Sunday, 7/27/2014: 12.4 miles, 1:50:43, 8:56 pace, 73F, 83% RH, 9 mph W wind, sunny.
Garmin Connect Activity for 20K around the bridges
I was up kind of early and got out OK. I wanted to do a long run and thought a bridges run would fit the bill. Everything started out OK. But ... once I got over the O'Rorke bridge everything just started acting up. My left Achilles and right calf started to hurt. I did a run/walk for a bit as I headed south on the Genesee River Trail. When I got back up to Lake Ave I just did a really nice and easy run in to get it done. I had really wanted to do a faster 20K, maybe around 8:20 pace, but it's what I had to give today. My splits were: 8:16, 8:08, 8:01, 8:03, 8:52, 7:58, 9:02, 8:38, 10:34, 10:24, 10:36, 8:58 and 7:59 over the last 0.4 mile. Maybe I should have stayed on the east side of the Genesee River and done some loops. Maybe I had improper hydration and nutrition. Who knows?
Side note: I am starting to get a bit pissed at my Garmin's sometimes inability to know my altitude at times. There was no 150' dip and climb at mile 11!
I relaxed and started to stalk the Ironman.com website to find out the progress of people that I knew that were competing up at Ironman Lake Placid. I learned that a thunderstorm had forced most of the swimmers on their second 1.2 mile lap out of the water. IMLP was still underway though with athletes with either the completion of Swim1 or Swim2 allowed and T1 would be thrown out of the results.
My darling wife, Christine, and I did make it out for a while. My youngest son, David, called with car trouble. It seemed that something had been attracted to his front left tire and he was stranded with a flat on Scottsville Rd between 252 and Scottsville. We headed out to help him out and pay for the flat tire service. The tire was certainly flat with a hole in the sidewall. It took a bit to figure out how to lower the full size spare tire that was underneath his Ford Explorer. When the directions read insert this tool and rotate the tool counter-clockwise ... you really have to jam it in before it engages. Otherwise you can think it's in and nothing happens when you rotate the tool. By then, the auto service guy was there and he took over. I wasn't really dressed to do the job nor did I remember to bring my full size jack.
The results of the people that I knew at IMLP: Dan Giblin (10th in his 50-54 AG) in 10:45:43, Jeff Rose in 13:03:59, Jim McLaughlin (his 11th IM) in 13:05:50, David Kudla in 13:32:40, Krista Aukeman-Englert in 14:33:15, Chuck Traub in 15:4405, Jady Simmons in 15:49:14.
Here is a link to Tina Pellegrin's race report on the PA Grand Canyon Half and Full Marathon in Wellsboro PA. Tina and her boyfriend, Joe Ciecierega ran the half on Saturday (results here, Joe was first in his age group) and the full on Sunday (results here, Joe was 3rd in his age group and set a 10 minute PR!).
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| Tina and Joe with some well deserved medals! |
Tuedsay, 7/29/2014: 11 miles, 1:31:29, 8:19 pace, 66F, 64% RH, 6 mph WSW wind, sunny.
Garmin Connect Activity for A nice and easy 11 mile run
I got a late start due to my search for the latest thing lost ... this time a Netflix envelope that needed to go back. I couldn't find it so I decided to go for another long run. I stayed on the east side of the Genesee River this week. The result was a kind of boring but ultimately satisfying 11 miles. My feet started to hurt a bit after 9 miles. I think this is because my Brooks Adrenaline GTS14 shoes have about 520 miles on them. My splits were: 8:11, 8:10, 8:09, 8:12, 8:12, 8:31, 8:24, 8:27, 8:31 and 8:36. The last 5 miles were slower probably due to my feets starting to hurt. I guess it's time to pony up for new tread.
Wednesday, 7/30/2014 to Friday, 8/1/2014: Rest days all.
Wednesday was a true rest day. Thursday was a "I coulda run but didn't" rest day and Friday was a true rest day before a long race on Saturday morning.
I did notice that a lots of runners ran the Twilight 5K/10K at the Sonnenberg Gardens out in Canandaigua on Thursday night. 716 ran the 5K and 288 ran the 10K. Maybe next year.
