Sunday, 3/12/2017 to Saturday, 3/18/2017 - Spring Forward 15K

I ran 6 times this week - 34.52 miles.

Sunday, 3/12/2017: 13.3 miles, 2:22:02, 10:41 pace, 12F, 61% RH, 10 mph NW wind, wind chill -1F, partly cloudy.

I don't usually do social runs. I'm more of a solitary runner. But this "fat ass" event spoke to me. It started as a Facebook invitation labeled "Maybe the First and Maybe The Last (MFAMTL) 360 minute challenge" which denoted a 6 hour (8 AM to 2 PM) on a one mile trail loop down at Durand Eastman Park put on by Mike Vallone and Eric Eagan along with their wives.

It was cold ... again. So ... I dressed in what I wore for yesterday's Johnny's Runnin' of the Green: my CW-X tight, shorts, long sleeve tech, yellow Brooks 1/4 zip long sleeve pullover, yellow Brooks jacket, balaclava, yellow Brooks beanie, ski mittens and clear sunglasses. I put on my Salamon Speedcross 3 trail shoes for the first time since 12/31. I slept in so I didn't get down there until 9 AM. My lovely wife, Christine, was still asleep when I left.



There was trees and wires down on Lake Shore Blvd so I had to detour into the parking lot along Lake Ontario on the way. We were instructed to park in the parking lot along Lake Ontario across from Horseshoe Rd. I took my small running bag that I had stocked with Hammer Gel, water, some energy bars and a sandwich along with me to the start. I ended up just drinking some water. Eric Eagan had me sign the waiver and away I ran. The course was easily runnable with some gentle rolling hills, a long stretch along Eastman Lake and a thigh high tree to straddle. There did seem to be some newly fallen trees from the windstorm of last week.

Mike Vallone snapped this pic as I ran by on loop 3

On my 8th loop I met up with Frank Quattrone when he was starting. He had run 17.9 miles (7 before Johnny's, Johnny's and 8 post Johnny's) yesterday and wanted to run 12 today. He still didn't have power out in Webster. I ran a bit with Prem Kumar. He was on his 9th loop. He had gotten power back on Friday night. I had water on loops 5, 8 and 10 along with a cookie on loops 6 and 10. I decided that I was done after loop 13. I had tripped but recovered twice during the run. The ground did look frozen, quite hard and I didn't want to do something stupid like fall. Oh, I ran a nice trail pace of 10:41. My splits were: 10:19, 10:19, 10:12, 10:13, 10:10, 11:52, 10:40, 10:30, 11:19, 10:19, 11:56, 10:22, 10:02 and 11:38 over the last 0.3 mile. MFAMTL was attended by 58 runners. Some ran a lot. Not a bad way to spend a cold Sunday morning. A link to the results is here. The lead male, Dan Ward, did 29 miles. The lead female, Olga Huber, did 31.64 miles.

I went straight to the shower and also took a bath when I got home. My fingertips were white like usual until I warmed them back up. It is what it is. I woke Christine up with the obligatory coffee and donuts. Later, I found out that I picked up the usual trail cuts. I got a small scrape on each leg from straddling the log plus I kicked my right inside ankle with my left shoe several times.

Monday, 3/13/2017: 5.05 mile, 41:23, 8:12 pace, 19F, 62% RH, 9 mph ENE wind, wind chill 9F, overcast with a real light snow.


Today is usually a rest day but the forecast for tomorrow was snow, snow and more snow (18 to 24 inches) until Wednesday night. So ... I got out there. It wasn't as easy as all that though. It was a test of will ... it was Monday, it was cold, it was windy, my mind of full of excuses. But I got out there and did it. I did cut it a bit short though. My splits were: 8:16, 8:10, 8:06, 8:14 and 8:11.

Tuesday, 3/14/2017: 2.7 mile snowshoe run, 36:35, 13:32 pace, 21F, 86% RH, 17 mph NNE wind, wind chill 7F, overcast with snow.


