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!!

A bit overdue....

...for an update for all you anxious fans out there. I've been busy, and as we are now moving (sold our house, AND bought a new one) to another part of Lexington in the next two months, things are bound to get even busier. Nonetheless, my people deserve to know what is happening in the life of Queep, so here we go:

Our new house is off Richmond Rd, in the Fairway subdivision. We'll live less than half a mile from Coach Calipari's new digs, and the neighborhood looks quiet and peaceful. We close on June 15th, and I'[m already packing since the month of May is going to be a hectic one with lots of Saturday events for work.

I know I've been rather lax in charting my training for next weekend's Louisville Derby Minimarathon, but I promise I've been getting in my miles as best I can. I'm running 15 to 20 miles most weeks, with a couple of weeks closer to 30 (but not many of these weeks). I'm not concerned at all about the distance, but I think I'm going to be slower than my original 1:25:00 prediction. 1:28:00 to 1:30:00 looks like a safe guess now. I checked the results from the past two years, and each year the #100 male finisher was in the 1:28:00 range, so that is what I'd LIKE to run, and what I'll set out to run (and then try and hold on to the pace).

Life is steaming along at the Crawford household, and with Laura starting graduate school the week before we move it looks like this summer may have come and gone before we even know what hit us. Maybe we'll have to plan in advance for some sort of escape from Kentucky during Thanksgiving (which would mean missing my 10-year high school reunion, but I've already expressed my opinion to the organizers that I think Thanksgiving is for family and they could have chosen another time of year).

I don't really have any pictures of any sort to post right now, but maybe I can download pictures from the finish of the half marathon and post them (sorry folks, no Ale8 cape on this one).

Until next time...

Great sadness ensues....

Everyone knows I've been excited for pretty much the last 8 months that I was going to try and run the Mt. Washington Race this summer (7.6 miles, average grade of 12.2%). Well.....I am NOT going to be running the Mt. Washington Race this summer, since I did not get picked in the lottery. Even worse, my dreams of being the first KY finisher in years is most certainly dashed to pieces as two other people from KY DID get chosen in the lottery.

What a bummer!!!

Now I have to decide what to do with all the incline training I've been doing. I've still got the Louisville MiniMarathon coming up in late April (entry is confirmed.....I think) but then I need to find some sort of crazy event to get me through the summer. So.....if you come across anything cool in your own home town (ahem, Papillion, cough), and you don't mind putting me up for the night (I'll pay for my Cheerios if need be) I suppose I'm a mercenary for hire on the road racing front.

Until next time......

Only the Good Die Young...

Friday night my dad came into town to spend the weekend with us and help out with a couple of home improvement projects. We were lazy and went to dinner at Johnny Carino's, but it was pretty tasty, so I don't feel too bad about it.

Just after 10 PM Laura and I drove over to a bar on Malibu for some Karaoke with her friends, and ended up frying our vocal chords to dust. Just in case you want to imagine the glory of it all, last night's Karaoke line-up for me included:

"Ain't Goin' Down til the Sun Comes Up" in the style of Garth Brooks (as they say in Karaoke).
"Only the Good die Young" in the style of Billy Joel
"Roxanne" in the style of The Police
"Strokin' " in the style of Clarence Carter
"Crocodile Rock" in the style of Elton John

Laura turned it all the way to 11 and sang such famous face melters as "Black Velvet", "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (the smash hit of the night), and "If I Could Turn Back Time" (in the style of Jack from "Will and Grace")

Overall I'd say it was a good night, certainly our late night out for Q1 2009, with a final "to bed" time of about 1:37 AM.

The rest of the weekend has been a whirlwind of house stuff. We've made some serious progress on projects in both bathrooms, as well as the dining room. Dad is certainly a workhorse when you give him a job, a pile of tools, and the occasional (but honestly not too occasional) break for a sandwich.

Tonight we went to Audrey's for dinner. She and Andrew made lasagna and garlic bread that really hit the spot after a full day, and we topped it off with some caramel apple pie from Missy's. Now it's finally time to wind down and relax for an hour or so before the work week starts all over again.

50 Degrees

How great is it to be able to run outside after a full week on the treadmill? It is quite great indeed.

Training update

The half marathon training is rocking along, I suppose. All 4 workouts this week were on the treadmill, which is really boring but when it comes to the 4 days I ran this week, two were at night after long work days, and two were on days when it was in the 20's, so I don't feel too bad about it.

For anyone wondering what happened to the pace per mile on Wednesday: This was the day I decided to put in a little work for the hill climb I want to do this summer (I crank up the treadmill gradually to 15% and then see how long I can keep it there....even if I have to slow down). This week I managed to keep it there for just a couple of minutes.....because the treadmill decided to burn out on me. I really like one of the types of treadmills we have at the Y, but they do overheat from time to time. I've learned (a while ago) that they don't do very well if you want to crank it over 10 MPH, and I've learned more recently that inclines of 14 to 15% will stall the think out pretty quickly too.

