3M half marathon

hey blogosphere! I’ve been a bad blogger, and I won’t insult your intelligence by saying that I’ll change. But here is a small effort.

I went to Austin this weekend to visit my old friend Steve Young, a.k.a. 57-Steve. We worked together at Trilogy right after college. He managed to get a mobile number of (512) 577-8383 or (512) 57-STEVE. Yeah. We’re geeks.

He didn’t run back then, but has picked up the nasty habit in the past two years… so we agreed to meet up here and to run the 3M half marathon. 3M also happens to be the only half marathon I’d ever run outside of a triathlon, back in 2003, when we lived here.

Steve had a goal to break 90 minutes in a half this year, and I had tried to coach him a bit last year, providing workouts from Seattle that he ran in London. But he got hurt. I must be a bad coach. But he’s healthy again now and was on track to break 90 this time. He didn’t believe it himself, but he’d run 92 minutes on a slightly-short but SUPER HILLY course in France a few months ago, so I knew he could do it. And he did. He ran a smart race, staying with the 1:30 pacer the entire way, and ran an official chip time of 1:29:57. Solid.

I was hoping to break 74 at this race, after running 76:04 at the Seattle half in November when Tahoma convinced me to run it as our workout like two days earlier. Seattle is hillier than 3M, and I was actually able to plan this one in advance. But then I got a persistent head cold about a week before the race, and it was a struggle just to be healthy on the starting line. I hoped to run steady 5:40s for the first half of the race and then drop a bit in the second half if I still felt good. I’d run steady 5:42s on the track for 9 miles with Travis Adams two weeks ago, so I knew I had the fitness to do this. But in the fourth mile yesterday I could already feel that I didn’t quite have it. I ate an energy gel and tried to tough it out. I managed to get my splits back down but was clearly a few clicks slower than I would need to be. I did manage a new PR, though, in the upper 1:15s. Maybe 1:15:40ish?

Splits were 5:28 5:44 5:38 5:48 5:46 5:44 5:41 5:47 6:01 5:44 5:55 6:04 5:44. The 6:01 and 6:04 had hills and/or headwind. I swear.

The best part of the day (and the main reason I’m writing this) happened a few hours after the race. I got two texts from Steve:

http://dailymile.com/people/Iristroph/entries/20196919

Hilarious but keep the face that you read this between you and me.

(We’ve since decided that it is OK for me to share these.)

Go read the link if you haven’t done so already. It is really funny.

Did you read it yet? OK. Good. How funny is that?!! Awesome!! I laughed out loud. So did my running buddies in Seattle. So did Steve.

Hopefully that brought a little levity to your day. I know that most of you probably saw the link on my Facebook wall already… but feel free to comment here, too, so that it looks like people still read this blog.

In other Austin news, it was great to see and catch up a bit with Tim Sandfort, Don & Missy Ruthven, Corey May and George Schmitz, and to see Tim Terwey and Josh Lee at the race. Go check out the new Austin Tri-Cyclist store on 360 at Davenport Village, opening Feb 9th!!

oh regarding use of the photo – it is pretty well-established across race photo companies that athletes can use the shots on their personal blogs pro bono. I know the image header says otherwise :/

A lot of stairs

While in Colorado Springs for a recent PROTA board meeting, I decided to check out the Manitou Incline. Dave Messenheimer had told me about this epic staircase a few years ago and a friend of a friend reminded me about it at a recent dinner party. I think that conversation went something like this:

DUDE: There is this really difficult staircase in C Springs that you should check out on your trip. I used to hike up it in like 50 minutes, but I hear that it’s been done in forty.

ME: Wow, sounds tough. I wonder if I could beat forty. Actually, I think I’ve heard of that before. What’s it called?

DUDE: The Incline. The Manitou Incline.

ME: Hrmmm…

ME (via text message): Hey Mess, what’s the OTC record for the Manitou Incline?

MESS (via text message): I think [Mark] Fretta’s done it in 14:30. My best was more like 16 or 17 minutes.

ME (back at the dinner party): check this out. This guy I know did it in 14:30!!

Yeah, I can be a bit of a punk…

So anyways, after our board meeting I had not-quite-enough time to go run the Incline before taking Jesse & Rebeccah to the airport. Really, they almost missed their flight because of me. And here I said that I would stop being so self-absorbed about training during my “semi-retirement…” but this wasn’t training. This was silly masculine competition.

The Manitou Incline is about 0.9 miles long and has an elevation change of 2000 feet, for an average grade of 42%. I think that the peak grade was in the 60s. My goal was to get up there in twenty minutes. Not even close.

View of the Manitou Incline from Hwy 24, shamelessly stolen from InclineClub.com. I didn’t bring my camera up the hill.

I started off at sort of a “casual jogging” and hoped I could build into it. But after a minute I was already winded. Did I mention that the Incline *starts* at 6600 feet above sea level, and that I live in Seattle? Urgh. It hurt.

I plugged away at a pace that could only be described as “a brisk walk.” The steps were rather uneven at times, and some steps were above knee height, requiring a pretty big step up.

