Sunday, 8/18/2013 to Saturday, 8/24/2013 - Dirt Cheap #5, GVH Summer XC Race #4 & James Francis 5K

I ran 7 times this week, 18.03 miles. 2 were warmups of 1.1 and 1 miles. 2 were cooldowns of 1 and 3.1 miles.
I biked once this week, 30.6 miles.

Sunday, 8/18/2013: A total rest day.

I took a well deserved rest day after running 48 miles the previous week.

My darling Christine had a 2 PM massage appointment at MassageEnvy. While she was gone I put together a Neu Home 4 tier shelf unit that Christine had bought several weeks ago. It leans just a tad to the right but it's together. On her way back Christine visited Trader Joes's for groceries and Eastern Mountain Sports for gear for her bicycle (helmet, half gloves and head band).

We had leftovers for supper while we watched our latest NetFlix DVD, "War Horse". A nice movie ... Christine cried a bit during the end. Then we watched "The Grey" off of NetFlix Instant. A man against wolf movie with Liam Neeson ... Christine cried a bit during the end.

Monday, 8/19/2013: Another rest day.

I could have ran but Christine started making stew for supper so I stayed in. Oh, well!

Tuesday, 8/20/2013: 30.6 miles, 2:31:55, 12.1 mph, 82F, 48% RH, sunny, a nice breeze.

Garmin Connect Activity for Bike 30.6 Miles around the streets of Irondequoit

I absolutely had to get out for some exercise but not too much. So I went for a long bike ride. I did my 15 mile bike route twice and got back just before dusk. Nice!

Wednesday, 8/21/2013: Dirt Cheap #5 - 5.74 miles, 54:57, 81F, 43% RH, sunny, calm.

I headed out solo to Dirt Cheap #5, race 1 in 5 days. Christine had not been aware of this event and was nowhere ready enough to get there in the timeframe that I wanted. As it was I had to park across the street. I would say more than 400 runners were there.

The start was like usual. The men went off first and the women 8 minutes afterward. A normal scrum for the first hundred yards and soon we all stretched out. About a mile into the course ... it was not exactly the best time for 2 teenagers (just guessing) to pull flags and send hundreds of runners astray. My experience was that the group of runners I was running with suddenly came to a T intersection and couldn't find flags to the right or left. I ran about 200 yards to the left, backtracked and ran even farther to the right until I came to another T with flags coming up that trail pointing to a turn to the left. But which direction? I and then the people behind me chose to follow the trail to the left. It took a bit of the wind of our sails to not know what to do. When we came upon the waterstop we started to see the lead male runners coming back towards us. What to do? Word had spread that someone had mucked with the course. The group of runners that I was with chose to continue on even as about 20 or 30 runners came towards us. No one knew whether they were running the correct course or not. So mile after mile we ran on. One thing was that there was not as much mud or water as usual. We were saying to each other as we ran that we expected to see the women running towards us any minute. So when we got "chicked" we felt that we were at the right path ... or at least these three women that passed me made the decision that we had made. Later we came upon the race director, Boots, yelling to each runner "Go all the way up the hill and take a right" so we knew that Fleet Feet was out there trying to help us. On and on we ran. The Webster Dirt Cheap always had the longest course with lots of long flat stretches where you can build up speed ... if you still had any left.

Charging up the hill to the finish!

Eventually we got back to the steep hill before the finish. Everyone seemed to have taken a different route but everyone made it back. Fleet Feet was very concerned about stranglers being lost after dark. Later I learned that the results would be thrown out.

Thursday, 8/22/2013: 3 runs of 1.1, 2.98, 1.0 miles, 81F, 66% RH, partly cloudy, calm.

I went down solo to Cobbs Hill for the GVH Summer XC 3 Mile Run #4, race 2 in 5 days. I got there in plenty of time so I took a nice 1.1 mile warmup run of 2 loops that included the grass hill.