Oh well.

It's supposed to warm up here mid-week and I just broke in a new pair of 769's on my 8 miler tonight, so I'll probably try and get back to increasing my long run sometime soon. I think I'm really just going to train like it's a full marathon ( see if I can work my long run up over 20 miles) and see if that helps drop my half marathon time down where I want it. To those familiar with the concept of "race weight," I'm admittedly a couple of pounds over. Laura doesn't like when I talk about it, but she's agreed that I am "allowed" to weigh the weight I'm shooting for (160). Today's morning weight was 170.6, and post-run weight of 166.0 (of course, then I came home and drank some water and ate half a pizza). It is, after all, a process.

I'm not allowed to approach my 2005 post-Columbus marathon weight of 148. The first thing Laura said to me after my very first marathon was "if I ever have to identify your body....I'll know what you'll look like". I don't remember what I said in response, but I imagine it was something to the extent of "I love you too".

That's enough bleeble blurble from me for one night.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.....

Today the trucks came through the neighborhood (accompanied by little rolling-tread-claw-grabber-vehicles) to collect the branches from the storm. Luckily I finished dragging them from the back yard yesterday, and had lined them in TWO ROWS, one on each side of the sidewalk (I thought it was better to make two rows each two to three feet tall, rather than one row six feet tall.....not to mention it allows us to see when we back out of the driveway, and thus avoid a totalled car like what happened to Laura's Jeep in 2003).

Okay, enough background. So the truck rolls down the street, and stops in front of our house, and they start with the row of branches closest to the street. Once they get this cleaned up, they get in the truck.......and move off down the street. They totally left the second row of branches laying in my yard. Now I'll switch from narration mode to dialogue mode:

I put on my coat and walk down the street(3 houses) to meet the crew, and locate the head guy.

Pete: If I move the rest of the branches up to the street will you come pick them up?
Municipal worker: Nope. We're not supposed to back up, just keep moving forward.
Pete: If you don't come get them, someone else will have to come back. I'm moving them.

I walk away, back to the house, and start moving the branches. The head guy comes down the street.

Municipal worker: I called another truck to come by and get them.
Pete: When will that happen.
Municipal worker (shrugs): Maybe today.....maybe next week.
Pete: I thought I was doing a nice thing by not making a huge pile...I guess not.
Municipal worker: Well, someone'll be by to get them. (He walks away.)

I finish moving the branches and go into the house. Grab twenty dollars. Walk back down the street (now 5 houses away) and meets the head guy again:

Pete: Here you go.
Municipal Worker: What's this?
Pete: Twenty bucks. Come and get my branches.
Municipal Worker: We're not allowed to go back.
Pete: Fine. You just took my twenty bucks. (I walk away immediately)
Assistant Municipal Worker: We'll get'em for twenty bucks.
Head Municipal Worker: He has to wait for the other truck. (I keep walking)

I'm halfway home when the rolling-grabber-vehicle throws it in reverse and starts coming my way. By the time I hit the front door, the dump truck is also in reverse, and coming back up the street. I wave and say thank you. They take may branches. I hope the head guy shared the cash.

Its official

That's right, I'm training for a half marathon in April. The Derby Festival Mini-Marathon is the goal, and I'd really like to run a 1:25:00, which I'm not sure is realistic given the shape I'm in, but I figure I'll just go to work on it and see how it goes. I decided to run because I've got a couple of friends who'll be doing the race, and hopefully one of them will let me crash at their place the night before (hint hint) so I won't have to get up at like 4 AM on race day to drive to Louisville. If all else fails, I know Rachael has a big couch.

I've added a training log widget to the blog so all you dedicated Queep-stalkers can keep track of my progress (or relative lack there-of).

In other running related news, I've been made aware that my brother-in-law of matching name has worn the crap out of his current training shoes, and he should know that new ones are on order (but not yet out of the warehouse).

I hope everyone is having a good Valentine's day. I am, and I'll list a couple reasons why:

1) Slept in
2) Got a good run in
3) UK won (45 for Meeks)
4) The dogs are in a relatively peaceful detente-type situation (I think it may be defensive posturing, but I'll take it).
5) I got to spend the whole day with "the girl"!!
6) Managed a tasty dinner by myself
7) Looking forward to more time with Laura.....and maybe some tasty cheesecake as well.
8) Strong possibility for sleeping in again tomorrow, based on the condition of my legs.

Forecast for Today:

Windy.......rainy.....rather dreary.....

Shout out to all my British Blog followers!

