Flew into New York last night around 5 p.m. was met by a volunteer from the local running club, Pamela who drove me to my host-family's home. Enjoyed a very pretty 75 minute NY rush-hour commute to Ebbe and Eva Reker's quaint home they affectionately call their tree house set on a spacious, tranquil, tree-covered property in Northport, NY, a small village on the northern coast of Long Island. The Rekers, originally from Scandanavia (Ebbe from Denmark, Eva from Poland) had moved to NY 40+ years ago in their early-20's, met, married, and settled in Northport to raise their two children. And there they are still today, very involved in the local community, Ebbe the Vice Commador of the Northport Yacht Club.
Upon arrival I dropped my bags in their guest room and we headed to dinner at the Yacht Club where a number of other host families and athletes were meeting up. Dinner was very nice; Ebbe forgot to tell me about their "no jeans" dress code so I crept in behind him and sat down quickly. I enjoyed interesting conversation and delicious food while meeting a number of very friendly people (including a local Colorado runner, Wendy Thomas who lives 35 minutes away from me and also has a four and six year old). After dinner the Rekers took me back home and I prepared my race day bag and went to bed.
Woke up at 6:30 a.m., got dressed, and joined Ebbe and Eva upstairs for a fresh, authentic NY Bagel (cinnamon raisin). Ebbe drove me to the start and got situated with the elite athlete group in the school gym. Went to warm up with four CO girls who are all sponsored by Boulder Running company. I was the bright pink shirt jogging within the bright blue gals as the Sesame Street tune "One of these things is not like the others" played in the background.
The race started at 8:30 a.m. and went out FAST. Atalelech Asfaw, originally from Ethiopia, now a U.S. Citizen training in Albuquerque took it out in what must have been a 5:05 first mile. Stephanie and Magdalena were around 5:11 and I was 5:15. Granted, it was mostly downhill that first mile but I was unwilling to go any faster than that so early in a 10K race. I had the annoying realization very early in the race that I had not fastened my ankle timing chip properly (tight enough) because it had slipped down low on my ankle and the hard plastic chip part was grinding into the top of my left ankle bone as I sped up down the hill. I awkwardly tried to hi-step and slap the chip around to the back of my ankle but almost tripped myself in the process and not wanting to fully stop and fix it, I resolved to suck it up and just deal with it.
The second mile brought with it the biggest, longest incline of the race, James Street Hill which pretty much lasted almost the whole second mile; my split was 5:55. I was still within 7-8 seconds of the leaders (Magda and Stephanie were steadily reeling Atalelech back in). As a side note, the reason I chose not to go out WITH the leaders like I did in New Haven is because Magdalena had mentioned that she was going after the 32:32 course record and I, being a realist, didn't have any hope of hitting that kind of time on this hilly of a course at this point in my running career, so I just tried to imagine a thick rope tied around her waist to mine so I could at least stay in contact to some extent. The bad news was that my decision to not stay with Magda (and Stephanie and Atalelech who were running right with Magda) left me out in no man's land to pace myself and push the hills alone.
Mile 3 flattened out and I started to get into a rythym. I moved up and passed Atalelech while maintaining the 7-8 second gap Magda and Stephanie had on me. Split was 5:30.
Mile 4 brought some welcomed downhill but actually not that welcome because the grade was so steep that I found myself having a hard time increasing my cadence and lifting my knees quickly enough to really use the hill to my benefit and it actually felt like I had to put on the breaks in order to not fall on my face. Not to mention, my ankle was taking a pummeling from the timing chip. Split was 5:21 while I lost a few seconds on Magda and Stephanie.
