The Rock N Roll New Orleans Marathons

They say the marathon is the type of race that can change in the blink of an eye. Your months of training and preparation can disappear because of a twist of an ankle or even a slight change in the weather. Weather can change just like that and derail all of your preparations. Which explains why Jo and I were in a Walmart in new Orleans at 9:30pm the night before the marathon.

First a little background.  After running the Disney Marathon in January 2011, I came up with the crazy idea of doing the Goofy (1/2 marathon on Saturday, full marathon on Sunday) at Disney in 2012, despite completely messing up my IT band at the 2011 race.

As Jo and I started gearing up for Disney, we heard about the inaugural Rock n Roll Savannah Race, and thinking it would be fun signed up for that too.  And then Jo saw the New Orleans race.  We’ve both wanted to go to New Orleans, and this seemed like fun, though I was a bit concerned about 3 marathons so close together.  My previous best had been 2 years between marathons, and now we were talking 3 in 5 months and 4 in a year’s time.  The topper was that there was a promotion that every time the New Orleans Saints won a game, you got the margin of victory off the price of the marathon.  I looked at the Saints schedule and saw they were going to be playing the Colts, who were terrible this year.  I circled that date as the day I’d probably sign up.  The Saints won 62-7 which meant we got a $55 dollar discount each off the race.  So Jo and I got in for $40 each.  You can’t beat that price for a marathon.

My IT was in bad shape after Disney, and it took me 2 months to start running again.  But over the summer, things started to look better, and our long training runs seemed to go well.  It all came crashing down at Savannah where my IT started acting up at mile 8.  Since I knew I had Disney and New Orleans coming up, I bailed at the halfway point, even though it killed me to do it.

Disney was an interesting experience.  The half went fine, but my knee flared up again at 14.5.  I was able to finish it in pain, but took a week off and was able to start running again.  We had our next long run 2 weeks after Disney, on a very cold, rainy day.  My knee felt like the cold settled into it and it ached the entire way, not a good run.  The next training run was 3 weeks later and 3 weeks before New Orleans.  The first 16.5 miles were pretty good, but then the knee started up again and I limped through 3 more miles with quite a few walk breaks.  So I wasn’t exactly heading to NOLA brimming with confidence.

We took an early flight so we could head over to the expo on Friday and then take it easy  Saturday to be well rested for Sunday.  The expo was nice, though a little small by Rock N Roll standards.  We didn’t walk around too much since I felt that walking around the expo at Savannah helped bother my knee, plus we didn’t really need anything.  I did manage to score some more KT Pro tape cheap, plus I won a cool hat from my friends at Brooks.  And we got our marathon shirts.  Nice design even though I wasn't a fan of the white color.

Nice shirt, except for the white color

I like my new hat

After the expo it was back to the hotel for a nap for Jo, and my daily mile run for me.  I unwisely decided to check out Bourbon Street on my run, not realizing that; a) at 3 in the afternoon,  it would already be packed with drunk people, b) the road surface was awful, and c) it smelled horrible!  So I ducked off bourbon and finished my mile elsewhere.

Bourbon Street - the world's most foul smelling street

Saturday we decided to take a bus tour to eliminate too much walking.  Since it had turned chilly and rainy this worked out.  We went to dinner at John Besh’s Domenica, a modern Italian place for pasta and bread.  Excellent by the way.  While there we looked at the weather forecast again.  While we had been checking from home the temps in NOLA were all in the 65 low, 75 high range, so we had only packed shorts, a dart short sleeve shirt for me, and a dart tank for Jo.  Now the weather forecast said lows of 45!  We were realizing that we were going to be freezing at the start, so figured out we better find the Walmart and get some throw away sweats.  We headed out to Walmart where we discovered that apparently everyone in NOLA is either a 2x, 3x, or 4x since those were the only sizes they had.  We bought 2x stuff and were laughing hysterically when we tried it on.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of 112 pound Jo in her 2x Tinkerbell sweatpants.  Classic.

Ready to go

Anyway, race day came and we got up at what seemed, after Disney, a fairly reasonable 5am,  grabbed our Mardi Gras beads and headed to the start at Lafayette Square.  After the usual ½ hour wait for the bathroom, we headed for our start corral.  Unlike the corral nazi’s at Disney, this was pretty loose and you could move about a bit if you wanted.  

Getting ready to go

We pulled up right as our corral was starting and we jumped in.  One of the big issues my massage therapist has is my not warming up properly before a race, so she’s got me walking the first half mile of the marathon if I don’t have time to warm up before (which I never do).  So we walked the first ½ mile so that my knee was loose.  I might’ve walked further except Jo was a bit, um, “disgruntled”  at the walking so we started running.  The course runs through a little of the central business district before heading out through the Garden District on St Charles for about 3 miles and then back for 4.  St Charles was a great place to run.  

