Caution: Slow Children at Play

In the periodization plan advocated by folks like Joe Friel the week or two (or three maybe) after a big race is called “Transition”.  It’s a rest and recovery period where I prioritize stretching, recovery nutrition, and very easy movement.  The purpose of it is to get your body rested and ready to start another training period – it’s NOT to train.

During this period my usual, and too infrequent, core strength workouts become far more focused around stretching and simple movement – more like Yoga or Tai Chi and I try to spend as much time as possible doing what I call “gentle movement”.  The intent is entirely to facilitate recovery and get ready for next week’s base period, where long slow miles become the norm.

At present my next “A” race isn’t until June 5th – that’s the Ironman 70.3 Hawaii in Kona, so I should have a nice long base period to ramp up to it.  In between now and then I do have the Honolulu Marathon on December 13th which will serve as a convenient long catered training run.

So…for this week I’m taking it easy, but tomorrow that ends – a 16+ mile run with my crew awaits.

Question of the Week

Recently I’ve been asked a couple of times about the shifters on the end of aerobars on a tri bike and the question was: Do they put brakes on the aerobars too? 

Answer:  No.  You wouldn’t want to brake from that forward position anyhow, you’re so far forward it wouldn’t be very stable.  Plus the aero position is all about speed, efficiency and comfort over long distances. If you’re braking you don’t want to be fast or go a long distance – it’s better and safer to come out of the aero position anyhow at that point.

-B-

NYC Marathon – A Few Last Thoughts

* Race Expo – The race is the biggest marathon in the world and I sort of expected the Expo to be on the same scale.  But…it just sort of wasn’t.  It was dominated by huge booths from the big shoe companies, and there weren’t as many of the smaller, and to me more interesting, booths.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad expo.  It was way better than Honolulu.  But I just somehow expected it to be bigger and grander on the scale with the race itself.  Instead I thought it was sort of comparable to the San Diego or Seattle marathon expos and maybe not even as big as the one for L.A.

I will say this – they had one of the most efficient packet pickup routine’s I’ve seen and their staff were very helpful and well-organized.

* My splits on race day – almost dead even.  By that I mean that I ran a 2:38 thru the first half, and a 2:39 thru the second half.  I’m pretty pleased with that, shows that I paced well and stayed strong throughout.  I still think I have a faster marathon in me, but I’m satisfied with the PR (Personal Record, for those who asked) and the overall performance.

* I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to do the Maui Marathon next September.  And I think Carrie’s going to do the Half!  :-)

Camping Weekend

Back on Oahu, Carrie and I spent part of this weekend camping on the north shore with some friends.

We made S’mores, sat around the campfire, cracked each other up, cooked on the BBQ and dodged the occasional little rain squall.  We learned that hammocks aren’t great for sleeping in, especially when there are two of you (right, Norm and Alexis?) and that Europeans need to watch out for overly-aggressive marshmallows.  Oh, and that Tom has one of the coolest sleeping bags known to man.

After we broke camp on Sunday Carrie and I drove down to Dole Plantation for pineapple and Dole Whip (pineapple ice cream) and while we were there took a trip through their famous maze.

All in all, a really fun weekend.

Miscellaneous

• Headline seen today: “Police: Fla. shooting suspect angry at firm.”  Really Sherlock? 
• How clever is the State of Hawaii?  They’re “furloughing” personnel to save money – well, they furloughed state parking workers but left the courthouse open. Unfortunately without the parking workers the parking lots FOR the courthouse are closed.  As David Shapiro observed, while you’re paying your parking ticket the cops can be writing your next one.

-B-

1. 70.3 Ironman Finish: GOT IT at Hawaii 70.3 in Kona in May.
2. Half-Marathon PR: GOT IT at Chicago Half-Marathon on August 2nd.
3. Marathon PR;  Today was the goal race to accomplish that.

