Sunday, 5/6/2018 to Saturday, 5/13/2018 - Dirt Cheap #2 & Mind the Ducks

I ran 4 times this week, 69.19 miles.
I took 146,034 steps this week according to my Pebble 2 HR smart watch.

Sunday, 5/6/2018: 16876 steps during the day; 11.65 miles, 1:38:42, 8:28 pace, 66F, 43% RH, a light wind, mostly overcast

I was up around 7 AM but didn't get out early at all. I puttered around, had my usual pre-run bowl of cereal and banana and then puttered some more. But ... long runs don't get done by themselves. So ... I got dressed and got out there. I carried water and a flask of Hammer Gel. I set up a really nice and steady pace at the start. Then ... I kept it there. I didn't push. I just let the run happen. I don't really like out and backs but I wanted flat and my route (LOSP trail, Island Cottage and Edgemere Drive out to just past Lowden Point Rd was flat. I thought about the Mind the Ducks race next Saturday, all the runners doing the Medved Madness and everyone out there doing a half or full marathon up at the Mississauga Marathon in Ontario Canada and down in Pittsburgh. My splits were: 8:33, 8:30, 8:25, 8:26, 8:28, 8:36, 8:28, 8:17, 8:33, 8:24, 8:34 and 8:22 over the last 0.65 mile.

A couple of thoughts. If I could maintain this pace for a full marathon it would be around a 3:43. This would be a BQ by 12 minutes for my M 60-64 age group. So ... I know I can do it physically for almost 12 miles. Can I keep that pace for 14 more miles? I will have to convince myself mentally that I can do it.

I listened to classic rock in one ear again off of gotmusic.com/classicrock. I checked and it used about 100 MB of my data plan for 90 minutes before the battery died today. I used 109 MB on my run of 10.65 miles on Saturday, 5/5. So ... maybe I will put some music on my phone. I have never done that before ... I know ... gasp.

How will I handle Mind the Ducks on Saturday? It's a 12 hour race. I think I will walk the "hill" past the first hour and run everything else. Just a thought.

Monday, 5/7/2018: 6337 steps during the day, rest day.

Tuesday, 5/8/2018: 6195 steps during the day, rest day.

Yes, it was a Tuesday and I usually run on Tuesdays. But ... tomorrow is Dirt Cheap #2 and I rest the day before races. The location of DC #2 is being flip-flopped with DC #5 due to trail conditions at Black Creek Park. So ... tomorrow's race will be at Durand Eastman Park.

I busied myself while I paid a bit of attention to a NBA playoff game by using ClipGrab to make classic rock MP3 files off of YouTube music videos. It is very easy to do once you get the hang of it and a LOT easier and faster than finding, lugging up from the basement, dusting off and converting my old albums to MP3 files. Yes, I still have them ... and have moved them too. Anyway, I can do about a song a minute. Sweet!

I just have to put the MP3 files on my Ricoh cell (it has the best battery) and keep both it and my bluetooth earbuds charged while I am running Mind the Ducks on Saturday. I am getting another pair of bluetooth earbuds that should arrive on Thursday (now Saturday!). I will be using an Anker 6700 mAh battery with a one foot Android cable to do the charging. I can put everything in my Nathan Zipster. I almost never run with music but ... I am making an exception for Mind the Ducks and the long runs that I need for marathon training this summer.

Wednesday, 5/9/2018: 15366 steps during the day; 2 runs of 0.65 and 4.05 miles.

Today's race was Dirt Cheap #2 held this year at Durand Eastman Park. I took a hour of vacation so I left at 4 PM, went home, kissed Christine a few times, changed, looked (and found) stuff that I needed and headed out. I got down to a prime parking spot by 5:10 PM in plenty of time for the 6:30 PM start. One thing I noticed that it was definitely cooler by Lake Ontario. It had been almost 80F in Rochester but it was 60F when I got out of the '14 Cruze. I charged my cell while I surfed Facebook and waited. I got out for a short 0.65 mile at 9:00 pace (link here) warm up run just before my wave started at 6:30 PM.

And ... we were off! My goal for this race was a steady trail pace and to stay upright ... I succeeded at both. My first mile was the fastest per usual. It was mostly flat at the start plus the last half mile was downhill. The other miles had more hills and lots of roots. I didn't like the section where we had to run on a twisty trail along the side of a hill with a pond on the left. I managed but it seemed to last forever. Andy Ciaio passed me at mile 2 when I stopped to walk a hill and take a breather. There was only a tiny mud puddle so I did get a bit of mud on my legs. I could hear Ellen at the finish with about a half mile to go ... just keep running ... up and down hills ... Boots was up above giving encouragement ... up ... suck it up ... up ... finish line ... done! My Garmin had 4.05 miles in 41:12, 10:10 pace. My splits were: 8:10, 10:49, 11:17 and 10:32.