Mile 5 was a long slow gradual uphill alone into a mild headwind with the sun coming out of hiding and the humidity commanding my attention. The low-point of my race mentally as the leaders seemed to feel more distant. 5:54
Mile 6 had just one more short little uphill and then a nice gradual downhill to the finish. I just hung on and enjoyed watching the race unfold in front of me as Magda threw in a surge and overtook Stephanie in the final mile. My split was 5:35
Sprinted the final .2 in 65 seconds (5:25 pace) and immediatly after finishing, had a heavy canvas American flag thrown over my shoulders with people demanding to take pictures of the top three finishers. How patriotic! But really I was just sweating like cow (pun intended) and the last thing I wanted was a thick canvas coat on my shoulders. After a few pictures, we took our flags (coats) off and headed into a bar on Main Street where they had put our bags. I ate some strawberries, grapes, and lots of water, texted Coach and Aaron, and headed back out for a long cool-down in an attempt to top off my mileage to 20 for the day (my last 20-miler before Baltimore). Wendy Thomas (mother of two from CO) was kind enough to join me for 7 miles as we jogged back through the course to partake of the water stops and run those stupenous hills again. As we got back to the finish line (for the second time) people cheered us in (again) and we gave lots of thumbs up and went to get our bags and head over to the park where the awards ceremony was scheduled to begin 3 minutes earlier. Has there EVER been an on-time awards ceremony in the history of road races?? Don't think so. I asked Wendy to watch my bag for me while I jogged some more and the awards ceremony announcers stalled some more. Staying within ear's reach of the announcer, I only got up to 18 miles total before they started the awards. I was hoping for a couple more but after standing around and sitting for a few minutes during the awards my right achilles tendon and left ankle bone refused to run any more. My left ankle was sporting a nice purple/blue puff-ball look after being defeated by the timing chip and my temperamental right achilles was pleading for some love (ice) after the 18 miles of punishment it had just endured. So I called it a day and walked back to the car with Ebbe (not without him treating me to some authentic pastry from the Danish Bakery of course).
In review, I have to be happy with my race. It was a TOUGH course on a hot, humid, and somewhat windy day. I finished 39 seconds behind Magda and 27 seconds behind Stephanie. After the race Magdalena was saying how much she really respects that course record (she fell 87 seconds short of breaking it). Those steep hills really took it out of my legs and I just tried to manage the best I could. I think there is a reason they don't post their elevation profile online. Considering the circumstances I am pleased with the fact that my time was a minute+ faster than my previous PR set at Bolder Boulder earlier this year. And I came home a few pennies richer. :)
The post-race party was fun and I met some more really cool runners. I also enjoyed the hour long drive back to LaGuardia Airport with Andrew Carlson from Flagstaff as well as Matt Levassiur and Stephanie Bylander (with their adorable 1yo daughter) from Alamosa, CO. I had a really funny conversation with Andrew Carlson as we were getting into the car to leave for the airport. He put his bag in the car and said "Sorry about my BEG, its taken some abuse." (His bag had a nice rip on the side). As soon as I heard him pronounce BAG as BEG I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this guy is from either North or South Dakota.....I bet he knows Jessie Kindschi." Jessie is a former BYU teammate of mine with the cutest little North Dakota accent ever. So I introduced myself to Andrew and sure enough, the next words out of his mouth were, "Hey, didn't you run for BYU? Do you know Jessie Kindschi Dorais?" I laughed so hard!! That is exactly what I was about to ask him!! Come to find out Andrew had actually dated Jessie for a period of time in college before she transferred to BYU and he really had a lot of good to say about her and her husband Andy (who now live in SLC while Jessie finishes up medical school). Anyway, just another funny "small world" experience.
Fun times!
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
New Haven 20K
Wow! What a weekend! Where do I begin?
Well, I arrived in New Haven, CT on a tiny, very loud and bumpy plane Sunday afternoon at their HUGE airport of one terminal and two gates. I was picked up at the airport by the elite athlete coordinator, JT who took me on a course tour on the way back to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel ten minutes before an athlete meeting and I checked into my room and met my roommate, Amy Hastings. Walked to the meeting with Amy, met and sat down next to Lauren and Zoila. Heard some info about the race, the potential to qualify for World Half Marathon Championships, the expectation to be drug free and stay on course, and well wishes from mens and women's race liaisons. Also heard a little motivational speech by Steven Shay inspiring us to have heart and give it our all like his brother Ryan did.
