Finish Line at the Houston Marathon

It was a great weekend. I knew it would be something special when within a few hours of getting there last Thursday I’d already met up with a half dozen people I knew (and all at random, none of it was planned.) That night, my wife and I crashed a local running club’s pasta dinner (okay, we were invited, but it’s more fun to say we crashed it.) The next day, we met up with a friend of ours that was also in town to take a tour of the Johnson Space Center, and then I spent the afternoon at the Expo trying to drum up business for my book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KneUwacajQw

Download This Video: MP3 – Watch on YouTube

Women at Olympic Trials

That afternoon, my wife and I decided to run to Rice Village for lunch, which was about a 5 mile jog from where we were staying. We actually went to the Chocolate Bar first to get some ice cream, then went to lunch. Rice Village strikes me as being similar to Freeport if you cut Freeport in half. After lunch, Erin took the train back downtown and I decided to run through Herman Park and then back to our hotel, making it about a 13 mile day right before my marathon.

Meeting Brian Sell

Erin wasn’t too happy that I’d been up drinking until 11:30 the night before my marathon, but it doesn’t seem to have affected me too much. I felt fine the next morning, made it to the starting line early enough to get a photo with the Maniacs, and seeded myself around the 3 hour pacer since I honestly had no idea what sort of pace I’d be able to run and figured the best I could do would be 3 hours and a few minutes.

A few miles into the race, Gary Allen was running next to me and spotted me, so we decided to settle into 6:50/mile pace for the next hour since Gary’s “A” goal was just to break 3 hours. Of course, that never happened. We were busting out 6:43s no matter how hard we tried to slow down, and this turned out to be one of the best paced races I’ve run at this distance. Overall, I ran a 56 second negative split and my 5k splits only varied by a second or two per mile. At the end of the race, I got passed by a couple of people in the last 4½ miles, but I passed 25 people. My final time was 2:55:40.

It was a lot of fun, even if I don’t really care for all that concrete that they use for roads down there. I don’t think I’ll be very likely to go back, as I also prefer smaller races, but it was worth running for sure.

GAC Fat Ass 50k

“Pain Is Temporary. Quitting is Forever.”
    –Lance Armstrong

I drove down with some friends the GAC Fat Ass 50k this morning with the intention of running all 5 loops. Given the beautiful weather, it almost seemed a crime not to.

It was a lot of fun, despite the lack of anything even resembling snow (at least once it warmed up a little we got some mud to run through) and there were a lot more people than I expected.

Running in a singlet in January in New England somehow seems wrong, but it’s a fun loop and a good group of folks that come out to run.

I was running at a good clip for almost 3 loops when I started to feel a small twinge in my achilles. Not enough that would stop me during a race or even a workout if I were training for something, but enough to make me notice it and consider whether I should continue on for a fourth loop or not given that I’m running another marathon next weekend and I don’t want to risk getting hurt for it.

I decided that it was better to be smart than to have fun and take risks since I had nothing to prove today, but it was a hard decision. The decision did have one benefit in that I had a ride at that point and was able to reclaim a few hours of my day and my afternoon was quite productive, but it was so nice out that it still seems a shame to have stopped.

Hopefully I can get back next year and do a proper job of running all 5 loops.

2012 Boston Ice Sculpture

Last year, I drove down from Maine with a friend from Maine. This year, I spent New Year’s Eve with another friend that lives in the Boston area, which was actually quite convenient because I was able to drop my car off near the Boston Public Library and have it waiting for me near the finish line when I was done.

We arrived in Hopkinton around 5:45 in the morning to join a quickly growing crowd of about 30 runners. Apparently, a good portion of our group was planning on running the course at 7 a.m. instead so they could sleep in a little, and I also heard that the B.A.A. had a group that was planning to run at 9:30 a.m. I’m not sure how many or if anybody showed up for those runs, but our group was around 30 runners strong and about a third of us planned on running the entire way.

The sun had yet to rise for a little over the first hour of the run, and despite warmer temperatures than last year the roads were much slicker from the previous day’s freezing rain. At least it wasn’t as slick as Maine had been on New Year’s Eve…before driving down I took a tumble on my morning trail run and hit the ground pretty hard. As far as I’m aware everybody managed to keep their feet during the marathon.

There was definitely more traffic this year. Last year we pretty much had the streets to ourselves until we got near Boston, but this year there was a regular stream of cars passing us or crossing our paths. I’d consider it light even by Maine standards, so while we couldn’t take up the entire road this year we still had no trouble and for the most part got to spread out across one lane at least.

Around 9 or 10 miles into the run, we passed a murder of crows that came out to watch us run. Gary told us not to look up because the one on the left looked pretty mean, but I think they enjoyed watching us. He also pointed out that we should “notice that there’s no unicorns up in the power lines to cheer us on.” I believe that the first of our group actually finished running the course before the first B.A.A. group got around to starting theirs.

Along the course, there are plenty of Dunkin Donuts that are open, even at 6:00 in the morning, for those needing to use the facilities. The only real problem with relieving yourself is that you then have to play catch-up to reach the group again.

The second time I had to catch up to the group, I decided to take my time doing so and spent a few miles on my own. When I did catch up, Amanda was in that pack and both of us seemed pretty content to take our time through the Newton Hills and moved into the grassy median going up the hills. While the ground was uneven and frozen, it wasn’t as icy as the roads around there so it was easier to keep our feet. We didn’t catch back up to anybody else and ran the rest of the way in to Boston together, where her boyfriend was filming the finish and caught our epic sprint to the line on film. I’m hoping that cut makes it past the chopping room floor!

We ran in a leisurely 3:37:08, about 15 minutes slower than I ran it last year and about 3½ minutes faster than the first time I ran Boston back in 2005. Of course, I was miserable in 2005 and felt great on Sunday so it’s hard to even compare those experiences.

After the run, most of us hung out at a Starbucks a few blocks away from the finish line where I showcased my new book and swapped stories with a great group of friends.

If you don’t have plans for the new year next year, you should really consider joining us.

Trail Monsters at Stone Cat

The morning began with a 4:30 continental breakfast at the hotel. They opened the doors and got everything going early for the racers, which I thought was a considerate touch that I don’t usually see when I travel to races. I had brought my own food that I was used to, so I just made use of their toasters and orange juice before heading back up to my room to get dressed for the race and to make sure my bag had everything I’d want or need for the start/finish aid station.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather on race day. The Stone Cat races comprise a marathon and 50 miler that both start at 6:00 in the morning. The 50 milers head straight into the woods, while the marathoners only run to the treeline before hanging to the right and running a 1.2 mile loop to get to the same point. Once in the woods, the marathoners run 2 of the 12½ mile loops while the 50 milers run 4 of the loops. We were greeted to clear skies (though dark) and temperatures in the low 30s at the starting line, eventually to warm up to a sunny day in the mid/high 40s for the late morning and early afternoon when most of of the runners would be finishing.

Satellite Map of the the Stone Cat 50 Miler

Loop 1 – Strategy

The goal during the first loop was to go slow. Painfully slow, if necessary. It would be dark, and I didn’t want to trip and fall on a tree root or rock and didn’t want to waste any energy that I didn’t need to. My headlamp is bright enough that visibility wasn’t going to be a problem, so once I got into the trees I’d try to settle into a pace that was right around 9:20 per mile, give or take about 10 seconds. Ideally, I’d come through in 1:55 to 2 hours. I’d be wearing my hydration pack, which would give me somewhere to stow my headlamp after the sun came up since I wasn’t sure if I’d have any friends at either of the aid stations to drop it off with.

Loop 1 – Execution

Headlamps of Runners at the Start of the Race

I pretty quickly settled into my pace, getting passed by at least a dozen or more people within the first mile. I was running with my friend Ian for about half a mile, and we were chatting, but then I got to a hill and walked up behind another runner, Dima, who had not brought a headlamp. He seemed to be running at a reasonable pace, so I ran with him for a few miles, which made it easier for him as I have a bright headlamp and he had none. Once the sun came up, he went ahead and while I would almost catch him at the end, he still beat me by a couple minutes.

About 3½ miles into the loop, I went through the flooded area of the course for the first time. My feet got cold and wet, but it wasn’t too bad and they’d warmed up just fine by the time I got to Al Cat’s Lounge at about 4.2 miles. (My feet were dry by the time I got to the second aid station around 7½ miles into the loop.) Passing through Al Cat’s Lounge, they asked if I needed anything but all I wanted was a trash can as I’d taken my first gel and I was carrying my own water so I just planned to pass right through.

The lead pack of marathoners was around 12 to 15 strong when they passed me around 5½ miles into the course. I would later catch back up to at least a few of them that had gone out a bit too fast while I was running my second loop.

My water pack has been temperamental for me since this Summer. It works fine for my wife, and it worked fine for me the first year or so I used it, but sometimes it doesn’t like to actually let me get any water out of it. So today it worked well for 5 miles and then it was too much work to get much more water out of it the rest of the day. I never did put my headlamp into the pack, since I wore it the entire loop even after turning it off shortly before the marathoners started to catch up.

Because the pack wasn’t behaving, when I took my second gel near the second aid station, I did stop for a cup of water but quickly moved on my way. It was probably a good thing the pack didn’t make it easy to drink; I was well enough hydrated as it was. I spent more time watering the trees than I did in the aid stations, even counting for gear changes near the start and finish. I actually stopped 3 times each of the first 2 loops, and twice in the 3rd loop.

I averaged about 9:12 pace for the first loop, coming through right around 1:54:55. Right about where I wanted to be.

Stone Cat Elevation Profile

Loop 2 – Strategy

The goal for the second loop was to maintain that same easy pace, which should still feel pretty comfortable. It might get a little tougher later in the loop but for the most part I expected the first 25 miles to be relatively easy and hopefully I’d be able to maintain a pretty good rhythm. I would be dropping off my headlamp at the start/finish area, and leaving my hydration pack behind and picking up my waist belt which carries two bottles. I had one bottle full of water and one full of Crank e-Fuel.

Loop 2 – Execution

The Start of Loop 2

The timekeepers were trying to figure out my bib number, but I told them I’d be stripping off my Run to Win shirt which I’d used to keep a little warmer in the dark. The rest of the race, I’d be running in my Trail Monster singlet, which I’d had on underneath.

As I headed back towards the woods, I pulled my arm sleeves down over my hands, so rather than going from wrist to mid/upper arm, they went from fingers to elbow. I also swapped my watch to my right arm since the left hand was number and I wanted to make sure I didn’t restrist the blood flow.

I figured out really quickly that my waist pack was a mistake. It’s great in training, but it messes with my center of gravity too much while racing. I also didn’t need nearly that much in the way of fluids.

When I came to the downhill stretches and the flooded part of the trail, I actually took the bottles out of the pack and carried them in my hands since I could move faster and easier that way.

Oh well, lesson learned. I knew that if Erin was at Al Cat’s Lounge I could drop the pack with her, and if not then I considered leaving it anyway and recovering it later. I didn’t see my wife, but I did see my friends Erik, Chandra and Four so I left the water bottle with Erik, grabbed a third of a banana, and kept moving.

The rest of the loop, I kept the bottle full of Crank either in my hand or swapping between one side of the pack or the other, with the pack twisted around so the bottle was right behind me rather than being unbalanced to one side. This actually worked out pretty well; I still didn’t want the bottle in the pack while I was running downhill but the rest of the time it didn’t bother me.

Shortly after Al Cat’s Lounge, I started running with Greg. We’d be within earshot of one another for the rest of the second loop, and for a mile or so of the third. Other than the 2 miles or so that I had company at the beginning of the race, and a bit over a mile at the end of the first loop when I ran with a man named Jeff, this would be the only time I’d really be running with another person the entire day.

I didn’t bother much with the second aid station since I was carrying the Crank in my water bottle, although it did begin to get a bit strong by the end of the loop so I wasn’t drinking as much anyway.

I kept looking out for my friend Emma, who had passed me near the end of loop 1, since she’s usually really good at running an even pace and it would have been fun to run with her for a while.
When I got to the end of the loop, though, I was told that I was way ahead of her, which made no sense to me.