• In past races I've struggled in the late miles and I attributed that to not doing a good enough job with my race nutrition.  Today I tried to address that in two ways:
  1.  Take in more nutrition, earlier in the race.  My new plan called for me to take in about 15g of Carbs every 20 minutes either from PowerGel or Gel Blasts
  2.  Work to keep my heart rate down in the middle miles so that I can better take up those calories and save a little more for the end.  Today from miles 6 to 16 I barely looked at my pace and instead just tried to keep my heart rate at or below 145.  It slowed me down a bit, to be sure, but I think it definitely helped me feel stronger in the last 10 miles.
• I changed my stride a bit in the summer and I run more mid-foot now.  I think that has me more efficient and faster.
• My weight is down to 207. That's the lightest I've ever run a marathon at, I think.
• I knew it would be cold at the start and we'd have a lot of waiting around so I brought some sweats and a t-shirt and a windbreaker that I didn't care about and wore them while I waited.  Also a blanket I...umm...obtained turned out to be well worth it.
• Going back to the Dyad's to run this race.  They're a little heavier than the Defiance but the extra cushioning paid off, I think.  My feet felt pretty good throughout.  Maybe as I continue to get lighter/faster I'll give the Defiance another try and I'd definitely wear them in shorter races.  But marathon is a long day and I still need the extra padding.
• The usual suspects; laying my gear out the night before, sticking with my regular day-before eating plan, arriving in NYC 48 hours before the race, the hotel was terrific for getting bussed to/from the Expo and to the start line.
• My pacing plan got me to mile 16 and then made it a 10 mile race for me.  That's a very manageable distance and my pace over that 10 miles felt pretty strong, though the second half of this race seemed hillier than the first half.
• All of the hill training I've been doing at home.  I feel stronger on the hills and I can see it in my times.
• Three forced visits to the bathroom before I left the hotel at about 4 porta-potty stops before the race ever began.  I didn't have a single bathroom stop during the race today; a problem which has plagued me a bit in the past.
• TREMENDOUS support from my friends.  I am truly humbled and overwhelmed at how many of you sent along messages of support via text, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and more.  THANK YOU!

What Didn't Go Well

• I didn't set up my Garmin well ahead of time.  The screen that shows my heart rate doesn't show pace or total time.  I can change that, but didn't before the race started and didn't want to futz with it on the course.  As a result for those 10 miles where I was focused on heart rate I had only a vague notion of my time or pace.  Would have been nice to know it more often.
• It was a tad colder today than I like, especially in the first 5 miles.  It took me a LONG time to warm up and I was often so numb that I didn't have a good sense of where my legs were at (in terms of fitness).  Just a few degrees warmer earlier in the race and I think I might have taken a few more minutes off.  I should have kept the windbreaker on at least until we got across the first bridge and discarded it there.
• More knee problems.  Both knees were aching by the halfway point today.  I ended up taking 3 Aleve during the day (at miles 14, 18 and 22).
• All that sitting around at the start line didn't help me.  It was cold and sort of dull.  I did make several new friends chatting with other runners in the "Green Village" but still all that sitting around really sapped some of the adrenaline I had when I got on the bus.
• Speaking of sitting around - next time I'll bring a trash bag or something to sit on so that I don't have to just plop down on the wet grass or concrete.  And maybe a second blanket.
• Even though I was focused on trying to set myself up for a good last 5K and a great last mile ("Last mile best mile") I was surprised at how hilly the last 3 miles or so was (almost all up) and I used too much energy trying to set an aggressive pace in that segment so that when I finally did get to the last mile (and mile 24 seemed to take FOR-EV-ER) I just didn't have it in me to go sub-10 as I hoped.  I haven't analyze my Garmin data yet so I can't say for sure - I do think the last mile still might have been my fastest mile, but I think it was about a 10:35 instead of the 9:50 or so I was hoping for.

Seen and Heard

• At mile 14 - a guy dressed as Jesus holding a sign that said "Water Turns to Wine Just 12 Miles Ahead."
• A very empassioned man around mile 8 who yelled to the runners as I passed "YOU PEOPLE ARE ALL WINNERS!"
• NYPD and FDNY officers out along the course cheering us on.  I paused to thank them whenever I could.
• Kevin.  A "disabled runner".  I put that in quotes because today was his 95th marathon and he was really out there gettin' it, his escorts had a hard time keeping up some times!  I don't mean to mislead, Kevin clearly does have some sort of disability and he runs very awkwardly, but he beat a lot of "able-bodied" runners today and one of his escorts told me that today was Kevin's 6th marathon in 6 weeks.  Wow!

General Comments

From start to finish New York Marathon is one of the best I've ever run.  Great course, great organizaton, the aid stations are plentiful and well-stocked, the volunteers are great, the Corrals work pretty well, the crowd support is FAN-TAS-TIC.  However it falls down somewhat AT the start and finish.

• Start.  Three+ hours of sitting around is a drag, especially in cold weather.  They do provide a couple of tents, but most of the runners just end up trying to find an empty square foot of concrete or curb to settle onto for the cold and uncomforable wait.  One runner even had the foresight to bring an old sleeping bag.  Another had a tent!  And though we did hear music wafting from one of the other "villages" our village merely played the same announcements about where to find the UPS trucks and the porta-potties (both of which were rather obvious) in several different languages on an endless loop.  After three hours of that...well....
• Finish.  Cross the finish line and they give you a medal.  Then they take your picture.  Then you walk a ways and eventually somebody hands you a bag of something without any explanation.  And you're still looking for some water or something when you realize the bag you were handed 2 minutes ago has a bottle of Gatorade and some other stuff  in it.  I got back to my hotel before I realized there was also a bottle of water in there.
  