I took vacation today. I busied myself with doing laundry but I did take a break after 3 loads to get out and play in the snow. It did look a bit cold and windy ... it was. But ... I dressed for it and was fine once I warmed up. I strapped on my Dion snowshoes outside the door of the townhouse and took a nice and easy run around the Lake Shore Country Club. I found some bare spots and some spots that had a foot or more or snow. I could hear the wave crashing onto the shoreline from nearby (probably 1/4 mile away) Lake Ontario. My splits were: 14:26, 12:59 and 13:03 over the last 0.7 mile. I was pretty snow covered when I got done ... it was fun!

I still had 3 loads of laundry to do but tromping down to the basement and back up to the bedrooms was more exercise. My lovely wife, Christine, and I caught up on 5 (yes, 5) episodes of "Grimm".

Wednesday, 3/15/2017: 2.6 miles, 1:16:22 (actually 54:47), 29:25 (actually 21:04 pace) pace, 23F, 58% RH, 23 mph NW wind, wind chill 7F, partly cloudy.

Back to work today. There was a foot of snow behind the Cruze that I had to back through. The main roads were a lot better today and there seemed to be a lot less traffic so I had no trouble getting to work. Christine wanted me to get groceries on the way home but I begged off. The wind was really whipping the snow in my face and I also wanted to respect the "no unnecessary" travel advisory. So ... I went straight home.


But ... that meant that could get out and play (snowshoe) in the snow. I did ... and almost froze. I dressed with the same number of layers as I did yesterday. But ... the snow was deeper. It was at least a foot deep in most spots and sometimes up to my knees. So I couldn't run. I could only walk about 95% of the time. Thus I didn't generate as much heat, the wind was a lot worse and was out there much longer on mostly the same route. I was shivering and couldn't really talk when I got back. I went straight to the shower to try to warm up. That didn't really help but I eventually warmed up. Somewhat scary but not the stupidiest thing I have done.

My splits were: 22:35, 21:40 and 15:37 over the last 0.6 mile. It looks like I didn't turn off my Garmin right away so the actual time is estimated. I was pretty cold.

Thursday, 3/16/2017: Needed rest day after 5 days (3 days running and 2 days snowshoe) in a row.

Some personal stuff: Today marked no alcohol since my 59th birthday six months ago. I made that decision because I determined that I am a binge drinker. The best way for me to be in charge of my life is for me to have no alcohol. Yes, I have saved hundreds of dollars. Yes, I still think about having a drink ... be it a beer, a glass or wine or a mixed drink. But I make a conscious decision every day to walk past the beer aisles and the liquor stores that I come across.

Some snowstorm stuff: The Rochester airport got 16.2 inches of snow on Tuesday (5th most ever) and 26.7 inches total on Tuesday and Wednesday. 102.9 inches of snow have fallen to date versus 53.9 inches in 2016. The average snowfall in Rochester is 89.4 inches. So ... Rochester got 1/4 of its 2017 snowfall is one shot.

Some running stuff:

1) I saw a news piece about the Baikal Marathon, link here, in Russia. It's a winter marathon across the frozen surface of Lake Baikal on March 7, 2017. The winner was a Polish man in a record time of 2:53:26. Their website is still not updated with this record time as of 3/19/17.

2) Ed Whitlock died at age 86, obituary link here, news link here, on 3/13. Some quotes: "Canadian Running is saddened to announce that Ed Whitlock has passed away at 86." "Whitlock was one of the world’s all-time great runners as he set dozens of masters world records during his lengthy and illustrious running career." "The Canadian running legend is notably the first, and only, person older than 70 to have broken 3:00 in the marathon. He ran 2:54:49 when he was 73. He raced in November 2016 setting a 15K world record for men 85-89 at the Stockade-athon 15K Road Race. Prior to that, he bettered the men’s 85-89 world record in the marathon by more than 30 minutes running 3:56 at the 2016 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon last October." "When asked what advice he had for other runners, he mused “I’m not sure what I’m doing is good for me, let alone anyone else.”"

Friday, 3/17/2017: Rest day before Spring Forward 15K

I believe that the last two customers who lost power in Brighton finally got their power back.

Saturday, 3/18/2017: 2 runs of 0.5 and 9.37 miles, 30F, 55% RH, 8 mph ESE wind, wind chill 23F, overcast with a few flakes late.