Greg and I averaged a pretty solid 9:22 pace for the second loop. I came through somewhere in the 3:51:xx range, about a minute and a half to two minutes slower than I ran loop 1. Right on schedule.

My Running Pace at the Stone Cat 50 Miler

Loop 3 – Strategy

The goal for the third loop was to maintain that same easy pace, although I fully expected that running at the same effort level was going to begin getting difficult so if I dropped back a little that would be okay as long as I kept moving and maintained the same effort. Between the two aid stations was where I expected trouble to really start based on my experience in Nevada, when I hit a really dark place around mile 33. I’d be dropping the water belt and the two water bottles near the finish line and taking my hand held bottle, probably with water but I could mix up some more Crank or Nuun or something similar if I felt the need. I’d probably grab the bag of gummy bears or honey stinger chews at the start of this loop.

Loop 3 – Execution

Getting Ready to Start Loop 3

That meant I got some crew help for the last few laps, which was nice. When I came in, I handed off my water bottle, still about a third full, and had Erin fill it halfway to three-quarters with water to dilute the remaining Crank. While she was doing that, I stripped off my arm sleeves as I’d warmed up enough that I no longer needed them. While I was having another piece of banana, I realized I forgot to grab the strap for the water bottle so I sent Erin back to my bag for that and then began the loop.

I got separated from Greg at that point, and while I’d see him through the woods off and on and we even ran near each other again for a mile or two, we basically ran our own races and drifted apart. I ran alone the rest of the race except when I’d pass somebody and we’d potentially run near other for a short time.

The handheld was a good choice. It’s not as efficient as the hydration pack and you can’t carry as much water, but it’s the option I’m most comfortable with and have been using for years now. While I managed to remain upright the entire race, it’s also useful to keep yourself from breaking a wrist if you do fall.

I had meant to grab my bag of honey stinger chews or my gummy bears going into loop 3 since I hadn’t had any solid food other than the pieces of banana, but I didn’t think of it until I was back in the woods. I still had 2 gels and the Crank in the water bottle though so I wasn’t too worried.

Going through the aid stations, nothing really appealed to me to eat, which is unusual. I can normally eat just about anything, and during an ultramarathon it’s not uncommon for me to snack and sample my way through the course. Pretty much all that seemed good were the bananas, though, so that’s what I stuck to. I didn’t wind up using either of the gels, although I did come close to finishing the water bottle, and did have 1 more piece of banana while I was running.

This loop I started to pass a lot of marathoners. There were also a lot more people out enjoying the weather on their bikes and horses (well, there was 1 horse, I just passed her a few times.) The only Trail Monster I passed was Kate, who after the race told me she was struggling at that point but she was all smiles and seemed pretty happy when I saw her a few miles from the finish line.

I was still maintaining an even effort; I wasn’t hurting all that much, I remained lucid, and I never went into that dark place that I had hit 3 years ago. About the only thing out of the ordinary was that I kept getting the beat of one of the songs that my ride had played on the drive over to the race in the morning in an effort to pump herself up for her marathon. (It actually took me a couple days to get it out of my head after having it echo in my brain for 5 or so hours of the run.) Thankfully, it was just the beat and not the lyrics, as it wasn’t a particularly good song.

My average pace had slowed down to 10:20 per mile for this loop, but I was dead on my sub-9:36 goal pace since I came through right in 6 hours. I was still pretty confident that I could break 8 hours, and while I didn’t expect the final 12½ miles to be my fastest of the day, I did expect to be able to run it in under 2 hours.

Aerial View of the Flooded Trail at the Stone Cat 50 Miler

Loop 4 – Strategy

The goal for the last 12½ miles was to see what’s left. Ideally, it would be my fastest loop, although if I could maintain that sub-2 hour pace for it then I’d be happy. The primary focus was to be done with my 37½ mile warmup and to start racing…this is when I would want to chase people down and pass them and make sure that nobody could catch me. I’d probably stick to the handheld, taking a water bottle with whatever fluid I felt I needed when the time came.

Loop 4 – Execution

Finishing the Race in 8:07:50

I decided not to bother carrying water with me for the rest of the race. Having watered a tree 8 times in the first 6 hours, I wasn’t worried about my hydration levels and I’d still be able to get some water about every 4 miles. That meant I didn’t have to carry the water bottle, and instead I grabbed the pack of honey stinger chews.

Other than using them during some Fat Ass runs over the previous Winter, I’d never really trained with the honey stingers. Once I got the package opened, I would take one out and let it melt in my mouth before chewing it every time I got to an uphill that I was planning on walking. This actually worked out pretty well. I got through most of the pack before I got to the flooded part of the trail, when I put the rest into the pocket on my shorts.

I started passing people right away, most of whom knew Ian as he directs some popular trail races in Maine and is friends with everybody. They’d let me know how far up Ian was, and pretty soon I’d catch glimpses of him through the trees. I caught up to him about 2 miles into the loop on one of the bigger hills, and we ran together for a little ways. He wasn’t feeling too well, but he still had a strong finish left in him after I took off on the next downhill stretch.

Shortly after that, I reached the flood section of the course.

The water hadn’t really bothered me most of the race. I’m used to running with wet feet, my shoes drain, and it hadn’t been much of a problem for me. I’d gotten used to doing a little stretch and flick of my shoes to help drain water out the tops of them right after getting through, and then letting them dry over the next few miles.

This time, though, the water seemed to bother me a lot more. My toes got cold and they never really thawed out. Running through water that sometimes was as deep as my calf meant that I was splashing my legs to my upper thighs, and for the rest of the race I wasn’t able to feel the ground with my feet very well and my calves would spasm off and on. I never knew when a spasm would come, except for when I had to hurdle downed trees. Then it was guaranteed.

This slowed me down a lot, unfortunately. About halfway through the loop I started to have doubts of maintaining a 2-hour pace, and by the last aid station I knew that it wasn’t within my reach. Every time I’d pick up the pace, one calf or the other would spasm and threaten to introduce my face to the ground, so my goal became letting nobody catch me, even if it was somebody that I had just passed.

I wound up taking the last 2 gel packets that I had as I went through the aid stations, as well as another piece of banana and a cup of water at each one. I felt well enough the entire way that the only places I walked were where I had originally planned to, running everything in the last loop that I’d also run in the first loop.

With about 2 miles in the loop to go, there’s an abandoned car in the middle of the woods. Some guys had dragged a car battery out and hooked it up so they could blow the horn at the runners and serve them shots of kahlua, and as I came up on it I was thinking that since there was no chance of hitting my goal I should stop for a shot with the Stone Cat. Unfortunately, they’d packed up by then, so I kept going.

As I was beginning to think about putting in the final “sprint” (hopefully running around 7 minute pace for the last mile and a half or so) I heard somebody almost fall behind me. Turning around, I saw Dave Merkt (I think – that’s a guess, I never spoke with him) who had been visible through the trees for most of the last 6 or 7 miles since I’d passed him. That spurred me on to pick up the pace because I didn’t want anybody to pass me.

Coming into the gravely section of trail before the last real turn, my foot hit a rock and I twisted my ankle, threatening to go down. My calf in my other leg decided to spasm at the same time, so for the guys coming in the other direction to start their last loop they got to watch me windmilling my arms for about 20 meters while I tried not to fall down with less than a mile to go in the race. Somehow I kept my balance, but could only manage a 7:21 final mile.

My pace for the last loop was better than loop 3, but at 10:14 it wasn’t enough to break 8 hours. My final time was 8 hours, 7 minutes and 50 seconds, about 20 minutes slower than my PR, and good for 10th place out of 107 finishers. (At Stone Cat, you can drop down from 50 miles to 37½ miles or the marathon if you want.)

Just After Finishing the Stone Cat 50 Miler

Results

I was really happy with my race. The only thing I’d have done differently would have been to go straight to the handheld and skipped the waist pack; other than that, I think I did everything right and ran the best race that I had in me given the training I’d given myself and the course I found.

I have no doubt in my mind that I ran better this past weekend than I did 3 years ago despite the extra 20 minutes. Had I run the course in Nevada this weekend, I’d have had a new PR. Had I followed this race strategy 3 years ago, my PR would probably have been significantly faster. Had I had the extra thousand miles of training and speedwork under my belt for Stone Cat, I could have not only broken 8 hours but set a new PR as well, I have no doubt.

That’s one of the beautiful parts of ultra running. There are so many variables, you never know exactly how one day is going to compare to another. It’s a complete judgement call about which race was run better than another, and it’s easy to play a game of “What If…?” to state how things might have gone differently.

I had a lot of fun this weekend. Running from an Angel was fun too, but this was more fun. I’d do it again in a heart beat.

Check back on the blog later this week; I’ll share what equipment I used during the race, and break down my nutrition. Surprisingly, I ate fewer than half the calories I did the first time and felt much stronger at the end. (Not because it was half the calories, though, I don’t think…probably more because I didn’t go out like an idiot for the first half of the race.) I’ll also share what I did to recover from the race and how speculate on my plans for the near future.

More Info: Stone Cat Website – Course Map / Training Log Entry – 50 Mile Results – Marathon Results
Photo Credits: Erin Moore, Jamie Anderson, Christine Racine

In the year leading up to that race, I ran 2614 miles, averaging about 50 miles per week over that year which included a lot of speed work and peak training weeks that topped 100 miles per week for the first time since I had been in college. I ran those roads in 7 hours, 47 minutes and 27 seconds.

Fast forward to 2011, when I signed up for the Stone Cat 50 Miler. I am a much more experienced marathoner and ultra runner than I was 3 years ago. Before my first 50, I’d only run 12 marathons and 1 ultra. I know what my body can handle much better than I did in 2009, and running 50 miles isn’t so much of an unknown like it was then. Going into Stone Cat, I had run 15 marathons or ultras since Running from an Angel, 8 of which were run in 2011 alone.

So this means that I should be able to run much faster this time, right? Well, maybe. Maybe not.

The Stone Cat races are on trails, not roads. The hills aren’t as big as last time, but the course is way slower and much tougher. It is a 4 loop course on undulating single track and double track, and this year included a few hundred yards of toe-numbing flowing water that wasn’t much above the freezing point and could not be avoided only a few miles into each loop.

I am also not in nearly as good shape as I was 3 years ago. In the year leading up to the race, I ran almost 1000 miles less, only 1655 miles, averaging less than 32 miles per week for the year. Even in the training barely months before the race, I had seriously strained my ankle in another trail race and if I twisted it wrong when running over rocks and roots could still feel where the bruises had been.

Despite the lack of training, I felt that better experience would win out and I was confident that unless something went terribly wrong, I was going to have a better race at Stone Cat. I might not PR, but I thought that setting a goal of 8 hours would require a PR type of effort and made the math much easier to figure out how far on or off pace I was each loop.

My strategy for the race was to go out really slow, hopefully as much as 2 minutes slower per mile than I did the first time. If things went well, then I wouldn’t slow down nearly as much towards the end of the race as I had the first time, and ideally might even be able to pick up the pace in the last loop.

I had previewed the loop back in September. I knew about what to expect. I thought that running between 1:55 and 2 hours on the first 3 loops would put me in a great position to do well in the race, finishing off with whatever I had in the 4th loop. If I slowed down under that pace in the first 3 loops, then that would be okay as long as I maintained the same effort and still felt like I’d have something left to make a run for it in the last 12½ miles.

I also wanted to avoid spending as much time in the aid stations this time. A lot of time can be wasted when you aren’t moving; I had my gear stashed near the start and finish line and would try to avoid spending any time at the other stations unless I absolutely had to. I’d be carrying my own water, with a hydration pack for loop 1, a belt with 2 water bottles for loop 2, and a hand held for loops 3 and 4. I’d also carry most of my own nutrition, enough for each loop, and only stopping for food at the aid stations if I felt like what I was carrying wasn’t going to cut it for me.

I brought extra socks and shoes, but honestly didn’t expect to use them. The shoes I use drain pretty well, and with the bog that we had to run through about 3½ miles into the loop my feet would be pretty dry by the time I finished and wouldn’t stay dry for long anyway if I did change them.

