6 Seconds

The Crossroads Half Marathon Race Report

Back in September Candis and I ran the Crossroads Half Marathon in scenic *snicker* Fort Collins and we both set new PRs.  However, since I was not posting back in September I didn’t get to boast regale you with the tale of  my our triumphs.  Here is the most belated race report you will ever skim over before posting a disingenuous “congrats” in the comments. 

Going into the race my long runs had been averaging a 9:30 pace which left me optimistic that I could get under the 2 hour mark (a 9:09 pace).  It had been 2 (two!) years since I broke the 2 hour mark in a half marathon and that was on a race that descended 1,000 feet from start to finish.  Due to my tempo runs being vastly more successful than my long runs my plan was to run the first half at a comfortable pace and then run the second half at a high tempo pace as though it were a training run.

Mistakes aplenty

I forgot to start my watch for the first minute or two of the race.  I then compounded this mistake by running back to Candis so she could tell me how much time I needed to add.  This seemed like a good idea at the time but I realize now that it might not have been my smartest decision.   I forgot my sunglasses.  I forgot my sunblock.  I managed to delete the playlist I was trying to shuffle, though I think I can pin that one on Steve Jobs.  It was not a good start.

I settle down

Due to my early mistakes and my clumsy attempts to calculate my actual time and distance and then my rehashing of my mistakes ad nauseum it took me a while to settle into an easy pace.  I finally managed to get comfortable and I tried to remember everyone that was passing me, telling myself to let them go and catch them later.

Just before the 5 mile mark a cute girl wearing a CamelBak ran up beside me and asked me what our time and distance was.  It was a simple question but I managed to stammer through the answer and I breathlessly tried to explain that I had started my watch late.  I then subtracted from the distance instead of adding to it and ended up telling her that we were at 4 ½ miles.  No sooner had I said that we rounded a corner and passed the 5 mile marker.  “Your watch is way off,” she said, and so was she, leaving me to contemplate my suaveness.

egO face?

I am a passing machine

I hit what I calculated (probably incorrectly) was the halfway point in the race and started to pick up my pace.  The field was pretty spread out and I was moving from one group to the next, passing people with authority.  A few people tried to keep up but I was determined to drop people as I passed them and each time I passed them I think I had a tiny ego orgasm.  Maybe that's overstating it a little bit.  In any case, I was running a lot faster than was necessary to get under 2 hours and considered slowing down to ensure I wouldn't run out of gas in the last few miles but I was having too much fun picking people off to slow down.  "Screw it," I told myself, "I'm going for the PR."  I was terrified I was going to end up walking the final mile and see the clock tick past 2 hrs long before I crossed the finish.  A little voice in my head told me to back off and just take the 2 hour victory but I could not be reasoned with.  I was going for it.

I am invigorated by my own gusto

It was thrilling to be throwing caution to the wind and just running as fast as I could.  It was even more thrilling when I realized that I had the cute CamelBak girl in my sights.  I wondered if I should say anything to her as I passed (“have you slowed down?”) but decided against it.  As I passed her she glanced at me and offered up an approving nod and a high five.  “What’s our time and distance?” she asked again.

“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug “my watch is way off.”

With a couple of miles left my legs were starting to feel like dead weights but I managed to will myself to my fastest mile of the day (8:11) for the final mile of the course.  I crossed the finish line and forgot to look at the official time though I did remember to stop my watch; a move that was as useless as a BP cleanup crew.  (Are we past the cutoff for BP jokes being funny/current?)  I knew that I was under 2 hours and depending on how much time I added for starting my watch late I knew that a PR was going to be close.  When the official times were posted I had managed a 6 second PR.  1:56:39.

Those of you that have followed this blog for any length of time know that it had been a while since I’d posted a PR at any distance and it felt great, orgasmic even.  Oh, and then Candis went and showed me up by beating her former PR by 8 (eight!) minutes with a 2:09:20.  Of course she didn’t have to overcome the adversity that I did that day.