Post Dirt Cheap #2 selfie

I was very winded after the finish but got my breathing under control quickly. I talked with Andy Ciaio and Chris Barry afterward. Andy told me that running DC #2 probably wasn't a good idea with Mind the Ducks on Saturday. We both laughed since we both had just done it and are both running Mind the Ducks on Saturday. Chris told me that he is glad that he aged up and is out of my 60-64 age group.

The results were not entirely correct initially with regards to age, link here. It listed my age as 59, Andy's age as 51 and Chris's age as 64. Really, we are 60, 52 and 65. So .. I guess Yellow Jacket Racing got a lot of result correction requests to fix the results (they did by 10AM on Thursday).

I learned from Facebook that a fellow runner, Bill Murphy, had a heart attack during the race (he was listed in the results). It was probably a good thing that Fleet Feet has an ambulance at every race. Bill, who is 69, race walks a LOT of events. He did over 50 Mainly Marathon events all across the US in 2017. UPDATE: Bill had a triple bypass at Rochester General Hospital and was home by the following Wednesday ... with orders of no running or racing for several months. I talked with him before he took the early start at 6 PM. He was looking forward to walking 6 half marathons in the New England Challenge on the next Monday. He is such a nice guy ... I hope to see him toeing the start line at a race before the end of the year.

Thursday, 5/10/2018: 5188 steps during the day, rest day.

I took a hour of vacation so I could meet my youngest son, David, at the McDonald's on West Henrietta Rd near Lehigh Station Rd near the I-390 exit on the NYS Thurway. He was coming home from a casino seminar at Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls. He had my tent and I needed it for Mind the Ducks on Saturday. I had to wait for half a hour before he got there since there was construction on I-190 in Buffalo.

Friday, 5/11/2018: 7303 steps during the day, rest day.

I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to download music to either cell (personal or Ricoh). I tried and tried to download music to my Ricoh cell but was walled off from downloading anything or even seeing the internal files on the cell by its Ricoh security. I had download a update from Android 4.4 to 5.0 to be able to "see" inside my personal cell and download my 126 songs. So ... I have lots of Pat Benatar, Aerosmith, Heart, ACDC, Led Zeppelin,  Bachman Turner Overdrive, Deep Purple and Queen to listen to tomorrow. By a bit of trouble I mean a bit of bitching along with a bit of swearing, scratching my heart and finally succeeding. It was a bit of a challenge.

5/12/2018, 88769 steps during the day; 52.84 miles, 11:56:35 (11:57:44 officially), 13:34 pace, 46F, 71% RH, 6 mph ENE wind, overcast with light sprinkle off and on until noon, sun came out around 4 PM

Today's race was my third Mind the Ducks (26 miles in 2016 in 5:42:08 hours, 40.32 miles in 2017 in 8:33:14. My feeling going in was to last the entire 12 hours and to silence the voices in my head that say "You can't do this" or "Quit". I sort of knew I could do this because I had finished 41.64 trail miles running Many on the Genny in 12:43 last year. My C goal coming in was at least 40 laps like last year, B goal was 50 laps and my A goal was 62 laps or 100K. Lofty B and A goals for sure.

I was up with my alarm at 4 AM after a bit less than 5 hours of sleep. It was dark o'clock but I had a race at 7 AM so I was up. I ate my usual pre-race bowl of cereal and banana and caught up on Facebook. I saw that other "Duckers" were up. The weather was going to a bit rainy and cool so I gathered up a few long sleeve tech shirts, my heavy running gloves, light running gloves, orange Fleet Feet hat, yellow/black Brooks beanie, a few pairs of socks, my Garmin Forerunner 310XT, my Garmin Forerunner 220 as a backup and some warm clothes (sweatpants and a DCSR hoodie) to wear before and after. I also took my fully charged Anker battery and an earbud so I could listen to music. My running attire was running shorts and my orange Moore than a Race long sleeve tech. I made 3 PB&J sandwiches (with Once Again Peanut Butter of course) and a ham and cheese muffin for my own stash of nutrition just in case.

I kissed Christine goodbye and asked her to stop by in the afternoon and to bring an adult beverage for after the race. I was out the door at 5:31 AM to head out to North Ponds Park in Webster at 5:50 AM. The parking lot was half full already.

I picked out a nice camping site right across from the packet pick up table (and the porta-potties) and about 100 feet before the start/finish line. I didn't want to be too far from the '14 Cruze. I hadn't put together my tent in a long time ... probably ten years or more. Andy Ciaio (on his first Mind the Ducks) appeared out of nowhere and helped me. He had been in Scouts and definitely knew his way around tents. We had the tent up in 5 minutes.

