Recovery Week and Off to College

Well, after arriving home very late on Sunday night (actually Monday morning) and being very tired and sore on Monday itself, I decided not to run.  It would not have served me well especially since I needed to catch up on work as Shannon and I were set to drive to Boston and take her back to school on Tuesday.  Wise decision as my quads (only a little), glutes, and calves were very tight and it made for an interesting 10 hrs in the car, but we made it.  Hard to believe that my little girl is not only legal but also a Junior in college.  Yes, most definitely, how time flies.  We had a good and easy drive and then spent all day Wednesday moving in, setting up her room with her roomie and then have a wonderful sushi dinner on Newbury St before I had to fly back on Thursday.  I did get in a run on Wednesday morning in Natick (my parents) and I loosened up over those 5 miles which was great.  It was a warm and humid run even at 7:30 am as summer decided to re-appear this past week. After returning on Thursday, I ran an ok 5 in the warm temps in Cleveland, and I was a bit stressed thinking that my long run would be tough.  We left for Chautauqua to close up the house and bring in the boat on Friday afternoon, and I was very pleased to have a solid 13.5 mile (2 hrs) over the hills here.  I realized that the hills were now feeling routine unlike what they felt like in June (even if they are still big enough to not allow you to run them fast) and the run felt great even in the warmer temps (65F and humidity 95%).  We had not seen weather like this all summer.  I was happy that I was feeling good but I did laugh thinking about how "fast" I ran my legs at Hood to Coast just a week ago.  It is a wonder what a little adrenaline can do for ones running.  I knew I had trained well since I was feeling good the last week, but today there was no way I could have run those time.

Speaking of my four legs at Hood to Coast last weekend, I am most pleased realizing that I averaged just under 8 min per mile for the 4 of them - on 4 hrs of sleep (in a minivan) and with poor nutrition (chocolate milk, nuun, water, a chicken wrap, beef jerkie, and chex mix!).  Our team ended up 469th out of 1050 which was an awesome reward for our hard work as well.  I wonder just how fast we may have been without the traffic issues, but then again, many of the teams behind us would have been faster too.  The criticism on FB is rampant regarding the two major exchanges (23 to 24 and 30) where things completely seemed to break down.  Having run the race before, I might have to agree that maybe 1050 teams are too many for those beautiful back roads in the Oregon countryside.  I know that HTC wants to remain the "Mother of all Relays", but sometimes, less is definitely more.  The posts on FB seemed to indicate that even the fastest teams were trapped in the traffic and many a runner ran extra miles much like members of our team did.  It was still a real awesome time and I am considering joining some of them for a Ragnar relay in the Florida Keys in early February.  My only fears are; 1) that I might not get there due to weather, 2) I miht not be able to really train due to weather.  If the almanac be right, it is supposed to be another tough one and it looks like I might be running a lot of miles inside once again.    Just to keep the memory alive, here is a photo of the team right before our start:

You can see me proudly wearing my Run Ohio shirt just to make sure we were represented in a sea of Georgia red.

After this weekend, it will be back to Ohio for me, so it was great to get in these last couple of days of hill running.  Of course, my next race is the Erie Half Marathon at Presque Isle and that is a flat course. I hope to be able to jump back into some speedwork this week as I decided not to run the 1000 m repeats on Thursday since I was so tired after so much travel and so little sleep.  This morning's run proved that it was the right choice.  

Van Pyre Weekend - Hood to Coast 2014

I know that I haven’t updated my blog recently, and that wasn’t really planned, but I also really didn’t have anything to report.  My last couple of training weeks at Chautauqua went well and I felt like I was finally used to hills and ready to run at Hood to Coast.   One of my last workouts involved running a 5K tempo run followed by 6 x hill in the "heat" and we (MP came with) nailed it.  I knew that I was in better shape than I thought and ready to go for it.

Last March when I visited and ran in Atlanta for a couple of weeks, my good friend, Chris, talked me into running on a Hood to Coast relay team.  Hood to Coast is a 199 miles relay comprised of teams of 12 runners that is basically the first relay of its kind.  It has a 33 yr history and is known as the "Mother of all Relays".  The race course takes the 1000 teams on a scenic adventure from the lodge on Mt. Hood to Seaside, Oregon which is on the northern coast of the state.  I had run HTC before both as a member of an Atlanta Track Club team and as part of the Femme Fatale team out of Portland.  Sure, I agreed to run on a local Atlanta team and heck, I knew Chris.  In early May; however, Chris bailed and I was left with a decision as to whether or not I still wanted to run.  I decided as long as they weren't ax murderers - well, sure why not. (It turned out that one couple actually lives across the street from Chris and other good Atlanta friends and one of the other runners runs with my old Riverside and Windward runner friends one of who I ran Boston with the last two years).  So with the team christened as "Van Pyre Weekend" after the band, I was ready to go.  

