Barry-Roubaix DNF Report

The short version:

“I missed the turn for the second loop on the 100k.  I was going back and forth with a  woman who was better on the dirt, but I was a better climber.  When I didn’t catch back up after three nice steep climbs, I knew something was wrong.  She ended up in 7^th.  I suspect that is where I would have finished as her pace dropped substantially after the 1^st lap.  I don’t think this race is for me, too many close calls with either crashing myself or being taken out by someone crashing near me.”

When I crossed the finish line, I was absolutely frantic, where did I miss it, how could I make such a mistake… and here is my answer: I was paying such close attention to the road to prevent myself from crashing that I just didn’t have any attention to spare.    

Let’s be honest:

Did I want to be finished?  Yes. 

Did I want to give up? Absolutely not. 

Was I having fun?  No. 

Was I scared of another loop?  Absolutely.

Did I contemplate DNFing during the race? Yes

What did I say when I thought about DNFing? I thought about my uncle Joe who never gave up on his fight to stay alive. 

Could I give up because this race was hard? I just couldn’t.

How did I feel when it appears that I did? Like I am weak.

Race Recap:

We were in the second wave with the 40+ men.  I had lots of cycling buddies in the crowd, the women from Bicycle Hub and the guys from Stark Velo.  I worked a little bit with one of the Stark Velo guys, but I can’t recall if I couldn’t keep up or if I passed him.

The race started pretty fast, I have the first mile over 24 mph, not bad on knobby tires.  I stayed with the lead pack for the first couple of miles, but I got dropped on a set of three nice short steep climbs.  I knew it was a race of attrition: the women who could hang with the men for as long as possible would win.

I saw EP crash and started to panic a little bit: she’s an amazing cross racer, if she crashed, what is going to happen to me?

This course was scary!  If there wasn’t ice on the road, then there were frozen muddy ruts.  The combination of those two conditions lent itself to the additional obstacles of fallen cyclists and many more ejected water bottles (a fact I had forgotten until reading someone else’s race report).  

I ended up settling in with a group of guys, but I just couldn’t keep up on the dirt/snow/frozen mud.  When we had longer sections of paved roads, I tended to pass people.  I had this brilliant idea of pre-opening all of my shot bloks as I knew that it would be too hard to get at them with my lobster gloves.  I figured that if I had already opened them, that I would be more inclined to eat them rather than risk it and end up bonking.  I had a pretty hard time even getting to my food with my 2 pairs of gloves on so I tried to hold the wrapper with my teeth, which worked as long as I wasn’t climbing or on dirt and needed to breath.  I think a few photographers scrambled to get photos of this freak with a thing of shot bloks hanging from her mouth, but I haven’t had much desire to look.  When someone crashed right in front of me, I dropped them, glad to look like an idiot for no reason!

I should also mention that my water bottle was frozen.  I intentionally started with 2, one insulated, one not.  I started with the un-insulated so that I would still have water for the second half the race.  Good plan, would have worked too.

I ended up catching up to another woman on a long false flat.  Some guy commented on the ensuing catfight and said he was impressed by how strong we both were, but apparently, seeing me gave her enough adrenaline to pick it up a little bit.  We chatted for a while, but I couldn’t get enough distance on her on the climbs that she couldn’t make up on the descents, and she ended up dropping me on the dirt.

After getting dropped by her, the long and the short courses converged.  It’s in that mess that I went off course, or more to the point, went onto the short course.  There were a few pretty nasty climbs and when I didn’t see “Tori” I knew something was wrong…I couldn’t imagine that she dropped me by that much or that she had that much left in the tank.

I started seeing signs for the finish line and knew I was not in the right place.  I crossed the finish line and asked someone about the turn off to which he responded that he had intentionally gone to cut the race short.

I went back to the car and called my coach, left a voicemail, then called someone else who actually did a good job consoling me until my coach called me back.  He sounded about as bummed as me and basically affirmed what we both had thought: I was riding well, would like to see how it would have shaken out, disappointing that I probably would have placed in the short race, but time to move on to the rest of the season.

Interestingly enough, I told the coach I wanted to ride long the following day to which he begged against.  When I went out to ride, it turned out that my legs and my sit bones were both rather sore.   Two hours was all I could muster.