Oh, and there was a lot of snow up there. It was mid-January, after all.

I thought I was going to come close to my goal, only to realize a bit of a “false summit” at 20-21 minutes in.

Incline profile shamelessly stolen from InclineClub.com. See that “false summit” around 0.8 miles…

I finally reached the top at 26:45 and checked my pulse: 160! not bad for a retiree whose heart always runs a bit slowly!

View from the top, shamelessly stolen from InclineClub.com.

The way back down was painful and dangerous. I was short on time to get to the airport, and I think that I slipped and fell at least three times. Not smart. It still took longer to get down than it took to get up. The snow and ice didn’t help. My quads were sore for about four days afterwards. Very sore. Don’t run down stairs.

In other news, I’ll soon reveal my racing plans for 2011… as well as what I’ve been working on during my extended break from high-volume training!

A Three Hour Tour

Chris: Rather than just drive back from yesterday's race in Portland, Ben Collins and I decided to drive to Tacoma and then sail his 27-foot Catalina "yacht" up to its new home in Ballard.  Unfortunately there hasn't been much wind and the boat only has a 5hp motor.

Ben: See, a boat's speed is a direct function of several things, the length of the boat (larger boats can go faster than smaller boats), plus the amount of power that goes into propelling the boat forward. The problem that Chris is introducing is that an absence of wind has forced us to rely on a one cylinder 35 year old diesel engine that I was unable to start until about a week ago. Well, it starts now, but about a half an hour ago smoke started spewing from the cabin of the boat, and Chris started acting a little loony.

Chris: and that's why we're stranded here watching the lights come on in downtown Seattle.  But let me go back to how we've been underway for seven hours and have only made it to the middle of Elliott Bay.  You see, when we have run the motor today (sadly, most of the time) we were only running it at about half power.  Ben was concerned about gas mileage and we were a bit short on gas.  But even after stopping to refuel at Des Moines, we were still puttering along at maybe 3 or 4 knots.  I made the joke that one of us should get out at Des Moines and walk and we could see who gets to Ballard first.  Sadly it now appears that would have been an easy victory for the walker.

Ben: I was just explaining to Chris that he should never give up an opportunity for a good story. This, however, is not why we both neglected to charge our cell phones last night, or why I left my GPS in the car, or why around 5pm we decided to say "screw it" and kick this bad boy into gear. No, sadly enough, we set out on our adventure that we would get my new (very used) sailboat from Tacoma to Seattle in under six hours and with as little effort as possible (aside from a few tacks and some sailor lingo). At this point, I'm just thankful it hasn't been raining yet.

Chris: the weather has been so nice today that I'm shocked at how few other boats we've seen out here.  We saw maybe ten boats on our way up and now we just see each ferry as it almost runs us over.   I suppose that's what happens when you're adrift in the middle of the ferry lane.

Ben: no seriously though, the last ferry to com by was REALLY close. As in museum voice distance. Wait, Seattle Traffic is calling me on the radio (our cells are dead, did I mention that?).... brb... ok, the vessel assist is on its way, and now Chris and I are taking turns doing a periodic signal toward the boat, and typing in the blog. OK, my turn.

Chris: neither of has ever gotten Vessel Assist before.  We were wondering whether the Chucklehead Factor of needing Vessel Assist is greater than the comparable factor for roadside assistance.  Vessel Assist is rapidly approaching now.  Gotta go.

Post scriptum ... a few pictures:

 
Ben blogging while we wait for Vessel Assist. It was a lot darker out than it looks in this picture.

 
a blurry shot of the Seattle skyline at dusk ... the boat was a-rockin' from some ferry wake

 
This ferry got a lot closer to us, but my cell phone battery died before then

 
Alki Point at 7 knots

How to Race Like a Chucklehead

I had a lot of fun at Team Group Health's Independence Valley Road Race this weekend and also showed why riders like me don't win bike races.  Here are some tips that can make you into a strong perma-four, just like me:

1. Train a lot. Be one of the stronger riders in the field so that you're able to hang out near the front of the group where other riders will notice all of your stupid tactics.
2. Don't contest the bunch sprint.  Ever.  They are dangerous and a crash could take time away from your training.  Besides, who wants to win anyways?  Winning is for losers.
3. Launch a plethora of hopeless attacks over the last five miles.  Make sure that even if you're somehow near the front at the 1k to go sign and have forgotten Rule #2 that you won't have the legs make anything happen.
4. Taunt others.  If somebody is boxing you in on a climb, call them a fat fattie who needs to get a granny gear to carry his fatness over the hill.  If somebody doesn't pull through with riders off the front in the final run-up, question their manhood.  Call them a coward.  Ask if their mom races bikes... or their little sister.  It probably won't affect the outcome of the race but at least you'll make some friends.
5. Corner like a scared little girl.  This one didn't get me at Indy Valley (probably b/c I actually practiced cornering this week -- oops) but it is a good one to keep in your hip pocket, especially with crit season just around the corner.

If you have your own favorite tips for losing races and having a good time while doing so, feel free to leave them in the comments below.