Our hotel and the race start/finish was right by Yale University so it was a nice, clean spot of town. We walked a few blocks to a delicious restaurant and enjoyed dinner and good conversation with Zoila, Lauren, Colleen, and Jeff. After dinner, we just headed back to the hotel and went to our rooms. I chatted with Amy for a while (super friendly and fun to talk to) and we went to bed around 9ish. I was plenty tired from waking up early to catch my flight and the long day of travel. Amy asked me what time I wanted to wake up (the race started at 8:40 a.m.) and I said, "oh, I'm flexible....maybe 7 a.m. What do you think?" She looked at me a little crooked and said "Oh....'cause I was thinking 5:30 a.m." Haha. Maybe this is why I'm SO often late for races! Do I just wake up abnormally close to race start time as a general rule?? Apparently. Anyway, I obliged to her schedule with the assurance of an on-time race arrival and we went to sleep. The alarm went off all too soon and I woke up with a gift from the hotel bed: wicked little knot in my upper back. Thank you hotel bed. I really wanted that the morning of my first National Championship road race. I immediatley went to the athlete hospitality suite (still in my pajamas, barefooted, puffy eyed, messy hair and all) to see if they had a massage therapist or chiropractor on duty yet and as I walked in to see 10+ guys and Magdalena Lewy-Boulet sipping their coffee and looking all bright eyed and sharp in their race warm ups, I sheepishly grabbed a banana and slunk right back out. Saw JT on my way out of the room and he slapped me on the shoulder and said "WAKE UP!!" I must have looked pretty bad...but gimme a break, its 3:30 a.m. for my body. I asked him if there was a massage therapist and he said they were showing up at 6:30 a.m. at the outside tent by the race start. So I went back to my room, ate my banana and Luna bar and got dressed. Washed my face in an effort to get the puffy eyes to die down (I probably could have used some cold compress or something too). Then I told Amy I'd see her in the tent and I headed out to find the massage therapist who finally arrived around 6:50 a.m. and I asked if he could do chiropractic adjustments because I couldn't breathe very deeply without tightness and pain. He said "no but I do a good rub down" and was confident he could help me out. He worked on the knot pretty good for ten minutes or so and it started to feel a little looser. Those types of things usually take days to subside completely though, so I wasn't expecting a miracle or anything. After that I went to sit in the tent with the other ladies who were arriving. I met a few more runners and enjoyed chatting and laughing about the large open box with 200+ chocolate donut holes that no one was eating. REALLY JT? (Or whomever was in charge of getting the food). Did you really think 15 elite female runners would ever even come close to consuming 200 donut holes at any point in time that morning? LOL. He had the usual water, bananas, bagels, but the absurd amount of donuts were obviously out of place.
About 35 minutes before the race I went to warm up with Lauren. We didn't talk much, both obviously dealing with our own latent nervousness (it was her first championship race too) but it was nice to at least have someone to tap along the pavement with. Right as I finished my warm up and stopped my watch.....blank. Dead. No life whatsoever. Well, so much for relying upon good ol' Garmin to help me avoid the mistake of going out too fast and blowing up. Guess I'm on my own with that one. Tossed the watch in my bag along with my warm ups and went to the race start to do some strides and stretching. I was actually not upset at all about the Garmin betraying me. My naked wrist felt liberated and excited to just be forced to listen to my heart and lungs and let them dictate the pace. On the line, Colleen and Jeff came up on each side of me; it was just like any old day doing our workout in Boulder. We paused for the National Anthem, and then BOOM! The cannon released us.
Pretty much all fifteen women suddenly coagulated like gel with a few "foreign bodies" (men) mixed in and the race pack was formed. The pace felt very comfortable and I knew we were not going out "too fast." I didn't even notice the first mile go by, but figured it must have at some point and just stayed in the middle of the cozy group. I did see mile two at 11:03 and was comforted to know that we were averaging 5:31 pace already (a pace I was not afraid to go after). The pack still probably had nine or ten of us there with the race favorites near the front. The miles seemed to pass quickly and I felt smooth and comfortable. My tummy did start to get a little upset around mile four but it was negligible. The gremlin hiding in between my rhomboid and trapezius was not complaining too much either, thank goodness. A couple of girls tried to change up the pace and take off into the lead at times, but the group absorbed them again pretty quickly. As the miles passed I tried not to let the fact that I was PRing in every distance from 4 miles on up throw me into mental doubt and fear of the coming miles. When we came by 10K in 34:00 I still felt reasonably comfortable in the pack and realized it had shrunk down to only five women with Magda, Amy, and Stephanie working it at the front and me content to sit back and watch the race develop. My stomach started to complain a little louder and I had to work harder to mentally suppress the discomfort.
Just after mile seven I took about 100 calories of EFS liquid shot and some water, hoping it might settle my stomach or at least just give me some insurance for the final miles of the race. At that point it was down to Magdalena and Stephanie with me hanging on their heels still...but not for long. The 8 mile marker seemed to slap Magda in the pants or something as she just took off and dropped us like flies. Stephanie responded a little better than I did, but I tried to keep the gap as tight as I could. In Magda's post race interview she said she just ran a 5:06 mile on mile 8 and then went back to the pace we had been doing which means Stephanie and I must have been falling off pace too because Magda finished 57 seconds ahead of me and 45 seconds ahead of Stephanie.
