Wicked Race Report... Wicked Late

A few weeks ago I signed up last-minute for the Wicked Half Marathon. This was a bit of an unfinished-business race. I saw the t-shirt 2 years ago and decided I HAD to do it, so I signed up last year, and got lost on the way to the start. Damn. I've always had good luck in Salem (also at this link, and this one)... at least to the races I can find the start of, and since I was going to miss the Wild Turkey 5 mile race this year, I was just itching to run in Salem. I know, me, itching to run. Weird, right?

This year, my body is different. For reasons that are a mystery to me, I've been running a lot faster. I also hadn't run more than 10.5 miles since last February. How would my body react to a half marathon? Would I crash? Would 13.1 hard miles tear my legs apart? It was a regular training week, so I wasn't especially rested stepping into this race (but come on, that's not that out-of-the-ordinary for me). I hadn't run a road race in about 8 months... What would happen?

I was trying some new nutrition tactics to deal with my phantom poo problem. I had a light breakfast, only 2 pieces of peanut butter toast, and tucked my usual smoothie into the mini igloo for after the race. I went to Starbucks, but I only sipped about a quarter of my coffee on the way to the start. I'd had a shitty night's sleep, so passing on the joe took some willpower. When I got to the race, I vowed to break Claire's Number 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't, but I had to walk about half a mile from my parking spot to the school. Then there were only three bathroom stalls, and a line out the door for the bathroom. As I got closer to the front of the line, I realized that one of the stalls was missing a door. How could I break Claire's Number 1 Rule of Public Pooping if there was no door?! Luckily, when my turn came, my stall had a door. Too bad I stepped into the stall at 6:59. The race was supposed to start at 7:00! I got out what I could, washed my hands, and ran for the door.

Luckily, they held off the start for about 10 minutes and I had plenty of time to elbow my way into the starting corral. There was plenty of room, and when the gun went off I got to start running right away. Weird. It was one of those courses that look pancake flat on the course profile, but once you're running on it, the undulations really break up your rhythm (or mine anyway, I can't run up a hill to save my life). The weather felt cool, but as I started running I felt fine in just spanky shorts and a t-shirt.

Rather than watching my watch and trying to sit on a goal pace, this time I was trying something different. I kept my head up and only checked my watch at the mile markers. In between, I would listen to my breathing and my body. I tried to ignore what everyone around me was doing. I fell in with some runners who were going at a pace that felt comfortable and tried to resist the urge to pass people who were only a few yards ahead. Steady, I told myself. Find a groove you can follow for the next 13 miles. Then every time my breathing got hard I would remind myself to just find a groove.

I looked down at my watch at the first mile marker: my watch said .98 miles in 7:39. Good, the mile markers were right on. I knew that I probably wasn't going to hold 7:39's for the whole course, but hey, I had no idea what my body was going to do. This pace felt good and so I was going to sit on it dammit! I looked away from my watch and kept running.

My second mile came at about the same interval, 7:41. At the third mile, the hills started. I laid off and watched everyone around me pull away. A woman running with her long hair down (I hate that!), an iPod in her ears (I hate that!), and a running skirt (I hate that!) pulled ahead of me, and I resisted the urge to hate her guts. I knew that if I pushed the pace anymore I knew I would dig myself into a hole I couldn't get back out of. Mile 3 came in 7:46, phew, I didn't lose much time. Mile 4 was also steady: 7:45.