My running stats for July: 24 runs (4 were warmup runs of 1, 1.2, 1.15 and 1.3 miles; 2 were cooldown runs of 2 and 0.5 miles, 136.3 miles, 5.7 miles/run. 12 months in a row of 100 plus running miles per month ... knock on wood. The 2014 stats through the end of July: 131 runs, 804 miles, 6.1 miles/run.
Saturday, 8/2/2014: 2 runs of 0.5 and Phelps Sauerkraut 20K of 12.48 miles, 66F, 88% RH, 6 mph SW wind, sunny.
I was up early at 5:50AM of my sixth run of the Phelps Sauerkraut 20K. I tried to get Christine up but she begged off and went back to sleep. I geared up and was out the door by 6:50AM for the 40 minute drive to Phelps. I honked at early starter Bill Murphy when I saw him heading east on Route 96 as I was driving toward Phelps. I arrived in plenty of time to fix a minor mixup of the Race Director not having my bib ready for packet pickup yesterday at Fleet Feet Armory. I got my day of bib and a nice yellow tech. I chose to wear last year's white tech for the race plus my short Brooks shorts. I stuffed 2 packets of Gu in the side pockets and put on sunscreen. I got out for a really nice and easy 0.5 mile run that included a trip to the car to get a large gulp of water before the race.
Garmin Connect Activity for Warmup before Phelps Sauerkraut 20K
The start at 8AM was really understated ... no prerace announcements, just a gentle "Go". Some runners weren't ready but off we went! I settled into a nice and easy pace around 8:00 pace. I said "Hi" to Rob Wilder as he passed me in the first 1/2 mile. I saw Andy Ciaio as he pulled away also. My plan was not to carry water, run nice and easy and take water at the water stops. I knew this course with its major hills at miles 5.5 and 7. I tried to run through the water stops but did walk a couple to get all of the water in my cup. I had 1 Gu just after the hill at mile 7. I felt a bit of pain in my legs because of the 540+ miles on my Brooks Adrenaline GTS14 shoes but it wasn't very bad. The hills in the middle of the course were just as steep if not steeper than in previous years. The cows in the barn on the left at mile 8.6 were just as disinterested as in previous years. It was sunny and humid with not much shade. Running 12.4 miles was a long ways but it passed easily. I just stayed near the group of runners that I was near. Pretty soon it was mile 11 and I picked up my pace a bit. I started to hear footsteps behind me at mile 12 so I started to sprint. And ... done in 1:42:26 according to my Garmin. A woman put a finisher's medal around my neck ... new this year! I talked with Rick Doe briefly as we were resting after the race.
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| New this year ... Phelps Sauerkraut 20K bling! |
I did OK. I finished in 1:42:27, 8:16 pace, 53rd out of 149, link here. I was 10th out of 24 in my wide M50-59 age group, link here. My splits were: 7:48, 8:05, 8:17, 7:59, 8:22, 9:10, 8:01, 8:56, 7:57, 8:11, 8:21, 8:02 and 6:54 over the last 0.48 mile.
Other finishers that I knew: Jason "Jmac" McElwain finished 4th in 1:21:10, Andy Ciaio finished 1:38:26, Rick Doe finished in 1:58:56 and Bill Murphy finished in 3:28:00. There were 49 runners in the 5k (new this year). The 20K race attracted runners from all over. There weren't many that I knew and I suspect that others were taking a "wait and see" attitude, were not running due to the Cuyuga Tri the next day or maybe were running the Dam Good Trail Race preview run the next day.
Soon I walked back to my car. The finish for this race is in a small park about 1/4 mile from the start. I certainly did not set any record during my slow amble. I journeyed north to Newark and saw my daughter, Karen, at her apartment in Newark. I was very happy that she let me take a shower after we got done catching up. She may not have much water pressure but the water was wet and her shampoo washed the salt and sweat off of me.
I was strangely tired when I got back up to Rochester. Soon I had my feet up and was drinking coffee and eating a bagel. I guess running 12.4 miles will do that to me. A nice and leisurely rest of Saturday soon ensued.
