Fairfield Half-Marathon

Back in January, I'd set this as one of my three A races for the year. This was not, in hindsight, the smartest move.

We got down to the race on time- Margit and Dick Korby were also running- and after some parking misadventures we actually had a reasonable amount of time to warm up.

Finally I was on the line, half a row back, watching the elite athletes all adjusting their D-Tags after JB gave D-Tag instructions and they realised the tags were not exactly right.

The start of the race is fast and furious and maybe I shouldn't be right in front because I'm not that good any more or... nah. I haven't started thinking that way, at least not at the race... OK, maybe I was a full row back.

I didn't feel that wonderful at the start of the race. We'd been out late at the Branford fireworks the night before and my legs were hardly fresh from training, which included some long hard rides (well, not exactly long, just 50-60 miles). I always feel like I'm being engulfed at the start of the race, both by men and women that might just have staying power and by the burn and crash crowd. I don't really care, because I figure if I'm going to be fighting for a spot in the top 40-50 out of 2500 people, I'd better have myself positioned well early.

It spreads out pretty quickly and yeah, it's a little soul-crushing to have the really top-notch runners eating your lunch to the tune of a full minute at mile one. I mean, there are guys out there who are going to run half a marathon at sub-five pace. The longest race I ever had a sub-five minute mile in was a 10K, and you can bet it was only one mile.

You either push crap like that out of your head pretty quickly or you (hey wait, is that what happens to me in the swim during triathlons, the or...) Anyway, Shannon McHale pulled up next to me and went stride for stride as we neared the mile mark. But I wanted no part of that. Shannon is an olympic qualifier quality athlete and I'm not at her level. I could see the clock and decided to ratchet it down half a notch.

I was expecting Dave Pantin or another one of the people I'm usually back and forth with to pass me but the people I did see I didn't recognize. I was falling a little out of contact with people though and trying not to get frustrated and stay patient as I went through two miles and the first hill started to loom in front of us.

In long races I have a theory about how I should run hills, which is that I should simply defend, that is, run at around the pace of the people around me. Because climbing is my one strength, rather than beat myself up on hills, I try to hold back and wait for hills late in the race where I can attack and where it won't matter how gasses I get. I was passing a few people up that first big hill, but nothing major. I starting sipping at my bottle of heed and tried to stay settled in, although more people passed me after we crested.

It was somewhere on the resulting downhill that we ran into some of Team in Training people. Team in Training does a lot of good work both with charity and with bring athletes to sport. Sometimes these athletes are less-seasoned. At long road races, you will sometimes see Team in Training people out walking the course. I guess this makes sense- if you can't run a half-marathon (or don't think you can), walk it first. And they send the athletes out well-ahead of the start of the race so they are not finishing late in the day (I assume these athletes are not competitors and don't get finisher medals).

Where this causes a problem is with your lead runners, who running in small packs, groups of three to five who are looking for short sight-lines and tangents. I wasn't really thinking about there being walkers out on the course.

I certainly wasn't expecting to go into a turn and find three of them walking side by side, taking up an entire lane of the road, I watch some of the people in front dodging them and I yelled "Clear the arc. Walk single file."

They immediately complied, which was great, but I have to wonder what they has been thinking as the elite athletes went streaming by them and I'm surprised I was the first one to say anything to them three or four minutes later.

I had been behind six minute mile pace by the second mile, and with each mile that ticked off, it got a little worse. I did once run six flat on this course once, so running in the 6:20s was not really what I wanted, however, that six was a long time ago. There's quite a bit of work in miles four, five and six and it's important to really hold yourself in check in these miles as you can overcook yourself.

There wasn't much movement placewise in these miles. I was back and forth with one guy in a red singlet, and I passed one or two people, but I also spent a lot of time running by myself.

It's a no ipod race, so I'd taken my headphones and place them in the pouch of my singlet, with the shuffle clipped to my race belt. About six and a half miles in, the ipod fell off the belt. It landed on the double-yellow line. It wasn't much of a decision, race or no I had to pick it up so I quickly turned and bent over. I looked up. There was a car bearing down on me at about 25-30 miles an hour and not slowing down. I had one chance to pick the ipod up, after which the car would be too close for me to get up and get moving without getting hit.