I had a great time on Friday caravanning with some guys from Spin and a couple Snakebite teammates.  We had a nice dinner, and we had fun crashing with the Bicycle Hub folks.  Many people were fascinated by my British/Australian breakfast.  I wish I could be proud of myself for racing well for the part of the race I finished and not crashing while still riding aggressively, but it’s the score at the end of the game that counts, and I didn’t have one.

Some Inspiration

I would say that starting Tuesday, I was starting to struggle with this cleanse.  Yesterday, I stared at a box of pretzel M&M's, which is kind of weird as I don't even like them (too much candy, not enough chocolate) so I felt compelled to dig deep for things that have inspired me in the past.  I hope they inspire you.

I was born and raised Roman Catholic.  Since I was in college, I have struggled with my faith, but I usually trudged along still going to mass.  Something with the semi-recent changing of the wording of the mass created a great disconnect for me.  I see the church as having some pretty tremendous problems, and it seems that they continue to turn a blind eye to them, but rather do things like change a few words that, in the scheme of things, don’t add substantial value to one’s faith, or at least not to mine.  I believe Jesus Christ was a very good man.  I struggle with whether he was more the son of God than you or me, but whether divinely placed or just more actualized, he was a very good man who taught people to live a very good life.  He didn’t get distracted with the fundamental word of the Bible, but taught in parables and metaphors.  He didn’t care what people said so much as what they did. 

With that said, there have been three sermons I have heard that have fundamentally changed my life or at least the way I see it.  One was from Father McCarthy, I believe, who was the priest at my church, Sts. Peter & Paul growing up.  The second was from a missionary from I want to say Nigeria, and the third was from Father Kramer at Guardian Angels.

Sermon #1 talked about a self-help lecture.  Some guy filled up a mason jar with big rocks.  When he could put no more rocks in the jar, he asked the audience if it was full, to which they responded, “yes.”  He then took out some sand and proceeded to fill the gaps in between the rocks with sand.  When the jar could hold no more sand, he asked, is it full.  Having learned their lesson, the audience said, “no.”  He then took out water and filled the jar until it could hold no more.  When he finished, he asked again, “is the jar full?”  To which the audience once again said, “yes.”  He then asked, what have we learned from this exercise.  Someone said, “if you want to fill the jar, start with water.”  To which the person said, “no, this jar is like life, if you don’t fit the big stuff in first, you will never find room for them.” 

Sermon #2 was not nearly as profound, but just as eye-opening.  At the time, I believe I was in high school or college and had little understanding of the world.  The priest got up there and talked about how rich Americans are…not exactly a new concept, but he talked about how in the United States, people can work one job, two jobs, three jobs if that is what it takes to support their family.  It might be working at McDonalds or some other crappy job, but there are bad jobs to be had.  In his country, there were no bad jobs, no good jobs, there were NO jobs.  I had never thought about poverty in the terms of opportunity prior to that sermon.  As someone who has lived in a developing nation, I can attest, Americans have no conception of the state of poverty that exists in other countries.  I promise you, spend a week in Haiti or even the Dominican Republic (outside of the resorts), and you will have a new definition of poor.

Sermon #3 was some random Saturday evening mass.  Father Kramer just told three stories about animals.  Story number one was about a science experiment some local girl had done where she had taught a goldfish to swim through a maze to get to the food at the end.  When she put a guppy in the water, the guppy could not figure out the maze.  The goldfish started prodding the guppy to get through the maze to get the guppy to the food.  Story number two was about the Emperor penguins in Antarctica and how they huddle in big circles to stay warm during large storms.  The birds take turns so that those on the outside for one storm are then protected by the ones they protected in the previous storm.  They constantly change positions from the inside of the circle to the outside of the circle with every storm.  The final story was about how he had visited a local middle school and asked the students what was their favorite possession.  He said that the answer he received most often was, “my dog.”  When he asked why, the children would say, “Because it’s always so happy to see me.”  The priest simply asked, is it right that we consider ourselves better than these animals?

Why do I bring up these sermons now?  Well, I have started following the internet sensation that is chief Oliver from Brimfield Police Department.  He’s a big picture kind of guy, or for anyone I have coached, he is able to see the forest among all the trees.  The last few weeks, he has had some pretty awesome quotations that I felt compelled to share.