Getting to the race, I carpooled with some fellow Trail Monsters. We had a huge turnout; probably the largest that we’ve managed for any race that we weren’t hosting. Some friends collected our bibs and glow-in-the-dark race t-shirts, and 9 of us met for dinner the night before the race. The rest made their way down on Saturday morning and our cheering section would get bolstered as more friends and family made their way down from Maine throughout the day.

Do you think that my strategy was a good one? Do you think that my experiences over the past 3 years outweighed the handicaps of not being as well trained and choosing a slower course? Do you think I was able to follow through on my strategy, or do you think that it blew up in my face and led to an epic failure?

Tomorrow I’ll share what I did, what went right, what went wrong, and what I thought about the Stone Cat 50 Miler.

This was my second year running the Breaker, and I think that it is my favorite course of the three. While you only summit twice, you come within spitting distance of the top an additional 4 times in the 2 loop race.

I think my favorite part of the race is the Tote Road, which comes right after the Summit Trail. While Bradbury Mountain is really just a big hill, the Summit Trail goes from base to peak on a very short and steep path. I walk the majority of the trail, as running wouldn’t speed me up enough to justify the additional expenditure of energy.

The reason that I like the Tote Road is that it’s an easy trail to run fast on as long as you have a little experience in picking your path among the rocks and roots. It’s got a nice gentle downhill grade and is for the most part wide open (although we did have to dodge around some boy scounts building a bridge this year.)

That means that even though I got passed both times while walking up the Summit Trail, I was able to retake my position on the course within a few minutes of hitting the Tote Road immediately gapped the competition, not to see them again until the finish line. If I had wasted my energy on the Summit Trail, that would have been a much taller order.

Watch the video below for my full race report, and please excuse how dark it is…I’m playing with some new lights and obviously didn’t have them set up optimally:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Eg1iv2vmw

Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Watch on YouTube – Photo Credit: Don Penta – Full Results

Video Transcription

Click Here to Read the Transcript

There is one race left in the series this year, so if you’re going to be in Maine in September (which let’s be honest, is one of the best times of year to be up here!) then I recommend you sign up for the 12 mile Bruiser. You’ll want to sign up sooner rather than later, though, as the races have been selling out early this year and the Bruiser will be no different.

Full details are at the website: trailmonsterrunning.com/bradburydirt

The only other time that I dropped out of a race was when I was in high school and I fell down the side of a mountain and broke my ankle, so it was a tough pill to swallow but I think that it was the right choice.

Unlike last year, I was far enough back that I got to see the race develop up front (as well as in the chase pack, once they had caught up to and passed me.) Running out and back so many times lets you enjoy the race as a spectator and as a runner in a way that I haven’t found anywhere else. After running together for the first 3 laps, Leah Thorvilson got left behind by Ryan Aschbrenner as he built an almost a 7 minute lead.

In the end, they both broke last year’s course record. Here’s my race recap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3btFcoycUvQ

Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Watch on YouTube – Photo Credit: Dave Mari

Video Transcription

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If you want to know more about either Gary or Leah, two of the bigger personalities in the race this year, they both took part in Marathon Mastermind. You can listen to some coaching sessions with both of them just by going over to www.marathonmastermind.com and joining in yourself.

If you want to listen in for free, you’ll have to sign up today to hear Gary, however. His coaching session ends later tonight, and Leah’s was earlier this week. There are still 5 more coaching sessions coming up next week however.

In 2008, she returned, and covered the entire distance between Mount Katahdin in Maine and Springer Mountain in Georgia in 57 days, 8 hours, and 35 minutes, faster than any woman had ever covered the distance before.

Yesterday (July 31, 2011), at 3:26 pm, Jennifer reached Springer Mountain again. She reached the top of Mount Katahdin at 4:06 a.m. on June 15, and started hiking south to Georgia. 46 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes later she reached Springer Mountain and had broken Andrew Thompson’s record of 47 days, 13 hours and 31 minutes from 2005.

She needed to average at least 46 miles per day to set the new all-comer’s record, and frequently covered between 50 and 60 miles per day as she walked from around 5 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. each day.

Jennifer was supported by her husband Brew, who would be waiting at road crossings with refills for her water bottle and food that he’d picked up at restaurants and fast food joints. She also had help from friends on the trail, joined at various points by people that would hike for a stretch of trail or even for a few days at at time.

Her adventures are recounted on a blog that’s been updated daily by her husband. She avoided getting hit by lightning this time in the Smoky Mountains, but she did have one day where she spotted 14 bears through the course of her hike. Earlier that day, she had to take a pregnancy test while looking for an explanation for a frequent and sudden onset of nausea.

If you’d like to read more about her adventure, check out her blog at: jenniferpharrdavis.tumblr.com

Ever think about setting out on your own adventure? You don’t need to set a speed record to have an absolutely amazing experience. Why not start with a marathon?

The Marathon Mastermind starts next Monday, August 8th, and if you sign up now you can take part in the entire program for free! More information is available at the website, www.MarathonMastermind.com.

The position that the CAS took was that the IAAF did not have any evidence that Pistorius had an advantage and had no grounds to ban him, although the researchers who made that statement later determined that he does have some advantages.

It was all a moot point, however, since Oscar wasn’t able to run fast enough to qualify to run at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

That may now change, though. On Tuesday night, Oscar cut over half a second off of his PR to run 400 meters 45.07 seconds in Lignano, Italy. This qualifies him to run at the world championships next month, as it falls under the 45.25 second qualifying standard.

If he can run that standard 2 more times before the 2012 London Olympic Games, then he’ll meet the South African Olympic Committee’s automatic selection criteria for who they’ll send to the Games.

“Now he knows he can do it, there’s no reason why he can’t keep on doing it,” Athletics South Africa chairman James Evans said. “The way we’ve treated Oscar has always been we are not going to do him any favors, and we are not going to hold anything against him. He will be treated like any other athlete.”

He’ll have a few more opportunities to reach the “A” standard over the next few weeks, with plans to run in Budapest, Hungary on July 31 and at the Diamond League Crystal Palace meet in London at the beginning of August.

More Info: The Sacramento Bee

The Pineland Farms races began as a small event, and has grown to be a family friendly 2-day event that hosts around 1200 runners in 7 races.

Saturday begins with a 10k and canicross 5k, where the runners race while tied to the harnesses on their dogs. An hour later is the 5k and barefoot 5k, where runners can compete with naked feet or are allowed to compete in the “shod” division wearing minimal shoes such as Vibram Five Fingers, Merrell Trail Gloves, or (in my case) home-made huaraches. After the races are over there is a big BBQ, live entertainment, awards, and kid events such as an egg toss and 3 legged races.

On Sunday, there are 3 races. The 50 milers get started at 6:00 in the morning, which lets them take advantage of what little part of the day isn’t going to be sunny and hot. The 50k runners start 2 hours after them at 8:00, and the 25k runners begin at 10:00.

I had a great weekend of racing, bringing home a lot of hardware. In the barefoot 5k, I was 2nd overall but the first shod runner with my huaraches, and then in the 50k I thought I had finished just off of the podium with a 4th place finish.

Half an hour later, though, while waiting for my wife to finish the 25k, I saw one of the guys that I thought had beaten me come through and finish, which meant that I had in fact finished in 3rd place. I also had some great backup from the rest of my team, who won the 50k team race (as well as the 25k team race!)

Here’s my full rundown of the weekend:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWoQeXAFU0

Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Watch on YouTube – Photo Credit: Kate Hanscom

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There were a lot of great performances from a lot of people this weekend. As people get race reports up throughout the week, I’ll link to them here so that you can read about the races in everybody’s own words. I especially want to say congratulations to Val, Emma, Jeremy, Jamie, Cynthia, Linda, Bethany, Erin, Mary, Christine, Nate, Joe, Stephen, Theresa, and quite a few other people but my list of names could keep going for a long time.

More Information:

• Pineland Farms Race Website
• Results: Saturday – Sunday
• Maine Running Photos
• Jeff Walker (25k)
• Mindy Slovinsky (50 Miles/pacer)
• Chris Dunn (25k)
• Jamie Anderson (50 Miles)
• Danielle Triffitt (25k)
• Cheryl Yanek (50 Miles)
• Jeremy Bonnett (50 Miles)
• Kevin Tilton (50 Miles/DNF)
• Kartika Wright (10k)
• Race Acidotic Photos
• Kevin Robinson (Barefoot 5k & 25k)
• Valerie Abradie (50 Miles): Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4
• Steve Wolfe (25k)
• Heather Wiatrowski (5k & 50k)
• Ben Nephew (50 Miles)
• More to come…

Hey, if I’m going to be away from my wife for a week, I might as well get another state out of the way, right?

I left my hotel in Virginia at 3:00 in the morning, was at the race 3 hour later, and had a 2 and a half hour drive back to D.C. to catch my flight once I finished running, so it really was a short trip.

It was a very well organized race, and I enjoyed it a lot. I only had one real complaint about the race, in fact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcqUqfn_tAc

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More Info: Race Website – Full Results

This year’s race was just as well organized as last year’s was, although my own race didn’t go nearly as well as last year’s due primarily due to my lack of training leading up to the race.

Unfortunately, my camera crashed while it tried saving the video I recorded about the race, but I did manage to salvage the audio. Hence why there’s no full motion video for today’s race report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdgdYzaAWsI

Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Watch on YouTube
More Information: Marathon Website – Race Photos – My Splits – Last Year’s Race

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Course Map

Needless to say, I came nowhere close to my pre-race goals/predictions.

I’ve run Boston twice, and I honestly think that I prefer watching the race over running it. It’s a great experience, and the wonderful weather that the runners enjoy every year that I don’t run certainly helps, but mostly I just love seeing all of the different levels of athletes competing from the most competitive elites to the mid- and back-of-the-packers that come through hours later.

It also means I get to spend more time with my friends that aren’t running, keeping an eye out for folks we know as the street begins to twist and warp as we get dizzy from watching the runners.

If you have never gotten out to watch the Boston Marathon, I highly recommend making a trip at some point in the coming years. There’s a lot of history here, and the entire city and surrounding communities are involved in some way shape or form with the marathon and it’s runners. You don’t see that level of local commitment at very many races, even ones that boast more finishers than Boston.

Here is how the race developed, along with some photos along the way that we took from our vantage point near the bottom of Heartbreak Hill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjefOBJP1as

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I was watching the race from my customary spot near Heartbreak Hill, and listening to the race unfold from spectators who had the radio going, it was kind of amazing listening to Ryan Hall repeating what he had done the other year where he was running out front, pushing the pace, showboating to the crowd, but you really can’t complain. He had a 4th place finish. He ran a minute and 19 second PR. He had drifted from 1st back to 8th when he passed by us, but he was able to still pull it forward.

The men’s race developed a lot like the women’s races have in the years passed, with not very much time between the leaders. Geoffrey Mutai ran a world’s fastest marathon, almost a minute faster than Haile Gebrselassie’s record with his 2:03:02. Moses Mosop was right behind him with 2:03:06. That’s only 4 seconds, and both of them are about a minute under the previous world record.

Unfortunately, the Boston Marathon isn’t a record eligible course. It’s a point to point race, and there’s a net downhill that exceeds the maximum allowed in decent per meter for the race. So, even discounting any benefit they may have gotten from the tailwind, the course won’t be available for world or national records, but it’s still amazing performances and it definitely sets a new bar for people to chase.

The women’s race was just as exciting. Kim Smith went out to a pretty early lead, and she got almost a minute separation between her and the pack by mile 16.

Unfortunately, by mile 18, she was getting caught by the pack, and she dropped out of the race shortly after passing us on Heartbreak Hill.

Caroline Kilel managed to win with a hundred meter sprint at the very end, to just edge out Desiree Davila with her 2:22:36, and Desiree’s 2:22:38. Now that’s some great running, and I’m really happy to see Desiree running so well.

She’s had a great year up to this point, and I really expect her to do well at the marathon trials next January in Houston.

Kara Goucher also had a great race. She ran 5th place. After coming back, she was a little further back in the pack when she passed us at Heartbreak Hill. She ran a 1:01 PR, with her 2:24:52.

So all in all, Americans did really well. I was really excited to see everybody as they went by, and especially to hear the results. It was a fast day. A lot of my friends ran some PR’s and some really fast times.

