SWBKRUN MENTOR GROUP - FULL (Page 20)

I have signed up for Ironman Canada again... So next year I will be hitting the races pretty hard. I am going to do a couple 1/2 Marathons this year!??! That is about it this year.

I know I haven't chimed in for a while, but I've got a few more weeks until my first marathon. I'll be running the Chicago Marathon soon. I don't have any training partners so my 18 mile run Friday morning was a bit lonely, but the weather was great. I guess it wasn't too lonely, I did have a little companion for a couple of seconds. At about 5:00 am I came across a little skunk on the trail. Needless to say, I picked up the pace a little.

Kind of strange that I ran 18 miles. Before my training for this race, I had never run more than 7. Now I'm getting ready to run 20 miles this Friday before I taper down to 10 next Friday and then race on Sunday Oct. 7. I don't think it's sunk in yet.

My marathon training starts next week, and the distances you and Jan talk about are so unimaginable right now. (I'm only up to 5.) Thanks for the inspiration! Good luck to both of you in the rest of your training and upcoming races!

It's weird, but when you gradually increase, not only does it not seem to be a big deal to your body, it doesn't seem to be a big deal mentally. Yeah, I ran for 3 1/2 hours Friday morning, but it didn't really sink in until after the run. All I know is that I have to get from point A to point B, and preferably in a reasonable amount of time.

Just find a good training program and you'll do fine. You just have to be disciplined and stick to those long runs and do the amount that they tell you. You might be able to take it easy during the week, but come the weekend, you better hope you trained enough for the long runs. My original plan (got it out of Runner's World, I think) called for running 5 days a week with 1 day for Cross Training and 1 day off for rest. I learned real quick that my body couldn't handle running 5 days a week. I bumped it down to 3 days a week and that works really well. I'm kinda big, so that gives my body time to rest before I go out on the long runs. May not work for everyone, but it works for me. By all means, if you can run 5 days a week, do it. You'll be better off for it.

Just think, after you start training for a marathon, you'll look forward to only having to run 5 miles. You'll start using 5 miles to warm up. Best of luck to ya!

NICELY PUT DUSTYKEN!!!!!!!!!

Well, one more race this coming Sunday, a week off, then my half marathon the next saturday. I've had a lot more sporadic training for this race, and I don't know what to expect for sure. But just to put it out there, I'd like to avg: 1:40/100yds on the swim, 19-20mph for the bike, and under 8 min/mile for the run. Now lets see what I can do. Any advice for me that I haven't heard yet???

(These goals are probably a little lofty for me)

Edited by adam.gentzler 2007-10-03 3:35 PM

I'm actually writing this from my hotel room on the way to my first Marathon in Chicago. Getting to be an exciting time.

HAVE FUN! THAT IS THE KEY! YOU ARE GOING TO DO AWESOME! You have put the time in, you have put the miles in! You are all ready to rock! This is just another LONG training day! Get after it! GOOD LUCK!

I've also got a friend here in Houston who is doing Chicago this weekend. Look for a guy that looks more like a blurry streak than a human when he runs. That should be him.

Well, my race report is up, and I'm pretty happy with the race overall.
I averaged 1:38/100 yd on the swim (met my goal), 18.8 on the bike (just under my goal of 19), and 7:20 on the run (beat my goal of 8 min/mi).
Overall I finished the 546 yd, 21 mi, 4.8 mi course in 1:51:39, good enough for 77 overall and 9th in my age group. Not bad for a race w/ 450+ participants.

Multisport season yes, i have my half mary in a couple weeks. I'm super excited for that, depending on how my legs feel tomorrow, I'm going to start with a 7 or 8 mile jaunt tomorrow. Any more running races or biking races for you?

How was the Chicago marathon? I just read an article about the race and how the heat caused a lot of problems. I hope you were ok. Let us know.