From the chief himself, “While doing some work last evening at home, I turned on the TV for background noise.  While trying to find the suitable channel, I came across the show, ‘Amish Mafia.’ I watched seven seconds of it and lost 100 IQ points.  As a society, we may have jumped the shark.”

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” – George Horace Lorimer

I guess that is always a good question, am I going to bed satisfied with the day I had?

The Cleanse - Near the Half Way Point

Okay, a couple of weeks ago, a friend posted something on Facebook about looking for someone to do a cleanse together (misery loves company kind of thing). At the time, I was frustrated with my inability to lose weight like I have wanted and some concern with my general health so I figured that I should give it a try.
My friend (and her sister) both sell AdvoCare products, and they sell both a 10 and 24 day cleanse. We opted for the 10 Day Herbal Cleanse. My friend gave me a plan for normal people and also sent me a plan from her sister who is a bodybuilder who, like an endurance athlete, needs more than the normal human being does in terms of calorie intake.

After a few minutes of deliberation, I told her that I would do it with her. Heck, I thought, I have done two Ironmans, I moved to a foreign country where I didn’t know a soul and didn’t speak the language, I can handle a 10 day cleanse.

The general guidelines are as follows:

Days 1-3 then 7-10 start with a Fiber Cleanse Drink. Now, I drink full pulp orange juice when I drink orange juice, and this fiber drink makes that look like drinking water. It’s definitely chug-a-lug as not a taste you want to savor. It works as an intake of fiber and also an appetite suppressant. I have to admit, after drinking this stuff, I didn’t feel like eating much. It wasn’t that awful, but I typically don’t enjoy chewing my drink.

Days 1-7 Fiber supplements (3 horse pills). I haven’t figured out what these are supposed to do aside from the obvious, but I impress myself every time that I can down them all with one big swallow.
Days 4-10 Probiotic supplements. Like fiber, I think we all know what probiotics are suppose to do, thanks to Activa yogurt.

The cleanse still allows food: carbohydrates like hummus, whole wheat pasta, oatmeal, brown rice are fine, but the staple of the diet should focus on fruits and vegetables with protein coming from nuts and olive oil and lean meat like chicken and salmon and tuna. For someone like me who doesn’t really enjoy seafood, that restricts me to nuts, chicken and olive oil.
The cleanse material really only prohibits two things: alcohol and salt. It strongly recommends avoiding white breads and sweets along with carbonated beverages and fried, fatty foods. Now, here we come to the “you get out what you put into it portion of the cleanse.” Anyone who knows me knows I am addicted to Diet Coke. Back when I had my second surgery for my abdomen, I had a caffeine withdrawal migraine so severe that even morphine didn’t kill it. It was so bad that it returned as soon as I woke up from my surgery. While many people would love to see me kick Diet Coke habit, I knew that, in order for the cleanse to be successful, I had to allow myself certain concessions, and one diet coke in the morning is really what keeps me excited for the next day. For me, one a day is still a remarkable feat. I would say that normally, I drink 3-4x as much as I am drinking now, and it used to be 5x-6x as much. While the cleanse would probably go better without this little deviation, I feel like giving it up cold turkey would have undermined the cleanse completely.
Without going into much detail, the processed foods have been replaced with fruits and natural peanut butter as well as quinoa and brown rice. I have cooked chicken, brown rice, quinoa, and spaghetti in the last week, more cooking than I have probably done in the last six months.  I have also been forced out of my comfort zone a little bit by eating foods like quinoa and naked juice (way better than anticipated). I have given up the sweets and satisfy the sweet tooth with a touch of peanut butter or maybe a couple of pecans.
Now, other things I have taken into consideration on this cleanse would be the timing as it relates to my training. It just worked out that we started the cleanse as I was finishing a training block, which ends in a week of recovery. Actually the first four days were at the end of build week 3, but that only covered two longer workouts, and they were both more intensity over endurance so I was able to do them both without additional nutrition, but I am pretty sure that I will be using HEED on Wednesday night’s indoor workout as opposed to the shot bloks I normally eat. As my coach can attest, I am not very good at taking recovery, he actually called me out on it last week during his Wednesday night class so I am kind of looking forward to a week of recovery where I don’t feel guilty for taking it easy.
The one concern my mother had was that in terms of coaching, it was bad timing, but I think it worked out pretty well. Big Districts was this past weekend, and while long, I managed to have sufficient food and snacks to last throughout the tournament without trying to kill anyone. I even resist the temptation of the miniature candy bars, cookies, muffins and bagels provided for those of us working at the tournament. I even managed to avoid the coolers with the free cans of diet coke.
As of Sunday morning, the beginning of Day 4, I had lost 3.4 pounds, averaging over a pound a day, which surprised me as I had only had one big workout in that time. Thursday evening, I did 1.5 hours on the rollers. Friday I did nothing, Saturday I did a 45 minute z1 effort ride on the rollers, so that loss can pretty much be equated to the diet. I don’t expect to continue to lose that much a day, but even 5 pounds total would be a huge accomplishment and probably marginally difficult for me to maintain this early in the season.