So if you ran Boston this year, I hope you had a great race. I look forward to seeing everybody out there for 116th running.

You can see all of the photos that I took from the course here: http://r2w.us/2011bostonphotos

The last time we had run a marathon together had been in 2006, so we were overdue to meet up at a race and chat for 26.2 miles.

Please excuse the small bit of coughing left in my video; I cut out over 10 minutes of the really painful coughing. I didn’t know it at the time but I went into the race with a cold so starting a few hours after we got done running I got treated to a week of a very annoying and persistent cough that kept me home from work for a few days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO7famNp0J4

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More Info: NJ Trail Series – Full Results – My Photos

The race begins at about a mile in elevation, and after basically heading uphill for the first 10 miles, you spend the rest of the race going up and down some “smaller” hills until you are ready to go back down that initial 10 miles to the finish.

All in all, there is about 6500 feet of ascent and descent, with very few flat sections on the course that last more than 20 or 30 meters at the most.

Dave Hanenburg from Endurance Buzz downloaded my GPS data from the race and created this course flyover, which is pretty neat and gives you a small idea about what the course was like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUu1yc_2a3A

Watch on YouTube

The part I enjoy about this flyover is that it gives me a good reference to remember different points on the course, especially as the race is still fresh in my mind. So thanks, Dave!

Curious what it might be like to run in that kind of terrain? Here’s a chart of the elevation (in green) versus my pace (in blue) from the race (click the image for full size):

There were 32 finishers, and I finished 10th, so mission accomplished.

I’m not quite sure how I managed to make that goal, though…my friends took a look at my snow shoes and were quite happy since that gave them a chance to beat me in a race for a change. My shins were all black and blue a few days after the race…my canoes are not meant for running. Every single step involved the front of the snowshoe coming up and whacking me in the shin.

As we were getting called over to the starting line, I lined up about 4 or 5 feet back since I figured I had no business being right up front. But then Judson Cake lined up next to me, and everybody else lined up next to or behind the two of us, so we actually started quite a ways back from the starting line, which rather amused me.

There were 10 guys who went out ahead of me right from the get go, and within a mile or so I’d sort of figured out how to run in my snowshoes. I got passed right before turning off of the groomed double track but then passed my friend Alan halfway up towards the summit.

I caught up to Jeremy Bonnett (who had passed me) around a mile into the race and just let him pace me the rest of the way since he was moving at a good clip while not going so fast that my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.

Chuck Hazzard caught up to me and basically did the same thing within a half mile or so of that so the 3 of us ran in a line together until there was about 3/4 or a mile to go.

As we were nearing the end of the Boundary Trail, Jeremy took the straight line up a small steep hill on the and was doing his best to make me work for a pass (since I wasn’t asking for one he didn’t feel a need to move out of the way) but I went out of my way and around a tree because it looked like it would be easier and I wound up in front of him anyway. From there, I just tried to bust my butt and put some separation between myself and him and Chuck, and I wound up beating Chuck by 6 seconds and Jeremy by 21 seconds. I also came within a half a minute of 9th place, Jeff Walker, but I never saw him until the very end.

It was a ton of fun, and I can’t wait for the next race. The course had a small amount of groomed trail but most of it took place on single track. There were some good climbs, and also a lot of crazy drops that I’d be scared to run down that fast in the Summer given how rooty and rocky and steep it is (normally we run that part of the trail in the opposite direction.)

I tried on some of the loaner snowshoes provided by Dion after the race, and it’s amazing what a difference that makes. They only weigh a pound and are much smaller than my snowshoes; it’s not much different than running in normal shoes by feel.

I’ve already put my name in to borrow a pair for next race, and it will be interesting to see how well I can run on fresher legs and with smaller, lighter snowshoes. The second race is 4.25 miles or so and the last is 5 miles, with all 3 on the mountain side of the park.

After the race, there was some very tasty soup, the awards ceremony, and a raffle for the remaining prizes that allowed the majority of the people that stuck around after the race to all go home with something.

More Info: Full Results – Photos

It’s a shame that this was the last year for the event, and I hope that at some point in the future it can come back, but at the very least I was able to make my way out and experience it while I still had an opportunity, so thanks to Susan for accepting my application and inviting me to take part this year.

The race was actually my first attempt at running at elevation, and I did pretty well. I managed to win the Marty Duchow Award, which goes to the first person that lives below 1000′ elevation to cross the line.

Other award winners were:

• First place Male: Jason Koop (CO) – 5:06:54
• First place Female: Kari Fraser (CO) – 7:07:35
• The Jeff Johnston Award for the return runner with the greatest improvement: Brian Pilgrim (NM) took 4:28:25 off his time from 2010 to 2011
• The Martin Luther King Day Award for the runner finishing in the same place as the date of the holiday – in 2011: the 17th finisher: Ed Craighead (TX)
• The oldest finisher under the clock on the complete 38.5 mile course: Jean Jacques d’Aquin (CO) – 71 yrs. old – 10:41:00
• The Bill Halm Award for the winner of the DoubleMasters – Bill Halm (NH) – 83 yrs. old – 8:30:04
• The Mamaw Ruby Award for the finisher in the place equal to Susan’s age – 2011: 57th finisher – Iliana Dimitrova (NY)
• The Jason Taylor Award to the first finisher who is in his or her first ultra at GT – James Darnold (NM) – 6:04:27

I like the unique nature of the awards and how past runners that did something memorable are remembered from year to year because of these awards.

Here’s my video race report of what the race was like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFL-NSWotRI

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Video Transcription

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Other Thoughts on the Race

Here are some other thoughts that I have had on the race that couldn’t fit into the race report, which was already 15 minutes long.

Along with all of the great food, there was also some great swag. Granted, some of the raffle prizes such as the soiled gloves were more humorous than useful, and some items were both humorous and useful such as a backpack used as a gear drop bag that still had a used gel packet in it from the previous year, but there were a lot of sponsors for the race that provided items for us.

For example, we got some great tote bags with the race logo on them, and every finisher got their choice of Moeben Sleeves in various sizes and styles (I opted for a pair of sleeves that are blaze orange for next Autumn.) We all also got some magazines and gift certificates and as I mentioned some folks got to take home some valuable gifts from the raffle. The folks that won awards also got to take home a chili pepper ristra, which is a fun (and tasty) prize, if a little difficult to travel with.

I especially wanted to thank James Darnold, Jim Breyfogle and Ryan Holler as I spent a lot of time with them out on the course at various points throughout the race. They provided some good company, as did folks too numerous to mention after the race and at the various functions throughout the weekend. (Well, I could list them, but you could just click on the race results link and the lists wouldn’t be too dissimilar.)

I also wanted to thank all of the volunteers, because without them this race wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. They cooked our food, they made sure we were provided for at the aid stations, they cheered for us all by name as they crossed us off on their checklists…which was actually a really nice touch, to have them all know your name as you run up and call it out. There weren’t very many spectators on the course, especially as they were only allowed in the first and last 7 or 8 miles or so, so having somebody to call your name was great.

I also wanted to mention my one real animal encounter while I was out on the race course, which was with a cow, and it came at the end of the race as I was running back on the road. The cow was on the far side of the road looking at me, and then it glanced to the right and to the left and went back to looking at me. Once the car that was coming up from behind me had passed it, it looked to the right and left again and then sprinted across the street and disappeared down a trail.

I’ve never seen a cow before that knew how to look both ways before crossing the street.

More Info: Race Results – My Photos – More Photos & Race Reports – Course Map

The race couldn’t have been run on a more perfect day, with Maine foliage at it’s peak Autumn colors and nice cool temperatures to greet their runners as they made their way along the coastline. I definitely want to try to fit this race into my calendar next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=190lYXuRMJQ

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The starting line was interesting, because they used an actual cannon with a fuse. It’s much larger than the Maine Track Club cannon, but despite making the runners wait in anticipation for it to fire it wasn’t nearly as loud as I’d been expecting.

At the half marathon, there was a bigger lead pack than I’d been expecting which came through in 77:34. Louie Luchini followed up with a 74:20 over the second half of the race to set the course record; wish I’d been there to see the finish.

Video Transcription

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Blaine Moore: What was your final time?

Jamie Anderson: 3:14:33, I think I was 38th place.

Blaine: So how many times have you run this race?

Jamie: This is my 5th time running MDI. My other best time was 3:21:37, so…

Blaine: It’s a good improvement!

Jamie: Yeah! It was. I trained my butt off…
—
Blaine: So who won the race?

Gary Allen: Louis Luchini, a Stanford standout and a Stanford All-American from Ellsworth, Maine. He won in a course record, 2:31:50, I’m saying unofficially, but I’m not actually sure what his official time is.

Blaine: And that’s a huge negative split from where him and the lead pack was at the half-way point.

Gary: He just looks smooth and strong, yeah.
—
Patrick Finney: Yeah! Six years ago, I wasn’t able to walk. And I’ve got MS.

Blaine: Oh… Okay!

Patrick: And I rehabbed myself back after a year, and completed a half marathon in a little more than 4 hours. And I swore to myself if I kept moving, finished a half marathon, maybe I could do a full marathon. And did it the next year, and I kept getting faster and better, and then one of my friends challenged me to run in all fifty states in January, and I said, “Okay!”

Blaine: How many marathons in a row have you done now?

Patrick: Out of the last seven weeks, this is my 10th one in seven weeks, my 33rd state this year, and 45th total marathon.

Blaine: So which races are your favorites so far?

Patrick: Boston, Big Sur, Mount Desert Island. Those are the top 3, maybe not in that order, but definitely those are the top 3.

Blaine: Excellent!
—
Blaine: And there’s a lot of first-timers I saw.

Gary: Yeah! We did a fun thing Blaine. We color coded the Bib numbers.

Blaine: Yup!

Gary: And it proved to be a really good thing. The first-timers wore green bib numbers, green background bib numbers. And experienced runners wore blue, and we had different color codings for all the different groups. So that worked out.

But yeah! I think there are a lot of people running their first marathon. As a matter of fact, a lady from South Portland, I think Kristine Guaraldo was third overall, first time marathoner.

Blaine: Yeah! I heard about her…
—
Stephen: Why we doing this at the porta potties in the background?

Blaine: We were just talking about that…

Jamie: Nothing says race more than having porta-potties in the background…
—

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all of this, it’s that I need to interview at least one person that is near my height so that I don’t seem like I’m abnormally short after the fact…

Up at Sunday River, though, there were races both days. On Saturday was the North American Wife Carrying Competition, which oddly enough doesn’t require that the participants be married, just that they be adults.

It’s a short course that involves climbing over obstacles and through mud and water pits, and as of the last few years the woman is allowed to carry the man although it’s usually the woman that’s being carried:

On Sunday was the Mountain Epic, which is comprised of 3 races. The first race only summits 1 peak and is 4 miles long. The second race summits 5 peaks and is 8 miles long. The third race summits all 8 peaks and is 12 miles long. You get to finish all 3 races by going over the last few obstacles from the wife carrying competition.

I’ve been out there during the Summer to run the 8 peak course a few times but haven’t made it to the race yet. Which is a shame because it looks like a lot of fun, here’s a video from the first time we went out to try and map out the course:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDR6lHEjbk

More Info: Wife Carrying – Mountain Epic

I came into this race feeling really good despite having run a marathon the day before other than a small muscle pull that I got relatively early into the previous race.

The goal of running a sub-3 wasn’t going to happen, so instead I concentrated on just having a good time and running at a pace that wasn’t going to make my injury any worse than it already was, for which goals I think that I was pretty successful at.

I also have to admit that I learned a new trick at the finish line, as seen in this photo of Jakobi Holz and myself. Now you can’t look at that and tell me it isn’t a brilliant idea!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euwNLKva33A

Transcription

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So after running the New Hampshire Marathon on Saturday, and doing my best to make sure that I recovered as much as I could on Saturday afternoon and evening, Sunday morning was the Maine Marathon.

I’ve run the Maine Marathon before. The first time I ran it was actually my second marathon back in 2003 when I basically was 9 weeks before the race I realized “Oh! You know, a week from now I’ve got a 10K that I had signed up for,” and I hadn’t been running. And then I realized, “Oh! I’ve got 9 weeks until my marathon.”

