Mount Washington Race

Well.....it certainly has been awhile since I've blogged. But not an entire year, so I suppose I feel some small sense of accomplishment about that.

This post is mostly for Amy Dickinson, who really wants to know what it is like at (and upon the top of) Mount Washington in New Hampshire. I know what it is like there because I drove there last month, with a friend, and ran to the top of the mountain as part of the 50th Mt. Washington Road Race.

I guess our quest started in April, when my friend and co-worker Corbin and I decided we'd enter the lottery for entry to the race. The auto road up the mountain is pretty narrow and there is limited parking at the top (for the pre-arranged rides down to park an wait) so they limit the field to 1000 people. Usually there are fewer finishers, as not everyone who gets accepted shows up to run. Anyhow.....we entered as a team (so we'd either both get in, or both be left out) in March, and found out near the end of the month that we'd be drawn for entries!!!

Fast forward to June 17th, when I hit the road early in the morning from Lexington for the drive (you'd drive too if you had a car that gets 50 mpg on the highway) to Mt. Washington. I picked Corbin up in Columbus, and we made it to Albany, NY by that night. The next day was just a short 5 hour shot over to Littleton, NH....and I have to say the scenery was beautiful. Upstate NY is really picturesque, with rolling hills and sparse farms, and Vermont and New Hampshire are tree filled and very green. We saw plenty of signs advertising the presence of moose, but we weren't lucky enough to see one :( I guess we'll have to make a second trip someday!

Once we hit our hotel in Littleton, we drove over to pick up our packets at the base of the mountain and get a good look at what we'd be dealing with the next morning. The mountain is huge! Here's a picture of the mountain behind the Mt. Washington Hotel, which is pretty much how we saw it that first night (I did not take this picture).

It was the only mountain in the whole chain that extended above the treeline for any appreciable distance....and it extended WAAAY above the treeline. So.....thoroughly intimidated, we went back to the hotel to rest up.

The next morning was race morning. We got to the course early on what would turn out to be a beautiful day (It CAN and DOES snow on Mt. Washington every month of the year, and the mountain also hold the world record for the highest velocity straight-line wind (231 mph)....but we got a clear, 80+ degree June day (I ended up getting sunburned....whoops). We met up with a woman named Suzanne, and her husband, who were incredible, and had agreed to give us a ride down. Suzanne was running the mountain for the second time, and her husband Lee and dog, Kelty, would be waiting for us at the top. I'll post a visit of Suzanne later.

The race started at ten, with a crowd of close to 1000 (there ended up being 918 finishers) including those who would become next years members of the US international mountain racing team. There were about 100 meters of slight downhill at the start, and it was all uphill from there......for 7.5 miles.

I took off at a conservative pace, and came through the .9 miles (where they gave the first "mile" split) in just over 8 minutes. The miles got slower from there. I pride myself on the following: 1) I didn't walk at all in the first 2.5 miles 2) I only walked for 45 seconds in the first half of the race 3) None of my walk breaks lasted longer than 15 seconds. But there were walk breaks. LOTS of them. In the second half of the race I pretty much stuck to a "run one minute, walk 15 seconds" schedule. Sometimes I ran 1:30, sometimes only :45, but there was NO FLAT GROUND so I knew a long walk wouldn't help me recover.....I just caught my breath and pressed on.

Here's the split breakdown from my Garmin GPS watch:

Split	Hours:Minutes:SecondsTime	Hours:Minutes:SecondsMoving Time	MilesDistance	FeetElevation Gain	FeetElevation Loss	Minutes per MileAvg Pace	Minutes per MileAvg Moving Pace	Minutes per MileBest Pace	CaloriesCalories
Summary	01:27:15	01:26:08	7.49	4,659	21	11:38	11:29	06:04	865
1	00:08:03	00:07:52	0.91	430	21	08:50	08:37	06:04	113
2	00:09:59	00:09:59	0.97	636	0	10:19	10:18	08:12	124
3	00:10:42	00:10:33	0.95	634	0	11:18	11:08	08:26	117
4	00:11:22	00:11:20	0.97	616	0	11:42	11:39	08:52	122
5	00:12:49	00:12:19	1.00	702	0	12:49	12:18	09:21	106
6	00:12:43	00:12:37	0.99	648	0	12:49	12:42	08:24	104
7	00:13:03	00:12:58	1.00	606	0	13:06	13:00	09:27	102
8	00:08:29	00:08:30	0.70	387	0	12:04	12:04	08:44	77

The bottom line skews a little when I paste it, but you can see some fun stuff. Like the 4659 feet of elevation gain it shows for 7.5 miles (and the 21 feet of loss in the first 100 meters of mile one). You can see my average pace of 11:38 per mile and say "man....that's slow" and then I can tell you that I finished 132nd overall, out of 918 finishers, and it doesn't look so bad. I can also tell you that a couple of the guys up front (who finished between 60 and 65 minutes: 8:00+ pace) are all guys who run sub-14:00 5K's.

My finish time was 1:27:16.....right between my predicted times (and goal range) of 1:20 to 1:30. I'm totally satisfied for this effort.....heck....I'm still alive!

