Run to Win

Week four of the nineteen week Back Cove 5k Race Series was tonight, and there was a good turn out. There have been over 70 people registered over the past month for the series, which is more than I expected this early in the season.

Today, I went out not knowing what to expect. Since I will be running two marathons this fall, I wanted to see how quickly I could bounce back. I ran the Vermont City Marathon three days ago, and while active have not actually worked out since then. I wanted to see what a fast 3 miles felt like with that little recovery. If I could do that, then chances are I could still use the October 17^th marathon with Dean Karnazes as a last training run and still run around 3 hours in New York City.
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Last August, I wrote about how Lance Armstrong was accused of doping in the 1999 Tour de France. French newspaper L’Equipe accused Lance Armstrong of using EPO, an illegal steroid. A Dutch anti-doping agency has exhonerated Lance Armstrong and claims that not only is there validity to the testing methods that were used, but that the testing methods may have been illegal to begin with.

“Today’s comprehensive report makes it clear that there is no truth to that accusation,” Armstrong said in a statement. “I have now retired, but for the sake of all athletes still competing who deserve a level playing field and a fair system of drug testing, the time has come to take action against these kinds of attacks before they destroy the credibility of WADA and, in turn, the international anti-doping system. The report confirms my innocence, but also finds that Mr. Pound along with the French lab and the French ministry have ignored the rules and broken the law,” Armstrong said. “They have also refused to cooperate with the investigation in an effort to conceal the full scope of their wrongdoing.”

This whole situation is a big mess. Here is what happened in a nutshell:
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The Vermont City Marathon was the most part a very well run race. I have a detailed course analysis already written, and here I would like to touch on a few other aspects of the race.
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Here are my splits from the Vermont City Marathon this past Sunday. I did not get a split at mile 26, so the last split is actually for 1.2 miles or around thereabouts. Also, miles 7 and 11 did not get clicked until I was a bit past them as I was busy sucking down goo and getting water as I went by, which means that those two miles are a bit long and miles 8 and 12 are a bit short. You can also add a bit over a minute to my split at mile 15, since I stopped my watch while I was in a port-a-john. Here are the splits, which do a good job of reflecting the hills:
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Over at Complete Running, they used to have a feature called “Running Blog Recents” which has been missing for the last few weeks. The Running Blog Recents is an RSS feed that lists the latest articles for over 700 websites that deal with running.

The reason that the Running Blog Recents has been missing has been because it used too many resources for their current hosting plan. The site operators are currently in the process of migrating to a new server with a lot more resources which will allow them to turn the feed back on. I’ll post an update when they are back up and running, along with a link to subscribe.

The Vermont City Marathon has a very spectator friendly course. My fianc� was easily able to see me run by 6 times. The course is also a bored runner friendly course, because there are no multi-lap segments. You do cross over the same points more than once, but only once are you going in the same direction and that is for less than a quarter mile total. There are 5 places where you actually double back on a road you went in the other direction on, one of which is a few miles long. The course is not flat by any means, but there are only two large hills. The biggest uphill stretch is going by Battery Park around mile 15, and the biggest downhill stretch is around mile 21 �. The rest of the course is a series of rolling uphills and downhills where your split time will reflect the hill, but your body doesn’t necessarily notice the grade. There is only the one downhill stretch where you worry about the jarring that you are getting. Here is what you can specifically expect as you move along the course:
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This weekend was a lot of fun as I drove out to and ran the Vermont City Marathon. Over the next few days I will be posting some more information up about the race as I get a chance to put my thoughts and memories to the site. I plan on discussing the race for people interested in running it in the future, discussing the race from this weekend, and breaking down my own race including splits.

I did fairly well considering not having as much of a base or any of the speedwork that I had when I ran the Mystic Places Marathon. I finished in just over 3 hours without expending an inordinate amount of effort. I am already moving around pretty well, and even managed to carry five gallons of wort from my deck to my basement a day after the race; my fiance and I are brewing beer for our wedding favors.

The Vermont City Marathon is this Sunday. The race begins at 8:05 in the morning (unless you are a wheelchair participant in which case you start at 8:00 am sharp), and some time around 11 am I should be coming through the finish line. It is a loopy type course that looks like it will be good for spectators as you cross through a central point a half dozen times. You do not actually do a lot of doubling back, though, which is nice. It looks on the map as there is a 6 mile stretch early in the race where you do an out and back on a highway, and that the rest is a lot of small loops.

I am looking forward to the race. If anybody is in the Burlington, Vermont area then keep your eye peeled for me in my Maine-Run to Win racing singlet. Feel free to cheer me on.

*UPDATE* I was lazy and don’t have anything ready for the weekend. Catch you all next week.