So this time I was certainly in a much better shape than I was the first time I’ve ran the Maine Marathon, which was very nice.

I was kind of hoping originally to run sub-3 on the course, but given how I had pulled a muscle or aggravated it or whatever the case was on Saturday, I decided that it would be in my better interest to just go out nice and slow and enjoy the experience rather than risking hurting myself too much and being absolutely miserable.

So I did a little bit of a warm up first thing in the morning before the race started and my groin area like right at the bottom of my abs here was definitely a little bit tight. But it wasn’t super painful.

I decided I didn’t really need the warm up. I would just stick to the minimum amount. The biggest thing I needed was just to make sure that I finished and that I wasn’t hurt in such a way that would take me out for a long time.

So within the first mile, I had settled into a comfortable pace where it not only wasn’t hurting, but wasn’t really aggravated. I was just running about 7:30s or so, chatting with people as I came upon them, and pretty much just having a good time.

One of the biggest differences that I found between running this race in 2003 and running it a couple of days ago was that I actually knew a lot of people. Not just in the race, but along the course. I was constantly hearing people cheer for me, which was really nice. I enjoyed that a lot.

I feel bad, because a few times I would hear my name and I’d look up, and I have no idea who it was that had called out my name, but at least I got to wave at most of the people that I saw that I knew.

Because the half-marathoners turned back, as well as the marathoners unless they were pretty close to me in the race, I got to see them on the out and back as well. So I got to see a lot of people I knew, and that was a lot of fun.

My general game plan was just run whatever was comfortable, don’t worry about the pace. Anytime I came to one of the steeper downhill sections, I would walk. So instead of walking the uphills like you would normally find people doing, I was walking the downhills. That seemed to work out pretty well.

There was a few points in the race where I was definitely a little uncomfortable in the area that I had pulled. But my muscle soreness and anything outside of that felt absolutely great, and for the most part I was pretty comfortable.

I even had a few miles in the second half of the race where a relay runner had come up on me and was running at about 7 minute pace, maybe a little bit quicker, and I just kind of picked it up and ran with him without any trouble until we came to one of the steep downhills and I had to let him go. I wasn’t too worried because he was going to be handing off pretty soon anyway.

Once I came up on some of the people that I recognized that had run in New Hampshire the day before, or if I saw somebody that I knew that was walking, or somebody who was just walking on the downhills, I would slow down and I would actually walk with them for a little bit.

I saw Larry Macon. He ran on Saturday in New Hampshire but I didn’t know he was there, since I hadn’t seen him. But I walked with him for probably about a mile and he’s just a wonderful guy and I hope he made his flight.

Then towards the end of the race, I saw my friend Randall Tuttle who looked about how I felt around that point in my first marathon. So I wound up running the last couple of miles with him and helping him get to the finish line.

My final time was just over 3 hours and 50 minutes. It certainly wasn’t the kind of speed that I was hoping for when I originally went into the weekend, but I had a lot of fun running.

When I got into the finish line, I saw what is the most brilliant idea, and something that I’m definitely stealing for future runs. A guy that I’d met, and I think I’ve done a hash run with him before, but I saw him at Great Cranberry Island, Jake Holtz, had a Guiness in one hand and was wearing a bathrobe.

Now how brilliant is that?! The bathrobe is just like the perfect post marathon way to keep warm. You can take those space blankets that they give you, and those work out pretty well in the immediate short term, but I’m definitely having a bathrobe at the finish line for my next long event like this because that’s just a great idea.

And thanks Jake for giving me your last Guiness because that went down very well and is much appreciated.

We didn’t stick around for a very long time. I got a quick massage after the race. They were very efficient, much more efficient than in New Hampshire, and there were a lot more people doing massage. It was a pretty short line to begin with, and they were getting through it really quick.

I said, “Hi!” to a lot of people as I saw them, made a quick stop to the food tent, and then was on my way home to just get cleaned up and take a nap.

Since the marathons, I’ve felt okay. I haven’t been doing much in the way of running and I’m planning on taking most of this week off (mostly because I’ve pulled a muscle.) Everything else feels really good.

If it hadn’t been for that muscle pull I would definitely keep running throughout the week and just continued my training, but as it is I don’t want to risk getting seriously hurt.

I had a massage a couple days after the race, and I’m going to take it very easy this week. Everything the day after the race was a little stiff after I’d get up from sitting down at my chair and work for a while, but otherwise I feel great. No long term effects and I can’t wait to do it again.

I ran 7 hours and 7 seconds as my combined time for the two marathons, so that’s the bar I need to beat the next time. Hopefully I can beat that by over an hour the next time I do a back to back. Obviously that’s going to depend on which races I choose, but I think that I’m capable of it and I’m looking forward to it.

If you ever decide you want to try back to back marathons, it’s a great experience. Especially if you can find ones close together like New Hampshire and Maine where you’re going to see the same people at both races. It was really neat to see how many people there were that ran both of them. I must have spoken with at least a dozen people, and I know that there was quite a few that I just saw that I didn’t even talk to that I know had run. It’s just a lot of fun.

So until next time, thanks for watching and thanks for the good thoughts, and all the cheering that you guys have done for me over the last week or so as I’ve been getting ready for this back to back. It’s definitely much appreciated.

Back to Back Marathon Attempts

1. My First Attempt at Back to Back Marathons
2. Back to Back (Part 1): The New Hampshire Marathon
3. Back to Back (Part 2): Bridging the Gap Between Marathons
4. Back to Back (Part 3): The Maine Marathon

(Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – More Info: Race Site – Full Results – Photos)

Obviously, the big concern is what do I do in between the races to keep from being completely stiff and sore on Sunday for the second race, right?

Whatever I did must have worked, because with only one small exception I felt great.

(In fact, the pulled muscle didn’t really bother me either by the time I went to bed.)

So, here’s what I did before, during and after the New Hampshire Marathon to make sure that I was able to get to the Maine Marathon starting line and able to run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5ygFAtmZc

Transcription

Click Here to Read the Transcript

So have you ever run a back to back marathons? And if so, what do you do in the afternoon between them and the evening between the two races?

How do you get yourself ready to go from marathon number 1 to marathon number 2?

This is the first time that I’ve done it and I was kind of winging it and just playing it by ear, but I’m always open to suggestions. So if you have some good ideas, I’d love to hear them. Just leave a comment down below, and let me know what you do.

Back to Back Marathon Attempts

1. My First Attempt at Back to Back Marathons
2. Back to Back (Part 1): The New Hampshire Marathon
3. Back to Back (Part 2): Bridging the Gap Between Marathons
4. Back to Back (Part 3): The Maine Marathon

(Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Links: Zensah – Recovery Socks – Blacksmith’s Winery)

I enjoyed the New Hampshire race, despite a few pretty serious drawbacks and running the first half mile behind some guys trying to run 2:20 pace.

The race was pretty well organized, it’s a beautiful time of the year to be outside, and I like challenging courses that are very hilly.

Unfortunately, what I didn’t like most (and which I failed to mention in the video report below) was the traffic that we had to face on the course.

Not only do you have to deal with a steeply cambered road in many places, but traffic makes it impossible to run tangents so you can expect an extra quarter to a third of a mile minimum to be tacked on just from having to hug turns to avoid getting hit.

Not that it was a huge problem, since most of the drivers were pretty courteous to the runners. But there are a lot of twists and turns that you need to navigate.

So, with that slight addition added, here’s what I thought of the New Hampshire Marathon as recorded a few minutes after I crossed the finish line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETi5n5-Szi8

Video Transcription

Click Here to Read the Transcript

Also of note it was nice to see Paul Young again and to meet Brian McNeice. We had a nice group going for about 6 or 7 miles early in the race. I first met Paul back in 2007 during the Pisgah Mountain Trail Race, my first ultra, and ran with him for quite a while. Brian helped put on the Exeter Marathon this past April.

It would have been nicer to be able to race them to the finish line, but Paul pulled away on the steep downhill road sections at the start of the 10th mile, and Brian passed me near mile 14 when I paused to relieve myself around the time I decided that my actual goal wasn’t in my best interest after aggravating my muscle.

Back to Back Marathon Attempts

1. My First Attempt at Back to Back Marathons
2. Back to Back (Part 1): The New Hampshire Marathon
3. Back to Back (Part 2): Bridging the Gap Between Marathons
4. Back to Back (Part 3): The Maine Marathon

(Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – More Info: Race Site – Full Results)

It was a lot of fun and was very well organized for a first year race. The only glitch I’m aware of was that the winner (who had helped marked the course!) got a little turned around halfway through the race and decided to wait for the 2nd and 3rd place runners to come by so he could see where to go.

Here’s my video race report, which I recorded at the finish line, along with an interview with Jennifer from the Cancer Community Center:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8KtKktqUgA

Click Here to Read the Transcript

Maine Running Photos has a lot of great shots from the event (and is where I got all of the photos in the video) as well as video of all of the runners at a few different points.

(Download This Video: AVI – MP3 – More Info: CCC – Full Results – Photos)

There were multiple switch backs. There are sections where you can get dizzy if you are going too quickly and others where it just takes a little bit of work to find the trail.

It’s very well marked, so it’s easy enough to do but you have got to be very careful that you don’t fall and hurt yourself. Here’s a video for my race report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RmnuQkDC4

This year was very competitive. I managed to break the course record, but I was seventh overall. There were six people that ran faster than me. The winner was Kevin Tilton, who just had amazing race. He ran it in a bit over 82 minutes and blew everybody away.

The start of the race is on some wide double track, but only a few hundred yards later you take a hard left on to the Lanzo trail which is very narrow single track. You follow that up and go around the outside of the park on the Island Trail, then continue up Lanzo to Regan to the Northern side of Bradbury where you’ll hop on the Ginn trail.

Once you get over towards the Eastern side of the park, you have a little bit more single track where you are constantly twisting and turning. Many of the trails here are some of the trails you might have run in the Bradbury Scuffle, which was first of the 3 race series back in July, such as the Bat Cave Loop and the Fox East trails.

Once you are back in the center of the park, you head up the snow mobile trail to Fox West. You follow that over the Link Trail until you are back into the Knight Woods, where the end of the race features a section called the “O” Trail. The “O” Trail is a very small area but its got over 2 miles of trail that resembles a small intestine on the map. You better have some good upper body strength if you want to try running fast in there.

You’ll be running right next to somebody that is literally a mile or two behind you. Sadly, I was actually passed on the “O” Trail, which I didn’t think was going to happen. I thought it was going to be one of my stronger parts of the race. My cracked rib from a few weeks ago didn’t bother me most of the race but was a little sore on the “O” Trail.

I managed to finish 7th overall, which was good enough to win the series if not this race. My final time was 88:14 for the Bruiser and 3:15:11 for all three races. I had about a 3 minute lead going into the race over second place, Mike Dowling, and his final time was 3:23:08.

As a nice treat, I managed to come home with quite a bit of stuff…

Every year the runners that do all 3 races get a “Bradbury Bad Ass” T-Shirt, but this year we were rewarded with hoodies. And, as usual, the race shirt you get as a regular participant is also really good.

I got a plaque for winning the series, along with a vehicle park pass for all of the Maine State Parks in 2011. For winning my age division in the Bruiser, I got an award certificate and a Nathan Waist Pack Water Bottle Holster, which is pretty cool. I’ve been wanting to try one of those out.

I also won a case of beer for the series win. Smuttynose is one of the race sponsors, and they make good brew. Trail Monster Running won the team division, so we got a couple of cases of beer for that too. Of the two cases of beer I wound up with at the end, I managed to come home with a little less than 3/4 of a case, as I shared out most of the beer with the other Trail Monsters (which is what you really should do in a team race.)

If you are going to be in Maine next summer, I highly recommend this series. Especially the Bradbury Scuffle, which is a great introductory trail race that just about anybody should be able to do. If you can do a 10K on the road, then you can definitely run the Scuffle. The other 2 races are little bit more challenging and definitely a little more technical, but they are also a lot of fun, and I’m glad that I finally got to run them all this year.

(Download The Video: MP4 – More Info: Series Home Page – Bruiser Results – Series Results)

The last lap of that race was tremendous. Billy Mills got to the Olympics after qualifying for both the 10k and the marathon and was in the Marine Corps Reserves when he competed.