My friend and I call/text every day both encouragement and updates. Just knowing someone else is going through it helps.
Some things have surprised me, the first few days, I couldn’t believe how not hungry I was in part probably because of the appetite suppressors but also in part, I think, to the knowing that I only had so much food with me and that I had to listen to my body carefully to know when it actually needed and didn’t just want food. Something that is likely disappointing to me is that while I am consuming significantly less caffeine than normal, I thought it would be much easier for me to fall asleep. While my mother will attest I have never been much of a sleeper, I am slightly disappointed that I am not falling right to sleep. One thing that was reaffirmed is that Giant Eagle has and almost always has the best produce. I picked up a bag of Fugi apples, and they are amazing, you would never know it’s February by how good they taste.
Yesterday was the first day where I could see myself entering the “bad mood” zone. I nearly let myself have an additional diet coke at dinner, but I managed to stop myself. I am dealing with it like I deal with everything else, I break the cleanse down into percentages and math. Like most workouts, the first 50% always seems longer, probably because you know you still have to do more than what you have already done. Once you get over 50%, you know you can do it because you already have.

Hopefully, the good results continue, and I can keep some of the changes to the diet that I have made, but rest assured, Sunday will be an enjoyable day!

Run for Regis Race Report

If ever a race was about the training and not the actual race, this race was it.  I believe that I enjoyed training for this race more than any race I have ever done. 

Pre-race, the most notable thing that happened in the morning was that I couldn’t find the wrist strap for my garmin.  I threw things around my apartment like…well, like an endurance athete who couldn’t find the wrist strap to her Garmin.  I spent about 10 minutes scouring my apartment until I found it already packed in my workout bag.  I love giving myself panic attacks before races, it seems to be a trend.

Usually, pre-race instructions are pretty blah, but the race instructions for this race had that incredible combination of being quite funny and very inspiring.  Often, while training for this race, I would make the comment that we are so lucky to live here, which is kind of surpring to hear me say.  I mean, I often say things like “moving to Australia, going back to the DR,” but the bottom line is that living so close to a National Park with all of its miles of trails and beautiful roads, we are just lucky.  Adding to that the story of Regis and his fight with cancer hit a little close to home and made me appreciate the life I get to live.

The course had two loops: an orange loop and a green loop.  The orange loop was about 8.4 miles the green loop was 4.7, making a half marathon.  The people running the full or the 50k started on the green loop, the rest of us started on the orange loop.  In training, I had run the orange loop several times, but I had only run a very small portion of the green loop, so I didn’t quite know what it had in store for us.

As our wave started, I made my left turn and listened to the advice a friend had said before the race, “I am going to run so I can finish.”  The course is 1) pretty hilly and 2) was extremely muddy.  At times, the mud was so thick, I couldn’t help but walk, there were other times when I was running in the mud, and it literally sucked my shoes off my feet. 

For the most part, I ran flats and downhills, walked steps, muddy downhill steps, and places were the mud was just non-negotiable.  This plan of attack seemed to work pretty well.  Often, the side of the trail was the easiest to navigate so I was usually running there.  Having been in the 4^th wave, I passed quite a few people, something that still surprises me in running races.  I would try to make jokes, pretty stupid and cheesy, like “Hey, I think you have some mud on your shoes.”  I always feel like it is important, especially in a race like this one, to say something encouraging to people either passing me or to people I pass.  I do this pretty much anytime I run: in a race, in a triathlon, or even when running on the towpath or Sand Run. 