Team Van Pyre Weekend - At the Timberline Lodge at the race start on Mt. Hood

The weekend started off rocky in that United Airlines cancelled my flight to SFO and re-routed me twice - first through Chicago which was delayed by weather and finally through Denver.  I got to Portland an hour later than planned, but it was still ok and my team did not leave without me! I had visions of my having to drive to Sandy, OR on Friday morning to be picked up. We drove to Mt. Hood and stayed at the Timberline Lodge.  What fun especially watching folks "ski" on the glacier face.  That evening we had to re-distribute the legs as one member couldn't make it to Oregon as her Mom took ill (bummer), so three of us (Gary, Bob and myself) decided that we felt up for the challenge.  That meant that I had to run Leg #1 which started the race and also runs down Mt. Hood - a descent of 2500' in 5.67 miles.  I knew that I could handle it as I'm the one who never seems to have shredded quads after Boston.  This leg was a blast and I just let gravity carry me down with no stress and a very low heart rate.  I ended up running a 7:49 pace without even trying.  We started at 12:45 and we were off. After leg #6, I had to switch into Van 2 from Van 1 in order to pick up my next leg which was to be leg 12 since we were covering the race course with only 11 runners.

Fast forward to my next leg which was a 10K that was mostly flat and a long a bike path into Portland finishing under the Hawthorne Bridge.  This was run in the dark and it was a bit creepy near the end when you exited the bike path and were in a bit of an Industrial area along the river.  Not a place that I would have run alone or in the dark, and here I was, alone and in the dark!  This leg had a very cool part where on a short street, the residents had blocked it off and had luminaries set up along the stretch and they were out there partying and cheering the runners along.  Another great effort at an overall 8:15 pace which had me holding back since I knew that I still had two more legs to go and I wasn't sure where I'd sleep or what I'd be fueling with before my next leg. As it turned out, we drove to the next big van transition, and the five of us literally slept 4 hours in a Toyota minivan.  Yes, it can indeed be done!  We woke around 3 am to a cold Oregon morning and we were ready to rock and the Van 2 runners were ready for leg #2 (3 for me).

My next leg, leg #23, was a beautiful 4.3 mile run that began as the sun was rising and the mist was clearing.  I took the wrist bracelet from Jim and was off.  The weather was gorgeous and I simply seemed to fly without even trying.  Now this was a funny leg as the traffic along the course began to back up terribly.  Gary, our team captain and the runner after me sensed that they might not make the transition, and he jumped out of the van to chase me down running an extra 1.5 miles!  He caught me around 3 miles and told me to slow down so that he could rest a bit at the transition.  I did my best, but it was so beautiful and I felt great.  He did get a minute or two of rest before I came in and he took off.  For me, it resulted in a great run at a 7:58 pace.   

Over the next few legs, the traffic was horrendous.  We were able to meet up with Van 1 and pick up Bob at one point, but we feared making it to our final transition.  Van 1 runners had to wait a couple of times at the leg transitions as these are the last few hard legs over the last ridge as it just wasn't fair to make a runner run up a hill to make up 2-3 min and then just have them run up another mtn!  Our team was about 35 min ahead of our projection when we started this portion of the race, and we were back to only 19 min ahead when we took the final 6 legs as Van 2 with our youngest member Kelsea who ran some of the toughest legs and was not a seasoned runner.  She is now.  The temperatures rose to the mid-70s for most of these legs and my teammates (Kelsea, Alan,and Jim) just killed them.  

My final leg, Leg #34, was just over a 5K and I was determined to run it hard and give it all I had left.  There were a couple of good climbs in this leg, and I was not going to let my tired legs, sore quads, calves and glutes, give in. After driving over the killer legs that Kelsea, Alan, Brian, Shannon, Lisa, Chuck and Morris ran, I felt a bit guilty and that I had better deliver. After all, I wasn't sure what Chris originally told these folks about me the runner, but I wanted to be as advertised.  I realized immediately on this leg that there were a lot of walkers.  Since it was a shorter leg, I think many teams had placed their lesser experienced runners on it.  This allowed me to record 16 road kills and run my butt off literally finishing with an overall 7:57 pace.  At the end of this leg, I felt that I had more than done my job.  I passed off to Gary and watched him take off realizing it was home free from there.  