Corbin finished an hour later, and since I'd sent a video camera up in the car, I got to spend some time shooting video of the finish, the surroundings, the cog railway, my fellow competitors, etc. I'm posting these videos below. I narrated them as I took them, and yes, I know my narration is awful. But I'm the one on top of the mountain with the video camera....so you'll just have to deal with it.

I won't bore you with details of the drive home. It was long. It was not as exciting. We ate a lot of salty foods and drank victory soda by the gallon.

The trip was great though. This race was definitely one for the "lifetime accomplishment" list. I'd tell anyone to do A mountain race. At least one.....just for the experience. If you're as lucky as I was, you'll have a friend to go along, a beautiful day to do it on, a smooth ride back down to safety, and a great wife who'll let you go in the first place! I had a blast! Enjoy the videos (The video of Corbin coming to the finish (30% incline) is the best one!

This is what happens when the cat and dogs try to share the back yard.

Chicago Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon

Hello long abandoned blog viewers! I can't write much at the moment as I just got back to town from my half marathon adventure in Chicago, but I can report that my finishing time was 1:23:48...87th place overall (14,000+ finishers in the race) and I was the top finisher from the state of KY (91 people from KY entered the race).

I won my bet with my co-worker, so I am not required to perform any humiliating acts during my next sales meeting (he has to wear old man velcro walking shoes the whole meeting).

The drive home was torture on the legs, and the cat tried her best to prevent me from sleeping last night, but I think I am on the road to recovery.

Next up: Full Marathon in San Antonio in November!!!

National Running Day.....

.....is today! Hope everyone got to do their run!!

Home!

I got home yesterday from my sales meeting, having slept one whole hour before shuffling off to the airport at 4:00 AM. It's great to be home, but now we have a whole lot of packing to do in the next two weeks before moving day, and Laura will be gone next weekend. Yipes!!

I've been keeping up with my running (see training log to the right). I'm counting my weeks as Sunday thru Saturday even though the chart counts them as Monday to Sunday. By my method I'm definitely keeping it over 40 miles a week....which is right where I want to be for now, and I'm losing the weight I need to lose.

My roommate at my sales meeting was the guy I'll be racing in August. He's definitely in better shape than me right now.....so I've got my work cut out for me, but I think I'll just stay the course with my current training and hope it all works out.

I ran my first 5K of the year a week ago, and came in at 18:17. This is definitely a good start, and the next major race is the 10K on July 4th.

I guesss that's it for now....better go pack another box.

Next on the List...

I have a co-worker who has been looking for a "rematch" race ever since I put a 38 minute beatdown on him at the Chiago Marathon in 2006. He called yesterday with his race choice (we'd agreed previously on half-marathon distance this time) and picked the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in Chicago, which takes place August 2nd.

So.....I guess I'm training for another half marathon. Three months notice seems pretty fair, and to be honest, Ken is in a bit better shape than I am right now, so I'll have to get going pretty quickly. I ran 14 miles yesterday at 7:20 pace, which is only 6 seconds slower per mile than my race pace for the Louisville Mini last weekend. What really needs to happen is for me to get my butt back over to the track and do some speed work (Yikes!).

It does feel good to have another "goal" race since the Mt. Washington idea fell through. If anybody has a great idea for how to drop 8 pounds quickly (other than swallowing a tape worm) please let me know, so I can get back to training at "race weight".

As an intermediate goal, I'm hoping to run a decent time at the Bluegrass 10,000 on July 4th....which will mark the two year anniversary (AND MUCH AWAITED RETURN!!!) of Ale8 Man!!!! Better get your popcorn ready!

Monkey Off My Back

Yesterday I ran the Kentucky Derby Festival MiniMarathon in Louisville. A couple of years ago, I dropped out of this race at 10 miles because of an IT band (knee) problem.....making this the ONLY race I've ever entered that I failed to finish. Needless to say, its the type of thing you remember.

So, yesterday was definitely vengeance for my previous attempt. I finished in 1:34:36, and as it was about 80 degrees out there on the course, I even allowed myself a couple of 20 to 30 second walk breaks in the second half to make sure I didn't totally blow up in the heat. (My pace through the first 6 miles was 6:50, and my finishing pace was 7:14, so I cost myself a little time....but I made it through in a respectable time, which is fine since I felt a little under-trained for a half marathon). My goal time was 1:28:00, and finished 165th (149th for the men) but I'm fine with where I came in, and think I can keep up my training to run another couple of longer races over the summer.

Other things I learned yesterday: I don't like Orange Vanilla flavor Roctane. WAAAY too sweet for a 6-miles-in recharge. Also, I'm pretty good at keeping my pace while listening to my iPod (which I've never done in a race before....usually just to train). Finally, I learned that it is a bad idea to park downtown with 10,000 other people when a good number of streets heading out of town will be closed after the half marathon for the 2000 people who ran a full marathon in 80-something temps.

Thanks to everyone who cheered for me along the way (KCRS people) and thanks to Camille for the free entry (FF Louisville). And a special congratulations to Ed, who finished his first half marathon yesterday in 2:39!!