Early in the race, I was on some pretty muddy stairs, and someone grabbed my arm to catch her balance.  She apologized, and I said that it was no big deal, I made a joke about how I had grabbed a friend’s hips when I slipped on the ice a few weeks back, and that was much more embarrassing.  Just as I finished that story, the hand of the man running in front of me hit me in a…let’s say more embarasssing location than the hips.  With the mental, “oh geez,” I hurried out of there.  Note to self: don’t stand around telling stupid stories, get out of people’s way.

There was one section that I knew was pretty flat and upon thinking about the course beforehand, I thought would likely have standing water, which turned out to be the case.  I was slightly over-dressed as I feared getting too cold if it had rained, but I kind of found the water in the shoes refreshing. 

As I approached the first aide station, I saw a teammate heading back to the trail.  I gave him a high five and made my way out.  I was pretty happy when I got to the first aide station.  I was surprised that I knew almost everyone there.  Espeed, from cyclo-cross glory, grabbed by water bottle from me and filled it for me, and after posing for a from another Elizabeth and saying hi to a few others, I made my way out of there.  Although I probably could have used a bathroom break, I opted to get out of there quickly.

I was feeling good, thinking I was running pretty well and continued around Kendell Lake to make my way back up to the Ledges.  Now, this portion of the trail has always been kind of a problem for me.  If I have been trying to stay up with Janet and that crew, it’s about 5 miles into the run that my body reminds me that I am not meant to run with these people and start to fade (more than I already have).  I started to notice that my pace was starting to slow.  I told myself that I needed to eat and while I feared how my stomach would handle it, I knew it was not a negotiation, there was still a long way to go and breakfast wasn’t going to last as long as this race.  I ate some citrus shot blocks (still from my winnings from Tour of the Valley), and my stomach let me know that a bathroom break would be in order at the next aide station. 

A little bit later, there was a bit of confusion on the course.  The course wasn’t marked, and I, along with two others, went to the right.  After about a minute, they yelled that they were sure it’s the wrong way, and we all turned around…and I am glad they did.  As it turned out, many people continued down that way, including Jen P and fellow teammate Gary B. 

Jen P then passed me around mile 7 or 8 and was pretty upset that she had indeed gone off-course, but man, did she fly by me!  Shortly after that run-in, I made it to the next aide station.  I saw teammates Gary and Ben standing there, so I said hi as I got my final water bottle fill and made my way to the restroom.  Yes, the stomach was officially unhappy, but the slower pace of trail running seemed to make it manageable.  When I got back out, Ben had already made his way to the next loop and Gary was still standing there.

As we made our way on this loop, Gary told me about his frustrations of going off-course, adding a few miles to his day.  Upon hearing that, I had two thoughts: 1) you have to be a steller athlete to be able just to add a few miles to an already long run and 2) THANK GOD that wasn’t me!

Gary quickly ran up ahead of me, but then we got to another part of the course, and I had to yell at him as he had gone the wrong way.  He righted the ship and off he went.  I was pretty much in “get this done mode” but found it kind of cool that at one point, Gary was about 10 yards ahead of Ben who was then 10 yards ahead of me.  We stayed that way for a bit, but I could tell that both Gary and Ben were running out of steam.  About half way through this loop, I passed Ben, but I never made much ground on him.  While I would slow down and walk uphills and/or really muddy sections, Ben just kept on running, passing me a time or two.  It was about this time that Eddie P, who was officially lapping me, on his second green loop, flew past me like he was born to run in the mud.  It was shocking to see how fast he was able to move.

I was basically running with Ben when my watch beeped for the 12 mile mark.  I had told a friend that I had expected to finish between 2:30-2:45, hoping I would be closer to 2:30 than the latter.  I knew I wasn’t going to break 2:30, but I knew I could still keep it close.  Then, I thought about my friend J. Mack who ran with me at the Cleveland Marathon 10k who said that he had a rule about no walking in the last mile.  I told myself that I had nothing else to do today other than finish this race and that running wasn’t going to take that much more energy than walking so I started running and stopped when I hit the finish line.  I ended up finishing in 2:33:40.  Ironically enough, it is NOT my slowest half marathon, that title still goes to the half marathon at Musselman in 2011 when my stomach was oh so ticked off and the closest I have ever come to DNFing a triathlon.