Ron Clarke was the overwhelming favorite in the race and was the current world record holder. He put in a strong surge every other lap to whittle down the field until only 4 runners were still chasing, which quickly became a 3 man race at the start of the final lap when Clarke pushed Billy Mills out of his way on the first turn only to have Mohammed Gammoudi return the favor a few seconds later. Both of them managed to separate from Mills until the final turn.

That push from Ron Clarke may have actually helped Mills win, as he mentioned after the race that he was able to get much better traction from his track spikes out in lanes 2 and 3 than he’d been getting in lane 1.

Here’s a video of the race:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOj0zjPzg-c

My favorite part of the race had be to the drama from Bud Palmer seeming to miss Billy Mills coming on at the end of the race, and Dick Bank grabbing the microphone and yelling “Look at Mills, look at Mills!” and proceeding to giggle with glee. Unfortunately for NBC, they fired Bank immediately after the race. That worked out well for CBS, though, who hired him in the late 60s and got one of the best track commentators around on their payroll.

Here’s another video of the race from another angle with some commentary from Mills as he reflects on his race:

Billy Mills’ 28:24.4 was an Olympic record and was the first time that he had ever gone sub-29. Both Ron Clarke and Mills continued on to run the marathon during the ’64 Olympics, finishing in 9th and 14th, respectively, with Mills’ finishing the marathon in 2:22:55.4.

His time was later annulled when he received a 4 year ban from track and field for using performance enhancing drugs.

This was Justin’s second ban, as he hadn’t paid enough attention to the rules when he was in college when it was discovered that medication he’d been taking since childhood was not allowed.

Due to the extenuating cirumstances of that first ban, he received a 4 year ban from the sport that started in 2006 rather than receiving a lifetime ban.

Now, he’s back.

He isn’t quite as fast as he was 4 years ago, but after 3 races he’s now notched 3 wins. He began his racing in Estonia, where he won in 10.24 seconds on August 3rd and in 10.17 seconds on August 8th.

Now, he has moved on to Finland, where his qualifying heat time of 10.19 seconds was a precursor to his winning time of 10.28 into a 2 meter per second headwind, winning the race by 0.12 seconds over Rubin Williams.

It will be interesting to see how well he can improve now that he is 4 years older, although from the looks of things he doesn’t seem to have lost much from his competitive edge.

His greatest race, though, came shortly after he matched the 800 meter world record at the AAU championship meet leading up to the 1972 Olympic Games. He had gone into the games with recent time off due to knee injuries, and Bill Bowerman claimed that he didn’t have enough focus after he got married shortly before the Olympics.

I wish I’d been alive to see this race live. No matter how many times I watch it, I still don’t think that he’s going to win. He ran a very even 26 point for each of his 200 meter splits, but was dropped way off the back of the pack within the first 100 meters of the race and was still in last place at 500 meters.

Watch the race below and see for yourself:

The Olympic Games have showcased a lot of amazing races and feats over the past century, but this is one of my favorite races. Even with 100 meters to go, you can’t help but think that there’s no way he’s going to win, and he’d be lucky to medal. With 50 meters to go, you know he’s going to medal but there’s still no way Dave can win this race. With 20 meters to go, you can see the others at the front of the pack are fading, but still, how can he possibly win?

At the finish line, he had a 0.03 second lead. Amazing.

Things just broke perfectly for him, despite the (potential) mistakes that he made throughout the race. For example, it’s tough to win a race when you are running so far behind the field. He’s also lucky that he wasn’t boxed in after he passed on the inside with 300 meters to go, and was able to move to the outside to continue passing his competitors. He was also lucky to have so much more gas left in the final 100 meters despite passing towards the outside on the turn, although a lot of that comes from his even splits and being able to maintain his momentum after not going out as fast as everybody else did.

There was a little controversy later when he was awarded his gold medal. Dave used to wear that golf cap to hold back his long hair early in his running career, but once he cut his hair he kept wearing it as it had become a part of his running identity.

Unfortunately, he forgot to take it off while the national anthem was being played, which many took to be some form of protest. Of course, it was just because he was still in shock that he’d won and he just forgot to remove it, for which he later apologized.

What is your favorite race of all time, and is it better than Dave Wottle’s performance in 1972?

It was a good time, and I have to give big kudos to Ian and Ryan for once again putting on a first class event.

The last couple of years, I’ve been a volunteer at the race. I wasn’t able to run it last year because I broke my foot a couple of weeks before the race.

This year I was looking forward to running it but the Beach to Beacon wound up being the day before, so I was going to be on tired legs when I got there.

But that’s no reason to not race.
[podcast]http://files.marathoning.org/audio/RunToWin/20100810_Bradbury_Breaker.mp3[/podcast]
We got to the race about an hour early. Plenty of time for my wife to get her Trail Monster singlet, and for us to get registered and get our shirts.

Usually I don’t really care that much, but these shirts definitely need some mention.

They look like they’re an old-time cereal box, and they’ve got a lot of humorous description on the box where you would see like a list of ingredients. It has things such as hills, dirts, rocks, roots, mud, speed, pain, it has a warning may contain bees. Instead of a “low fat” or “lots of nutrients” message it’s got a little blurb that says loaded with hills. We got a good laugh out of the shirt, it’s a great design.

The race had grown about 30% over last year, which was very nice to see. There were about 40 race day registrations. You start out in a field and the course is pretty flat for the first mile or so. You run out to the Boundary Trail, and run basically around the base of the mountain. At this point Mike Dowling had gone out ahead of everybody and I was kind of chasing him down and wound up getting just ahead of him pretty quickly, and then Geoff Cunningham caught up to me.

Geoff and a few other guys wound up taking the lead within the first couple of miles of the race. A little before 2 miles, around a mile and a half you have a nice little climb up to the South Ridge which gets you to not quite to the summit, about 40 feet shy of the top.

Then you come down the South Ridge trail which is relatively steep but not too bad. It’s definitely runnable for the most part, although there’s some stretches of rocky areas, and there are some stairs that have been put in that make it a little bit more difficult to get around. Anything man-made on a trail is usually going to be more dangerous than the natural features.

Once you get to the base, you’re at about 2 and a quarter miles where there’s a water stop and then you have a climb that goes straight up to the summit. You could run that, but there’s really no point to. It’s steep enough that you’re probably better off doing some sort of walking as you go.

At this point I was basically running alone. Mike Dowling would catch up to me any time we had a flat or less technical section, and then whenever we got to the steep downhill parts, or the parts with a lot of roots and rocks, I would manage to gap him by a few hundred yards.

Once you got up to the summit, you kind of head most of the way back down the mountain on the trail there, and that especially is where Mike was running really well. So he caught me on my way back up to the summit for the third time, almost to the summit. And this is around mile 4, so you take a turn right before you get to the summit and head right down this nice trail that’s pretty much straight down with a lot of switch backs.

You’re really putting a lot of stress on your knees and ankles and your lower legs just trying to maintain your balance and get down as quick as you can. Once you get down to the bottom of the trail, you wind up coming out into the field where the race starts. And from there, there’s another aid station where you can get some water or gatorade. And then, you basically do the same thing over again.

It’s a 2 loop course.

The only change on the second loop is that you turn off a little bit earlier and you come down a different trail to the finish line, so that you can come in to the field from the opposite direction.

It’s not the fastest course. I was able to run it faster than I can do a half marathon in, but that’s about what I can say for speedwise.

I’ve felt pretty good for the most part, the first couple of miles I could definitely tell that I had run the 10K the day before, but by the time I summited the first time half way throught the first loop, I was pretty tired and sore but I don’t think that I would have felt much different had I not run the day before at that point.

I think that for the most part I was able to just go on as well as I might have. Mike had caught up to me in the second loop and was running right behind me. He tried making a move, but then we got to the one of the more technical sections and I was able to hold him off until there and then run away from him. I managed to put about a minute and a half, 2 minutes on him over the last 2 to 3 miles.

At the finish line yesterday, everybody was hanging around, cheering on the finishers, and there was some food and water. At the awards ceremony, everybody’s favorite award is always for the “Best Break.”

The first year of the race there actually was a break. Someone broke her finger and had to be carted off.

This year, there was a couple of people looking for the best injury. They had both done the superwoman flying down the side of the mountain on some of the rocks, and were all scraped up and muddy. All in all, it was a good time to be had by all.

Unfortunately, the bad guys won the team competition, Acidotic Racing.

They just had a great crowd that came up to the race. They were able to hold off the Trail Monsters, and run the race quite a bit quicker than us. There was two of them that beat me, Charles Therriault and Geoff Cunningham, and then Steve Wolfe came in not too long after me to take 1st place masters and outsprint the next Trail Monster by a few seconds (although Andy wasn’t listed in the results as one of us.)

Top 5 score, and it’s good to see that there’s more of a team element starting to build around these races. Hopefully we can keep that up and next year for the series we’ll have 3 or 4 different teams for all 3 races that will try and compete for the team prizes.

There’s still time to register for the Bradbury Bruiser, the original race in the series. It will be run on September 12, and will give you a 12 mile tour of the single track out on the Eastern side of Bradbury Mountain State Park.

(More Info: Series Home Page – Full Results – Photos)

The women’s race wasn’t quite as close but was almost as fast, with Lineth Chepkurui setting a new sub-31 course record in 30:59.4. Wude Ayalew was also beneath the former course record in 31:06.9. The top 7 were all sub-34.

Weather-wise, the course saw the best conditions for running in it’s 13 year history despite record high temperatures this year. Just from Friday to Saturday the temperature dropped about 30 degrees and 40% humidity.

My friend Peter got this great picture (to the right) of Martin Fagan leading last year’s runner up Boaz Cheboiywo coming into the last half mile. Martin really shouldn’t have looked back, Boaz beat him by 2.1 seconds to take 8th place overall.

Here’s an audio recap of my race that I recorded on the drive home after I got done running, followed by a transcript.

[podcast]http://files.marathoning.org/audio/RunToWin/20100809_Beach_to_Beacon_10k.mp3[/podcast]

For me, it was a great race. I had a little trouble getting there. It was one of those deals where I left about ten minutes later than I really wanted to and that added probably a good 20, 25 minutes on to the drive to get in there just because it’s such a circus to get to Cape Elizabeth, but I managed to make it in time.

I parked over near the high school, and got to the front of the starting line about 90 seconds before the truck needed to pull away to take the baggage for the elite area to the finish line. I manged to get my bag on there, and then I had 15 minutes to just finish warming up and say hello and see what everybody’s strategy was and to see who would be running around me.

My general goal was just to go under 36, which I wasn’t sure if I could do. My training has been going pretty well, but it just hasn’t been very high mileage lately or anything. I decided that I would try and go out in a 35 minute pace for the first half and then just see what I can do after that.

The Beach to Beacon is a pretty quick course. The first mile especially is very fast. I was kind of hoping to go out around 5:30, which would be the slowest that I’ve ever gone out in that race in recent years. From there I wanted to just try and see what I can do.

I did pretty well with that. I went out in a 5:28 pace, got through the first mile and did a really good job of cutting tangents and everything. So that worked out really well.

My second mile wound up being my slowest mile, which was a 5:47, and since 5:48 is the time for 36 minutes, you know I did better than that. The second and third miles, I just kind of settled in to a consistent effort, which I did really well with. I got in at 5:47 for the second mile as I’ve said, and then I was I believe 5:38 for the third mile.

So when I got to the 5K it was 17:32 and I was not feeling great, but I wasn’t feeling bad at all. I was confident that I was going to do well, and I didn’t think I was gonna slow down too much. If things went well, then I would be able to pick up the pace and run right at 35 or even a little under. So I kept going.

The fourth mile is always the fast one. From 3 and a half to to 4 and a half, you’re basically running straight down. So that was a 5:27 for the fourth mile, and then the fifth mile was a 5:36. So the first half of that fifth mile you’re going pretty much straight down and then it evens out. You have a slight uphill towards the end of that mile.

From 5 to 5.7 is a rolling uphill ascent towards the park where the finish line is. And then after you turn into the park, you have this really steep but short uphill stretch and you take a right into the last half mile downhill finish right to the finish line.

