Yesterday morning I tried to watch the live stream of the elite woman's start before I headed off to the chiropractor. Actually, I got to see the wheelchair start before that, and the men's start after. Then I struggled through a bit of the very spotty live feed with the horrendous commentary. I thought it was just as well that I had to leave.
I could have predicted that Rita Jeptoo or Sharon Cherop would win, just from watching the ladies on the start line. Shalane and Kara were fidgeting with their outfits, doing some nervous stretches. Shalane bent down to re-tie her shoes. The Kenyans on either side of them just should there, all loosey goosey and cool as cucumbers, in the zone.
By the time I got home from the chiropractor, the race was over. I had given up trying to get into the wifi network at the chiro's office. And of course, I could learn nothing about the results from listening to my car radio.
Back home, I guess I could have done a Google search but that would've just been too easy. What I really wanted was to watch a race video. Or read a mile by mile account. I didn't really want to know the results too soon. The Let's Run servers were down. I went to the Runner's World web site and read their live blog of the event, which is where I found out I had been right about the results of the woman's race. It seemed like Shalane's race plan wasn't so bad---staying in the pack with the eventual winner---but she made a mental error by waiting too long to make a move. Instead of reacting to the Kenyan move, she should have made her own move, and sooner.
But what do I know?
Anyway, felt kinda bummed about no American win yet again. Headed up to the vet with Maggie, and while we were at the vet's office the bombs went off at the Boston finish line. The first I heard of it was in the car driving home, and from the way NPR was barely interupting their coverage, it didn't sound like it was any big deal.
I mean, I have a kid living in Boston with her husband, and I wasn't even worried because NPR was more concerned with continuing to run its program about exonerated prisoners. An important topic, but kind of a fail on a big news story, NPR.
Back home, I texted my daughter and verified that she was fine, her husband was fine, they were no where near the site of the bombing, and she didn't know anything more than I did.
Watched the news and found out it was a big deal, after all. Still, the implications of it hadn't really hit me yet. I had acquaintances running but no close friends. Can you count someone who has unfriended you on Facebook?
Kept watching the news---not the best idea---and managed to let it get me all agitated. Tried to text daughter, who clearly wanted to be left alone. Switched TV coverage from MSNBC to CNN because MSNBC persisted in trying to connect the bombing to gun violence. Yes, Americans, if we took away all the guns, those bombs would not have gone off in Boston! Or MSNBC would like us to believe. I suppose on FOX they were telling people that it was all Obama's fault.
Gradually it began to dawn on me that the timing of the bombs going off, around 4:09 into the race, coincided with what might have been my finish time on a good day. In fact, it was my goal time from two weeks ago. So I could then readily imagine myself finishing the race in the midst of this nightmare, or being stopped somewhere just before, with my husband and maybe even my daughter and her husband waiting on the sidewalk where the bombs went off.
And then I started thinking about how this could ruin marathons, ruin the things we love about them. Make it harder for people to casually spectate from the sidelines, Make it harder for our loved ones to join us on the way to the start and meet us just past the finish line. Make us nervous and suspicious as we line up to start (where lots of people are discarding random items) and approach the finish (where there are people everywhere carrying backpacks and lots of drop bags just laying on the ground).
And I thought about the families who had lost loved ones, and the people whose lives had been changed forever by this horrible tragedy. And how it doesn't matter anymore about the results of this race. And that's a little sad, too, because that's another thing the terrorist(s) have taken from us. And how there was almost no coverage of the Boston Marathon in the mainstream media until the bombing, and this morning that was almost all the coverage was about.
I wore my Heartbreak Hill socks today, but it was too warm to wear any of my other Boston gear. The year I ran was, I think, the only year that the gear was not designed in the iconic blue and yellow. Instead, my stuff is red, white and blue. More patriotic but most people probably wouldn't even know what it was about.