Heading down St Charles

Look at me!

Still heading down St Charles

Usually I hate out and back, but I really liked this.  Both sides of the street were wide and there was a wide grass median in the middle where the trolley’s normally run.  Many folks took advantage of the non running trolleys and ran on the dirt.  There was amazing crowd support through these miles and a lot of nice scenery.  Plenty of nice houses to look at.  We were sticking to our plan of 4/10 run 1/10 walk.  We had done Galloway for Disney and I thought there hadn’t been enough time between the two to switch back, so here we were.  Even though the first miles were pretty I had my usual thoughts of how far there was to go and nervousness and fears of “I’m never going to make it”.  I seemed so far to go.  At mile 6 I had my first gu and the energy/sugar made my spirits lift a little.

After we left the Garden Distract we headed past the museum section including the World War II museum, a really interesting part of town.  After a brief lull, the crowds were back in full force, which was great.

Still running

After the museum area we headed through the French Quarter.  Thankfully, it wasn't on Bourbon Street but on Decatur, which had a better road.  At this point we were pretty familiar with this part of town, so it was cool to see the areas we had visited already.  We even spotted the waiter who had server us lunch before as we passed the French Market Cafe.

Hey, didn't we have lunch there yesterday?  Why yes, we did

After this quick trip through the French Quarter, we headed up Esplanade for about 3 miles to the halfway point where the marathoners and half marathoners split up.  The esplanade was another nice area, with tons of crowd support, and interesting houses to see.  There were also tons of people giving out beads and Jo and I augmented our supply.  The only downside was that the Esplanade was apparently a VERY old road, so I had to spend almost 3 miles watching the road to make sure I didn't step in a ditch.  I couldn't afford a mis-step at this point.

Carefully watching every step

As we hit mile 12 it was decision time.  When I had originally signed us up, Jo wanted to do the 1/2 marathon and I wanted to do the full.  As we got closer to the race, our opinions switched.  I knew if I was feeling lousy I could bail at the halfway point.  We had a brief conversation and decided to press on since we both felt pretty good at that point.  

Of course, we had gone only about a mile, when my knee started to hurt.  I had a brief moment of panic and then stopped and tightened my cho-pat strap, not thinking that would change anything.  Miraculously, it did!  My pain went away for quite some time.  Around mile 14.5 we hit the alcohol/refreshment stop.  Amazingly, they were serving martini's, bloody mary's and beer.  Since it was only mile 14 and I knew we'd come back at mile 24, I skipped the drinks and went for the 4 or 5 peanut m&m's.  It was like heaven.  And kept rolling. 

After the full and half split the full course goes out to Lake Pontchartrain where you make a left turn and go about a mile down the road then about 3 miles in the other direction then 2 more to go back down the way you came.  I had heard this part was a bit boring and could be hot, but we really got lucky with the weather.  The temps were quite cool and there was even a bit of a breeze.  The lake looked so nice we even stopped for a quick picture.

Jo on the waterfront

Really a beautiful day!

After the turn around we kept running along the water.  Around mile 19 I did get a little hot, but once I took my hat off and tied it to my waist, I felt a little better.  At this point I felt like I was carrying pounds of extra stuff.  I was carrying my own water belt (so I could control my water/gu brew, plus carry gu packets), I still had my sweatshirt tied around my waist, plus now my hat, plus the mardi gras beads.  We wound up running for a couple of miles with some folks from California and chatting with them passed the time.

Around this time we hit the first of the "uphills" a series of 4 little bridges over the waterways.  After the previous 19 miles of flat it was a little jarring, but a bit nice for a change in the routine.

After passing through the University of New Orleans around mile 20, there were a bunch of female students in tie-dye shirts giving out flowers.  They gave one to Jo, which I though was a quite nice touch.

On the way to mile 21, I started getting really hungry, so I broke out my honey stinger waffle that I started carrying on my long runs, after a suggestion from Kara Vincent.  I find it's really something to look forward to as a little treat.

Around this time I started thinking that I was still running pretty good.  But didn't want to think about it.  Just as I was thinking "please don't let Jo say anything about it", she said "so how are you feeling, you seem to be going pretty good, better than Disney".  I had to give her the "I don't want to talk about it, let's just keep going" (and an explanation later.  She always forgets how superstitious I am!).

We kept rolling to mile 24.  At that point the beer sounded pretty good, so I had a beer shot, but Jo went all out and hit the martini.  It was probably the best beer I've ever had. And it kept me going.

Right after that, Jo wanted to just run the whole rest in to finish up, but I knew that my knee was aching, and I was just barely making it to each walk segment.  Each walk was like a reset button on the knee pain.  It stopped while we walked, and then gradually built on each run segment until the next walk.