Today's race was my eleventh Spring Forward 15K held down at Mendon Ponds Park (MPP). My stats: 2007 - 1:14:29, 2008 - 1:11:21, 2008 - 1:12:49, 2010 - 1:17:05, 2011, 1:10:20, 2012 - 1:09:15, 2013 - 1:11:40, 2014 - 1:18:00, 2015 - 1:15:24 and 2016 - 1:13:04. My 15K PR is 1:09:15 back in the "magical" year of 2012 when I set a lot of my lifetime PRs.

The race was at 8 AM so I set my alarm for 5:30 AM. My lovely wife, Christine, had signed up to volunteer so I woke her up at 6 AM. She put up a bit of a fuss and got up at 6:11 AM. She asked me what temperature it was outside like she always does. It was 30F so I wore the usual for a race at that temperature: my CW-X tights with shorts, a red long sleeve tech, my yellow Brooks 1/4 pullover, balaclava, yellow Brooks beanie and ski mittens. Christine wore tights with jeans over them, two tops and boots. We were out the door at 6:45 AM and arrived down at the Beach parking lot next to Stewart Lodge around 7:10 AM. We split up. She went to her assignment at the 2.5 mile turnaround. I puttered around a bit at the lodge and stashed my "after" bag (change of tech shirt and my yellow Brooks jacket) under a table before I got out for a 1/2 mile warmup run at 9:36 pace, link here. I saw Bill Sandow on my warmup. He told me that he had suffered a calf tear back in October and that this was his first race since then. He told me that he was going to run a 9 min pace. I told him that if he passed me that I would remind him of that.


I met up with Andy Ciaio and Prem Kumar near the start line. We made the usual small talk before the start ... and we were off!

The Spring Forward Banner Page captured me at the start

Andy in orand, Prem to my left in gray and me in my usual yellow on our way up the first of many hills ... photo courtesy of Kim Smit of Fleet Feet Rochester

We started together and ran together for a mile before I lagged behind. I kept both of them in sight: Prem was about 100 feet ahead and Andy was about 200 feet ahead. Christine was at our left turn onto Pond Rd just after the one mile flag so I waved to her. The 5K mark passed in 24:06. I caught up to Prem at mile 5 as we ran up one of the many hills ... for about 10 seconds. I stopped to take a drink of water at mile 6. The 10K mark passed in 48:24.

I'm in the yellow with the vertical black stripe ... taken around mile 7 by Kim Smith of Fleet Feet Rochester

I was getting a bit tired but didn't break to walk up the short hill back into MPP. I knew that there was less than a mile left with only 2 hills to go. Prem had stretched his lead to about 200 to 300 feet. One more hill and then the downhill into the finish. I was told about the ice on the downhill. I heard someone slip a bit behind me so I totally backed off racing into the finish. I just stayed to the left where the snow seemed to offer more traction rather the risky bare spots that looked to be icy.

Carefully running down the last hill into the finish ... photo courtesy of Derek Backus

I saw the timer click to 1:13 as Ellen Brenner called my name. And ... done with 9.37 miles in 1:13:04 according to my Garmin Forerunner 220 (that I bought from Prem when he upgraded to a Garmin VivoActive). I grabbed a cup of water and fist bumped with Andy and Prem who finished 10 seconds apart. I went to the lodge after a bit and had a bagel and a cookie. I changed into my dry clothes and checked the results. I was 41st and 5th in my age group. Andy was 2nd in the 50-54 age group and Prem was 3rd in the 40-44 age group. I didn't see Christine around so I ambled out to the Beach parking lot to look for the Cruze. I was just getting cold when I found it and her asleep in it.

We took a roundabout route home: Breakfast at the Char Broil House on Island Cottage followed by a bit of grocery shopping at Wegmans for ingredients to go with some corned beef that I bought yesterday. I checked out the official results. My time was 1:13:02 gun and 1:13:04 chip. I was 41st out of 321, link here. I was 5th out of 16 in my M 55-59 age group, link here. My splits were: 7:42, 7:53, 7:37, 7:47, 7:40, 7:48, 8:02, 8:03, 7:47 and 7:32 over the last 0.37 mile.

I thought about going out to get a snowshoe run in ... but I decided to bag it. I could see bare spots on the ground at the Lake Shore CC and I didn't want to dig up their grass. Still ... all in all, a great day!