It was a great way to start the 2013 racing season!  It was kind of cool that I was kind of bittersweet the race was over as I had enjoyed the training for it, but then Joey reminded me that many of us had signed up for Barry-Roubaix in March and that we would need to plan training for that race.  Sweet!  Goodbye mud, hello gravel!

Ramblings of a debate coach

As a cyclist and as a triathlete, 60 degree days in January are like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow…so exciting that you can hardly contain yourself, unless you also happen to coach debate and find yourself trapped in the confines of a Middle School building listening to students talk about the dehumanization of rehabilitation. Yeah, it didn’t make sense to me either.
While I did at least ride my fixie to and from the bus garage, the 10 miles only whetted my appetite to ride all day, but instead I would check Facebook to see more and more people bragging about their enjoyment of their day outside. I hated to you all very VERY much.
I can’t really classify them as debatism, but here is what kept me entertained.
During judges’ instructions, one coach felt it necessary to say:
“Make sure to turn on the lights when you go into the classroom.”
Upon reading the text that I sent her, my mother described this little nugget of wisdom as “pure genius.” I will say that sometimes teachers go into teacher mode and forget that they are talking to functional adults, but sometimes it is a bit demeaning to have someone feel compelled to give you such an instruction as though you would have walked into a dark classroom and have been completely perplexed as to what to do.
I did have at least one round off in which I entertained the other judges by reading portions of an article from GQ titled, “25 Least Influential People of 2012.” While the article started with four different pictures of Mitt Romney, the one that made me laugh was “Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer.” Now, I am not mocking the horrendous crimes Sandusky committed, but instead, I agree with GQ’s description of the brilliance of his lawyer:
“Let us take a stroll through the razor-sharp legal mind of Joe Amendola: ‘I know! I’ll have my client go on national TV prior to his trial to be grilled by Bob Costas so we can all witness him declare, ‘I enjoy young people,” after searching blankly for the proper response to the question ‘Are you sexually attracted to young boys?’ as if Costas just asked him where he put his car keys.’ How can this possibly go wrong?
For this laugh out loud moment, I thank you GQ writer Drew Magary.
I should mention that another judges’ instruction is not to give low point wins. In debate, we have what are called speaker points. They are kind of a misnomer as they aren’t really speaker points so much as debating points. Often, a student might not speak very fluently, but have a better handle on the arguments than his opponent. 999 out of 1,000, the student who won the debate should have higher speaker points. The 1 out of a 1,000 is called a “low point win” and has to be justified to those running the tournament. In the 10+ years I have been judging, I have given a total of 2 low point wins. The first was for a gross misuse of a theory seven years ago, the second was on Saturday…
I was judging a round in which the Negative’s case had an inherent contradiction. I had noted it quite early in the round, but it’s not my job to debate the debater so it didn’t matter unless brought up in the round by her opponent. Debate has a rule that you are not allowed to bring up new arguments in rebuttal. You can advance an argument, but if your opponent cannot respond to it, then it is not permissible to bring it up. Well, the Affirmative, who has the last speech in the round, spent the entire last speech bringing up this inherent contradiction. While I felt that she was winning the round before going into this speech, she still had to respond to the points made by her opponent, but didn’t because she spent the entire time focusing on this inherent contradiction and why it should win her the round.
I HATE ROUNDS LIKE THIS ONE. I opted to give the Negative the win with fewer points because the Affirmative had done a better job throughout the round, better case, better argumentation, better advancement, but she screwed up. It was a clear case of the Affirmative losing the round as opposed to the Negative winning it. Had it not been for this gross violation of the rule, it would have been an easy round to judge. As it were, I gave myself and the entire tab staff grief in order to justify my decision.
My other debatism occurred while judging in a room labeled as the “Gifted Services” classroom. In this room, there were all of these small posters with prominent people from history: Amelia Earhart, Mahatma Gandhi, John Lennon, Albert Einstein, etc. There were seven or eight of these posters around the classroom, and they had one sentence on them: “Think Different.” I wanted to put little post-it notes up on every single one of them adding an –LY. “Think DifferentLY” people, think DIFFERENTLY!!! Why are even gifted instructors dismissing the value of adverbs. How is that being different! Let’s adverbalize America people! You are not “doing good, you are doing WELL” unless that is you are helping the homeless or feeding the hungry, then you are in fact doing good.
So while all of you were out there riding your bikes, I was enjoying the intellectual absurdism that is high school Speech and Debate.