Ready for it to be over

Eventually we got to the sprawling city park complex, and headed into the park.  The park was really nice and felt pretty large.  There were again some nice sights to see, as we headed for mile 26.  Right before mile 26 you passed the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), a neat looking builing, so we took a quick pic and kept going.

26 is around the corner!

Around the corner was the 26 mile mark and I was still running. 

Interestingly, the finish line was past where the finish pictures were being taken.  Surprisingly, I was able to throw on a little kick at the end and we passed some other people.

And then we were across the line.

We did it!

Cool finishers medal with a mardi gras bead ribbon

In another amazing move, my new favorite recovery drink, chocolate milk was waiting just over the finish line. I got to have some chocolate milk, got our picture taken, got a finisher shirt and headed for the long bus line back to the city.

Finisher shirt

Overall, I thought this was a great marathon, and redeemed the rock n roll series in my mind.  It was a fun, beautiful course, the support was great, and I really had a good time.

While it wasn't my fastest marathon, it was my most consistant.  Every mile was within 45 seconds of each other.  The last 3 were the fastest.  I ran every mile start to finish.  I was pleased.

On a slightly ominous note, Jo has always talked about running an ultra, even a 50K.  She always says that it's only 5 more miles past a marathon.  I've always said that I never have felt like running 5 more feet let alone 5 more miles after a marathon.  After this one I siad "you know, I think I could go a little farther"  uh oh

Jo celebrating on Bourbon Street

Now I know what a salmon feels like

Way back in January when I convinced my friend Scott tondo antriathlon, the one that inwas aiming for was lake Norman YMCA. I'd seen the signs around the last 2 years and had been too late to sign up. Little did I know that tri fever would strike and this would wind up being the third triathlon of the summer.

The good parts for me about this tri were the following:
1) local race-so I'd get to go on roads I was familiar with in the town of Davidson, which I love
2) people I know - in addition to Scott, my own personal Yoda, Tony Read would be there, as well as fellow dart-er (and blue ridge relay teammate) Chris Brown (yes Mark Ippolito you can insert your Rihanna joke here).
3). Family - since the race is right around the corner Johane and Julia would be able to come by without having to get up at the crack of dawn.


Scott stayed over the night before and we were up at 4:45 and out the door by 5:30. In my Apparently misguided) mind I figurednwencould park at the y since we'd be there early. No way. Totally packed by the time we showed up. Luckily we parked on a side street right around the corner and packed up our 2 tons of stuff and made our way to the transition area.

After setting up our gear we headed for the lake to check out the swim. On the way down we passed the medical tent and I saw dr Duffy from Greenapple sports & wellness and got to chat a little bit. The water was actually colder than I expected which was good nits been so hot recently, I was figuring very hot water, but thankfully that wasn't the case.

After checking out the water, I still had plenty of time and plenty of nerves. So after checking on my gear again, I made my way to look for Tony. I knew what number he was and found hisbike, but no Tony.

At that point the race was about to start and I was full of nerves. Part of the problem is that the swim portion makes Scott nervous. So his panic attacks make me nervous too.

Luckily, he hit the water 3 waves ahead of me and I ran into to Tony. Tony is probably one of the most upbeat people I know. He's always able to lighten the mood. Plus he's been a great help to me training wise, even having me over to his house to swim in the lake for practice.

After Tony reminding me that at the last tri I wasn't even in the water when the race started, I headed into the water and made my way towardsnthe front of the pack. After waiting anxiously for a few seconds the horn sounded and we were off. I was almost immediately kicked in the chest and then shortly thereafter in the left shoulder. About a minute later I got kicked in the hand. At that point I decided to back off a little since I could ill afford a broken hand. I tried to swim away a little from everyone else. That worked for a little while when cardinal rule # 1 was broken. I felt a hand on my ankle and was suddenly yanked backwards as some guy (cheater) tried to use me to launch himself ahead. Unfortunately, this wasnt the only cardinal rule of racing that was broken that day. At that point I started to pick up the pace and started passing people. It worked pretty well for a while, until the end when it was a bit crowded getting out of the water.