My sixth mile was also another 5:36. So despite going uphill for that, I managed to put in a good effort. Every year that hill remembers me and I always do really well.

I caught quite a few people, a couple of my team mates were right around there, and a young guy that I know from the area.

So I ran through there and was just trying to take off as many people coming into the finish as I could. My final time was 34:46.0 net and 34:49.1 gun.

If you look at my two 5K splits, those are both season best 5K’s for me this year. I believe my best 5K up to this point has been a 17:40 that I ran at the Back Cove a few weeks ago. Everything else has been in the low/mid 18′s. So, I’m very happy with how I did.

I wasn’t sure that I would be able to run that fast but if you never take any risks, then you’ll never have a good race like that. Hopefully next year I can get into even better shape and go back and set a PR on the course. I’ve run 34:06 there 2 years ago, so I’d like to beat that, and it would be nice to get under 34 minutes.

So that will be my goal for next year, but this year I was very happy. The weather was absolutely beautiful. It’s the best running weather I have seen at Beach to Beacon in all the years that I have run it. And it was just such a good time. It was about 30 degrees cooler, about 40% less humidity that it was just the day before even. Everybody seemed to run pretty well.

(More Info: B2B – Full Results – Photos: Maine Running Photos – B2B)

186 people finished the race on Wednesday night, although there were no changes at the top of the leader board. We are now down to just 3 people that have run every race this year so far.

With 2 races this weekend, the Beach to Beacon 10k on Saturday and the Bradbury Mountain Breaker 9 Mile Trail Race on Sunday, I didn’t want to put in a race or tempo type of effort. Instead, I thought that a 4 x 400m workout with 800m recovery jogging would be a good way to stretch out the legs without stressing them too much.

And, I think that it would have been a good workout, except that I made the unwise decision to run the workout barefoot. I felt fine on my warm up, and managed to get to the starting line literally seconds before the race started, but after the first couple of quarter mile repeats (83 seconds each) the humidity had led to my feet sweating enough that the crushed gravel path I was running on wasn’t treating my feet overly kindly.

So, I after the 85 second repeat #3, I decided that I was better off running in nice and easy and trying to keep off my feet as much as possible after that. My feet should be fine by this weekend, and at least the repeats that I did do stretched my legs out quite well, which was the purpose of them.

(Results: Week 13 – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List – Photos)

This week, there were air quality warnings out for the day and you could tell that things just weren’t right despite it not being that hot with temperatures only in the mid-70s.

There was a good crowd up front, with 4 people going sub-18 led by Ross Nickerson in 17:02. Christine led the way for the women again, this time in 19:39, but she only had a 10 second lead this week.

I wasn’t feeling very well after the first mile and didn’t run as fast as I’d have liked, finishing in 18:46. I was actually feeling ill to the stomach and faint that evening so I didn’t do much once I got home, although I had to get back to my car after the race which was a 5 mile cool down.

My place in the standings and my cumulative time didn’t change at all with my run this week, nor has the leaderboard really changed that much in the past few weeks. Dave and Lily still top the boards with their times of 1:46:35 and 2:02:53.

(Results: Week 11 – Week 12 – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List – Photos: DCY – DP)

I really wasn’t sure what to expect going into the race. It starts at 11:30 in the morning on a small island off the coast of Maine, where you run multiple loops along the 2 mile paved road that goes from one end of the island to the other.

Because it is such a small event, you get a lot of personal attention that you just can’t be afforded at a larger race.

Because you run out and back on the same loop 8 times, you get to know all of the other runners and volunteers throughout the race as you pass one another over and over again.

Pre-Race Training

Going into this race, I didn’t know what to expect. I ran the Exeter Marathon back in April, and since then have run the Pineland Farms 25k and (a week later) a 12.1 mile mountain run at Sunday River.

Other than those 2 runs, though, I haven’t really gone over 12 miles for a single run since April as I’ve been keeping my mileage in the low to mid 40s for the most part. The longer runs that I have gone on have been predominantly on the trails.

Not exactly what I would call prime training for a 50 kilometer road race.

Why Run GCI?

Gary Allen invited me up to run the race and mentioned some of the folks that would be there, such as Chuck Engle (the Marathon Junkie) and Larry Macon (who has run 105 marathons in a single calendar year.)

I thought that the concept for the race sounded fun, despite being called crazy by my friends.

Some thought that running loops over and over again would get boring, others think that even a half marathon on the roads is too long and why not run on trails, and some thought both.

For myself, I figured that it would be a good introduction to what it might be like to do a 12 or 24 hour loop race.

For a timed race, you strive to go as far as possible in a certain time limit rather than to cover a certain distance in the shortest amount of time. The 50k would only involve about a 4 hour commitment while giving me a good idea about what it might be like to constantly cover the same ground.

I’ve also found that I really enjoy the smaller races that don’t have hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of runners. Add that on to the fact that Great Cranberry Island is a few miles off shore from Mount Desert Island, we would have permission to camp out for the night, and they’d feed us beer and lobster, and how can you say no?

The Personal Touch

Gary Allen and Mary Ropp, the race directors from Crow Athletics, were wonderful hosts.

When you got off the ferry, there were signs there to greet the runners and let them know they were in for something special.

For example, one said, “If you start to feel good during an ultra, don’t worry, you’ll get over it.”

Another said, “Life is short, running makes it seem longer.”

As we began the half mile or so hike to the fire house and church where we’d be pitching our tents, we noticed that the runners names were nailed to the telephone poles, which makes for a nice souvenir to take home after the race.

At the start and finish area, there was plenty of space to lay out your own personal aid station and for the most part was plenty of food and drink to get the runners through each lap. There were two official aid stations, the second being an unmanned water stop near the far side of the island.

The locals on the island all came out to watch, and some kids set up their own aid station near the ferry. Their aid station was my favorite, with cold water, plenty of gatorade, and hosings on demand.

With the extra aid station, this meant that in total there were 45 aid stations along the 50 kilometer course, which is almost 1½ aid stations per mile. Many residents also set up sprinklers near the side of the road, which was great because the temperatures were a record high of 97 degrees with 90% humidity.

There was a Life-Flight helicopter demo scheduled for the island the day of the race, but because the President was vacationing a few miles away on Mount Desert Island they grounded all unnecessary flights.

This meant that we got to set up our tents before the race instead of having to wait until afterwards, which was convenient as it’s always easier to bend down and pound in stakes before running over 30 miles.

Unfortunately, a boy from the island flipped over his handlebars and hit his head after the race started, so they needed to call in the Life-Flight Copter after all. So, while the tents were all set up, they’d all been dragged into the woods so the helicopter could land. I’m pretty sure that I heard that the boy was back on the island by the time we sat down for the lobster bake and that he was okay.

The Race

Given the record high of 97 degrees and the 90% humidity, I think that it is safe to say that it was not quite cold, even on the starting line. Everybody was in high spirits, though, as we lined up and got ready for the shotgun start.

Yes, you read that right. The race was started with a shotgun.

Before the race, Chuck Engle asked me if I was up for going out in 6:10s, which if you read above about my training you’ll understand why I got a good laugh out of that.

My original plan was to go out in 7:30s and to use a run/walk system similar to what I did at Exeter.

With Chuck jumping out to an early (and never relinquished) lead, I settled into a 7 minute per mile pace that I felt was comfortable enough not to destroy me later in the race. Plus, it allowed me to run with Adam Daniels and Ty Thurlow.

I’ve raced Adam a few times before and I knew that Ty was itching to run slightly faster than I was planning on, and the conversation was enjoyable between the three of us so I decided not to use the run/walk and be forced to run alone right away.

We stayed together for the first loop, and then Adam and I pulled away from Ty a bit. Adam wound up sitting in second place for about 18 miles, although I took a quick trip into the fire house at mile 7 (the start of loop 3) so he ran most of those miles on his own.

My new strategy, since I’d decided against run/walk, was to just stop and take a break any time I wanted, usually at the start/finish area where I could grab some food or drink from my bag or (in one case) a banana from the actual aid station.

That strategy served me very well, as I felt very comfortable up until the last 5 miles or so, and never had much worse that a slightly sore lower back. I think a large part of it was that I consciously made an effort to smile and say something positive at every person that I passed in the other direction or lapped, and it’s hard not to enjoy yourself when you spend so much time with a big grin on your face.

The course itself was pretty flat. There was a small rise near the ferry, but I actually enjoyed that hill because there was a good breeze coming through and a lot of shade from a big tree.

The hill at the far end of the island wasn’t quite as steep but was a bit longer, and while I didn’t notice it the first 5 or 6 loops it definitely seemed to get larger on the last 2 or 3.

I feel that I managed the heat really well. I was glad that I decided against going shirtless, as there were a lot of sprinklers and hoses along the course and the ocean breeze did a great job cooling me off as I travelled from hose to hose. I stopped after about 2 hours of running to reapply my sunscreen, although I was sweaty enough that I don’t think that it did much good. I did get a little color on the back of my arms and on my shoulders where my singlet rubbed the sunscreen off but nothing painful, thankfully.

I could tell it was hot, but I never got uncomfortable. I think that the high temperatures and humidity for my runs and races the last few weeks did a good job acclimatizing me, and unlike most of my runs recently there were no deer flies to bite me as I ran on the island.

About halfway through the race, I saw that there was a very real possibility that Chuck was going to lap me, and even though I knew that today wasn’t a day for me to beat him I’m too competitive to take that sort of thing sitting down. I let him know around lap 5 that it wasn’t going to happen, and I spent my second to last lap using my finishing kick to make sure it didn’t.

I needn’t have worried too much, though, as the heat and the extra 5 miles finally got to Chuck and his last couple of lap splits weren’t too far off from mine. I had enough time at the end of loop 7 to visit the firehouse rest room again and to return from the ferry side of the course to meet Chuck coming into the finish a quarter or half mile out for him.

At that point, I knew that I had second place pretty much set and slowed way down.

Throughout the race I’d slowed down to run with folks that I was lapping and get to know them a little better than just from encouraging each other as you pass in opposite directions, and I did a bit more of that in the final 2 to 3 miles.

I never did do any run/walk (except when eating a banana) but I did stop and stretch at the last turn around and chat with a local that was walking up the road there.

On the final stretch back to the finish line, I saw that Amanda Labelle was having a great race and had taken a commanding lead for third place. In fact, if I didn’t watch myself, there was a chance she might have caught me. In the end, I only beat her by less than a 3/4 of a mile. (Her last loop was at 7:37.5 pace and she was only 5:38 behind me.)

At the finish line, I got my finisher’s medal from Chuck and shortly thereafter got the great and totally unexpected surprise.

There Is Nothing Cooler

When I met my wife, she was just starting to train for the Maine Marathon. She got injured right before the race and couldn’t run, and had worked up to a long run of 22 miles. This was about 6 years ago.

Since then, she started running half marathons again a few years ago and even ran a 25k trail race this year, her longest race to date and close to if not the longest training run she’s done since 2004.

Her plan this weekend was to come out and get in a long training run of about 16 to 20 miles (4 or 5 loops) and to crew for me. She took photos at the start of the race, and actually started a few minutes behind everybody else.

In her second loop, she grabbed the camera again and took some in-race photos of the scenery and we even got a nice picture of the two of us as we crossed in opposite directions (Thanks again, Jose!)

I didn’t realize she’d been running the entire time at that point, and a few laps later I even had her run down to the tents to grab something that we’d forgot to put in our backpack near the aid station. The entire time she was running, everybody kept asking how she was feeling and how far she planned on going.

After I finished, she came running by. “I’ve run the 5k loop at the start and 5 laps of the 4 mile loop, I think I’ll do one more,” she said to me. She wasn’t looking too comfortable, and she wanted some of the watermelon and blueberries we had down at the tents, so I got to start crewing for her.

I was wondering if she hadn’t done the math in her head and whether she realized that running an extra loop was going to get her further than a marathon, which she has never run.

Well, she knew. She came back up from the ferry side of the loop looking much better, especially after getting some watermelon, and she said that she was going to finish the race.