Now I wait with the rest of the world to find out who was behind this horrible act. Debating whether or not to go ahead and enter the Flying Pig Marathon. (Current thinking: no). Hoping it doesn't change my beloved sport too much. Wondering if it will now be even harder for me to gain entry into Boston again. (Current thinking: yes). Wishing peace and recovery to all those directly affected by the tragedy. Glad that all my acquaintances are safe, even the ones who have unfriended me on Facebook.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Run for the Green 2013
Run for the Green is the first race in our now annual series of local trail races (Dirt Days). I did it for the first time two years ago but skipped it last year, I think because I was sick at the time. This year it again fell on the Saturday of the Louisville Cluster of dog shows, which helped me decide to only enter the first two days of that show so I would be home for this race.
What I remembered from the first time was a lot of mud. Not particularly hilly but very messy. And last time I was nursing an injury to my upper left thigh that I got when I slipped on some ice while walking the dogs, and it was a week after I limped around the Little Rock Marathon, and the goal was just to finish.
Again this year the goal was mostly just to finish but since I am neither injured (unless you count the knee that has not been quite right since I fell on it a couple of weeks ago) nor ill at the moment (knock on wood) I expected to be a bit faster. But mostly I just wanted an official finish time to count towards the participation awards for the trail series. Had a bit of trouble with that two years ago, when I initially did not show up in the results.
Didn't want to push too hard this year, because I do have that marathon coming up in a couple of weeks.
(I'm trying to finish this up now after starting it a week or so ago! Scary how much I have forgotten about this race already!)
Ok, so, the race started at 9 am so I drove up there around 8. It was pouring down rain during the drive and I got a little lost because the park was not quite where I remembered it being. Also, it did not help that my GPS thought the park was called "Camden-Deerfield Park" instead of "Landen-Deerfield Park." It made it a little harder to look it up since I was spelling it correctly and the GPS had it wrong!
Anyway, by the time I closed in on it the rain had stopped, thank goodness. The parking lot was filling up, so I had a little bit of a warmup jog back and forth getting my goodie bag. Yes, there was actually a goodie bag. It contained a green plastic cup and a bag of peanuts and a coupon for Dick's Sporting Goods. The shirts (I had ordered one because I'm running a little low on long sleeved cotton tees for winter dog walks) were bright green.
Here's a couple of funny memories from the packet pickup:
1) There was a chunky woman (not to be too judgmental) in front of me on line who was kind of snippy and rude when I asked her if she was on line, and then when she got up to the front of the line turned out she was on the WRONG line because she had not pre-registered. Ha.
2) After I got my bib and the goodie bag and was heading back to the car, a kind of goofy, chunky guy shoved his goodie bag at me and asked me if I would take it because he was "running." I had to explain to him that I was running, too. Did I not look like I was running? Ah, but that is the title of this blog, after all. I really don't look like a runner! Anyway, it was a half hour until the race start, and I can understand wanting to go do a warmup as I was about to get going on that myself but that didn't mean that you should expect me to take your goodie bag for you, weirdo. He said he didn't want it to go to waste. So I just said, well, why don't we put your bag here on this table and then if someone wants it they can have it?
I want to emphasize this guy was not a contender to win the race. But he seemed to think that I needed his peanuts. He was in a hurry to go running.
People who live in the Cincinnati suburbs: idiots?
There were also a number of people wearing shirts from the Spartan races, Warrior Dash, and that other thing, Muddy whatever it is called. Tough Mudder, that's it. I have a negative impression of these races, since I have heard and read that the courses are not really timed and you can even finish them without completing all of the obstacles. I don't think of them as real races. A couple of people were comparing whether running through fire (Warrior Dash?) or getting shocked (the Muddy thing?) was harder. I've seen pictures of the obstacles and the competitors and I would say neither is really such a big deal. But these fools like to delude themselves that they are accomplishing the ultimate athletic achievement. When I race, I want to pass as many of these people as I can.
Lots of people wearing green, many wearing the race shirt. I guess I should have tried a little harder to find something green to wear. I do have a couple of green tech shirts.
I headed back to my car, where I sat for a minute while I attached my bib to my little waist belt, which I have grown quite fond of for racing. No more dealing with pins for me!