After the beating I took in the water, I was already a little tired, but I headed for my bike. The bike route took us up into davidson, and out on davidson-concord road. The route took us past Dave Mungers house. I had given Dave a conservative estimate of what time I'd be passing by. When I looked down at my time I was a good 5 minutes ahead of schedule. Not bad. Hading out on the road I was averaging a nice 20 miles an hour. Unfortunately, once we made the left onto shearer road that was all over. Shearer has some rolling hills and it was the day of hurrican Irene. While there was no rain, there were still some winds and they were dead on into my face heading up shearer. That definitely slowed things up. Once we turned onto faith road I was glad not to have the wind in my face. Faith road was much more uphill and I struggled a bit up the pretty large hill. But after the hill it was back on 115, which I knew was a nice downhill back into davidson. I started picking it up at this point. I was rocking down 115, slowing down to look to see if Chad Randolph was out around his neighborhood. Then into davidson and back to the y. A quick transition and then the run. The run after the rest of the tri had been tough this year, so I told myself I'd do Galloway. I hit my first section and was doing my brief walk when Tony pulled up. He gave me his traditional "what a burger" chant, told me to keep it up, and moved on. The ru. Wnt better than I expected. My pace while running was faster than I thought it would be, so i was happy. The run was pretty uneventful, except when running through the neighborhood, when I looked over and saw a guy I work with. After shouting out a greeting and him shouting out a "looking good" it was onto the finish. Where cardinal rule # 2 was broken. I got to the finish and crossed the chip mat. After the chip mat there's about a dozen feet until they write down your number for finishing order. But the race is over at that point and etiquette says you stay in the order you finished in. However, some guy decided to elbow past me and give in his number first. I was steaming. But there was nothing to be done for it.

I met up with Scott, Tony, Johane, and Julia and sat around talking. Tony made me realize that for a 5k I shouldn't have gone Galloway and should've just gone for it. And he was right. Thats my only regret. Aside from that, it was a fun time.

After we all showered and changed we all headed for what a burger, which is becoming a post-tri tradition. Yes, they have fish, so I was ok. Overall, a fun race, and one that's furthered the tri-fever I've been having. Maybe 2 more coming up this year!

Gold Rush Triathlon - 6/18/2011

“It’s been a long time since I rock n’ rolled” – Led Zeppelin

There was a time in my past that I did 2 triathlon’s a year.  From the late 90’s to early 2000’s I did a tri in upstate NY in May (a lake swim in freezing water) and in August I trecked to Greenwich, Connecticut to do a tri that featured a Ocean swim (the first year that Jo and I were dating it was in the midst of a storm featuring 4-6 foot swells, and people were bailing left and right.  I thought about it but didn’t want to look wimpy in front of the woman I was dating for 3 weeks).  But by the early 2000’s it just became too much effort.  With all that was going on in our lives at that point (very young daughter, new house, a job that took tons of hours a week), it became too much to train (in fact between 2000 and 2007 I even stopped marathon training).  Also, Tri’s seem to start at crazy early hours (6am) and it just became too much to wake up my family at 2am, pack up all the things I needed in a car, and making the drive upstate or to Connecticut. 

When we move to NC, I saw that there was a tri at the Y near me in Davidson.  The first year, I wasn’t ready, and the second year I didn’t realize how fast it would fill up and I was out.  Well, this year, I did some planning, and decided to sign up.  I was talking to a friend of mine at work, and convinced him to join me, even though he lives down in south Charlotte.  He apparently got the bug, and found out there was the Gold Rush Triathalon, which literally ran right by his house.  Since I was making him come all the way up to my place for the August tri, I felt like I should head down his way for this one.

My training was ok at best.  I’m coming off a IT band issue that I suffered at Disney in January, and every run has been an adventure.  During the 2 months I couldn’t run, I was hitting the pool a bit harder than usual, and was making some nice progress.  My biking picked up as well, and luckily a friend of mine that actually lives near me, had picked up biking recently, so that’s picked up as well.  I’ve been able to start going back out with the Davidson area running team again, though I was still slow and struggling a bit.  Honestly, I was running better until I got sick about 3 weeks ago, and since then every run has been a struggle.  My 5K time has slipped 2 full minutes, so I was a bit worried about that portion.  I had done 1 day with a 45 minute ride on my bike trainer at home followed by 15 minutes on the treadmill and that’s about all I had done to train.  So I was a bit nervous to see how it was going to shake out.

Transition Area

The day of the race came and I woke up at 4am, already tired.  Got my stuff together and headed out in the car for the hour drive to South Charlotte.  I tend to prefer to arrive early to get set up so I was there by 5:30 for a 7 AM start.  A bit early.  Since I had some time I got to go inside and check out the pool.  Every other tri I’ve ever done has been in a lake or an ocean, so this would be my first pool tri.  The pool was 50 meters long and has 10 lanes.  The idea is that you would swim down the first lane, then go under the rope and come back in lane #2, continuing until the end of the pool. 

How to do a triathlon swim in a pool

The pools I usually swim in at 25 meters, so when I got to the pool and looked in it looked really long.  

That's a long pool

And that’s when the first stirrings of nervousness really set in.  Luckily, I occupied myself by getting my packet, setting up my bike, getting my arms and legs marked, and attacheing my chip to my leg.  And then Scott showed up so I at least had someone to talk to until the start.