iBelieve 10k Trail Run Race Report

As you can tell, this crazy single female tried quite a few new things this year: road racing, cyclo-cross, and the latest being trail running. This past fall, I was, to use my high school student’s phrasing, “talking to” a guy who was an endurance trail runner. So, of course, on our first date, we opted to go on a trail run, and I have to admit: I absolutely loved it! My love for trail running has lasted longer than that particular relationship, especially as I have been gearing up to run my first half trail marathon at Run for Regis.

I feel like a little back story is necessary here. I ran my first marathon February 11, 2007 in Birmingham, Alabama. I trained for that race with a wonderful running group, particularly with a friend CL. CL has children my age, but despite a generation gap, we became very close through the training. There is a certain closeness that training partners develop, and there was no doubt that we helped each other out through the highs and lows both in training and in life. The four months that I trained for that race were the best running days I had ever experienced. I absolutely loved the power, strength, and confidence it gave me and then sadly, I was hit by a car less than two months later. I am not going to go through all the highs and lows of the accident, but the broken toe that I suffered created problems with my running gate and eventually led to problems in my hips that still require a great deal of attention. I recall one run in general, right after breaking up with the guy of the month, where I broke down, started sobbing on a run with CL and our close friend AV because I was just emotionally and physically broken. Although I have had some excellent running races after the accident, running had definitely lost its luster.

With that said, it amazes me how I find myself enjoying running again and am grateful to that guy for finding that in me once again.

Now...back to the race report:

Pre-race: I have discovered that if I eat my breakfast as soon as I wake up, I am more inclined to have a more agreeable stomach while I am running.  They had also sent out an email mentioning the limited parking so I got to the race about an hour before the race start so I wouldn’t have a long walk before or after the race.  I picked up my packet, went to the bathroom, then proceeded to sit in my car until about 5 minutes before the race started.  It just felt too cold to stand outside and wait.  I got out, went to the bathroom one more time, then got to my starting place.  I chatted with the guy next to me, also doing the 10k, wished him luck, and thought to myself: it’s quite possible I will get dead last in this race.  Let me explain my reasoning:

1. I believe that 90% of the people were doing the 5k, meaning the 10k was a pretty small field.

2. It was a trail run, not a road race.  In my thinking, trail running isn’t really for the casual runner, so all the other women were likely actual trail runners.

3. It was pretty muddy, and I had no trail shoes.

Race: The race started, and I started making my way through the field, the first quarter mile was on road.  I got to the trail, and it was wet and muddy from the get-go, and I started slipping and sliding.  This course lacked two big things: elevation and traction…and it kind of reminded me of a cross race.  Anyone know what a Proustian moment is?  Well, slipping in the mud was my version of the Proustian madelines, and I was instantaneously racing like I would a cross race and not like I would a running race.  (If Mrs. Korosa happens to read this blog post, I almost wrote macaroons instead of madelines, throwing in a little Ibsen in there, thought you might appreciate that little slip).  Anyway, I was completely focused on picking the line that appeared to have the best traction, chasing down the people ahead of me, and feeling that z5, all-out race effort.

I also noticed a friend of a friend out there taking photos.  As I passed her, I tried to explain who I was, but I figured that it was probably a waste of energy.  I had worn what I thought was an appropriate amount of clothes, but I was pretty warm, ended up unzipping my jacket and wishing that I had worn shorts rather than tights, oh well.