After a bit, I headed out for some loops of the parking lot, which I knew would not prepare me for the muddy mess ahead. When I felt warm enough, I joined the rest of the participants near the start line. A guy in Vibrams asked me about which way we were starting. I told him what I remembered about the lap of the grassy field that they make us do before we head into the woods.
I looked, as usual, for a spot near people who looked like me. But nobody looks quite like me anymore. They are all so much younger and dressed in more fashionable running attire. I was wearing navy tights, a technical top from the State-to-State race (soon this will constitute half my running clothes since I do that race every year!) and an old nylon jacket which I had already take off and tied around my waist.
I saw one woman whom I recognized from previous trail races. She is slower than I am, so I just put myself a bit in front of her, and that seemed about right.
We started running, and immediately I felt that unpleasant cold wet feeling in my shoes that I remembered from last time as we splashed through the puddles in the field. I reminded myself that I just wanted to get a finish time and not get injured. As we made our loop of the field, the most irritating thing was the back kick and muddy splashes from the large men (Tough Mudders, no doubt).
There was a little bit of undulation that I remembered, a short but steep little downhill and then a little climb uphill, before we headed into the woods. I noticed a woman I had seen at the start whom I thought looked fast, but I was closing in on her. I would pass her before we got in the woods and she would finish quite a bit behind me.
Here's a pic from that early section of the race:
There I am in my black hat from the Delaware Marathon, # 411.
And then we were in the woods. My GPS wasn't going to get a signal, and I didn't want to wear my foot pod because of the creek crossings, so I was making do with just the stopwatch function of my watch. Two years ago I finished in 50 minutes, which included a lot of walking. This time I figured to be closer to 40 minutes even without trying very hard.
The trails in this park are pretty smooth without a lot of rocks and limbs. But the miserable weather had left them very muddy. So the riskiest thing was slipping in the mud. Early in the race there is a little stretch where you are on a narrow singletrack with the Little Miami River rushing by just below you to your right. So if you take a misstep to your right at all you are going to roll down the hill and into the river. That part was a little scary.
Unlike some of the trail races from the first few years of my trail running experience, I was able to hold my position most of the way without having to stop and let people go by. The only way to pass people on these trails is if they let you. I was moving at a comfortable pace, and since the most important thing was to finish uninjured and I didn't want to push it very hard, I just stayed where I was in the pack and didn't try to pass anybody in the woods.
At one point I did let a woman and a little boy go by, because she was making a big deal to him about how now they were going to pass people. Immediately I knew I had made a mistake because they really didn't pass anybody else except me. The woman was fast but the kid really wasn't.
Here's a pic from somewhere in the middle of the race:
You can see how muddy my feet are.
We had to slow down for the creek crossings. The water really was about knee-high on me, and it was deeper if you stepped off to the sides. It actually felt kind of good, because I was a little warm in the tights.
I just kept looking at my watch and guestimating how much more was left. Near the end, it seemed like we just kept going back and forth in the area behind the grassy field. I remembered that part from last time, too. It goes on for a long time like that. You think you're almost done, and at one point you even pop out of the woods but immediately have to go back again, and on and on and on.
(I'm trying to finish this up now because it is the night before my marathon!)
(OMG, now it is after the marathon, days later, and still I am trying to finish this one up!)
Ok, so we snake back and forth through the woods with the grassy field above us just out of reach. Finally we come out and basically make a circle around the outside of the field as we head for the finish line. It's about a quarter mile, maybe less. Now I am no longer afraid of falling down, so I pick up the pace and kick past several groups of runners who are ahead of me, which enables me to move up several places among the women.
Post race, they don't seem to have as much or as good quality of food as I remembered. I got my stuff out of the car and changed in the rest room. My shoes and tights were well-coated with mud, and it was nice to get into something dry. They had posted the results, so I checked to make sure I was on the list. And since I had not won my age group, there was no reason to stick around.