Panicked on the inside

Scott getting ready to crush me

I may not be ready but at least my bike was

Since it was a pool start, they couldn’t let everyone start at the same time like I was used to.  To solve this problem, they took everyone’s estimated 100 meter time, and put us in order to start.  Scott was 89 and I was 90.  At first it  seemed like it was taking forever to get into the pool.  Once we got to 80 though, it flew along.  Next thing I knew Scott was jumping in.  He took off, and I had just jumped in and was fumbling with my goggles and then I heard “5-4-3-2-1”.  Crap.  I shoved my goggles and nose plug on and took off.  Which went well for about the first length.  Then I noticed that I was having a hard time breathing.  Then I realized this was because my nose plug wasn’t on right and I was slowly drowning as the water rushed in my nose.  I took a second to fix it, and then was heading back down.  On the second lap I caught up to scott.  I thought about passing him, but we were getting to the end of the lap, and he was kicking hard.  After almost getting kicked in the face, I backed off a little until the length finished.  At the kick off the wall, I went under him and passed him from below.  After Scott, I passed 5 other people and was cruising until lap 8.  At that point I guess a bunch of people got tired and decided the end of the pool would be a great place to hang out.  So there was a traffic jam.  I had to wind my way around these 6 people and lost a couple of seconds there.  Then on the last lap, there was a, how shall I put it, “large” woman in the middle of the lane, so I couldn’t get by.  Finally I squeezed by her, though I’m sure I hit her are least once.  Not intentional! Really!

So out of the pool, with my only feel good moment of the day.  I passed Scott.

Out to the transition, and as usual my first transition was terrible!  I can never seem to master the pool to bike transition.  It felt like it took forever to dry off and get dressed.  My personal problem is always getting my feet dry and getting socks on.  Today was no exception.  After a painful 2:36 transition it was off on the bike, which began immediately uphill.  The bike course was 2 6.5 loops.  As the course went by Scott’s house he had been practicing for 2 months.  I, on the other hand was seeing the course for the first time.  And as usual, I tend to be conservative and not push too hard to try to save something for later.  So of course, that was the last I saw of Scott as he took off.  The course could charitably be called “scenic”, but I’d go with “hilly”.  I never felt like I could really get a good downhill burst going without a uphill coming shortly after.  The one highlight was passing Scott’s house where his wife and son were there to cheer us on, even with a nice sign his son had drawn.  

The sign that Scott's son made for us

After the first loop, I had a little better idea of what to expect the second loop (Look out! There’s a huge hill on Providence road!), so the second lap was slightly faster than the first.  As I was pulling in, I saw Scott a couple of minutes into the run.  I was a bit behind him.  Anyways, the second transition was much quicker.  Off with the bike shoes, on with the running shoes.  And out.

And……what the @*&!&@?   The run starts UPHILL!  For a half mile.  Oh boy.  A quarter mile into the run, I was thinking that maybe I’d be ok walking the whole way.  At 4/10 of a mile I convinced myself that Galloway was the way to go.  And for the most part, I did get it going.  .4 run followed by .1 walk.  Rinse and repeat.  Of course in the middle of a couple of those .4 were some brutal hills, and I admit that I did a little sneak walking in there.  But I was going.  It was definitely not my fastest 5K ever.  But I wrapped it up.  I even got a sprint going the last quarter mile to pass a women who had cut the course and moved ahead of me.  Scott had beaten me by 10 minutes.

The finish line

Overall, it was a tough, hilly course, but I finished quite a bit under the time limit.  I need to train more going forward, especially trying to do more biking/running outdoors to work on the feeling my legs get after biking.  Hopefully I can get it all together before August.  I know Scott is hiring a trainer so that will be tough. 

My goal for 2012 is a half ironman, so I obviously have a lot of work to do.  

5K weekend

Since I hurt myself at Disney I haven’t been able to run 2 days in a row.  Trying to take it easy and give myself time to recover in between runs.  But last weekend there were 2 back to back races for 2 good causes.  And since they were only 5K’s I figured I’d give it a shot.  Plus, there’s also the fact that 1)  I’ve been feeling like I haven’t been pushing hard enough in my runs the last few months, like I haven’t really wanted to move into the pain of pushing.  Plus 2)  I just wanted to see how my knee was going to be.  So I signed up for both the Ourboys 5K (for Batten’s Disease) and the Falafel 5K (for Jewish Family Services-got to support my boys)

Our Boys 5K

In the list of horrible, brutal diseases, Battens’ Disease has to rank pretty high up there.  The disease affects children, not when they are born, but at some point a few years down the road.  The disease leads to blindness, dementia, a variety of other problems and is generally fatal.  I can honestly say that before about 2 weeks ago I had never even heard of it.  In the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten quite an education.  Fellow DART-er Jeff McGonnell was serving as race director for the race, and word spread through the DART blog page (davidsonarearunningteam.blogspot.com) about this great cause, so I decided to head out there.  Luckily, Julia had a sleepover the night before, so both Jo and I got to go.  