Camp DeWeaver

I went back out to the '14 Cruze and got my all my other running gear. Then I finally got my bib from the registration table right across from my tent site. I pinned it on my running shorts so I could easily change my top if I needed to. I put on my yellow/black Brooks running jacket, yellow/black Brooks beanie and heavy running gloves since it was cold. I put on gray sweatpants when it started to sprinkle before the start and moved my chair inside the tent. I needed to start my cranky and old Garmin Forerunner 310XT twice before it finally started up. I wanted and needed its 20 hour battery life. I ate my muffin and people watched before the race until it was time to peel off the sweatpants and amble off to the start. I lined up next to Andy Ciaio like I usually do when he and I race together.
Quick aside: It took 4 hours on Sunday morning to upload the TCX file from my Garmin Forerunner 310XT before it finally synced. When I initially opened it on Garmin Connect it had a small rectangle out in Webster and then a straight line back to Greece. Oops! I remembered that I accidentally hit lap as I fumbled to turn it off when I was back home in Greece. I used a program called NotePad++ (it aligned all the <> and </> that NotePad didn't) and www.latlong.net to figure out where the trackpoints were pointing to and also to figure out that I had to remove an entire lap. It took a bit of head scratching but I have done it before. So ... that's how this pretty Garmin Connect map was made. I changed back to using the Garmin Connect embed instead of the Strava embed ... it's more curvy and less angular.

We were sent off without any announcements that I could hear ... we just started running. So ... around and around the 1.01203 paved path course. I settled into a steady pace.

After the start ... photo courtesy of https://runnerpics.shuttlefly.com

Lap 1 of 52 is almost over ... photo courtesy of https://runnerpics.shuttlefly.com

I peeled off my Brooks jacket at lap 3 and threw it inside my tent as I passed. The half passed in 2:05. I remember seeing that I was 9th overall at one point. The weather was great for running: cool with not much wind and some light sprinkles. I had my first PB&J sandwich at 10 AM. I talked with Andy Ciaio a bit around mile 15. He told me that he going to quit because of a pain in his side. He hoped that it wasn't appendicitis. I told him that I hoped it wasn't and wished him well.

I slowed a bit. I turned on my earbud and music at mile 20. I changed from my Scott Palani to my brand new Brooks Ravenna 8 running shoes at mile 22. I thought that it would help ... not so much. My feet still hurt and hurt worse with the new shoes! I tried to run/walk. The full passed in 4:32. I remember seeing that I was 1st in my Super Veteran (60-69) age group as I passed. Then ... I walked and walked. I fell to 2nd in my age group at lap 31. Walking up and down the small hill (10 feet at most) at mile 0.35 hurt. Somewhere in all this walking I changed from my heavy to light running gloves and from the Brooks beanie to my orange Fleet Feet hat. I also remember putting on sunscreen at some point.

I did try to treat the aid station like a pit stop. I tried not to spend more 30 seconds there when I stopped. Just pick something (PB&J squares, Pringles, M&Ms or a piece of pizza when available), a thumb-sized cup of water and get out of there. Oh ... the porta-potty. You can stop there and waste a minute entirely too often when you pass by them every lap. I was guilty of that probably a couple of times.

So ... I walked. My pace was down to around to 17:00 pace or so. I had my second PB&J sandwich around 2 PM. I calculated in my head that I could achieve my B goal of 50 laps if I stayed ahead of 20:00 pace. I passed the slower walkers. Then ... I slowed some more. It hurt to walk and it hurt worse to run. I had to charge my personal cell. Then my earbud died and I had to charge that. So ... I walked without music for a couple of hours. The faster walkers were passing me now. I was third now in my Super Veterans age group.

I people watched while I walked. There was a group of 17 called the "Quazy Quackers" (the women's overall winner was a member), a group of Marathon Maniacs were there Their tent was over by the hotel. I recognized one guy from the Empire State Marathon last year. The Rochester Running Company (Kathy, Bambi and Steve), and Fleet Feet Syracuse were there. Prem Kumar, his wife Anita and his kids came to cheer in the afternoon for a few hours. Rob Wilder came by. Chris Patterson, Heather and their baby came to cheer. Tom and Mary Crowe stopped by to cheer. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot with interesting license plates ... a Connecticut plate of LUV2RUN and a NY plate of RUN217MI. I learned later that the NY plate belonged to a guy who ran 217 miles in 6 days! I walked with Tom Butler for a lap.

Oh ... I also geese watched. There weren't any ducks that I saw. There were families of geese moving around the park. I had to stop at one point to let a family of geese cross the paved trail. I knew better than to walk on through between a mother goose and her goslings!