I was 168 of 275 runners, and 47 of 112 women. My time was 42:19, almost 8 minutes faster than two years ago, when I had that nasty hip flexor problem, but I was a bit disappointed because I had hoped to be even faster, and to finish a little higher up in the results. But since I was basically just jogging most of the way and trying to finish the race without hurting myself, I can't complain too much.
As I finish writing this report, I am injured once again, and am thinking that I really should not have been complaining at all!
What I remembered from the first time was a lot of mud. Not particularly hilly but very messy. And last time I was nursing an injury to my upper left thigh that I got when I slipped on some ice while walking the dogs, and it was a week after I limped around the Little Rock Marathon, and the goal was just to finish.
Again this year the goal was mostly just to finish but since I am neither injured (unless you count the knee that has not been quite right since I fell on it a couple of weeks ago) nor ill at the moment (knock on wood) I expected to be a bit faster. But mostly I just wanted an official finish time to count towards the participation awards for the trail series. Had a bit of trouble with that two years ago, when I initially did not show up in the results.
Didn't want to push too hard this year, because I do have that marathon coming up in a couple of weeks.
(I'm trying to finish this up now after starting it a week or so ago! Scary how much I have forgotten about this race already!)
Ok, so, the race started at 9 am so I drove up there around 8. It was pouring down rain during the drive and I got a little lost because the park was not quite where I remembered it being. Also, it did not help that my GPS thought the park was called "Camden-Deerfield Park" instead of "Landen-Deerfield Park." It made it a little harder to look it up since I was spelling it correctly and the GPS had it wrong!
Anyway, by the time I closed in on it the rain had stopped, thank goodness. The parking lot was filling up, so I had a little bit of a warmup jog back and forth getting my goodie bag. Yes, there was actually a goodie bag. It contained a green plastic cup and a bag of peanuts and a coupon for Dick's Sporting Goods. The shirts (I had ordered one because I'm running a little low on long sleeved cotton tees for winter dog walks) were bright green.
Here's a couple of funny memories from the packet pickup:
1) There was a chunky woman (not to be too judgmental) in front of me on line who was kind of snippy and rude when I asked her if she was on line, and then when she got up to the front of the line turned out she was on the WRONG line because she had not pre-registered. Ha.
2) After I got my bib and the goodie bag and was heading back to the car, a kind of goofy, chunky guy shoved his goodie bag at me and asked me if I would take it because he was "running." I had to explain to him that I was running, too. Did I not look like I was running? Ah, but that is the title of this blog, after all. I really don't look like a runner! Anyway, it was a half hour until the race start, and I can understand wanting to go do a warmup as I was about to get going on that myself but that didn't mean that you should expect me to take your goodie bag for you, weirdo. He said he didn't want it to go to waste. So I just said, well, why don't we put your bag here on this table and then if someone wants it they can have it?
I want to emphasize this guy was not a contender to win the race. But he seemed to think that I needed his peanuts. He was in a hurry to go running.
People who live in the Cincinnati suburbs: idiots?
There were also a number of people wearing shirts from the Spartan races, Warrior Dash, and that other thing, Muddy whatever it is called. Tough Mudder, that's it. I have a negative impression of these races, since I have heard and read that the courses are not really timed and you can even finish them without completing all of the obstacles. I don't think of them as real races. A couple of people were comparing whether running through fire (Warrior Dash?) or getting shocked (the Muddy thing?) was harder. I've seen pictures of the obstacles and the competitors and I would say neither is really such a big deal. But these fools like to delude themselves that they are accomplishing the ultimate athletic achievement. When I race, I want to pass as many of these people as I can.
Lots of people wearing green, many wearing the race shirt. I guess I should have tried a little harder to find something green to wear. I do have a couple of green tech shirts.
I headed back to my car, where I sat for a minute while I attached my bib to my little waist belt, which I have grown quite fond of for racing. No more dealing with pins for me!
After a bit, I headed out for some loops of the parking lot, which I knew would not prepare me for the muddy mess ahead. When I felt warm enough, I joined the rest of the participants near the start line. A guy in Vibrams asked me about which way we were starting. I told him what I remembered about the lap of the grassy field that they make us do before we head into the woods.