The car didn't slow. I got the ipod in my hand and ran hard.

I probably lost 3-4 seconds at this.

Cars. There were more on the road than I remember any other year.

At a bit past eight miles I believe, there was an odd 4 way intersection. I'd picked up a white SUV that was coming into the traffic lane behind me and to be honest, this is exactly why ipods are banned at this race. I think for the level of athletes that are not running in packs, this particular course is just not safe with ipods- it's just too long to have the soft of traffic control I'd normally expect at a race.

I went through the middle of the intersection because that was the line of the road. I wanted to move right so the SUV could accelerate by me, however, when I turned to look the SUV was passing me on the right at 25mph. The woman's window was open and I barked 'slow down'. She replied:

'Get out of the road.'

This was too much. I'd felt a lot of pressure from cars on the course, more than I was happy with, and this dimwit was passing me at speed on the right. I didn't care that she had her husband and at least one kid in the car. I unleashed some choice invectives, then got back to focusing on the race.

I was still holding back until the big hill- the one with the turn in the middle. I went through the water station before the hills closing on the guy in front of me, who'd I'd been trailing for a good 5 miles, closing the gap from about 300 meters to maybe 50.

Another runner in front of him was coming back in the distance.

It was close, but I made the pass right at the top of the hill. I was determined to have him looking at my back on the downhill and as soon as I'd passed him I was working on the man in front of me. I was able to cut the gap in half and as we went through a twist in the road I drew even with him as an SUV pushed by us coming at us, deny us the tangent. We went through a ladder-mounted sprinker together and then he was off the back as well. I had one more guy in front of me I thought I could catch. We went through twelve miles before the turn I think, and as I went to make the turn there was a woman walking her dog. She went into the cross-walk with the dog and cut me off.

I couldn't believe it but all I said was 'Come on, lady'. I wanted the guy in front of me to be behind me, and I was able to make the pass. Then I was after the next guy, but he had 100 meters at the last turn and I was chasing him to no purpose. We passed the start and by the time I got there, he was headed into the beach.

Off in the distance was the giant American flag, tantalizing and not the finish, I reminded myself.

I made the turn and then I was running on the stones and sand, struggling a bit on the soft ground. Then I was under the flag and after that, quickly through the finish line. The next guy behind me, the last one I'd passed, lost 30 seconds in that last mile.

A 1:24:16, 36th overall. Not great. But I'd had a great week of training and it was a solid race. I've run 1;24 3 times in the last four tries.

Can I complain about that ? Well, of course. But I won't.

Fairfield Half Marathon

My life is a strange combination of the exquisitely choreographed and the hopelessly haphazard. On one hand, I'm signed up for two ironmans this year, which requires you to not only decide on the race a year in advance but hit a five minute window on the internet. On the other I spent all week debating doing the Health Net Triathlon to support my team- Force 5 Sports. In the end, it was clear that would have created too much havoc in a weekend workout ecosphere that included a 7 hour workout for Margit. While she would have made the adjustment, it didn't make sense.

I started considering running Fairfield instead on Friday morning. But I probably would have stayed on the fence about it if I hadn't gotten a totally random call from JB (of JB Sports) on Friday afternoon. We talked briefly and he encouraged me to come down and run the race. There's three race directors I have trouble saying no to- JB, Marty, and the one that lives in my house. Of course, online registration had closed at noon and with over 3000 runners coming to the half and the 5K there was no way I was going to ask JB to sneak mine in.

Although I was signing up at the last minute, I did go into the race with a plan. That plan was to use the race to mimic how I want to do the Lake Placid run, that is, easy on the first half and careful on the early downhills. I was also going to use cliff blocks for nutrition, but it turned out that the ones in my trunk had already been eaten. My teammate Steve Surprise, who rode down with me, loaned me 4 dollars to get more- thanks, Steve.