Anyway, the last few miles consisted of me getting stomach cramps, mentally commanding them to leave, feeling okay for a few minutes, getting worse stomach cramps, groaning in my head, praying for strength, wanting to stop and relieve myself in the gutter but not wanting to embarrass the spectators or myself even more, keeping my focus on Stephanie so she wouldn't distance me even more, imagining Amy coming up behind me and kicking past me while laying everything on the line so that wouldn't happen, praying again that I wouldn't have an embarrassment in my shorts while willing my stomach to behave, and finally seeing the finish line and jumping for joy (in my head) as the crowd carried me home.
Well, I arrived in New Haven, CT on a tiny, very loud and bumpy plane Sunday afternoon at their HUGE airport of one terminal and two gates. I was picked up at the airport by the elite athlete coordinator, JT who took me on a course tour on the way back to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel ten minutes before an athlete meeting and I checked into my room and met my roommate, Amy Hastings. Walked to the meeting with Amy, met and sat down next to Lauren and Zoila. Heard some info about the race, the potential to qualify for World Half Marathon Championships, the expectation to be drug free and stay on course, and well wishes from mens and women's race liaisons. Also heard a little motivational speech by Steven Shay inspiring us to have heart and give it our all like his brother Ryan did.
Our hotel and the race start/finish was right by Yale University so it was a nice, clean spot of town. We walked a few blocks to a delicious restaurant and enjoyed dinner and good conversation with Zoila, Lauren, Colleen, and Jeff. After dinner, we just headed back to the hotel and went to our rooms. I chatted with Amy for a while (super friendly and fun to talk to) and we went to bed around 9ish. I was plenty tired from waking up early to catch my flight and the long day of travel. Amy asked me what time I wanted to wake up (the race started at 8:40 a.m.) and I said, "oh, I'm flexible....maybe 7 a.m. What do you think?" She looked at me a little crooked and said "Oh....'cause I was thinking 5:30 a.m." Haha. Maybe this is why I'm SO often late for races! Do I just wake up abnormally close to race start time as a general rule?? Apparently. Anyway, I obliged to her schedule with the assurance of an on-time race arrival and we went to sleep. The alarm went off all too soon and I woke up with a gift from the hotel bed: wicked little knot in my upper back. Thank you hotel bed. I really wanted that the morning of my first National Championship road race. I immediatley went to the athlete hospitality suite (still in my pajamas, barefooted, puffy eyed, messy hair and all) to see if they had a massage therapist or chiropractor on duty yet and as I walked in to see 10+ guys and Magdalena Lewy-Boulet sipping their coffee and looking all bright eyed and sharp in their race warm ups, I sheepishly grabbed a banana and slunk right back out. Saw JT on my way out of the room and he slapped me on the shoulder and said "WAKE UP!!" I must have looked pretty bad...but gimme a break, its 3:30 a.m. for my body. I asked him if there was a massage therapist and he said they were showing up at 6:30 a.m. at the outside tent by the race start. So I went back to my room, ate my banana and Luna bar and got dressed. Washed my face in an effort to get the puffy eyes to die down (I probably could have used some cold compress or something too). Then I told Amy I'd see her in the tent and I headed out to find the massage therapist who finally arrived around 6:50 a.m. and I asked if he could do chiropractic adjustments because I couldn't breathe very deeply without tightness and pain. He said "no but I do a good rub down" and was confident he could help me out. He worked on the knot pretty good for ten minutes or so and it started to feel a little looser. Those types of things usually take days to subside completely though, so I wasn't expecting a miracle or anything. After that I went to sit in the tent with the other ladies who were arriving. I met a few more runners and enjoyed chatting and laughing about the large open box with 200+ chocolate donut holes that no one was eating. REALLY JT? (Or whomever was in charge of getting the food). Did you really think 15 elite female runners would ever even come close to consuming 200 donut holes at any point in time that morning? LOL. He had the usual water, bananas, bagels, but the absurd amount of donuts were obviously out of place.