Full disclosure:  When I was checking the posted results for my official time the cute girl with the CamelBak was there (sans CamelBak) looking for her time and despite crossing the line a minute or so after me she actually posted a faster time than me, by 21 seconds.  Curses!  Chicked again!

9 Lousy Seconds

That was how far I finished behind Candis on Saturday evening. Candis finished in 27:41, shaving 2 full minutes off her 5K PR. What the hell? Sandbagger! I finished in 24:50 which is not a PR but that’s quickly becoming tired meme on this blog so I won’t pursue it any further. Congrats to Candis for destroying her old PR, I wasn’t planning on her being able to go sub-28, but it turns out that her desire to beat me is a pretty strong motivator. I actually think she’s been employing the rope-a-dope against me. Remember that Triathlon she just finished, the one where she shaved 10 minutes off her previous time? She ran a 30+ minute 5K in that. Also, at the Granby Gut Buster she conveniently ran with our 6 year old so I wouldn’t know how fast she was. I can’t remember the last time she actually tried in a 5K.

I gave it my all during the final downhill stretch of the race and couldn’t catch her. I didn’t even see her until she made the final turn towards the finish line. At that point she was no more than a block away from finishing and I was still a couple hundred yards behind her. I was still gaining on her but it became apparent pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to catch her. As we crossed the line we were funneled into overly congested chutes so that they could tear the tags off our bibs (it was not chip timed) and somehow Candis managed to get into the most congested chute. I was through the chutes at least a minute ahead of Candis and was hoping worried that they were going to mess up the official times and show that I had beaten her. They did mess up the official times, adding between 15-20 seconds to our times, but still had her 3 seconds ahead of me.

The after-party is somewhat of a meat market as they try to cater to the singles crowd with fashion shows and dating games and the like. They’re still foisting Dale’s Pale Ale (which is not good) on an unsuspecting crowd, but they also gave us Chipotle Burritos and Mad Greens salads, so I suppose the beer faux pas can be forgiven. We were fortunate enough to meet up with Simon (from RunColo) & his wife Kelly after the race and they were gracious enough to not tell us their times and pretend that ours were impressive. That façade quickly faded though when Kelly had to go up on stage to collect her 3rd place prize. Yes, 3rd place overall. Congrats to Kelly and Simon who are both obscenely fast.

Congrats again to Candis. She is getting faster by leaps and bounds and I’m proud of her. 90 percent proud and 10 percent annoyed. Well... maybe 70 percent proud and 30 percent annoyed. Okay, okay, 25 percent proud, 75 percent annoyed. Fine, if this happens again we will NOT be on speaking terms.

It’s Just a Hill... Get Over It!

Granby Gut Buster 5K Race Report
This past weekend we joined Candis’ parents at their cabin in Grand Lake, CO for a little R and R, which stood for Running and Racing. As luck would have it Saturday was the 21st Annual Granby Gut Buster 5K in the nearby town of Granby and even though I have the Georgetown half marathon this coming Saturday I was itching to race and too impatient to wait 7 more days. So on Saturday morning Candis, David (age 6) and I all headed out to test our mettle on the race course while Graham (age 4) decided to stay at the cabin and test his Grandparent’s mettle.

As we drove to the race I daydreamed that I was crossing the finish line with a new PR, breaking the tape and being showered with roses from adoring fans. I was rudely jarred out of my daydream by a roadside sign that read ‘Welcome to Granby, Elev. 7982.’ My confidence in a PR slipped a little. It slipped a little more when we registered and were handed our race shirts that had a picture of a runner on a mountain with the slogan: ‘It’s Just a Hill... Get Over It!’ I was disheartened to notice that there were a lot of steep hills around us. However, there appeared to be fewer than 100 participants and I figured that might lead to the elusive age group award that I’ve been chasing for some time now.

In the first mile of the race we did indeed run up a steep hill, which was followed by more steep uphill sections. Seemingly around every turn we were faced with another uphill climb and I was feeling winded from the lack of oxygen and from starting out way too fast. The good news was that this course was a loop, so I knew that the downhills were coming.