When I got done with my warm-up, I saw Jim Zoldy and that was cool- I wanted to congratulate him on a great Escape from Alcatraz (the triathlon, not the prison).

I lined up right in the center, ending up behind the leading women contenders, who packed in after I picked my spot.

JB gets the race going pretty well on time, which is very cool.

Of course, the first mile always is a little bit too fast. It's a nearly board flat mile with about two turns, a long field of vision for the runners, and the adrenaline that many people feel when they have 1600 people on their heels. I have to be honest. i don't feel it. What I feel a combination of panic and embarrassment as truly great runners start pulling away, although ironically part of the panic is the knowledge that they still shouldn't be that close to me, and I'm over-exerting myself.

When I first saw the one mile clock I was about twenty seconds away from it and it said 5:20. I didn't even wait until I got to it- I started backing off straight away. I went through in 5:43 or so. As I trimmed my speed in the second mile, people started to pass me, including Jim, who I would only see for maybe a mile or so, and at a distance. Jessie and Natoli went by.A few guys I know are from the Danbury area went by. Dave Pantin pulled along side and this young big-chested guy with no shirt and an Old Spice aura also passed me. He appeared to be running especially hard for his build and where we were in the race.

I let it all go. I'd like to think that as I get older, I'm getting more intelligent. I mean, people tell me I'm intelligent, but the truth when it comes to sports is not exactly. I tend to be more intelligent when I'm operating very close to my margins. Six or seven years ago when I was all in as a runner, I could run crazy the first five or six miles of Fairfield, pound out some ridiculous sub-six miles, then just hang on. Of course, when I finished I looked and felt the Ramones hotel room the day after the show. These days, if I did that I'd end up running 1:28 or slower.

There's a big hill right there and I worked up it, but only at 90%. This is a big hill, but short and completely manageable. People still came back to me, and some people clearly were pushing too hard. At the top you get some nice downhill, then another uphill...

... and so on. The course kind of rolls like this, with the general elevation increasing, but both sharp climbs and decents, until mile seven. I was determined not to push the downhills. Again, I wanted to use the race as a training run for IMLP. the first seven miles are downhill and the worst marathon I've run in three tries at that race was the one where I opened up with 7 miles in 42 minutes. I was back and forth with people around me, including Dave. We'd get to hills, I'd push at 90% or so and get small gains, then on the downhills hold my own or more likely lose ground. However, as we got past the halfway point of the race, I sensed the people around me were starting to fade slightly and some of the people in front of me were coming back to me.

I decided that since I was on the back half of the course, I was going to attack on the downhill, within the idea of keeping a steady pace, not shredding my calves, and so on. I'd taken a bag of Cliff Shot Blocks at six or so miles and that was kicking in, so I went for it, opening up my stride and...

By mile 10, when the hills had come back, I'd moved up about half a dozen spots and felt really good. I continued passing people- and everyone was really positive and supporting with one another- it was a great group of runners today.

I saw Natali ahead of me as I crested the last hill, caught him after mile eleven, and then just pushed it in. I passed two other runners from Danbury and then as Mark Gihouly announced it, it was a race between me and Manoel Leal to the finish line. Except I wasn't blowing up my tight calf to sprint and he crushed me by five seconds.

I tossed my chip to a volunteer and headed back out for Steve, feeling pretty good about my run. Steve was already at mile 12 when I got out there and we had a good run back in. All in all a good day for a run...

Fairfield Half- Marathon

Still in post-season mode. I decided to run Fairfield last night but was certainly not trained for it. On Friday I'd gone out and done a 75 minute run/40 minute time-trial brick and Saturday I'd ridden for three hours and mowed the lawn. I'm still icing the knee and my legs kind of hurt, so it was interesting decision, still, since I was planning on otherwise running for 90 minutes, I figured why not add an hour of driving time and a 35.00 t-shirt. You can never have enough of those.

