2012 Kings Mountain Marathon - Racing in the southern hills

Misty sunrise in my hometown
Rows of cotton 'bout knee high
Mrs. Baker down the dirt road
Still got clothes out on the line

Over a beer with Jefferson and Jared it was decided that running Kings Mountain Marathon was a terrific idea. Why this decision was made still escapes me… This seems to happen to me a lot, and I never learn. There are worse choices to make, right? At least that’s what I tell myself.

Through the winter Jared helped our friend Jefferson, the race director for Kings Mountain Marathon, do some advertising for the race. They carefully crafted a challenge for participants to try and beat Jared as he attempted his first marathon at Kings Mountain, and by the middle of January it was written in stone and live on the interwebs. Speaking quite honestly, I had agreed early on that I'd race, but hardly expected the whim to come to fruition. I secretly hoped for injury or something to come up to preclude me from racing that weekend, but nothing came. Dammit. On the first day of February I conceded defeat and told Jefferson that I would in fact come down to Clover, South Carolina and race.

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).

Blue Talon Bistro 5K

A year ago I ran couple 5Ks with some level of effort and did well, with only one notable Age Group finish with a satisfactory finish time. My strength has never really been in the short course, so I don’t typically do much speed work throughout the year, and focus more on longer miles. Earlier this month I ran a 5K after just starting a program of track workouts and specific training for a shorter, faster race with my coach. While PRing by a few seconds, but still finishing with a strong time, my coach and I felt like I could do... well.. better. Time for the annual Blue Talon Bistro 5K in Williamsburg, Va. Jared put me through a gauntlet of focused workouts to maximise my strengths and condition me for a better race on Thanksgiving. Most of all, he told me to have fun, and enjoy the race.

The Blue Talon Bistro 5K in my hometown of Williamsburg is becoming one of my favourite holiday races. It supports Meals on Wheels, tours through Colonial Williamsburg and the campus of my Alma Mater (The College of William and Mary), but most of all, it’s extremely easy to get to. Last year I raced this for the first time just before my marathon, finishing top 30 out of about 1500 runners, which included the likes of Williamsburg hometown hero Ed Moran (with a 14:44 finish if I remember correctly). This race, despite being a turkey trot, draws some of the fastest people around. 

Why am I with all the fast kids?

The weather gods smiled on us on race day with a sunny morning and moderate temperatures in the morning, floating around the mid 50s. Perfect race weather. My dad accompanied me to the race site just a few minutes from the house and is my walking gear truck, as mom is at home finishing the wonderful turkey meal she makes every year. It’s a little brisk, and my warmup goes smoothly, even running into an old friend of mine from the College, who graduated a few years beforehand. Doffing my warmups I moved along with the crowd, which had grown to over 2300 racers, to the start at Confusion Corner where Duke of Glaucester (DoG) Street begins.

Trevor goes to a skate park, tumbling ensues....

When the sun woke me up today I didn't know if I could bring myself to run or bike today at all. Quite frankly, I felt like crap and had no motivation to run. I've been doing so much over the last 10 months that I've decided I need to mix things up a bit. I didn't know what it was, but I just wanted to do something else. Gears of War on the XBox? Not today. Ice Road Truckers on TV? .... Maybe I'll clean my room? HA!

As my roommate, Sarge, and I lumbered around the house, he said he was heading out to the skate park just few minutes down the road here in Arlington. Having never been to one, my curiosity perked up. I poked my head outside and saw weather was beautiful and at that point I wanted nothing more than to just be outside. Sarge extended an invitation to come along, and against better judgement I agreed. My first thoughts were, I'm going to get hurt, not be able to train, brake something, not be able to race. Ef. What am I doing? Yep, I'm going to die. Twice.

After finding the biggest shoes I could find, and the most skater-like clothes and we were there in fifteen minutes. I had even pulled out an old flat brim hat so I could look as rad as all other kool kids at the park, which I ended up not even wearing. From the trunk Sarge pulled a number of boards and he put on his most comfy of old skate shoes, and I watched him rolled down toward the park on his long board.

Little did I know, it was here I began my education of a whole new community of people. I've grown accustomed over to the years to the running, climbing, and similar athletic lifestyles, but this was a completely new culture to me. My only real knowledge of skating is from outdated experiences from the early 90's when skateboarding and in-line skating appealed to me and I lived briefly as one. We wore baggy jeans and listened to 90's punk and alternative. Sarge warned me that things were a little different these days. Jeans became tighter, music got worse, styles changed. But on a whole, the passion for skating remained fairly intact. As long as I didn't see any big JNCO jeans or too many wallet chains I figured I'd be okay.

I finally Got My Rear in Gear: A brief history and race report!

For the third year in a row I got in on a 5K foot race local to Alexandria Virginia. I'll digress a moment to tell you about the charity because it's something that has relevance to me as a man, and has affected people I know. The race is Get Your Rear in Gear which raises money for the Colon Cancer Coalition and encourages education and screening for colon cancer.

I started racing this in 2009 by trying to form a team as a way to hang out with some of my non-hasher friends (back when I was trail running for beer) in a very non-competitive way, but alas, very few responded. Thus, I opened this up to my kennel and the idea was received well. The team I formed was called the Kilt Lifters (after my own hash name) and we all wore kilts and carried cardboard shields, swords, and axes.

