop on the way out that isn't part of most of our rides or the Madison Triathlon, but not much.

It was clear from the get go that two of the guys were simply going to crush me. Somehow I managed to move up from 15th to 3rd- briefly- at about half a mile. But I could hear two guys behind me and as I made a left hand turn about a mile in they were pretty much on top of me....

Given the shape I was in at the time, I knew better than to try and get into a back and forth 20% into a race. I let them go and concentrated on what Eric says 'My job is to do my job.'

Maureen was close behind me, but she wasn't really pushing, which was good. We got out along the sea wall and of course it was cold and the wind was blowing in, but not that hard. The run out to end of the loop was pretty uneventful. We down two blocks and then cut back in, dropping back down on the road that we had been going out on (think a lollipop with a little candy top) and that's when things got really interesting.

The people coming out were all over the road, and I had tow guys and Maureen close behind. Now this is the same road along the seawall in Madison I ride on all the time and I know every twist and turn of it, but we were running against the meat of the pack, who were about 1/4 to 1/2 a mile behind us.

Me being me, I went on the offensive, basically picking my line and challenging anyone who really wanted to dance to not move. Everyone moved. I worked us all the way over to the right on the tangent, and then as we headed to that small bridge over the fen, which is a nice wide arc, I decided to switch the side of the road. It was the right time to make the move, and we easily negotiated the traffic.

One guy who had been pushing me from behind was right on top of me now and I went to the middle of the road because it was safer, if not the best tangent. At one point a car got on the course but he wisely stopped so we could get by and then I got passed for the last time in the race.

I was sure another guy and Maureen were going to pass me as we made the left-hand turn, but they didn't, and now I was starting to feel the effect of racing something longer than a 5k, especially after riding nearly 3 hours the day before.

We made the right and the next left and that's the home stretch- we were headed home now, running past the golf course, and all I could do was run my ass off with two people bearing down on me the whole time. I just wasn't going to give any ground though and I ended up beating the guy behind me, and winning my age group, by 3 seconds, and Maureen came in a few seconds after that.

I was glad to win my age group and finish 5th or whatever. But the funny thing is, the warm-down after the race was really better than the race itself. Running a 5 mile road race is not going to help me reach my goals. I went back out with Martha and took her through the Madison Triathlon 5k run. We ran it pretty hard and doing that after a short break was even better than the post-race beer. It made me feel like I hadn't, I don't know, wasted a Sunday run with a short race.

That's pretty out of the box thinking for me...

Shamrock 'n Roll 5k

Sometimes in the early season I'll come up on a race that I just dread the thought of. My plan this winter was do at least three races before Shamrock- New Year's Day, Sweetheart, another 5K and then this one.

That didn't happen. I hadn't raced since New Year's Day. I almost posted here the day before the race, but I didn't want to. It would have been negative, about how I was overweight, how I hadn't been running and was going to have a slow race. What would be the point ? To set low expectations that I'd probably then meet.

Sounds like a dumb idea.

I did show up on Sunday morning at the race with a friend, Michael D'Addetta, determined to treat the race like any other, specifically like I was going to be able to go out and have a decent performance, even though I didn't believe it, not one bit.

I did a run out and up Prospect but no one was warming up there. I had not checked the website to see if they had changed the course again this year. They had. I won't complain. Last year I went into this race feeling much like I did this morning, and about 3/4 of a mile into the race I was in so much distress from going hard that I felt like I feel when I start to struggle in the water, and that never happens running. I wasn't just out of my comfort zone. I was out of the zone where I can deal with the stress of race.

So I came back, hit the head again, and then headed for the starting line. The one thing that is a pain in the ass about this race is the starting line. You walk there from Toads and the walk to the line is also the first oh 300 meters or so of the race. So as you are trying to do your strides, the masses are streaming towards the line.

The funny thing is, while this is a pain in the ass, I actually like it, because I pick my lines (and they may not be straight) and I run those lines. I've yet to run into anyone, but it certainly gets your adrenaline up.

Finally it got so congested that there was just no point to it. This race always starts a few minutes late, but finally 1900 of us were ready to go. It was very tight on the line.

Then we were off and I was racing again.