Every time I went by my tent I could see that Christine wasn't there. Then ... I saw her just before I completed lap 46 around 5 PM. She waved a cup of coffee at me and asked me if I wanted it. Duh! I went to up to the start/finish to complete lap 46, looped back to avoid tripping the line and sat down with her. Ahh!! Coffee! I thought about quitting and even clicked off my 310XT for a minute. Then ... I told myself that I wasn't done just since it wasn't 7 PM yet. I sat down for about 20 minutes.

It hurt a LOT to get up and move. I headed to the timing tent (again going around the timing loop since I was technically on lap 47). I fully intended to tell the RD, Egil Robs, that I was going to quit. But ... Gil wasn't there so I went to the aid station for some M&Ms and water. I walked down the course. Just one more lap. I started to run ... and it didn't hurt! So ... I kept running. It was a bit before 6 PM. I calculated in my head that if I could knock down 10:00 miles that I still still hit my B goal of 50 miles. So ... I kept running. I told almost everyone that I passed that my wife bringing me coffee was the reason I was running. Boom! I counted down the laps I needed to do to get to 50 every time I passed Christine ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1. She would clap every time I went by.

I stopped for a few seconds before I completed lap 50 ... picture posted by Maria Erdman

I came around for lap 50. Christine shouted out "Do one more for me". I stopped at the aid station. Mike Meydasnasy told me that I still had 20 minutes ... time enough for 2 more laps to get to a double marathon in 12 hours. I walked off, thought about it and wanted to do one more lap. Then ... I started to run. I had the time ... so I just kept running. I hit lap 51 with 11 minutes to go. There were a lot of  people cheering. I kept running. I pushed it on the final lap. My lap 52 pace was my fastest of the day, 8:39!  Lap 52 at 11:57:44 ... done! Double marathon, baby!

Christine took this picture as I crossed the finish line on lap 52

Lap 52 done in 11:57:44 ... picture posted by Maria Erdman

The Super Veteran leader board

A few more runners came through ... I think Tom Butler was the last one across the line. Mind the Ducks 2018 was over. I sat by the aid station and munched on M&Ms. I was hungry, sweaty and tired and sore. Christine came over and told me that she was proud of me.

I slowly went over to pick up my swag ... it was quite a haul. My Mind the Ducks bag had a jar of Once Again creamy peanut butter (I love this!), a Mind the Ducks mug, a 26.2+ sticker, 50K coffee mug, a 40+ sticker, a red 50 mile hand towel and a double marathon water bottle. We got a red Mind the Ducks hat when we picked up our bib too.

A picture of the swag taken a few days later

It hurt to move but my tent and gear wouldn't get packed and get home unless I got it done. I had my own way of doing it and Christine had her way ... a guy stepped over and helped me do the rest and get our stuff to the '18 and '14 Cruze. Thank you whoever you were!

I took my time coming home ... just getting it done. I got my running stuff and swag into the townhouse, struggled painfully up the stairs and collapsed on the bed. It hurt to move. Christine got her groceries in, put them away and joined me. I told her about the events before she had joined me today. We had some of the adult beverage that she had bought. I was sore but in a good way. I fell asleep around 11 PM ... exhausted.

Stat time: I think I was 33rd overall, 3rd out of 11 in my M 60-69 age group, link here. The splits link is here. Here they are: 1 - 10:21, 2 - 9:28, 3 - 9:34, 4 - 9:18, 5 - 9:13, 6 - 10:30, 7 - 8:56, 8 - 9:09, 9 -  10:05, 10 - 9:30, 11 - 9:17, 12 - 8:57, 13 - 12:47, 14 - 12:02, 15 - 9:24, 16 - 9:13, 17 - 9:05, 18 - 10:31, 19 - 12:00, 20 - 9:38, 21 - 10:56, 22 - 15:43, 23 - 10:45, 24 - 11:55, 25 - 13:36, 26 - 12:08, 27 - 11:56, 28 - 14:28, 29 - 16:24, 30 - 16:36, 31 - 17:05, 32 - 15:49, 33 - 17:16, 34 - 19:59, 35 - 17:50, 36 - 17:10, 37 -15:18, 38 - 16:02, 39 - 16:26, 40 - 22:58, 41 - 18:54, 42 - 20:08, 43 - 19:47, 44 - 19:21, 45 - 18:02, 46 - 19:20, 47 - 41:26 (slowest), 48 - 9:57, 49 - 9:21, 50 - 9:57, 51 - 13:39, 52 - 8:39 (fastest). My official average pace was 13:48. The Relive link to Mind the Ducks is here.

So ... what did I learn? Well ... I did better than last year. I still kind of suck once I get past 16 miles or so in a long race. I will have to work on that if I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon when I run the Empire State Marathon in October. I think I have a mental block that needs to be broken down. I probably could have managed more of a run/walk when I walked from miles 28 through 46. I probably would have gotten into the mid or high 50s for mileage. I doubt if I could have got to 62 for the lunch box. I did the best I could on this day ... and I will be happy with that.