I think I'll race this morning - Snapple Half Marathon

Miyamoto Musashi, on 10 October 1645(ish), took up his brush to explain his way of zen in his acclaimed Book of Five Rings at the Hour of the Tiger - around 4am. Fast forward a few centuries and decades and you find me at that same hour (however, a different month and day) beginning my journey... of reaching for the snooze button. On the twenty seventh day of the first month of the year, I took to my trail shoes to begin a cold, yet fruitful day.

It was around 0407 and I stared bleakly into the greyish purple of my ceiling in the early light. My planned race season was supposed to start on 6 April down in North Carolina at a triathlon, and these early months were intended to acclimate myself to training in the cold and start shedding my winter coat brought on by sweet porters, dry wines, and stinky cheeses. This morning I was getting up early to volunteer at the High Cloud Snapple Half Marathon along the C&O towpath, with no intention to start my race season in the first month of the year. It was cold, but not bitterly so, at a dry 22 degrees when I listened to the weather report from my radio. Good thing I’m only volunteering, right? The long run that my coach had planned for me that day could be fit in afterwards once it had warmed up.

As I pack my training gear I couldn’t help but reason to myself, “maybe I could use the race as my long run.” It’s always at this point I know I’m boned - the thought sticks in my mind and I helplessly let it manifest into a decision that I come to regret and enjoy at the same time. Easy ten mile run, or push it for 13.1?

Yep, I’m a sucker.

Rumpus in the Bumpass International Tri - 2012

First race of the season. And… go!

In the months preceding Rumpus I was thinking, “Yeah, I’m going to start training so early and be so ready!” 

Yeah, not so much. 

With a nagging hip flexor and some IT band issues, I definitely didn’t do as much preparation as I wanted. Instead, my idea was working on plain fitness and technique. During the weeks leading up to game day I did a lot of trail running (serendipitously – I’ll get to this later) and some open water swimming down at Lake Anna to help reacquaint myself with the water. Beyond that and commuting to work on my bike, I barely got out. Alas, it was time to try out all the new upgrades to Valeria:

bike pr0n.

Coming off a pretty good end to my 2011 season, I wasn’t sure what my goals would be. Would Rumpus be more of a practice triathlon to see where my baseline is? Hmm. Really, I just wanted to have a fluid race, just keep up with the pack, and not screw up any of my transitions. This was also my first race with the High Cloud Foundation. The sheer excitement among the Dream Team as race day drew closer was off the charts. Although fellow teammate Alex Nickodem and I were the only High Clouders racing the International distance race, we were still well supported by the rest of the Foundation.

The drive down Friday night was uneventful at best and was elongated by the usual Friday evening rush hour traffic, but I was fortunate to have a friend from DC Triathlon club, Adam Stolzberg, to keep me entertained. We met up with some other DC Tri guys, Ryan Troll and Ben Winterroth, at a restaurant for a pre-race meal of pasta, bread, and maybe some more pasta! Wait... where are the carbs? There was no pasta to be found in the entire establishment. A sweet potato and some biscuits were about as close as we could get. After a disappointing meal we stop by a grocery store before arriving at Russ’s house for a good night of sleep.

This is where things got interesting (no, not like beer and pillow fights).