I expected it to go badly, for the stress of race pace to crush me in its unyielding fist. But it didn't. We hooked the first left and there was George Buchanan and a few other guys in front of me. I was back and forth with the ironman guy that looks like Sean Penn. I kind of locked in on him and hung with and suddenly we were running by the museum and we were at a mile. I ran that first mile in about 5:40.

It was strange. I was in control. I knew if wanted to avoid a complete meltdown, I had to control my pace and run 3 steady miles or as close as possible, given that the third mile of a 5K after a long layoff will always be a challenge.

We hit the halfway point and then started back towards the finish and I knew I was slowly loosing ground to people behind me- but slowly. I was still running with good form, there was some serious downhill coming (the race this year brining you in on much of the last mile of the New Haven Road Race course. I was slowly being passed by people, and Sean Penn had pulled away, but I was holding on and not only that, I was clearly in position to run under 18:30 when I was expecting to run over 19:00.

I was in a mix of four guys and I was probably 3rd of the four. What I had no idea about was that Charlie Hornak was right behind me and if it had been 3.4 miles, he might just have caught me.

In the end, I was thrilled. Not about running an 18:28. For me an 18:28 kinda of sucks on a flat course.

No, I was thrilled about the way I felt.

But what really made me happy was this. I drank my free Red Hook, then the free Red Hook that Michael got (he was driving), and then my Recoverite. Michael gave me a ride home and I got there and found myself locked out. So what did I do ? I ran another 45 minutes- ran hard. I didn't even feel the beer. I had a great run, and ever since, I've felt like I was ready to go. The race I thought would crush my confidence instead stoked me for the season. I can't wait now....

Beers on Tap: Super Bowl Party

One or more bottles of each will be on tap for our Super Bowl Party:

Lake Placid Ubu Ale
Saranac Irish Stout
Palm Belgian Ale
Bad Elf
Very Bad Elf
Insanely Bad Elf
Brew Dog's Bashah
Harviestoun's Old Engine Oil
Harviestoun's Old Dubh
Harpoon Catamount Maple Wheat
Heavy Seas Below Deck
*Heavy Seas Holy Sheet
Allagash Black
Duvel Special Edition Tripel Hop
Espresso Oak Aged Yeti
Bel Haven Wee Heavy
Sinebrychoff Porter
Avery's Samael's

and coutesry of @poycc
Samuel Smith Imperial Stout
Guiness Extra Stout

*not really as I'll probably drink this tonight

2011 Polar Plunge

Once again it's that time of year where Eric asks me to jump in some freezing cold water to raise money for a worth cause and challenges everyone to collect as much as they can in donations. If you would like to support my plunge effort you can donate on Eric's site through PayPal or send Eric a check as detailed below. Please email me to let me know what you're donating so I have a running total- and THANKS !

Without further cajoling, I'll let you read on. You can also catch this on: http://www.hodska.com/plunge11.htm and note- as a bonus, I'll post pictures Margit takes of me doing the deed (which I hate, I hate cold water) on my blog (http://rochpunk.blogspot.com).

Hi All,

It’s, once again, that time of year. No, it’s not the holiday season I’m talking about. It’s that time of year when I attempt to recruit a number of you to join me in January in jumping into Long Island Sound. “Why would you do something that stupid?” you may ask if you have never done this. If you have, you are probably thinking right now “I was dreading this letter!” Let’s start with a brief history of the event. In 2005 when the Tsunami hit the south pacific, I thought that we could use the Plunge as a way to raise charitable funds for the American Red Cross, which we did quite well. In fact, that year, we organized simultaneous Plunges in Cleveland, New Mexico, and California. In 2006, we continued this terrific annual event, but decided to make it beneficial to someone closer to home. I wanted those that donated to see directly where their generous funds were going. We raised money for a young boy battling cystic fibrosis. The funds we raised helped offset some of his extensive hospital bills and paid for a well needed vacation to Disney. How cool is that! In 2007, we continued the trend of helping children directly in need by donating funds to a family with overwhelming hospital bills due to testing and procedures with their two autistic kids. The money this time paid for the kids to attend a leading autism medical specialist in Boston, one that their insurance wouldn’t pick up. In 2008, the plunge was in honor of Jacob Rainey, a young boy from Stratford, CT battling Kawasaki’s disease. Anyone that attended the plunge that year saw first hand from Jacob and his mother Kathleen how this simple event had so positively affected their lives. In 2009, we raised funds for a family from Farmington whose mother was hit by a drunk driver while riding her bike and has been left a quadriplegic. Last year, the benefit of the Plunge was a young man from Trumbull who was also struck by a drunk driver and left with insurmountable medical bills.