By mile 5, we hit the lollipop through some rolling hills. As we set out on the lollipop, we saw the race leader coming back in the other direction. "Fuck that!" I heard a voice say over my right shoulder. I looked over and saw a guy in an Mdot hat. Now that could keep me inspired to push. You all know how I feel about Mdot folks. "Is that a Timberman hat?" I asked.
"No, Rhode Island," he said. Then he started the Mdot monologue about how he'd done Ironman Florida, blah, blah, blah. New Zoot shoes, blah, blah. I watched more backs pull away as I we the next mile marker in 7:49, but my Mdot buddy was still there, telling me more about the shoes. "I'm a heel striker, see. And this shoe has almost no padding. It just doesn't fit my running stride." Still high on my barefoot running kick from reading Born to Run, I bit my tongue about the shoes probably being a good idea for a guy like him. When it came out later that he runs a 10K in western Mass and is a coach, I was apalled.
We hit another hill and I said, "Well, this is where you pull ahead of me. Byeee!" and let him heel-strike on ahead. But at the next water stop, there he was, massaging his calf. "You alright?" I asked.
"Yeah, shoes just making me cramp up. These people cannot have a booth at my expo!" he said. I ran on. Alone. But the chick with the long hair and the skirt was still ahead. The big hills came between miles 6 (8:04) and 7 (7:55).

Starting at mile 8 I was beginning to feel fatigue. I had decided not to put any calories in my drink bottle, and I was beginning to wonder if it would be a problem as we ran over the jetty back into Salem. My stomach hadn't given me problems, but now I was having other issues from the lack of food. My 8th mile split was 7:59, but I finally picked off the lady in the skirt. I slowed down at an aid station and grabbed a Dixie cup of water, pouring it down my shirt more than in my mouth as I ran on.

Mile 9 came in 7:58 and I could feel the wheels falling off. One of the muscles in my right quad (vastus medialis, i think) was beginning to kill, and breathing was getting pretty hard at an 8:00 pace. Mile 10 was 7:59, and lasted a lifetime. I wasn't really falling apart, but it was that feeling of impending doom that you get when you realize that you're falling behind on your nutrition, and you're not going to make it to the end before you run out of gas.

Miles 11 (8:00) and 12 (7:52) felt like they were lasting forever, and like they were over in no time. My right quad was really killing me now, a feeling I've never had. I hadn't run this far all year, and although my long runs had been faster, they had still been 30 seconds per mile slower than this. Finally, I was inside the last mile as other runners kicked it in, so did I. The problem was, despite doing my hardest running all day, I was running my second slowest mile (8:03). I did everything I could to hold on. My quad was killing me! When was this going to be over?

Still, I let myself watch my Garmin in the last mile so that I would know when I could pick up the kick without digging myself into a hole. I was going to set a half marathon PR. I thought that if I broke 1:45 for a half marathon that would certainly put me square in the middle of the pack, but I could only see one guy pulling away about 100 yards ahead of me and there was no one else around. What do I have to do to catch the pack at a half marathon?

Now I could see the school. I did everything I could to kick it in, but this had to be the longest .1 mile of my life. I timed the final sprint to end right where the crowd started, because the finish line had to be there. I had been running for way longer than .1 miles, but when I reached the crowd, they directed me down into the parking lot. I still had some 50 yards to go, and it was just enough to deflate my final sprint. I was mad. Every mile marker had been dead on with my Garmin, and now I finished with 13.2 miles on my odometer. Lame! The last .2 miles were at 7:26 pace, some sprint!

One of my uglier finishing moments. Looks like A) I'm still heelstriking, and B) my quads are enormous! (yuck!), and C) look how far off the ground I am! Why can't I just run at a fast cadence like fast people?!

I finished in 1:44:01, or 1:44:06, or 1:44:08, whether you believe Garmin, my HRM, or the official time for a 7:53 mile if you believe Garmin, and 7:57 if you believe the official results. It was about a 2:13 PR. I had finished 110th overall (19%), and 13th of 105 in my age group (12%), but I would't get too excited about it since there were people who ran in superhero costumes. As I was fishing a water bottle out of the kiddie pools at the finish, the chick with no hair tie and the running skirt came up to me. "You're really strong. I was chasing you for the last 5 miles and I just couldn't catch you!" Hehehe... I win! I thought, but I smiled and told her that she'd been pushing me for the five miles before that. The best part though? I finally beat Gadfly Thom! I was wandering around the finishing area with that dazed look that you get after a race when I saw him come through two minutes behind me! So ha!