Jo ready to go

Race Director Jeff McGonnell ready

Tim Richter ready to run, and Dave Munger ready to keep me from dying of hydration at mile 2

Chad Randolph ready to rock

We stopped by Chad Randolph’s house to pick him up and then headed out to Concord.  The race took place at a school in the middle of a residential area, with the actual course starting and ending at the school and winding it’s way through the residential area.  At the start we met up with DART-ers Tim Richter who was also running, and Dave Munger and David Moore who were volunteering.  Nice turn out for DART.   As I said, I felt that I hadn’t been pushing hard enough recently, so I decided to go a bit harder.  After a nice and emotional sendoff from Chris Hawkins, whos’ sons both have Batten’s disease, we were off.  The only flaw in my strategy of going fast, was that I forgot that I’d be running with Jo, so we did wind up talking (at least I did, no surprise there) quite a bit, so I was a bit winded.  I’ve also noticed recently that with both running and biking it definitely takes a little bit of time for me to warm up.  I probably should’ve spent a little more time doing that, but you do what you can.  After the first mile, there was water, but I decided it was too early and I skipped it.  We made it through the first mile in 9:06, which isn’t necessarily fast, but considering how little I had been able to do since the marathon, it was great.  The second mile was a little slower at 9:23, as it felt a little hillier and I started getting thirst.  I kept looking at my garmin to see how soon the 2 mile mark was and hoping there would be water, since I was really thirsty.  We got to the 2 mile mark and thankfully Dave was there with water.  It felt awesome.  With that, we headed back towards the school, and it seemed a bit more downhill, and did the third mile in 8:58, my first sub 9:00 mile of 2011.  We put on a little kick at the end and ended in 27:58.  While Jo seemed to be barely making any effort (probably a heck of a lot easier than the marathon she had just done the week before), I was a bit tired.  But it was good.  Got to cool off, and then see Tim get his 3^rd overall and Chad get his 9^th overall.   A fun time.

Time and pace for ourboys 5k

Tim, Chad, and Jeff comparing notes

To keep awareness up and to raise money Jeff will be doing the “24 hours of loopy” in Davidson from Saturday June, 4^th at 11 and ending 24 hours later.  Jeff will be running around the green in Davidson for 24 hours.  Please come out and support him in any way you can.  The website for this event is http://loopy4acause.blogspot.com/.   A great cause, and Jeff could certainly use some support during the long night hours.

Falafel 5K

Once I heard that there was also a 5K on Sunday at our temple, I started to think about doubling up.  After feeling pretty good Saturday, I decided to get up early and head down to Charlotte.  Even though it was mothers day, Julia had a dance competition out in Concord, so she and Jo had to be up and out early anyways.  I figured that a Sunday race in Charlotte on Mothers day might not have a lot of turnout, and I thought I should go support my people, plus it was for Jewish Family Services, another good cause.  After getting there early, as usual, I signed up and got my shirt and number. 

Packet pick up

The shirt was interesting as it had more info than I’ve ever seen on a race shirt before, including the start time and address.  

DART shirt ready

The race would start from behind Temple Israel, head out on Providence and then wind it’s way through some of the developments behind the community, before coming back into shalom park and ending in front of the peace/butterfly statue.  Again, I wanted to try and go a bit harder today.  The race started off immediately heading up a hill, so I was winded from the start.  But right after that it was a nice long downhill.  I tried to go with the “falling downhill” method of running, and saving up some energy.  My overall goal was to try and come in around the same time as Saturday, if not a little faster.  The courses were definitely different. While ourboys had hills that weren’t that steep, but were long stretches of uphill, the falafel had more sharp ups and downs.  I made it through the first mile in 9:01 which wasn’t bad.  Though to avoid my dehydration like Saturday, I decided to drink at the 1 mile mark.  The only problem was there was no water to be had!  Once I got to the 1.5 mile mark, there was finally water.  There was only one water stop on the course, and it was right after a bit of an uphill.  I made it through the second mile in 8:58, which made me feel like I could beat the day before’s time.  The third mile had a pretty big downhill on Providence, but then a pretty big uphill back into Shalom park.  I felt winded even on the downhill.  So the uphill was even tougher.  I was moving along, but had to take a 5 second breather to start breathing again before turning into the temple.  This is where my only complaint about the course happened.  In addition to the 5K there was a fun run which started after the 5K.  They sent both run’s out in opposite directions, but both came back in the same way as well.  So the last .4 mile both groups were on the same course.  So coming back in I had to weave to avoid a bunch of young kids.  A bit tough.  At that point I was moving, but really running out of gas.  Somewhere between the 3 mile mark and the finish at 3.1, a woman came flying by me.  Normally, I’d try to chase her down, but this time I had nothing.  I could only watch her go by.  I did the third mile in 8:40, and wound up crossing the line in 27:19 a 30 second improvement over the previous day.  