Gary ran strong and passed to our final runner, Bob, who brought us in with an overall time of 29:46:36 over 20 min faster than we had predicted. Not sure where that is overall, but there seemed to be plenty of teams behind us.  Of course, with last minute changes we were competing in the Men's Open division as we only had 4 women (you need 6 to be a true mixed team) and Kelsea is only 28!  Just shows what a bunch of fun people can pull together!   Glad I went as it was worth every bit of the run.  I gained 10 new running friends for my next trip to Atlanta and maybe for my next relay. 

 At the finish in Seaside, OR.

Chris got me into something that I could have truly regretted and instead I had an awesome weekend.  HTC is indeed the "Mother of All Relays", and I'm glad that I did it again with a team of really great, truly tremendous people.  It made me realize that you can really enjoy the camaraderie of a race and it isn't all about "time" or "place" and I liked that feeling.  Noone stressed over anyone's runs and therefore, everyone ran within themselves and then some.  It was awesome to see Lisa so psyched after her first tough leg or Chuck and Brian and Kelsea climb so of those killer hills.  Or Alan in his bandana and head lamp ready to attack the dusty gravel road in the middle of the night. Or Jim hanging out of the van trying to grab whatever dry clothes he could find after his leg.  Or Gary chasing me down the scenic Oregon road to tell me to "slow down"!

 Thanks to you all and as the Mastercard ads say: Running with 10 friends all night in the middle of Oregon: Priceless.

Old First Night Run & the Central Park Five

I know it has been a couple of weeks since I updated this blog, and yes, I have been running and I've also been busy with various events and meeting for an organization on which I sit on the board.  Our goal during the summer is to raise money so that we can fund various scholarships and programming for the Chautauqua Institution in the season.  The weather has also been very weird as I have alluded to in my blogs.  Unlike most summers where we see temperatures in the high 80s often along with humidity, it hasn't been very warm at all, but it has certainly been wet, wet, wet.  Lot's of rain and high humidity with temps only in the high 60s/low 70s.  Makes for interesting training as I keep assuming the heat has to come back, after all it was here in June, and it hasn't arrived yet.  I did look; however, and it is in the 90s in Oregon which might bode very interesting for Hood to Coast at month's end. I have been running and although the mileage is not too high, what I'm doing along with the gym work and all the walking you do here has kept me in pretty good shape as I head into the heavy miles for NYC marathon training.

Case in point - I ran our local Old First Night Run on Saturday morning which is a 2.7 mile run/walk around the perimeter of the institution.  The course is deceptively harder than you really want to run for a short race as you climb a pretty nasty hill in the first mile (at 1/2 mile, you are only half way up) and you never really come down until late in the 2nd mile and then you take the more gradual path down.  The course finishes with a crazy right hand then left hand turn which has you run down a gravel path before turning to the finish. I felt very good running this year and took it pretty consistent and (what felt like) easy up the first hill, so I was very happy to see a final time of 20:04 on the clock.  That equates to a 7:14 pace and my mile splits were done as negative splits.  I also finished first in my AG and was first Masters woman.  I was surprised by the speed as I didn't think I had it in me.  Of course, I can still tell you that my final gear is gone even though my cadence for the race was 183!  

http://www.runhigh.com/2014RESULTS/R080214BC.html

Even more exciting is that this race has gone high tech with actual chip timing and internet results!  A first!

Now to the Central Park 5.  Most of you may be familiar with this story and it has always had a certain resonance with me as the victim who was attacked graduated Wellesley a year before I did.  She was a runner even then, although not a competitive one, and I knew her because of that. Ken Burns is here this week and he and his daughter have put together a movie outlining the injustice - the five boys who were convicted were not guilty at all, and after they spent several years in jail, the real rapist and killer, who was in jail for life, admitted to the crime.  He had actually attacked a women three days before the incident in the park and he subsequently attacked and killed a pregnant woman after the incident.  Somehow the police and others never seemed to put the events together even though there was really no evidence pointing to the five boys (they were 14-16, and the 16 yr old is developmentally disabled).  This is one of those cases that always hit home because I knew the victim, because she was running at night in the park, and because it proved that not everyone who is incarcerated in indeed guilty.  It makes me think again about the death penalty and back to whether or not everyone on death row should be there. I think I'm still a proponent in cases like that of the Boston bomber, but boy, it all makes one really think.  The case is one that has always made me extra cautious as a female running alone especially as I have done a lot of travelling in my earlier career.

Tricia's story also makes me realize that I am really just an ordinary person surrounded by rather extraordinary ones.  It makes me think of my running buddy, Mike, who has undergone a lot of unnecessary strife and suffering in his life only to turn out to be one of the best Dads, husbands, and friends that I know.  

http://www.mikepistorino.com/