This year, we will be raising funds and awareness for Help Our Military Heroes (HOMH) www.helpourmilitaryheroes.org, a charity set up by my good friend Laurie Hollander who has sons in the military. The funds will benefit disabled veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, many of whom have lost limbs, by purchasing vans and vehicles for these disabled veterans and have them adapted to each soldiers needs. According to Laurie, "Vans cost from $15,000 to $35,000 each which is an incredibly imposing sum of money for many vets. We make sure all the money raised makes it to the vets." I feel this is an extremely important cause this year (they all have been) as we can easily forget that we still have young soldiers over in the Middle East fighting a war for us daily. This is something that is to easy to lose track of, especially as we deal with domestic issues now like the recession – BUT, it’s important that we don’t forget this and that we do our part to support our soldiers. In fact, Laurie said that if we raise over $4000 from the Plunge, she will go in sans swim suit! OK, maybe she didn’t say this but I feel $4000 is a solid goal anyways.

I realize it’s a pain in the ass to raise charitable funds, so at the very least, we are still raising awareness to this cause just by participating or coming out to watch. The goal is still to try and raise a minimum of $100 each. In the four years that we have done the Plunge, we have raised over $64,000, thanks to all of you who have contributed and/or participated. One of my favorite things about the Plunge is the way that it makes those attending smile – even those of us that are stupid enough to Plunge.

If you plunged last year, you need to come back out this year as you were jipped. Last year was close to 50 degrees and sunny out. You want the real deal – the single digit, snow on the ground, wind whipping New England winter weather!

Here is the official information on the upcoming Plunge for:

When: Saturday, January 15, 2011
Where: Southport Beach on Pequot/Beachside Avenue (Exit 18 or 19 off i95)

Even if you are not plunging, please come down, support the event and watch us plunge, even if it’s only me.

Please e-mail me at ehods@earthlink.net if you are planning on being there so I have an idea of a head count.

Each plunger should make an effort to raise $100 to be donated to “Help Our Military Heroes”. You can send checks to me, bring them with you to the plunge, or donate through paypal at www.hodska.com . If you donate through paypal, please send me an email informing me of this, and note it in your paypal donation so that I can then keep track of each individual donation. Email Eric if you want details on sending him a check!

Morning Spin: Nickelback Shuffle

About once every two months I get caught in a situation where it's late- close to 6AM- I need to start my workout and my Apple TV is not connected to my media server (a mac pro).

That's what happened today, so rather than waste time fixing the problem, I just did a simple, but hard, workout.

I set iTunes to shuffle my collect of Nickelback songs and started up my spin. here's what I did:

1 song warm-up in small ring 15
shift up to big ring 23
1 song per gear, starting with 23, shifting down to a harder gear 7 times (8 songs total) at race pace tempo
then shift back up 23 and sprint for one song
shift back to small ring 15 for 1 song cool down

This whole workout is under 45 minutes and really makes you work while taking you through all your gears. It doesn't have to be Nickelback, but you should do a random mix. It's nice as you go from gear to gear to have that variability of 3:30-5:00 per gear. Each time you do this, it will be different and I think that was the point this morning, to get something different.

Hartford Marathon- Praying to the Plastic Gods

It's a lot easier writing up these blog posts when you have a good race, but hey, if you are going to blog your racings it really isn't fair to just blog the good ones, is it ?

Racing for the six straight weekend, I really had five good weeks. Even Firmman, where the time was a little slow, the overall result- second in my age group- was not bad.

I got up to Hartford almost 90 minutes before the marathon yesterday. It was a perfect day- the air was already warming up from what had been (for this year anyway) a cold night. I didn't want it to be cold- I'm not particularly subject to the cold anyway and I'm not one of those people you're going to see with a plastic bag and gloves when it's in the 50s (or ever. The day you see me with a plastic bag covering my torso at a road race, kick me in the knee and shove me off into the grass. If I try to get back up, kick me again...)