I passed several people on the first loop, made it back to the turn-around and noticed that there was only one woman ahead of me…but then, my stomach decided it was a little upset, requiring a stop in the POP.  It was a waste of a couple of minutes, and I suddenly realized that my stomach was still pretty upset.  After about a half mile, I had to walk to try to calm down my stomach.  In those moments of walking, another woman passed me.  I started thinking about how the race would play out if I continued to let my stomach control my pace, and in a Jens Voigt-like moment, I said to myself, “Shut up stomach, I am not losing because of you.”  I had a flashback of some of the bigger races in which my stomach screwed me over (IM Wisconsin) and opted to keep pushing.  It didn’t take long, I quickly re-passed the lady who had passed me in my low moment, and I refocused by attention to the person about a hundred yards ahead of me.  It took me about two miles to make up those 100 yards, but I finally caught the person and was kind of surprised to see that it was a guy.  I don’t know why, I knew there was only one woman ahead of me, but he and I started to talk as we had about a half mile left in the race, I had clearly spent way too much energy trying to catch him, and he was hurting just about as bad from trying to hard to fend me off.  As we neared the chute, he let me go ahead, and I finished the race in 1:00:12.

After finishing the race, I felt about as spent as I usually do after a cross race and about as equally thirsty.  A lady came over to me and said that I was the 1^st overall female, “HUH???”  I could have sworn there was a female ahead of me…and let’s face it, I don’t win running races.  I took the ceremic ornament and was through the roof excited.  Maybe the woman went off course?  Maybe the woman hadn’t registered?  Kept running?  I don’t know…but then the results came out a week later, and I was indeed 2^nd overall.  I was a little embarrassed, but 2^nd overall is still way better than the dead last expectation that I had set for myself.  As I have said from the getgo, there obviously weren’t that many serious trail runners at this first year event, but you can only compete against those who show up.  I should also say, though, that I have never raced a running race before.  I have never chased people down and never thought about the efficiency of my cadence and of picking the right line.  As much as I don’t particularly enjoy cyclo-cross, I can thank it for this race result.

Thankfully, I have done a few runs with Janet E and her crew in the last few weeks to keep my ego in check.

Hiram Cyclocross Race Report

After some significant peer pressure, I caved and opted to do the Hiram Cyclo-cross race. The race was at the beginning of December so my memory is a little foggy, but here are some of the highlights.

The Weather: what else would it be except cold and rainy.

The Course: Cold and rainy, cold and MUDDY. The course was about 1.4 miles long had a narrow snake section with lots of turns in what turned into sloppy mud. There were turns around the Christmas trees, one curving descent into a pretty steep uphill followed by more turns around potential Christmas trees, another roller which led into an extended false flat. There was also a bump up to where the course was near the road that was 1) unrideable and 2) nearly impossible to run up while carrying the bike. There was also a lap around a small pond, which was the most rideable section of the course, but it had two barracades to break up any potential for speed on the course.

Game Plan: Sprint to get to the front so people couldn’t pass in the narrrow section then hold on for dear life!

What Happened: I managed to out-sprint everyone to the first turn after the start. I was in the lead for probably the first quarter of the first of two loops until I got to a turn in which I just couldn’t get my right foot clipped back into the pedal and was passed by eSpeed who was clearly frustrated by being behind me in the narrow course. I was just unfamiliar with the pedals and wasn’t able to get them to cooperate with me.  I would say the inability to get clipped back in because of the mud was my undoing in this race. In the turns around Christmas trees, I dropped down to 3rd as I couldn't manage to get clipped into my pedals.  I was never able to get the pedals to cooperate, most likely because both my pedals and my shoes were clogged with mud.  The initial sprint also left me kind of fried. It was a horrible race, but I continued to race hard the entire time despite making no apparent ground on 2nd and 4th not being that close behind me. Because of the conditions, we only managed 2 laps, which was fine by me! It was miserable!
Other things: it was in the 40’s and raining so I wore what I would wear for a road ride in the 40's. As it turns out, cyclocross is more similar to dress for how I would dress for a run and not a bike ride. I was wearing tights and long sleeves under my jersey, and I was roasting! With no water during the race, I finished the race and had horrible cotton mouth, and sadly, there was no water to be found until I managed to get back to my belongings where I had left a bottle of water.

I ended up getting third, a nice podium finish to end out the cycling season, but I didn’t feel like race particularly well. I did have fun heckling others as they dealt with the progressively worse conditions throughout the day.

I should thank Andrew Miller for giving me a ride, it was nice not to have to drive all that way for a race.