Well last Thursday night a friend of mine, and I decided to sign up for THE NORTH FACE ENDURANCE CHALLENGE (they have a 50 miler, 50k, 1/2 marathon, and 10k). We decided to do the 1/2 marathon. HOLY CRAP! There was not but maybe 1 mile of flat ground through out the entire race. It was ALL TRAIL. Raining and windy! Dean Karnazes (sp?) was there racing as well! It was a GREAT EVENT set up nicely w/ CLASS A PEOPLE! Highly recommend people trying this event out when it comes to your city. http://www.thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge/

Winner I believe came in @ 2:05 for the 1/2 marathon! I think it took us around 2:45, and that was BRUTAL! But it was a ton of fun! GOOD TIMES!

.



Well, let's just say that my first marathon was a disaster. I'm sure that you've all read about the problems and that there was actually a death due to the heat. It was crazy. What you won't hear about though is the water shortage. I started out in the 4:45 pace group. Went fine for the first few miles. First aid station was at about 1.7 miles. Plenty of water and Gatorade. Got to the next aid station at a little over 3 miles. We get there and there was no water or Gatorade. There was actually a girl in the median with a megaphone saying, "We are out of water and Gatorade, move on to the next station."

Okay, I guess I should point out that it was this point that I regretted not bringing my water bottles. On all of my training runs over 10 mile, I took a water belt. Well, my reasoning for the marathon was this: there will be water every 2 miles. Why carry extra weight? Well, this is why you carry those water bottles.

Okay, back to the race. We get to the next aid station, expecting water. Well, they had water ... but they didn't have any cups! People were just grabbing jugs and drinking what they could and passing it on. People were screaming, "Don't waste it! Don't waste it!" From there on, we had water ... at least for a while. We got past the half and I was on track to make it under 5 hours.

Well, I start hearing rumors around mile 15 that they had called the race off. So, I break out my phone (glad I decided to take it) and call my mom, who was on the curb crew for the Jackson, MS Marathon Makeover group. She proceeds to tell me that the race has been called off due to the heat and that they were out of water. I told her okay and what does that mean. She tells me that they are telling everyone to come back to the finish line. At the same time, I'm hearing police officers yelling at people telling them to stop running because the race was over.

Well, I get off the phone and start telling other runners what is going on. I call my mom back and basically say, to heck with the people organizing it, I didn't train 4 months to take a bus back to the finish line. I was crossing the finish line no matter what. Well, we get to mile 16, and guess what? Yep, they were out of water and Gatorade, too.

I really gotta hand it to the residents of Chicago though. Man, those people were out on the streets with their water hoses, giving out their own ice, and really pushing those of us that kept going on. I found out later that a couple of miles behind me, people were being forced to go back to the finish line. Well, now I'm about to mile 18 and we are still being forced to walk. The fire department was out there with water hoses and they had opened up some fire hydrants. That was refreshing but I started hoping that there wasn't a fire somewhere in Chicago, because a lot of the trucks were on the race course. The most common sound I heard that day was the sound of ambulances. I heard one of the runners from Chicago say that they started seeing ambulances from the suburbs being called in to handle the overflow.

I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but after running 15 miles and then being forced to walk, that is painful. You might be saying, "Well, why didn't you just say to heck with it and run anyway." Well, that would make sense, but I have to go back to the fact that they RAN OUT OF WATER! So, running the last 7 to 8 miles without water in 90 degree weather (sign at a bank at one point said 93 degrees) with high humidity would have ended up with me in the hospital.

Then, the back of my ankles started hurting where the shoe meets my foot. I was trying out some different socks. Here's some free advice: Don't do that on race day. So, at about mile 23, I look down and notice that my ankles had been bleeding. For how long, I have no idea. I will have to say that even though there were still a few runners around me, it was probably the loneliest I have ever felt. All of the fans were gone, most of the aid stations were gone. Let's face it, why stick around where there really isn't anything to pass out. I'll be honest, I almost broke down a couple of times. I'm man enough to admit that. The only thing that kept me going was my girls: my wife and my daughter. You see, my wife had just made all 3 of us shirts the night before with our last name and a picture of us on them. On my daughters shirt, she put a little extra something on the front. It said, "My daddy ran 26.2 miles ... what'd your daddy do?" I got such a kick out of it at the time. Now, at mile 24, it was the only thing keeping me going. I couldn't let that shirt be a lie. I know it sounds silly, but it got me through.