2009 Kilt Lifters

What's your favourite charity race?

The very first year we were 17 strong and created quite the presence at the course on such a brisk morning in November of 2009. Our team became well known for our antics and our enthusiasm, especially since one of our members, Meg, was a survivor of the disease.

In 2010 we were significantly smaller in numbers but managed to raise a decent sum for the cause, but again with a great presence at the race.

About 6 months ago I looked back on my times and placing and realised I was always just shy of an age group podium.. finishing 4th and 5th in in age group years before, but always fell in the range of 20-50th overall. I now had my new mission.

In mid-summer I also started training under my coach, Jared Campbell, to help me really refine my running. [I'll talk about how he drastically helped my distance running in my end of season report]. After he pulled me through a number of end-of-season triathlons he had me shift to a different style of running, mostly concentrating on the short course (5K) to build on my speed and final kick. This was very different than from any style of workout I've ever done before.

Focusing more on the race here's what happened.

W&L track

I'm starting to really like W&L track here in Arlington. Pretty much at any hour I can go there and there will be a bazillion people (roughly). Honestly, I didn't even think I was going to be able to get my ladder workout in all that well because there were so many people. The break in the storms tonight afforded a lovely night in the mid 60s to help stay comfortable during my workout.

I should really start including pictures.

My coach had me doing a ladder workout tonight that sent me through a series of sprints and laps at tempo in order to help me with me speed and refine my kick. I managed to hit all of my marks except the 800 meter and one 400m toward the end, and really only by a couple seconds. I was kind of proud of myself, and was glad that I could do what I was prescribed to do. Hopefully my coach feels the same.

10 days till my 'B' race of the off season. I'm fully committed to reaching that new level.

More later. Also, stay tuned for my Patriot's Half report coming soon. I'm going to skip Rocketts Landing as I don't really have anything good to say about that race. At all. Learning experience, but I would much rather move on from that.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll try to make these a bit more detailed later, but I'd like to at least get something on here to entertain my few readers. Also, I'll update this more if I get a few down moments during the day. Work has been killing me lately.

Cheers!

DC Triathlon Race Report

19 July 2011

I had debated for a while if I was going to race DC Triathlon this year. Being in my back yard, I could hardly resist, and a discount coupon procured from a vendor at the Shamrock marathon expo a few months ago had sealed the deal.

Let me set up how I approached DC Triathlon by briefly explaining what happened seven days prior. Last week at Laurel Hills 50K ultra (done as as relay) I took a pretty big fall. The damage is not what you’d think (gashes, blood, bruises on knees, hands and face) but rather in a place unexpected. Shoulder, neck, and back. During my fall I grabbed a sapling to my side and torqued my arm back. My rhomboid was on fire, but I saved my face from the rocks it was heading for. Without turning into a different race report, I’ll finish this off that saying I stayed with the lead runner for the 11.2 miles of my leg before I had to hand off the my next runner.

During the week prior to DC Tri I couldn’t swim and could barely ride because the whole area between my spine and shoulder blade was next to destroyed. By Thursday I snuck in a light swim and rode once. Running had been slow.

I stayed with my friend Jack so he could drop me off in the morning then pick me up later. 0345 came and loaded up with my new breakfast regimen of banana and peanut butter sandwhiches. Jack and I hopped in the car, headed to transition and he dropped me off. It was hot and humid for 0430 in the morning and didn’t bode incredibly well. I tried to run a bit and warm up my back to loosen it up. My neck felt surprisingly good.

The water that morning was 77.2 degrees and wetsuit legal, so I decided I may need a little help to get me through if my neck gave out. The time trial start was certainly a change of pace from my races earlier this season. Surprisingly I thought the TT start was great. No kicks to the face or flailing arms, so I liked the space. Additionally, having distance markers every 100m was great mental part for keeping my confidence up. I started kind of rough but found my groove about 400 meters in. From 700-1400m I was rocking, passing a number of folks.  I upped my tempo and tried to get out of the water fast. 31 mins. Better than expected considering I could barely move my head.

T1 was fine, and only mildly muddy. Getting on the bike felt great. The course was fairly uneventful until my neck and shoulder started to cramp where I had injured it. I focused more on the road to keep my mind off the road. While I liked the course, a didn’t like the hairpin turnarounds on Rock Creek Park as well as on Ohio Dr. My neck cramped hard around 30K in and my speed dropped since I had to spend so much time upright. Aero was killing me at that point. A slow 1:09 on the bike, and back into transition.

My run started alright but I knew as soon as I got my shoes on it was going to be a struggle. My back had completely tightened up and my neck seared with every step. About 4K in it started sprinkling and I was getting passed plenty. The course took us on a less than (mentally) ideal set of streets that teased us with the finish line. Every time we approached the finish line the course branched out for another out-and-back. It did this 3 times, looking like a clover, right at the finish line. I crossed the finish at a less than desirable 2:33 but was glad I didn’t push it any harder.

The finish line festivities were great, lots of food, drink, and what I wanted the most - a massage (which brought me nearly to tears).

Followup: Two days after the race my neck snapped while stretching and send unmanageable pain down my neck into my back. I have been in a neck brace for almost 2 weeks and can’t even train. How will Rocketts Landing turn out? I just don’t know.