As we started the downhill section of the course I was no longer thinking about a PR, instead I was keeping my eye on the people around me and attempting to stay ahead of the guys who looked to be in their 30s. I was OK being passed by anyone that wasn’t competing in my age group until somewhere in mile 2 I was passed by an 11 year old girl wearing Kinesio tape on her calves. Oh crap! This would not do. I hung on a few steps behind her, determined not to let her get away from me.

We hit the final mile and I was still hanging on. As we made our way around a hairpin turn we were able to see the runners trailing us and I noticed a guy not far behind me that looked to be in his 30s. He was clearly trying to steal my age group award and I would have none of it. I pushed the pace and tried to ignore my distressed breathing. My push away from the age group award thief put me closer to Kinesio tape girl and I used my momentum to get past her, but I failed to pass with authority and could hear her settle in a few yards behind me.

As we came down the penultimate stretch before turning to the finish we ran past Kinesio tape girl’s father who I later learned is a High School track coach. He was screaming at her like an overbearing parent to start her finishing kick and to run like this was the final 200 meters, despite the fact that we still had over a quarter mile to go. I heard her footfalls quicken and she began closing the gap. (I can actually feel you all rooting for her as I type this.) I waited until she was right on my shoulder before starting my own kick and I separated from her again, but a quick glance at my Garmin revealed we had a quarter mile to go. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold this pace for that long and hoped against hope that she would fade before I did. She did not. As I started to slow down she bounded past me, apparently unaffected by fatigue. I thought briefly about summoning one more surge, one more kick, but I decided against it because I was fast approaching the puke threshold and the only thing worse than a 33 year old man losing to an 11 year old girl would be for him to lose and then puke his guts out at the finish line. Plus, I didn’t want to be the guy that let his competitive spirit get out of hand and outkicked the sweet little blond girl, crushing her spirit in defeat. At the same time I didn’t want to be the guy that got beat by an 11 year old girl, but that’s the guy I ended up being.

I crossed the line with a time of 24:53 (8:01 pace), missing my PR by 25 seconds. I stood at the finish with no PR and having just been beaten by an 11 year old girl. The only thing that was going to save this race was if I finished in the top 3 in my age group. Seriously, in a small mountain town with roughly 88 racers how many males could there possibly be who were in their 30s and faster than me? I won’t keep you in suspense. The answer to that question is 3, there were 3 men faster than me in their 30s who showed up that morning which left me off the podium.

I wallowed in the post race cookies which were pretty good (although they tasted vaguely like failure and disappointment) and waited for my son to finish his first ever 5K. When he crossed the finish line with Candis in 42:30 I was so proud of him that all of my shortcomings were completely erased. His splits were 15:48, 13:27, 12:19.

A cotton T-shirt? Rookie!

We Deal in Speed, Friend

The Skirt Chaser 5K: A Joint Race Report
Because it was requested by tfh, this is a he said/she said race report, and since I have no idea what a he said/she said race report is supposed to look like this is how we’re doing it: I’m going to start typing a race report and Candis is going to interject and interrupt me in her usual manner.