I was able to get about 6 rows deep from the start. For those of you who don't know the (latest) new course, it now starts up in the same area as the 5K and you blast down a hill. While this certainly is a fast way to start (and creates a course that probably has a very slight net downhill, might not be the start that everyone wants. I was back and forth early with Maureen Terwilliger, a great runner and a teammate of mine from Hitek. We went through the first mile under 6:40- a little too fast for me.

This would start a pattern. I ran the first 5 miles in the 6:40-6:45 range, which was a little too fast for me.

I was back and forth with a tall guy at this point in the race and a few times I settled in behind him and let him break the wind, but I don't really like running that was. At three miles a guy tried to pass me on the right just as we were about to make a right hand turn. I squeezed him off- the first of several times. I think I'm been doing triathlon too long because I cannot tolerate someone trying to squeeze by on the right hand side at a curb (or kerb).

I took a cliff shot at 4 miles and kept sipping at my heed. I recently got a container of Strawberry Heed and after doing two races with it I can say that the flavour or something simply doesn't mix with Cliff Shots or Gu. More on that later. At Mile 21 or so...

The miles ticked off pretty quickly. Five, six. I was back and forth with a tall guy at this point in the race and a few times I settled in behind him and let him break the wind, but I don't really like running that was. So I pulled even with him now and then and finally I dropped him.

Around mile 8, after going back over the overpass and heading out towards the out and back, I told Maureen that I was going to drop off a little bit. The pace was too fast. the conservative thing to do would have been to go out running 6:50s and then hold them.

Instead I ran a bunch of 6:40s and then had to take it down a notch.

My other long running races have been successful because I held back until late.

By mile 9, I could tell I was going to really be cutting it close on the three hours. The math isn't that hard to do. It's the same as the Ironman. The math becomes a sort of hostile entity when you aren't going fast enough, but you have to put it out of your mind because otherwise you have 'the thought'.

I only had 'the thought' once during the run. Around mile 11 I thought to myself 'Why did I want to do this?'

This is the killer question. Get this in your head and you might as well go home and stick pins in your feet. Why am I out here, why did I want to do this, etc...

In my defence, I did not spend a month or two training for the race. I did not, to be fair, train for the race at all. I had run 90 minutes outside of races only once in the preceding six weeks and that was the day before the New Haven Road Race 20K.

I had literally signed up for the race the day before. I mean, who does that ? This was a marathon after all, not a 5K or something. So I had to bin the thought a lot more forcefully than usual, because I didn't have the usual 'I've spent months getting ready for this, this is my big day, etc' to call on.

Fortunately, a fellow triathlete came up along side me and asked me which raced I'd done this year. I told him Lake Placid and then he told me that he was doing it in 2011 and that he really needed to work on it because the bike was his week leg. I gave him some advice based on what he said his weaknesses on the bike. We ran together for about a mile and then I let him go. I was definitely struggling as I went through miles 11 and 12. I took my Cliff Shot at 12 miles and ran through to 13 right on 7:00, which was a bit slow. But the miles were still going by.

However, I was not feeling good, and I knew why. It was ironic because I'd just read the article in ESPN magazine about intestinal distress. The brain does not want the body to stop at moments like this, but the body functions less and less efficiently the long you go without relief. And the brain can be a powerful thing- the inclination to never stop is so strong. It's a race. The idea that you'll spend race time sitting in a porta-potty praying to the plastic gods while people are burying you is so poisonous that.

I ran like this, debating it for about 40 minutes, then finally after downing my 16 mile Gu, I pulled into a porta-potty. It took me twenty seconds, and let me tell you, it was worth every second. I'll spare you the gory details.

After that I ran well. Yes, a lot of people had passed me but I quickly started reeling people in and I had three really good miles after that.There's no question that the plastic gods answered the prayer my bowels prayed that morning.

Mile 20 was the deciding mile of the race. I was starting to slow, but ironically, I was still passing people. As the wreckage accumulated around me- one guy running the wrong way with a number on, another woman sitting on the side of the road, her boyfriend urging her to get back up- I just kept that forward progress up.