Well, I finally get to the sign that says, "One more mile." Someone handed me a bottle of water back at mile 23. I think it was actually just a resident of Chicago. Once again, my hat is off to them. I just hung on to it just in case I had to use it or in case I came up on someone else that needed it more than me. Anyway, I decided I was gonna cross the finish line running, so I threw the water bottle down and started running again. This goes back to how I said that it was more painful to walk than run. This is where I learned that. It actually felt better to run (with bloody feet), than it did to walk.

I finally get to the last .2 and I see my girls about 200 meters from the finish line. That was all I needed. I finally crossed the finish line with an unofficial time of about 6:15. That took way longer than I wanted to run it in, but, hey, what can you do when there's no water and they are pretty much forcing you to walk. And to top it all off, I had to walk at least another mile back to the hotel. To sum it up, the race sucked. I talked to some friends when I got back and they said that they had been following it on the internet and saw all the articles. I told them that they ran out of water and my friends said that they had read articles that people said they ran out of water and the race officials denied it. So, that also sucks.

And to top it all off, I'm writing this entry from a hotel room because our car broke down on the way home. A car that just had a 60,000 mile maintenance and everything was fine. So, we have come to the conclusion that God did not want us to go on this trip because it has been the worst trip that I or my wife has ever experienced. You'd swear that Murphy was with us and decide to throw out his law every 5 minutes. So, this whole experience sucked. I don't want to be ruined from doing races in the future, but I think I'm gonna have a hard time convincing my wife to come to Chicago again next year.

Okay, that's all for now. Oh, one good thing. We saw Wicked while we were in Chicago. If you're not familiar with that, it's a musical about the witches in The Wizard of Oz. Really great musical. Really clever. I highly recommend it. Alright, until next time, I'm out.

Ken, that sounds brutal. A friend of mine finished Chicago this weekend too. She finished in just under 6 hours and sent me an email talking about the issues that you guys had to deal with.

All power to you for completing it. It reminds me of my first and only Marathon in Ottawa last year. It also was pretty hot and humid for May and there were a few stations that ran out of water for us slow pokes.

You will look on this as an experience and maybe, as you mentioned, you will take some of the learnings for your next one.

 Hope the car is ok now, and that you have made your way home.

All the best,

Edited by richtherunner 2007-10-09 8:16 AM

Ken,

A couple statistics for you! Over 10,000 people didn't even start the race! YOU TOE'D THE LINE! Almost 11,000 People DIDN'T FINISH THE RACE!!!!!!! YOU DID!

THE ONLY SUGGESTION I HAVE FOR YOU IS PLEASE DON'T LET THIS DISCOURAGE YOU! RACES ARE BETTER THAN THIS! YOU WILL FIND THAT ANY OTHER RACE YOU EVER DO FROM HERE ON OUT WILL BE BETTER THAN THIS! YOU WENT THROUGH THE TOUGHEST OF THE TOUGH AND SURVIVED IT! YOU SHOULD BE VERY VERY PROUD OF YOURSELF! I know that I AM, AND SO IS YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

CONGRATS!

Yeah, after all the complaining, I still probably go back next year. The way I figure, next year's race will be the best event ever. No way they will let this happen 2 years in a row. I mean, I know they can't do anything about the weather, but they will at least have enough water for everyone.

Ken,

Consider yourself fortunate in being able to finish the race. It took a lot of determination to do that. My friend from here in Houston couldn't finish. He got to mile 22 or 23, and by then had already vomitted a few times and his legs were starting to cramp. He said when he got to the point where it was hard to breath he decided to go to the medic tent and call it quits.

On another road race note, I had the fortune of doing the Race for the Cure on Saturday (5k). Very good event, and very emotional at times when I was watching some of the survivors finish the race. I didn't do a race report, but here's a summary.

Splits: 6:20/mile
Overall: 28/1759
Age Group: 6/308

I can't wait for next year's event.

I've got one more tri of the season this Sunday (tri andy's). I'll let you all know how it turns out. It's supposed to be a fantastic event.

Benson