No caption needed

Peace sculpture near the finish line

Falafel 5K pace/elevation

While I wished I was faster, I was pretty happy with that result.

I hung around for a few minutes to see other people finish and cheer them on.  They even did indeed have Falafel, but I (barely) avoided it, since I know how fattening it is.  

Overall, I was pretty pleased with my weekend of running.

Rock and Roll, er, Country Music

I know I haven’t written since Disney, and I was going to talk about where I’ve been and what’s coming up (Savannah Marathon, Disney Goofy Challenge), but Jo just did a marathon this weekend so I figured a write up is a good way to jump back into it.

After Disney Johane and I were going to do a marathon together for our anniversary. Of course I messed up my IT band, so things didn't look good. Myrtle Beach came and went. So did shamrock. So finally Jo decided to sign up for the country music marathon.  

Yes, Tennessee is definitely the South

I spent a lot of time going back and forth on whether or not I was going to do the 1/2.  I debated even up until the expo. I knew I really wasn't ready and I might've messed up my knee, and I've got 2 other marathons to do this year, including the goofy challenge, which will be crazy, but just being there at the expo was driving me crazy. Plus the medals were awesome. The $145 price tag for the 1/2 pretty much killed it for me. That's crazy. So we went back to our original plan, I'd try to jump in with Jo at mile 20 and do the last 6 with her.

We hit the expo on Friday and it was pretty large as far as expo’s go.  We took the opportunity to sign up for the Savannah marathon, even though I’ve got some misgivings about the course. 

Jo at the expo

Nissan brought the new Leaf with them - I want one

Someone pee'd on the seat in the fitting room!

After the expo we headed back to our hotel to check in and get Johane some dinner.  Since it was the night before a marathon she wanted pasta.  No problem, I typed “Italian” into the GPS, found a rainforest café and a Macaroni grill and we were off.  We drove a couple of miles away to the Opry Mills Mall, the mall that was built on the site where Opryland used to be.  The first sign of trouble was as we pulled around the corner and saw no cars in the parking lot, zero, nada, nil, none.  Hmmmm.  Then we saw the fence.  What the?  I’ve never seen an entire mall closed with a fence around it before.  I found out later that the river next to the mall had overflowed during the Tennessee floods in May 2010, and the entire place was shut down.  But we were stuck.  Luckily, we went back to the hotel, and they were able to direct us to a couple of nearby places.  The only place without a huge line was a mediocre Friday’s (are any of them NOT mediocre?), and we were good.  Back to the room to attempt to sleep.

We woke up at 4 the next morning so that I could drive Jo to the bus at a nearby hotel.  A lot of the roads were closed so I didn’t think I’d be able to get her to the start, plus the round trip bus ticket had we covered in case we didn’t meet at the end, since it was supposed to be a really crowded marathon.  (more on that soon)

Marathon starting line, conveniently located next to a funeral home

After dropping her off, I of course couldn’t get back to sleep, so I sat at the hotel, read, showered, and put my running gear on.  I had been told that the parking lot at LP stadium where the Titans play would be full, and I’d have to wind my way around certain highways to get to downtown, and then walk back to the finish line, and then find my way to the 20 mile mark.  I figured that whole operation would take a while so I wanted to head in early.  Also, it was about 45 degrees at this point with expected cloudy skies and temps not about 62 until the afternoon.  Perfect running weather.

I used the instructions that they gave us to head downtown, and wound up getting off the highway at…the stadium.  I figured I’d give it a shot and was told the lot was full.  I begged the guardwoman to let me at least go in and look and she gave me the go ahead.  I found a spot 10 feet from the entrance.  

Finish line at LP stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans "A team in disarray"

Organizing the finisher medals

At 7Am and 52 degrees I was wondering what all the towels at the finish line were for.  At 9AM and 78 degrees, I stopped wondering.