I'd decided the day before that mile 20 would be a fuel-optional nutrition point. I wasn't sure I could take five gels- that's pretty aggressive. But it seemed like all my fuel stores were either exhausted or just off-line. I needed the calories, so I opened the gel and squeezed it all into my mouth. I immediately gagged. However, like I've done in numerous races, like I will never do again, I swallowed the gel. I am a stubborn human being.

I'd forced myself to go the bathroom. Good move. I forced myself to eat.

Bad move.

I continues to blunder forward. I was running pretty crappy, but I was still amazingly passing people, and I was basically not being passed. I couldn't believe it. I started thinking about visiting the loo a second time, but that well was dry. That wasn't the problem. I kept moving. I kept running. I-

I got two steps away from vomiting, and that's when I stopped running and started walking. Look, I never want to walk. Ever. Never. It cuts me to the bone just to admit that I walked. But if I hadn't stopped to walk I would have almost immediately stopped to vomit, and that would have ended my race.

I walked about 400 meters. People encouraged me by name to get moving again. Lee Bradley ran by me going the other way. Jamie went by me. I started running again before the on-ramp- or off-ramp, it's some kind of frakking ramp. I wasn't running hard and got passed by some more people and dropped by others, but as I ran back into the city and towards Bushnell Park I started passing people again.

I finished in a 3:07 something. As always when I'm embarrassed, I have not looked at the results. So yeah, I'm embarrassed at not breaking three hours, for walking a quarter of a mile.

I also recognise that I ran a 3:07 with no training at all, raced six straight weeks ending with this marathon, and hey, I got a big ass medal and a decent shirt. And I didn't have to wear socks thanks to my Zoots.

Verdict: It could have been worse.

When the Season Ends

Every year I reach a point at the end of the season where it hits me. I'm not going to win a race this year...

I'll be in the middle of some workout one day and it will just come to me. I'm not exactly an epic planner- I sort of just plod along through the season, especially after my a-race is gone- so it's not about knowing that I'm planning to do races I can't win (besides Christopher Martins of course), but rather just a sort of intuition. That was last Saturday. I went riding with two of my Force 5 teammates and the weather had just turned colder. I had an OK ride, but not great and as always happens when the temperature first takes a 15-20 degree drop, I felt winded at the top of the biggest climbs.

But it was on the brick run afterwards that I had the thought. I was running easy, either because I was half-planning to race the next day or because I just didn't have much- I'd gone hard when I was sick earlier in the week, an unusual cold. But as I was running down along the water backwards on the Branford Road Race course I thought about how I just wasn't going to win any races this year. I'd come short at Brian's and really not even had any races that I'd had much of a shot at- I'd hardly raced before Placid and after Placid I'd run three USATF championship races- one a National Championship- and done three triathlons.

I'm not sure what I expect anyway. i'm 45 years old. Why am I even thinking about winning races at this age ? And what difference does it make. Maybe I'll never win another race...

Sunday I had two options, running 75 minutes at 0700h or waiting and running a 3.5 mile 'trail' race at 10AM.

I got up a little after 6, read my email, looked at the weather, played some games and decided that the race was better option. But I wanted to be good and warmed up, and Margit was going to meet me at the race about half an hour before the start so it wasn't going to happen before the race, not with day of registration and so on. So Itried something I had never done before.

I did Spinervals, Aero Base Builder III, an hour long aerobic-effort spin session from 0715-0815. I got a good spin in- my muscles were warm and loose, and I finished the workout ready to go.

I got to the race about half an hour before the start, registered, exchanged Ian, and started warming up.

Because of the spin I was in good shape. I just needed to do strides. I walked my stuff down to Steve Surprise's house and started doing strides. This gave me a chance to evaluate the other people that were there. While it wasn't a deep crowd- just about 150 people, there were two guys I were pretty sure I didn't have to worry about because I would have no chance of beating them, younger guys, taller, leaner, the right type of equipment. That took a little bit of the edge off.

The race started though, and it didn't go the way I thought. Right off the bat, I got an idea exactly how the race was going to be. There was one guy ahead of me- grey-haired, probably around 50, and me.

I settled in behind him as we ran away from Tommy Sullivan's and towards the park.