Garmin Connect Activity for Warmup before the GVH Summer XC 3 Mile Race #4



Soon enough the last race the GVH Summer XC Series started. I started out easy and hit the mile 1 mark at 7:21. I only walked about a dozen steps on the grass hill. I could see Wilt Alston about 100 yards ahead as I made my way down Reservoir Rd and back up to where we entered the glade. I stuck behind a high school girl in the glade. Anzhela passed me about halfway through the glade. I could not match her. I was running OK but my legs felt a bit dead and I could feel a hot spot on the bottom of my left big toe. I could see Anzhela about 200 yards ahead, three runners up as I exited the glade about a mile from the finish. I passed the high school girl as I passed the grass hill. I held her off as we sprinted for the finish. I finished in 23:30, 26th out of 72 and was 2nd out of 3 in my M50-59 age group behind Wilt Alston, link here.

I didn't run the Tour de Pain so I didn't run the 1 mile race up and around Reservoir Rd or the 400 meter hill climb afterward. I did take my legs out for a 1 mile cooldown run.

Garmin Connect Activiy for Cooldown after the GVH Summer XC 3 Mile Race #4

I took a bath as soon as I got home and saw that I had a bloody blister on the bottom of my left toe. Hopefully it will not affect my races on Saturday and Sunday.

Friday, 8/23/2013: Rest day along with 3 loads of laundry ... enough said about what I think of that!

Saturday, 8/24/2013: 3 runs of 1.0, James Francis 5K - 3.11 and 3.1 miles, 64F, 73% RH, sunny, calm.

I headed out solo to the 8th Rochester Runner of the Year (RROY) race, the James Francis / Andrea Kofahl 5K, held out at Black Creek Park and hosted by the Churchville-Chili XC teams, race 3 in 5 days. The morning was absolutely gorgeous; sunny, 64F and calm. When I got there I noticed that this race was going to held on a cross-country course instead of road. I was wearing my road shoes, Brooks Adrenaline GTS 12s so I made do. One thing ... the course was extremely well marked with flags on both sides of the course every 100 feet or even closer. No way were we going to get lost, lol!

I got out for a nice 1 mile warmup before the race at 7:34 pace. I made sure that I included the big hill to make sure that I could run it.

Garmin Connect Activity for Warmup before James Francis 




A map of the course.

The gun goes off!

During mile 1

After a few words at the start ... then off we ran! It was a bit of a scrum at the start. The race had lots of high school runners who were in front bunching us up. I wanted to pass on the right but couldn't because there was a pond on the right. I finally got by into some clear running room just past the pond. Soon we had to run up the big hill. I heard Bill Beyerbach behind me say, "This is the steepest of the 2 hills" with a chuckle. He explained later that we had to run up this hill twice ... which I didn't know at the time. Bill passed me soon after the hill. I re-passed him for a few hundred yards before he returned the favor and kept me behind him. I traded elbows occasionally with some of the high school runners who wanted inside position on the turns. Everyone wanted to run tangents on the twists and turns.

Bill Beyerbach in at 22:03

Tony Gingello in at 22:33

I'm in right behind Tony at 22:34

The race got a bit long in the middle as I got tired. Soon we went up the big hill again. I walked a bit on the hill to catch my breath and then caught up with where I was. Tony Gingello, a speedy 67 year old, passed me a bit before mile 3. I tried to catch him before the finish but was one second behind him at the line.

I did pretty well. I finished this XC 5K in 22:34, 7:17 pace. I was 58th out of 240, link here. I was 6th out of 19 in the wide M50-59 age group, link here. It's a bit complicated but I picked up 5 points in the GRTC RROY standings, so I crept into second by 1 point in M55-59 age group with 49 out of 60 points. Bill Beyerbach is solidly in the lead with 56 out of 60 points.

Some of the post race grub: pizza, bananas, donuts and potato chips ... yummy!

Garmin Connect Activity for Cooldown after James Francis 5K

I went out for a nice cooldown of 3.1 miles at 9:01 pace with Bill and Pat afterward. I ran most the 5K course except for not going up the big hill twice.

Later, my darling Christine and I had a date night at the nearby East Ridge Diner. We both had the Deep Fried Seafood Platter and split a Bavarian Apple Tort for dessert. Tasty! Then it was to bed early since I had another race in the morning ... the Dam Good Trail Race, race 4 in 5 days.

I guess you can say that I race a lot. I did schedule 10 races in the month of August ... lol!