  After that you get stuck in this massive traffic jam of humanity as they file you past the UPS trucks to claim you post-race bag that you checked prerace.  The crowd comes to a total stop and sore, tired, sweaty runners add "grouchy" to their list of symptoms.  It may have taken the better part of 40 minutes or so just to negotiate that quagmire and get to an exit where you could finally find a place to sit and reunite with your family.  Worse yet...there was no detour - so even if you didn't check a bag (I did this time) you were stuck standing in that queue with sore feet and muscles for what seemed like forever.
  
  Finally - if your hotel isn't close by you'd better hope you arranged some transport.  It must've taken me the better part of an hour to finally flag down a cab for the ride back the hotel.  Cold, tired, grouchy, hungry and standing in the middle of Columbus Ave. for 45 minutes waving at every cab that went by was not my idea of fun.  Seemed like every cab in the city was "Off Duty" at that time.  Very frustrating.  Luckily I eventually got a nice cabbie from Ghana and had a reasonably pleasant ride back to the hotel.
• The LaGuardia Airport Marriott is pretty good EXCEPT that the only thing around it is...LaGuardia Airport.  If you want to walk down the street for dinner you can forget it.  As often as not I had to settle for the hotel restaurant which is...well, so-so.  If I knew the city better or had my girl travelling with me (which always sparks my more adventurous side) I might have done more venturing out into the city.  But since I didn't rent a car (and driving in NYC sucks anyhow) it would have all have been by cab and...we've seen what a headache that can be.  The Marriott served it's purpose fairly well - I came here to PR a race and I did that.  Took care of business and now I'm heading home.  But for any extra-curriculars it's really not ideal.

Next Race for me....

Honolulu Marathon on December 13th.  Not really a race, though, as I'm just escorting my group through THEIR race.  It'll be a fun experience though, as it always is, even if it's basically just a catered workout.  Leading up to that, and especially after that, I'll be slowly ramping up my triathlon training with an eye towards a PR at next year's Hawaii Ironman 70.3 and a debut at next year's Ironman 140.6 Western Australia.

-B-

Sitting down?  Good.  Here we go…

The New York Times started my weekend off right by running an article called “Plodders Have a Place, but IS It in a Marathon?” (click the title to read the article).  Basically the premise of it was that a few “pseudo-elite” runners (folks who are apparently around 4 hour marathoners) are whining that people who run marathons in 6 or 7 hours are demeaning the sport.

“It’s a joke to run a marathon by walking every other mile or by finishing in six, seven, eight hours,” said Adrienne Wald, 54, the women’s cross-country coach at the College of New Rochelle, who ran her first marathon in 1984. “It used to be that running a marathon was worth something — there used to be a pride saying that you ran a marathon, but not anymore. Now it’s, ‘How low is the bar?’ ”

Worth noting, by the way, that Ms. Wald ran a 5:49 at the New York Marathon in 1985, hardly an elite time.

The problem here is that these elitists who think a 6 hour marathon is “lowering the bar” have no idea what journey that marathoner has been on. Some of those folks running 6 hour marathons are coming from backgrounds of serious medical problems, of major weight issues, of just being generally non-Kenyan.  Before you belittle somebody who just ran a 6:40 marathon maybe you should find out what it took for them to get there to begin with. 

Because I tell you what, I did the Kona Half-Ironman this past May and for a time I was biking and running alongside Rudy Garcia-Tolson.  He just barely made the time cut-off for the event, finishing hours after Crowie won, but that kid is no joke.  He covered every one of those 70.3 miles and he did it with no legs below the knees.  That guy overcomes more just to get to the start line than most of us will ever have to.  He’s a winner.

Purists believe that running a marathon should be just that — running the entire course at a relatively fast clip. They point out that a six-hour marathoner is simply participating in the event, not racing in it. Slow runners have disrespected the distance, they say, and have ruined the marathon’s mystique.

These so-called purists, in my opinion, are just ego-maniacs who feel their own accomplishments only have merit relative to the accomplishments of others. I’m sorry but if the fact that somebody else ran a marathon in 6 hours makes you feel badly about your own 4 hour marathon then that’s really your problem. If you aren’t proud of having done something because somebody else did it too, then maybe you need to go do something harder?  Here’s a convenient list of those events for you: http://www.ironman.com.  You’re welcome.