I didn't want to take the lead early, so as we followed the police car into the Supply Pond, I hung right on him. It was a good pace, I was running hard but I felt like there was room for more.

Then we turned off the road to the left, running across the field that leads to the trails just inside the Supply Pond. For some reason the other runner took the left hand side of the field which I didn't understand because the righthand side was the shorter path. I decided it was time to make my move.

I went by the guy guy on his right and burst into the trail in the woods.

I run well on trails, especially trails like the ones in the Supply Pond that are not technical. After attending Eric Hodska's Lake Placid Camp in June and picking my way over rocks, stumps, and running in stream beds, the flat lazy trails in the Supply Pond are not a challenge. I opened up my stride and started running with as much authority as I could, because that's all that trail running really is. It's running confidently.

I established my lead right away and put the hammer down. Now that I was out in front, just a day off knowing- knowing- I wasn't going to win any races this year, I knew there was only one approach that I could take, and that was to take the lead and run with it.

At about a mile, I got some bad directions and started down the wrong path. The volunteer blocking the path I was supposed to take seemed a little bit offended that I went the wrong way, but it was no harm no foul and I was able to get back on course without giving the lead up. After that I was on trails I know pretty well and I expanded my lead steadily. I never looked back, never listened for the other runners, but I could tell I was comfortably off the front. I still ran as though the rest of the field was bearing down on me though.

I made the two mile mark up a hill and started back towards the way we'd come in. I was feeling good, running hard in in control of the race. Then on the way back out a rotund runner who a late mid packer still only at about a mile said 'You're going the wrong way'. While it was true that I was going the opposite direction of the way the people headed out were going, the course is an out and back, and therefore I was not going the 'wrong way', I was just a lot faster than this guy. Still, having never done the race, I stopped, panicked.

That lasted about one second. Then my brain caught up. Was I running the wrong way ? Probably not. If I was, could I fix it by turning around ? No. I started running again, harder to make up the lost time and also because I was a little mad.

As I wound my way back I knew I'd made the right choice. I broke out of the woods back into the field. There was a van waiting for the first runner- me- and I followed it back onto the tarmac.

I went through 3 miles in 18:07. I then hit the 5K mark and from that point it was uphill. I moderated my effort until I could see the finish line and then I went for it.

I won the race by 25 seconds.

I got a nice trophy and a big shoutout is owed to @soundrunner as they provided a 100.00 gift certificate.

The lesson I learned is you can't make assumptions about the direction of your season until December 31st.

To re-inforce that, I decided to run the Hartford Marathon. Today- just 24 hours before the race.

Time to get some sleep. i have a marathon in the morning....

Last Big Workout

In about 45 minutes we start our last bug workout, two loops of the bike course followed by a short run on the course.

Today's swim is already over. When was the last time I swam at 6 AM ? At Yale probably six years ago.

Bike Loop- Day 1

Just some quick notes on the bike loop we did:

Horrible speed wobble at one point on the first of the two steepest descents. We actually stopped to check our bikes. Each of us thought it was just us. We all thought we were going to crash !

Eric says I am still pushing the hills too hard, like I think I have something to prove and it hurts my running.

Morning Trail Run

Just wanted to post a brief note that our hour forty-five minute trail run totally kicked ass this morning.

We went way off road through the bog and climbed up to a spectacular lookout. It was a blast and Eric did a great job keeping us all together the whole time.

Tri-Camp Day Zero

After a four and a half hour drive, I got to Lake Placid about 10 minutes before the start of the optional swim that opened this year's camp.

I was not 100% sure I should get in- the thought of a major bacteriological sinus infection interrupting my enjoyment of camp wasn't high on my to do list, but after all, I'd driven up here for camp, to get in as much training as possible.

After swimming 1.2 miles, I was energized. It felt great. I just jumped in the lake and swam and except for when we stopped to talk at the turn around and I had to tread water, it wasn't that hard.

Dinner at Nicoloas on Main was great- I got to catch up with Big Rocks, who I haven't seen in a long time.

Now though, I'm looking at a two hour run on three or four hours sleep- yes, the sinus infection rolled in like an Adirondack thunderstorm. Hopefully, the run will clear my head.

Otherwise that loop of the bike course is going to be rough...