About 35 minutes before the race I went to warm up with Lauren. We didn't talk much, both obviously dealing with our own latent nervousness (it was her first championship race too) but it was nice to at least have someone to tap along the pavement with. Right as I finished my warm up and stopped my watch.....blank. Dead. No life whatsoever. Well, so much for relying upon good ol' Garmin to help me avoid the mistake of going out too fast and blowing up. Guess I'm on my own with that one. Tossed the watch in my bag along with my warm ups and went to the race start to do some strides and stretching. I was actually not upset at all about the Garmin betraying me. My naked wrist felt liberated and excited to just be forced to listen to my heart and lungs and let them dictate the pace. On the line, Colleen and Jeff came up on each side of me; it was just like any old day doing our workout in Boulder. We paused for the National Anthem, and then BOOM! The cannon released us.
Pretty much all fifteen women suddenly coagulated like gel with a few "foreign bodies" (men) mixed in and the race pack was formed. The pace felt very comfortable and I knew we were not going out "too fast." I didn't even notice the first mile go by, but figured it must have at some point and just stayed in the middle of the cozy group. I did see mile two at 11:03 and was comforted to know that we were averaging 5:31 pace already (a pace I was not afraid to go after). The pack still probably had nine or ten of us there with the race favorites near the front. The miles seemed to pass quickly and I felt smooth and comfortable. My tummy did start to get a little upset around mile four but it was negligible. The gremlin hiding in between my rhomboid and trapezius was not complaining too much either, thank goodness. A couple of girls tried to change up the pace and take off into the lead at times, but the group absorbed them again pretty quickly. As the miles passed I tried not to let the fact that I was PRing in every distance from 4 miles on up throw me into mental doubt and fear of the coming miles. When we came by 10K in 34:00 I still felt reasonably comfortable in the pack and realized it had shrunk down to only five women with Magda, Amy, and Stephanie working it at the front and me content to sit back and watch the race develop. My stomach started to complain a little louder and I had to work harder to mentally suppress the discomfort.
Just after mile seven I took about 100 calories of EFS liquid shot and some water, hoping it might settle my stomach or at least just give me some insurance for the final miles of the race. At that point it was down to Magdalena and Stephanie with me hanging on their heels still...but not for long. The 8 mile marker seemed to slap Magda in the pants or something as she just took off and dropped us like flies. Stephanie responded a little better than I did, but I tried to keep the gap as tight as I could. In Magda's post race interview she said she just ran a 5:06 mile on mile 8 and then went back to the pace we had been doing which means Stephanie and I must have been falling off pace too because Magda finished 57 seconds ahead of me and 45 seconds ahead of Stephanie.
Anyway, the last few miles consisted of me getting stomach cramps, mentally commanding them to leave, feeling okay for a few minutes, getting worse stomach cramps, groaning in my head, praying for strength, wanting to stop and relieve myself in the gutter but not wanting to embarrass the spectators or myself even more, keeping my focus on Stephanie so she wouldn't distance me even more, imagining Amy coming up behind me and kicking past me while laying everything on the line so that wouldn't happen, praying again that I wouldn't have an embarrassment in my shorts while willing my stomach to behave, and finally seeing the finish line and jumping for joy (in my head) as the crowd carried me home.
It was a very long last couple of miles, to say the least. But finally, that mental anguish came to an end and I was rewarded with extreme mental relief and elation. My teammate Jeff had finished 20 seconds ahead of me and was the first to give me a sweaty hug and high five. Then I got some water, talked to the runnerspace.com guys and congratulated a few runners. Had a funny conversation with Kim Keenan-Kirkpacktric, the race liaison who was in the truck helping the guys film the race. She asked me a little bit about myself and told me how they were frantically searching online for any info they could find on me including the pronunciation of my name since I was obviously a dark horse, yet was up there running with the leaders until mile eight. Haha. I told her honestly I was just as surprised as she was to see myself in the final three. It was unfortunate how so many top ladies had an off day today. Amy, Colleen, Tera, Zoila, and others all felt "off." Zoila put it into words so well in her post race interview. She said something to the effect of, each race is like receiving a gift. You have to unwrap it to see what is inside and sometimes its something you really like and other times its not. You can't dictate what comes though. You just have to accept it and do the best you can with it. I've had plenty of those days. And I've been overcome and defeated plenty of times. Today was not one of them. Today I received the gift of a much welcomed and appreciated huge breakthrough to give me the confidence and experience to keep my competitive flame burning bright. Others were not so lucky and had one of those days every runner has to experience, evaluate, and learn from. Its part of the journey. I am just feeling so grateful right now that God allowed me to feel that breakthrough feeling today and gave me that gift of endurance and strength to get me through even though I had obstacles I was threatened by. Keep pushing through! Breakthroughs will come and they will be SO worth it when they do!
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