To the bald guy in the silver SUV who was busy illegally talking on the mobile phone at his ear, and the tourist dude in the yellow jeep who was too distracted staring at the bikini girls…stop that and operate your vehicles.  Each of you nearly ran me over in a crosswalk today as I went for my run.  In both cases there were traffic signals and I was crossing with the WALK sign as you made a turn into my crosswalk without bothering to look for pedestrians.  Even 205 pound pedestrians wearing bright orange running shirts.

And Mr. Silver SUV…if you ever almost hit me and then shoo me along like I’m annoying you again, I’m going to pull you out of your SUV and beat you with that mobile phone.  Kthanksbye.

Dear Tourists,

I’m really glad you’ve come to Oahu and I hope you enjoy Waikiki. May I suggest that you get 2 more friends so that you can stroll 7 abreast down the sidewalk? No, really, I enjoy running in the ditch or the hedge just because you’re not considerate enough to only walk 2 or 3 abreast when somebody else is approaching on the sidewalk. I suppose I could understand it if I was coming up behind you and you sincerely didn’t realize there were other people around, but I was coming TOWARDS you, you saw me coming and you just continued on your merry, oblivious, stroll like you owned the whole darned sidewalk.

Oh, and maybe you could all stop more often and block the entire sidewalk while you take a few more pictures.  Aloha!  A hui hou!

Whew.

-B-

Every year a massive women’s outrigger canoe race is held that crosses the Kaiwi Channel from the island of Moloka’i to Waikiki on Oahu.  It’s called “Na Wahine O Ke Kai” (NAH wah-HEE-nay OH KAY KAI) which is Hawaiian for “The Women of the Sea”.  This year was the 30th year of the Na Wahine, which has become essentially the Super Bowl of women’s outrigger canoe paddling.  It attracts crews from all over the world for the challenging, and often dangerous, 42-mile open ocean crossing.

This year, once again, Carrie’s club Waikiki BeachBoys entered four crews in the big race.  They shipped their canoes over to Moloka’i a few days before and Carrie and her teammates had to fly over to Moloka’i on Saturday.  Carrie even commented on how odd it felt to have a one-way ticket to Moloka’i…knowing that she’d be paddling back home.  Saturday night we got the chance for a brief call – mobile phone service from Moloka’i is pretty sparse – and I could tell how excited she was.  Me?  I was nervous.  Sea conditions were predicted to be HUGE.  Biggest swells and roughest seas in a decade.  In fact, if it was much bigger it would reach the threshold at which they actually cancel the race for safety reasons.  I spent most of Saturday night just hoping that my girl came home safely to me.

To put it in perspective the Kaiwi channel is easily capable of generating swells that dwarf not only the canoes but the escort boats as well.

(Image from Hana Hou! Magazine – read the article here)

(These are from Carrie’s camera)

Sunday morning, bright and early, they were off.  The course record is 5 hours, 24 minutes and 32 seconds and the thing about big, rough, seas is that they can often be fast seas too.  A good crew can surf the swells and pick up speed.  So there were a couple of teams, including the BeachBoys, who had their eyes on the record.

I arrived at the finish line, at Hilton Hawaiian Village, just as the first crews had come in.  The finish area is quite a spectacle – very much like the finish areas of the Marathons and Triathlons I do. People, tents and boats up and down the beach.  Out on the pier are the race officials and the announcer on the PA welcoming each of the crews in.  She’d announce the club the boat belonged to and then read the names of each of the 10 ladies in that crew (6 paddle at a time, the other 4 are on the escort boat and rotate in as they go) and welcome each boat back to Oahu.

(I had one of the cameras on the wrong setting, sorry if some of the photos seem a little washed out)

On the beach a kapuna (Hawaiian elder) blew a conch shell and gestured to the sea and the sky, welcoming home and blessing each boat in turn.

After a long back-and-forth battle across the channel, Team Bradley (a hand-picked crew of elite women paddlers from Hawaii, New Zealand and elsewhere), had edged the BeachBoys #1 crew by barely a minute! The course record didn’t fall, but they got within a few minutes of it.  After finishing 3rd a couple of times in recent years the BeachBoys were pleased to take 2nd this year, though of course they’d have liked to have beaten Team Bradley for first.

As the other crews started to come in I kept my eyes to the water, hoping to see Carrie’s boat.  My nerves had subsided somewhat at this point.  The buzz in the crowd was that of the 87 crews that started the race, only 2 had not been able to make it.  Sea conditions were very big, but the ladies were handling it expertly.  Still, I wasn’t going to be completely relaxed until I saw that she was home safely.  Luckily I didn’t have too long to wait…

Her crew was racing another boat for the finish line (the orange buoy) and sure enough, they got there first!  A very happy (and exhausted) crew of BeachGirls coasted into the beach after their finishing sprint.

Time to take my girl home for a well-deserved victory meal and a good long nap!

-B-