Candis: How do I indicate that I’m rolling my eyes right now?
Ian: I think you just did.
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, the Skirt Chaser was a good race for both of us. In fact, we both set new PRs on Saturday. Candis broke 30 minutes for the first time in her running career with a time of 29:40 (9:32 pace). Awesome job babe! This also means that she’s setting the SY5K bar rather high by shaving more than 2 minutes off her 5K time and she’s not done yet... We have the Colder Bolder 5K coming up in December where I’m certain she’ll crack the 28 minute range.
Candis: Nothing is ever good enough...
Ian: I managed a time of 24:28 (7:52 pace), shaving almost 1 ½ minutes from my previous time. w00t! As you can tell if you’re any good at math, the 3 minute head start that the ladies get in the Skirt Chaser was not enough for Candis to finish ahead of me.
Candis: We ran this race with 2 other couples that we’ve been friends with for many years. The two guys were given permission for a one time butt-smack if they could pass me. They could not :) he he.
Ian: The Skirt Chaser course was an out and back course which meant that you could wave at and taunt the other runners as you went.
Candis: It also meant that you could see the winners coming back to the finish- not that I was still at the finish when they came back...
The first men passed the waning women at 0.3 miles. Holy crap, how is that possible? Unfortunately I’m no good at math while I run, and I gave up trying to calculate their pace at 0.5 miles.
Ian: You’re no good at math at ANY time.
Candis: It was quite demoralizing, but then right before the turnaround point, 3 women blazed back passed us. Women cheered like we’d just gained suffrage. Still no men to be seen... yet. It was like I was winning, but not.
Ian: It was demoralizing to see the lead runners so far ahead but I took comfort in the fact that once I made the turn at the halfway point I could start demoralizing the other, slower runners. After the turnaround point I would try to make eye contact with the other runners and then look at my watch and shake my head in disgust. I hope they were all demoralized.
Speaking of demoralized my goal had been to take all your advice from Friday’s comments and start fast. I was hoping to post a 7:30 first mile, but found out while running that most of the first mile was uphill.
Candis: I didn’t really notice that it was that much of a hill.
Ian: “Oooh, look at me I didn’t notice the hill.” Whatever. After maybe a quarter mile at a 7:45 pace I changed my strategy mid-race, which is never a good idea.
Candis: You know what else isn’t a good idea? Telling your husband that he looks sexy in that lucky blue race shirt. Seriously honey, wear something different.
Ian: Ignoring you. Knowing that I would have a fast downhill finish I slowed to an 8:00 minute pace. My final splits were 8:03, 8:05 and 7:46. It worked out for the best, but meant that I wouldn’t catch Candis until after the halfway point.
Candis: As I got closer to 1.55 miles I started to get nervous. Pre race farts again. (Can I say that?) My stomach knotted. I knew he was coming. I took one look over my shoulder and then decided it wasted hundredths of a second that I didn’t have. I picked up the pace and made the turn before Ian. Shortly after the turn I spotted him coming the other way and decided that it would be best if he didn’t notice me because it would surely give him a boost if he saw how close he was but then... “Ian!” I blurted it out before I could stop it. Oops.
Ian: I heard a familiar voice and saw Candis across the street already on her way back. It did give me a boost of speed to know that I had almost caught her. I rounded the turn and began reeling her in
Candis: I picked it up to 9:00 minute pace despite the fact that we were going uphill. Was he there yet? I was waiting for a smack on the butt I knew was coming. It was taking too long...
Ian: I began to close in on Candis at the 1.8 mile mark and decided to encourage rather than taunt. “Good job babe, keep it up!”
Candis: The first thing I heard was his familiar breathing... (keep your mind on track) who was he to be supportive? Why was he being sweet before the smack?
Ian: She took off in a dead sprint, trying in vain to outrun me for a few more seconds.
Candis: “Stay back there!” I screamed. Women cheered.
Ian: I matched her sprint for only a few strides, but it hurt too much and felt like too much energy so I let her go. She was fending off my advances well.
Candis: I’ve had a lot of practice, I’ve been doing it for 16 years now.
Ian: I knew she couldn’t keep it up for long.
Candis: I sprinted until my throat screamed. My ego told it to shut up. Then my legs reminded us that we still had another hill left and that Ian is faster by nearly 2 minutes/mile. Here’s the math again. I can’t tell you what it is, but if he waited 3 minutes to start and caught me at 1.8 miles then I wasn’t beating him to the finish.
Ian: I did the same math, only a little more accurately and settled back into my pace, it was inevitable that I’d catch her. I wasn’t going to kill myself for it right now.
Candis: I’d lost- I knew I would- and it still sucked. I wasn’t quite as dejected as I thought I’d be. It’s not like it was close. I knew I could still make my sub 30 time, and did.
Ian: I passed her at the 1.9 mile mark amid cheers from all the women around us for her to beat me. Whatever. The love tap on the butt turned into a little more of a grab than a tap. What can I say, I’m handsy.
Candis: Great. Some women marry men that are handy, but I manage to get a guy that’s handsy. Figures.
Ian: At this point I had passed every member of our group except one. Carl and his wife were behind me as was the other guy (we’ll call him Bert), but Bert’s wife (we’ll call her Foghorn Leghorn- inside joke) was still ahead of me. I plowed ahead in an attempt to catch Foghorn Leghorn but knew that it would be tough.
I pushed myself as hard as I could down the hill to the finish. My Garmin indicates that my final tenth of a mile was at a 5:40 pace which is just ridiculous for me. I didn’t see Foghorn Leghorn until I crossed the finish line and noticed her standing up ahead of me in the chute. Chicked!
Candis: he he :)
Ian: The official results indicate that she beat me by 6 seconds. I’ll hang my hat on the fact that she technically ran the same distance 2 minutes and 54 seconds slower than me.
Candis: What happened after you crossed the finish line?
Ian: I’m getting to that. Literally seconds after I finished, even before I saw Foghorn Leghorn ahead of me in the chute I crossed the Puke Threshold. It was a bizarre feeling. I’ve never actually puked after or during a run, but doubled over in the chute I found myself staring at my Gatorade-stained lunch splattered on the street.
Candis: Changing the subject, this was hands down my favorite race ever. Usually Ian & I start together and I lose sight of him at .005 miles in a cloud of dust. The focus of this race was very unique and it made it a great diversion to my ‘two sports too many’ training (more on this later). This night was all about speed, great friends (who usually don’t race with us- so it was fun), and great post race food. Well, almost. The beer sucked.
Ian: Dale’s Pale Ale. I’m not sure why Dale hates us so much but I couldn’t even drink the beer, and it was free.
Candis: Well done Skirt Sports. Thanks to Nicole & Tim DeBoom (more on them later). They put on a very exciting and well planned event. Loads of fun, just when I needed to remember why I like racing.
Ian: Unfortunately, I never found P.O.M. or Christine, but I did meet up with Simon from RunColo which was cool. Be sure to check out all of their blogs for more on the Skirt Chaser. My wife has rambled on long enough for this post.