Besides, I had a cool new kit to race in, courtesy of Dave Greenfield. My Elite Bicycles singlet and tri-shorts were just dying to be hauled through what is usually a brutal race. What makes the race so hard is a combination of factors- a top-notch field and a flat first two miles makes for over-cooking the early miles, the hills can wear you out early, if they don't get you the three mile downhill probably will, and the scorching humidity will broiling you in the home-stretch.

Today, for a change, coming off a 55 degree night, the heat was not a serious factor. And as Chris Schulten put it 'I looked like I was running comfortably.' In a sense this was ironic, because my knee was still hurting when Chris saw me (first mile), and because my calves hurt the entire race (on and off, but with lots of on). Nevertheless, my goal was to run comfortably, make the race a hard training run. I need to keep pushing myself because my legs tend to feel better the day after a good run or ride, not worse.

I went out about 6 minutes, which, while fast, was reasonable. I had some people around me I felt I could run with, I had a good mini-nutrition plan (Power-Gel at 2, 6, and 10 miles.) Except for being cut off by the same runner three times in the first three miles as they surged and then faded (finally going off the back and staying there), I felt like I was having a solid, if slightly slow, race. They changed the course this year and to me, the mile markers seemed to be a little funky. But I never started my watch and since there's very little flat running in the middle miles, who knows.

I was trying to run about the same pace as one of my teammates, Ian Frankel, who'd handed me my hat (visor ?) at Branford. He pulled away a few times, but I would close back on the hills and I was keeping him in my sights. I was also ignoring the occasional twinge in my left calf that felt like a knot was about to blossom. Finally, at around 7 miles, during what has to be a sustained three mile downhill, Ian paused to get some water and I passed him. I then surged past another runner as we went up a short rise. As soon as I passed him, he accelerated. At first I pushed again. I'd been gaining on this guy for some time, felt I'd established a faster pace and was a little confused by his decision to start trying to race mile 8.

I decided that I was not ready to race yet. And thus began a frustrating three miles. Now, I've gone on record saying that in a triathlon, I think there are times you battle to keep a cyclist from passing you as well as times you don't. For me, this is mostly about people I've already passed. Make no mistake, this is just about having to interrupt my own cadence and drop back for a rider who is going outside their previous pace to battle it out as well as not wanting to get involved in those back-and-forth battles on the bike, which I believe encourages drafting by the other riders in the area where it occurs. If you're going to pass someone, pass them. If you're struggling in the 15th second to get a tire-width ahead of someone, you shouldn't be there.

There's not a drafting rule in running though, and I've accepted that to run my own race, I cannot, absolutely cannot, battle with runners until very late in the race, when the outcome is actually up for grabs. Tack on to someone and let them help pull me into a group I'm already trying to close on, yes. Engage in psychological warfare with other runners trying to determine who has the biggest stones with 5 miles left to go in a race, no. alan go boom.

So I let the guy go, without backing off. The downhill was still going on, and I was trying to moderate my effort so I'd be ready for the last few hills. Ian caught up and then passed me after 9 miles. However, at around 10 miles he had to stop for water again. I continued pushing on the hills and on the very last uphill, I started by this same runner again. He immediately and obviously surged again and although I'm sure it was uncalled for I made a comment about runners and their egos (and hey, I was a runner once- not fast enough anymore to be one). I kept my pace consistent and on several occasions this led me to start to pass him. Each time he surged, or so it seemed to me. To be fair, it could have been my imagination, but it didn't seem like it.

Finally, after mile 11, I just picked it up a notch. After all, I'd been at about 95% and as I pushed, my legs felt good, better than they had all day. I ended up being glad this guy was behind me, because I really pushed those last two miles and finally felt like I was running well. Who knows ? I might just have been imagining what was going on, but it gave me the push I needed.

I felt bad for Ian. If he had not had to stop for water, he'd certainly have beaten me and ran a better race.

I surprised to see that I'd actually beaten my last time by about 15 seconds. It's a great race. But the drivers sure seem testy today.

A big nod to teammates Chris Schulten, who buried the course in 1:17, Ian Frankel, Steve Surprise, who skipped a sprint triathlon to do the right thing for his Lake Placid training, and Bill Sheetz, who looked like he had a great race.