Sweet, though at this point I was hours early.  So I wandered over to the finish line for a while, checked out the medals, was there in time to see the ½ marathon finisher come across the line, and then go back to the car and hang out and read for a bit.  Around this point, I started getting hot and noticed the temp at 9 was higher than they said it would be all day.  Not a good sign.  I was getting texts with Jo’s times across the 5K, 10K, 10 mile and half marathon mark, and she was on target to be around a BQ time of 4 hours.  Her average time was decreasing at every checkpoint.  Once she hit the halfway point, I started off for the 20 mile mark.  I had a map to guide me and got to where I thought the road was, but then got confused.  There was no one there, and I mean no one.  Granted the road seemed to be in what I’ll nicely describe as “not the nicest” area, but still, where was everyone.  Then I saw a runner go by.  I stopped someone (a spectator, not a runner) and asked if this was the right place and where the 20 mile mark was.  I was told just up the road a bit.  So I headed for the 20 mile mark and stopped right there.  At the 20 mile mark there was one other family waiting.  And that was all there was.  

The standing-room-only crowd at the 20 mile mark

3 minutes before a guy passed out in from of me

Considering how large the field was, I was shocked at how small the crowd was.  I wound up talking to a cop who told me you can never tell.  Some years the road is 10 deep with spectators, some years it’s empty.  We got to talking, and he was telling me how the Nashville course is a lot harder than people think.  He told me the hills are worse and as we could both tell it was pretty hot.  Almost as soon as he said that we watched a guy stumble across the 20 mile mark and go to his knees.  I confess, that I thought maybe he was tired and taking a break.  Until he tried to stand up.  His legs went in opposite directions like he had no control, and his eyes rolled back in his head, and he started to go down.  Hard.  Luckily the dad from the family next to me was already on his feet, and he made it there just barely to prevent this guy from smacking his head on the ground.  The guy was out.  I tried to talk to him, and got nothing that sounded like a comprehensible sentence.  The cop called an ambulance.  But we sat there.  He wasn’t sweating at all, which I was pretty sure was dehydration, having hit it myself at the Marine Corps Marathon in 2000.  We gave him some water (when he was lucid), poured water on him, put water on his shirt and put it on his head.  He came around a little bit and I asked him how much water he had.  His answer was none.  Not a good plan.  I looked at his attire and decided he wasn’t a seasoned marathoner at all.  Basketball shorts, a cotton t-shirt and shoes that could only loosely be described as running shoes.  On the other hand, he was at the 20 mile mark in about 2:28.  Not a bad pace.  But he was definitely burned out.  All this time I was expecting Jo to come by.  We got him more water, shaded him from the sun, tried to check his vitals, and keep him awake and semi-lucid.  After about 15 minutes the ambulance finally came.  I seemed like hours later.  They finally got him loaded up and headed for the hospital.  That was a relief.  He really looked pretty bad.  Around this time, Jo called me and said she was at 18 and hurting.  I was really surprised since she was kicking it through 13.  She said the hills were making her calves hurt and the heat was baking.  Anyways, I waited and then she got to 20.  I started running with her, and the next couple of miles were an unintentional use of the Galloway system (walk/run/walk/run).  As we got to around mile 23 we entered a park.  There was a medical tent, with LOTS of people laying on the ground with bags of ice on them.  A lot of dehydration going around.  As we made our way around the small lake and up a slight hill we saw a man lying face down on the side of the road.  Just face down, half on and half off the road.  He was out of it, and everyone was just going right on by.  Jo and I and 2 other women stopped to try and take care of him.  I sacrificed my water bottles, Johane got his head off the ground, and the other women picked up his feet.  I tried to call 911, and was met with 101 unanswerable questions.  Unfortunately we were in the middle of a park, and no one seemed to know where.  After going back and forth with the dispatcher for 10 minutes, a photographer on a bike came by and we sent him off to find medical help.  10 more long minutes went by with until finally someone showed up.  They got him ice and more water, and he seemed to be reviving a bit.  We were back on our way.  At this point I was getting hot, so I broke my rule of not taking water from the race.  I figured since I had given mine up for a good cause I could get some more.

The last few miles ticked along slowly.  I felt by the end like I had run a marathon.  At mile 25 they were handing out salt packets.  I’ve never seen that before.  As we approached the finish line I split off and went around to the spectator side, since I didn’t want to cross the line.  I got to see Jo cross the line (from a distance), and then get sheparded off through the extremely long finish corral.  After that there were a few frantic minutes with Jo and I calling each other and trying to figure out where each other was, only to realize that somehow we wound up on opposite ends of the stadium.  Got Jo back to the car, and got her the post race Smoothie King she was dying for.  Overall she finished in 4:48.  Considering the hills, heat, and 20 minute stop to help someone, I guess it was ok.  She told me after that she had 2 goals.  The first was 5 hours which she easily beat.  The second was 4 hours, which she was heading towards, but just got hot, tired and sore.  Overall, I think it’s pretty good considering all that.  Better than any marathon I’ve ever done!

She's done

Finishers Medal

After back to the hotel for a nap, and then honky-tonking in Nashville.

Jo's reward - a cowboy hat

Thank you, Thank you very much