Spring Fever

It it beautiful outside today. I am in my office. The next three days will be nice too. I will be in the car those days.

It is 67 degrees out there, and yet I know we've surely got a couple stretches of days in the 20's and 30's before winter is over.

All I want to do is go for a long run (but I already did that on Saturday when it was about 10 degrees cooler than now).

Is anybody else as ready for spring to spring as I am?

The latest

Last week I promised images of our picturesque, snow-laden paradise. Since we ended up with the frozen tundra instead, I've been a little busy and haven't gotten around to posting the images. So here we go with a little update on what Kentucky looked like over the past week.

This is a picture of the ice on the bush across the street when we first woke up last Wednesday morning.

Pretty much all the trees looked like this, except for the ones that had collapsed under the weight of the ice. Those looked like this instead:

Yes, that IS the apple tree that used to fill up our back yard. It's a bit more broken than that now, and is surely a goner. The problem is complicated by the fact the the tree has sandwiched our power line within its collapsed branches. Here's why this is complicated:

1) The power is still ON, which means we are a low priority for the electric company.

2) The tree is probably not their responsibility, but they'll probably have to come out here to tell me that
3) Either way, they have to turn the power off to remove the tree
4) The masthead for the electric has been bent off the house.
5) The masthead is not the electric company's responsibility
6) We can't fix the masthead until the power line is free, which can't happen until the tree is cut, which can't happen until the power is turned off, which is not something that rates as a priority for the power company right now.

Needless to say, I think our back yard is gonna be screwed up for a while.

I wish it would JUST snow...

Last night as we went to bed the forecast was AWESOME. We were so sure (except that Laura was unbelievably skeptical) that we'd wake up with 6+ inches of snow on the ground. Well......we got about two inches, and then the freezing rain started (about 9:00 AM). Now it's 11:30 PM and the freezing rain is still going. Here's a bit of general commentary about the whole situation:

I've chipped out the cars once today already. I'm not sure I'll do it again, because I'm not sure we're going ANYWHERE tomorrow.

The neighbor's tree (the one right next to our house) is falling piece by piece. So far the (our) house has escaped. Knock on wood. (A few more branches just fell as I worked on typing a couple of paragraphs down).

University of Kentucky, ever prudent and swift in their decision making, still has classes ON for tomorrow, even though the governor has declared a state of emergency for the whole area, and you can't really tell which part in front of our house is yard and which is street. Luckily, 2 of Laura's 3 teachers are thinking clearly and have called off class (come on #3, what's taking you so long?)

It's funny to watch the dogs splay their toes out like a cat in an effort to hang on to the deck.

I wonder if the basketball team will make it back to Lexington before they fall out of the rankings over the weekend for losing to Ole' Miss.

Yak Traks are totally worth it (see Laura's blog tomorrow morning)

I'm going sledding in the morning....no matter what. We don't own two saucer sleds for nothing.

We're out of Ale-8.

I'm Excited!!

Today Laura and I hooked up the webcam to chat with Ben, our 3 year old nephew in Nebraska. He's a smart little kid, and he really likes pirate stuff (just in case you wanted to send him anything). We really like being Aunt Laura and Uncle Pete because we can spoil the kids (see other nephew Jacob here) with all kinds of stuff that we probably couldn't justify buying for our own kid (if we had our own kid, which as if yet we do not, nor am I alluding to ANYTHING that may potentially happen at any juncture in the future....so wipe those grins off your faces).

Well, as it turns out Ben and Jacob may have to share the limelight with Bens little brother (or sister) when the end of August rolls around this year. How exciting is that! (It is exactly exciting enough to make an Uncle Pete wonder what type of Mrs. Potato head parts are out there for stocking stuffers this year....or if Lamby blankets come in pink should the need arise.) In the meantime I'll be waiting for all Jenni's videos of Ben learning to waterski this summer.

A great new way to get stuff

So, about a month ago I was loooking for a couple of CD's on Amazon, and discovered that for almost every item that Amazon sells new, you can click a link to access other sellers who are selling the item (either new or used) for MUCH less, and will ship it for whatever the standard Amazon shipping is. I've now bought several CD's, a couple seasons of "The Office", and even a video game using these "other" sellers, and have always had good success with both the quality of the items (if they're "new" they look "new" and if they're "used" they still work fine) and the speed at which they arrive (I usually try and pick a seller who lives within my general region).

I know from experience (having sold on eBay) that it's pretty easy to rip people off and make a little extra on the shipping. It's nice to be able to buy stuff used for cheap without a) having to bid and wait and bid again and wait some more and then deal with all the stupid eBay payment crap and b) not get ripped off on the shipping (since it is Amazon standardized).

Try it for your next new (or used) CD.....I think you'll like it.