I looked, as usual, for a spot near people who looked like me. But nobody looks quite like me anymore. They are all so much younger and dressed in more fashionable running attire. I was wearing navy tights, a technical top from the State-to-State race (soon this will constitute half my running clothes since I do that race every year!) and an old nylon jacket which I had already take off and tied around my waist.
I saw one woman whom I recognized from previous trail races. She is slower than I am, so I just put myself a bit in front of her, and that seemed about right.
We started running, and immediately I felt that unpleasant cold wet feeling in my shoes that I remembered from last time as we splashed through the puddles in the field. I reminded myself that I just wanted to get a finish time and not get injured. As we made our loop of the field, the most irritating thing was the back kick and muddy splashes from the large men (Tough Mudders, no doubt).
There was a little bit of undulation that I remembered, a short but steep little downhill and then a little climb uphill, before we headed into the woods. I noticed a woman I had seen at the start whom I thought looked fast, but I was closing in on her. I would pass her before we got in the woods and she would finish quite a bit behind me.
Here's a pic from that early section of the race:
There I am in my black hat from the Delaware Marathon, # 411.
And then we were in the woods. My GPS wasn't going to get a signal, and I didn't want to wear my foot pod because of the creek crossings, so I was making do with just the stopwatch function of my watch. Two years ago I finished in 50 minutes, which included a lot of walking. This time I figured to be closer to 40 minutes even without trying very hard.
The trails in this park are pretty smooth without a lot of rocks and limbs. But the miserable weather had left them very muddy. So the riskiest thing was slipping in the mud. Early in the race there is a little stretch where you are on a narrow singletrack with the Little Miami River rushing by just below you to your right. So if you take a misstep to your right at all you are going to roll down the hill and into the river. That part was a little scary.
Unlike some of the trail races from the first few years of my trail running experience, I was able to hold my position most of the way without having to stop and let people go by. The only way to pass people on these trails is if they let you. I was moving at a comfortable pace, and since the most important thing was to finish uninjured and I didn't want to push it very hard, I just stayed where I was in the pack and didn't try to pass anybody in the woods.
At one point I did let a woman and a little boy go by, because she was making a big deal to him about how now they were going to pass people. Immediately I knew I had made a mistake because they really didn't pass anybody else except me. The woman was fast but the kid really wasn't.
Here's a pic from somewhere in the middle of the race:
You can see how muddy my feet are.
We had to slow down for the creek crossings. The water really was about knee-high on me, and it was deeper if you stepped off to the sides. It actually felt kind of good, because I was a little warm in the tights.
I just kept looking at my watch and guestimating how much more was left. Near the end, it seemed like we just kept going back and forth in the area behind the grassy field. I remembered that part from last time, too. It goes on for a long time like that. You think you're almost done, and at one point you even pop out of the woods but immediately have to go back again, and on and on and on.
(I'm trying to finish this up now because it is the night before my marathon!)
(OMG, now it is after the marathon, days later, and still I am trying to finish this one up!)
Ok, so we snake back and forth through the woods with the grassy field above us just out of reach. Finally we come out and basically make a circle around the outside of the field as we head for the finish line. It's about a quarter mile, maybe less. Now I am no longer afraid of falling down, so I pick up the pace and kick past several groups of runners who are ahead of me, which enables me to move up several places among the women.
Post race, they don't seem to have as much or as good quality of food as I remembered. I got my stuff out of the car and changed in the rest room. My shoes and tights were well-coated with mud, and it was nice to get into something dry. They had posted the results, so I checked to make sure I was on the list. And since I had not won my age group, there was no reason to stick around.
I was 168 of 275 runners, and 47 of 112 women. My time was 42:19, almost 8 minutes faster than two years ago, when I had that nasty hip flexor problem, but I was a bit disappointed because I had hoped to be even faster, and to finish a little higher up in the results. But since I was basically just jogging most of the way and trying to finish the race without hurting myself, I can't complain too much.
As I finish writing this report, I am injured once again, and am thinking that I really should not have been complaining at all!
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