Chicked on my Long Run

It’s been a while since anyone overtook me on one of my training runs, it’s been even longer since a chick did it. However, on Saturday morning after my long run I found myself resetting my consecutive-days-without-getting-chicked counter back to zero. It happened early on in my twelve miler, which gave me over an hour to reflect on what a failure I was, and also to think up some good excuses for why it happened.

I was right around the 3 mile mark when I heard footsteps behind me and I knew instantly that I was beaten. The chick’s heels never touched the ground as she pranced past me displaying the air of superiority that I usually like to exude. She looked kind of manish, and should have expected that I’d describe her in such a manner regardless of whether or not it was true. She bounced along ahead of me in a singlet and short running shorts, obviously a seasoned runner from the lack of anything resembling body fat. Seriously ladies, you’d have hated her, but it doesn’t matter because I hated her enough for all of us.

My first excuse thought was that she was running at a faster pace because she was only running a mile or two. However, she was wearing a fuel belt that indicated otherwise. Next it occurred to me that she was doing quarter mile intervals and that I’d witness her stop or slow down shortly, but that never happened. Finally I concluded that there were only three possible explanations for her overtaking me:

1. Steroids, and lots of them.
2. She was some type of running cyborg sent here from the future by my future self to motivate me to run faster. I’m clever like that, at least I will be in the future.
3. Some combination of 1 and 2.

It’s that simple. So if you’re a woman and think that you’re faster than me you might want to get a blood test or an x-ray to make sure that you’re not unwittingly on the juice or actually a robot. If both of those come up negative then I hate to tell you this, but you’re a man.

Other than that little snafu, my long run went really well. I was able to push the pace down under 8:50 miles for the last part of the run which was very encouraging, and I felt pretty good. I’m feeling good about my chances for a PR in the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon in 2 weeks, but I’ll have more on that at a later date.