I caught up with Gary while she was out finishing loop 7, and we found another advantage that these small races have over larger and less personal races. Gary just wanted to know a few things:

• Did she start with everybody?
• Does she have a watch going?
• Did she do the first 5k loop?
• Does she know how many loops are left?

After hearing yes to all of the above, he post-registered her for the race and let the timers know to give her an official finishing time after she finished 2 more laps, and he would make sure she got a finisher’s medal and a lobster. (We paid at the lobster bake after the race.)

When Erin finished loop 7, she was very excited to hear that she was now officially a part of the race, and that she could now actually make use of the food table (not that there was a ton left or that she wanted anything other than the blueberries from our own cooler.)

She was hurting, and she did a lot more walking in that last loop, but she finished her first ultramarathon.

You never know what you are capable of, and most of our limits are ones that we put on ourselves. Had the race not started with a 5k out and back, Erin may never have tested herself to the point where it made no sense not to finish.

Erin may have been the only person to finish the entire distance that hadn’t started the day planning on running 50k, but she was hardly alone in finishing her first ultramarathon. She wasn’t even the only person to finish her first ultramarathon before finishing a marathon.

There were a lot of great performances, and I’m glad that we got to be a part of it.

The After-Party

Following the race, there was a lobster bake. Gary brought in 2 kegs, one of Guinness and one of Bar Harbor Ale.

He figured that a gallon of beer per mile was about right.

There was also a fireman’s supper going on, but we had plenty of food between what the runner’s brought and the corn and lobsters that Gary was cooking that I never got around to going inside to get anything else.

Some people were silly enough to leave after the race and catch a ferry back to the mainland, but I was having too much fun hanging around getting to know all the people that I’d seen over and over again all day (runners, volunteers, and spectators) that I can’t imagine why you’d want to take off.

Most of the overall awards had been given out at the finish line, but the third place female overall award was still there to be handed out and everybody got an additional finisher’s rock.

The awards were round granite stones, beaten down over the past 20 million years by the ocean right off the island, and labeled appropriately.

Around 10pm, it was pretty dark out and Gary got everybody’s attention: It was time to “make ourselves invisible” and clean up the start/finish area. So, we all headed up to the road and spent 15 or 20 minutes in the dark picking up the aid station tables, cleaning up the trash, and taking down the archway over the road.

It was actually a bit of fun, and there were enough hands that it was pretty quick and easy. After we were done we went back behind the church to continue partying, although Erin and I retired pretty shortly after that as we were both pretty tired.

Leaving the Island

Sunday morning I was up at 6:00, but not too many people were moving around. Erin said that the tent city really started to get up around 6:20 or so, but by then I had already taken off on my hike.

My original plan was to head out a mile or so to where my name tag was hanging off a telephone pole to take it home with me, but I noticed a few hundred yards down the road that there were some cups on the ground so I turned around and rooted around in the fire house until I found a (mostly empty) trash bag that I could carry with me.

I wound up hiking the upper part of the course. There wasn’t much trash from the runners, only 3 gel packets, 1 can of an energy drink that had been served, and some cups that had been carried away from the aid station. Most of the trash I found was cigarette butts and beer cans. In other words, about what you’d normally expect on a trash run.

Whoever had cleaned up the aid stations the night before had done a pretty good job cleaning up the trash and cups, especially by the unmanned station which was very clean all around.

I got back to the camp around 7:30, and everybody was moving around starting their day. Erin had picked up all our belongings from the tent, so I just needed to break the tent down and fit everything back into my duffle bag.

We were able to get to the ferry dock for the 8:20 trip back to Southwest Harbor. We wound up having breakfast back on MDI with Helen Bradler and John Tallarico, who had run the race in 4:52:49 and been annointed the sexiest couple on the course by Chuck.

Unfortunately, the place we ate at only had turkey bacon and no real bacon, so I went with pork sausage instead.

I feel pretty good after the race. My lower back ached towards the end, but it felt better within an hour or two of when I stopped running and nothing else ever bothered me during or after. Erin was pretty sore, but not as sore as we’d both expected that she’d be.

That’s the advantage of properly managing your fluids and nutrition during a race like that, I guess.

If you’ve ever thought of running a marathon, I highly recommend heading out to Great Cranberry Island. Crow Athletics puts on a great event, and it should go on everybody’s list as a must-visit race. If you would rather crew or just go for a training run, that’s encouraged, but you just might not get a lobster afterwards.

As for myself, I’m going to plan on fitting it into my schedule again next year.

This was the largest margin (that I’m aware of) that Chuck has ever beaten me by in a race, and I’d like to see how the race progresses when I’m actually in the kind of shape I like to be in when running an ultra. (Namely, I’d like to have at least a few long runs under my belt…)

Hopefully we can get a good competitive race next year, if Adam, Ty and Amanda all come back and we can convince some other speedy folks to come out and race with us. In better conditions, I could see a few people going under Chuck’s new course record, and could even see a sub-3 50k out there.

(More Info: Race Site – Full Results [PDF] – Photo Galleries: RTW – MJ – CA)

We were running a wee bit late out of the house on the way there, and it took a while to find someplace to stow the car at the race, so my warmup was a little lacking at just under 9 minutes.

That’s all right, though, since the humidity meant that it didn’t take much to warm up my muscles anyway and it did it’s most important job: it cleared my head.

I still felt tired and woozy on the drive over to the race despite resting my eyes most of the way (obviously, Erin was behind the wheel.)

While warming up and standing at the stating line, I saw a few people that are normally much faster than I am on the roads, and one person that I thought looked familiar and who warmed up in a BAA singlet but whom I hadn’t met…maybe I had seen him in New England Runner at one point? Turns out that he was Mike Dowling, a 2:34 marathoner. (That’s another way of saying that he’s a lot faster than I am.)

So…now that the race is growing so rapidly, and is bringing in the faster runners, how is that going to affect my race strategy?

Turns out, not so much. The course was a little different this year than in year’s past due to some trail maintenance on Fox East, so in the first couple miles you get to stay on the snowmobile trail quite a bit longer and cut out some of the single track.

The additional wide double track meant that my normal strategy of going out in front of everybody so that I could be the first to the narrower and more technical trails was going to be a little more difficult, and the faster guys on the starting line meant that it was going to be that much more important.

So, it was time to line up while Ian Parlin gave his pre-race instructions. He included the normal directions about trail etiquette and how the course is marked, and also shared the story about Chris Douglass and why the race is in his memory.

This type of trail race was the sort of thing that Chris loved, and he died in a car accident a few weeks before the first Scuffle.

His family has been very involved with the race right from day one. Quite a few of them ran and/or volunteered this year, including his mother who won her age division!

I took a front position on the far left of the starting line despite the slight turn towards the right at the beginning so that I could go out as fast as I wanted and not have to hurdle a large stone that sticks out of the trail around the corner on the right side.

The race starts on one of the Knight’s Woods Trails, and I went out as hard as I could for the first quarter mile to build up an early lead and kept up a pretty hard pace the rest of the first mile or two.

Coming up on mile 2, I heard Mike coming up on me on some of the easier single track, but then we turned onto the Bat Cave trail. This trail has pretty technical single track and a lot of loop backs, and with the previous night’s rain it was a little slick in places.

My goal was to put in a surge after every blind corner so that I would stay out of sight completely and wouldn’t give anybody behind me any motivation to try and catch me late in the race.

It worked. I believe that this was Mike’s first trail race, and he wasn’t familiar with the course while I’ve run it many times.

The race was basically a time trial the entire way, especially once I’d gotten a little ways into this initial stretch of single track. Knowing which corners I needed to slow down for, which would have trees I could slingshot around, and which turns really weren’t that bad so that I could maintain my speed helped me stay upright and maintain my momentum. It also helped that I know where the roots and rocks are so that I could easily choose my path.

I spent the next couple of miles comfortable that I wouldn’t be caught, but pushing as hard as I could to open as large a gap as possible before reaching the aid station where you leave the single track to get back onto the snowmobile trail.

The aid station is around 3.75(ish) miles. I didn’t waste any time, but blew past without even thanking the volunteers. (I knew them both and figured that I could catch up to them after the race and thank them then.) I thought that it would be better to keep up my pace than to worry about getting water.

My biggest concern was that one of the faster guys from the starting line was going to get onto the double track and run me down once we were away from the technical parts of the course. I didn’t want to lose.

The trail rolls a little uphill for a third or half of a mile past the aid station, and goes through a few good sized mud puddles that had filled in from the storm but were still smaller than in years past. Then you get a good mile plus stretch that is straight down where you can really fly. I didn’t want to get caught.

The way that I see it there’s basically 2 key strategies to winning this race. First, being the first to the single track, and second, using your finishing kick 2 miles from the finish when you reach that downhill stretch.

You don’t know you’ve hit that downhill right away because it isn’t straight down at first, but being able to make use of that trail won the race for me the first time I ran it and has stood me in good stead the last two years. If they can’t see you when you reenter the Knight Woods at the end, then there’s less motivation to try and catch you.

There are some small hills in the Knight Woods, and a couple of sharp turns, but it’s a short section of trail that you just need to maintain your finishing effort through.

I was still alone, but I kept imagining that I might hear somebody behind me and kicked as hard as I could right through the finish.

I came in under 40 minutes for the first time, about a minute faster than the first year I ran the race. Some of that I think is because you have a longer stretch of double track at the beginning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the course was a little shorter as well. My goal next year is going to be to break the course record on the original course so that I don’t have to worry about it’s legitimacy.

I wound up winning by about a minute, which was good for a loaf of banana bread and a $50 gift certificate as a prize. Trail Monster Running won the team event, so I also got half a case of Smutty Nose which I shared around at a post-race BBQ.

I hung out at the finish line and gave a high 5 or shook the hands of probably 90% of the finishers (I took a small break to help Ian out with the results). A lot of people must have fallen today, since at least a third of the people had sandy/muddy hands and palms.

Everybody cheered really loud when she crossed the finish line, which she powered right through the chute and actually collapsed into my arms.

Thankfully, I caught her, since I wasn’t expecting her to just fall over since nobody has ever actually done that to me before. I think she might have actually been aiming at Ian, though, since she repeated the maneuver for him once she had gotten back on her feet.

Thankfully we got some rain the night before the race to muddy up the course a little bit since it’s been way too dry lately. The rain was enough to drive away most of the deer flies, who were only in evidence at the finish line and who didn’t bother me at all during the race.

I wore my Nike waffles during the race, which were a little slick in some of the muddier spots but I stayed upright the entire way. I wound up skiing probably 4 or 5 times but always regained my balance quickly without losing too much momentum.

There are two more races in the Bradbury Trail Running Series, and this year I plan on actually running all three. So far, the Scuffle has been the only one I’ve been able to compete at.

Here are some pages of interest if you’d like to know more about the Bradbury Scuffle:

• Race Site
• Race Results
• Facebook Page (course photos)
• Course Preview Video
• Course Map [PDF] (2010 Interactive Map)
• Race Photos
• Race Reports:
  • 43:36 – Jeff Walker
  • 46:28 – Ryan Triffitt
  • 49:10 – Jamie Anderson
  • 50:04 – Danielle Triffitt
  • 57:10 – Valerie Abradie
  • 62:10 – Kevin Robinson
  • more as they are found…

I went out right where I wanted to be with a 5:33, after which I passed a few people to run most of the race in third place. My effort was pretty consistent, with 5:43 and 5:39 miles, but then I actually got outsprinted at the very end of the race by Nathan Buck, who just completed his 5^th race of the season and is poised to jump onto the leader board after his next race. I did manage to go under 18 minutes for a 5k for the first time this year, which is nice.

Marc Halverson and Abshir Horor led the entire race and finished together in 16:46. Too bad I couldn’t really see the finish too well from almost a minute behind them. Similarly, Dana Quincy had almost a minute lead in the women’s race, finishing in 18:59.

Dave Manz (01:46:35) managed to maintain his spot atop the leader board this week despite not improving his cumulative time, but Toby Grindal (1:48:13) managed to drop 35 seconds in second place and I have moved back to third place by dropping over 3 minutes from cumulative time when I traded last week’s 20:52 for this week’s 17:41. Lily Childress didn’t run this week but maintains her spot atop the leader board in 02:02:53.

More Info: Full Results – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List