Let's Catch Up

Can't say I have a reason to avoid the blog.  I have spent some time on the couch watching the Tour de France for the first time.  So I could have worked on the race reports for the two 5ks I did in July.  Most of my home computing time was working on a mobile website version for the local Theatre magazine my wife and I help run.  With that, and sitting in front of a computer at the day job, I haven't really spent much time on the laptop at home unless I needed.

That being said, I had my best month in my running shoes ever.  Well, "best" is qualified by number of miles, 145 miles.  This is 585 miles for the entire year.  I'm going to roll over 1,000 miles easily this year.  I didn't have a preset goal of running but it's kind of cool to see that on my personal Garmin Connect "odometer"... well, if they had one.

Races of July

All Star 5K - 22:53 / 7:24 Pace

5,440 participants showed up for this race through downtown KC.  I signed up for this race because I had already dropped a few bucks on every other MLB All Star Game week activities, so why not for something I get to do myself?  Joe, Kristen, and I met up an hour before the race and did one lap of the course and ended up in the second half of the runners for the actual start.  My training plan called for 7 miles that day, so we did one circuit early to get close to that distance.

Being in the second half of the participants meant you were fighting a huge crowd of people who were there to walk.  I shot immediately for the sidewalks and avoided wasting energy weaving around people.  

This was still a training run but I tried to at least look like I was running hard... and I was.  It was hot and my legs were still worn from running 14 miles the previous day.

The Glow Run 5k - 21:40 / 6:58 Pace

This race was a week after the All Star 5K, but it started at 9:15pm.  Kinda cool as everyone was decked out in glowy garb.  Similar to the All Star 5K, this race had around 5,400 participants.  This race started in the Rivermarket and ran around the Rivefront Park.

Except for a bridge, it was a flat course but it was also a hot evening.  I was pretty sweaty even before the race started but that might have been related to the cold I was trying to get over.  This race had a corral system but it wasn't assigned.  Kristen and I tried to get in the first corral but ended up in the second corral.

I pulled out my notes from the All Star Game and just shot for the sidewalks to get around the people who were there for the party atmosphere.  By the time I ran out of sidewalks, the crowd had thinned out.

Both races had a huge fundamental problem.  Their finish chute had a 90 degree turn after the finish line and narrowed to the end of the chute.  This is a recipe for trouble with over 5,000 bearing down on it.  TKB was stuck in the finish line of The Glow Run for nearly 15 minutes.  The water bottles were hard to get to and only available on one side of the chute.  When I made it through I was able to walk pretty easily through it but ended up going back into it so I could find a water bottle.

Overall I was happy with this performance as it was my fastest 5K of the year, considering my focus is on longer distances now.

Other Musings

The month has been good for base building on the running.  I am feeling the need for some cross-training though so I don't get burnt out in these weeks totaling 40+ miles running.  This weekend I'm scheduled for a half marathon race; therefore, I actually have one day free from running as I'm suppose to rest before the race.  I normally run both Saturday and Sunday.  While I will go for a pace run for 13.1 miles "somewhere" on Saturday, I'm planning to pull the bike out Sunday morning and go for a nice long ride.... "somewhere" as well.

And Finally...

I signed up for another "big-ish" race but more on that later....  I promise...

Track Workouts and I Don't Mix

This year I have added speed workouts to my training portfolio.  As mentioned in my previous post, I'm juggling it with hill workouts on Thursdays.   Unlike most of my other workouts, this requires some planning.  I live near Parkville and work downtown in Kansas City.  In between those two locations is the Park Hill South High School and a very nice track.  So I will leave from my house, arrive at the track in the 5am hour.  Once complete, I drive to work and shower at the YMCA that I use when I bike commute to work.  Simple enough?  Of the 5 planned track sessions, I have had issues with 4 of them.

1st
The first track session went great!  Everything went as planned and I got to work with plenty of time to spare.

2nd
My second track session? It was a huge cluster.  First it was storming on my way to the track.  I waited about 5 - 10 minutes in the truck before starting while the rain let up.  The session went quite well but it started raining again as I finished.  I was soaked and ready for a shower.  Drove to the YMCA and as I handed over my card to the receptionist. he said they had no water.  I was completely dumbfounded.  I found another YMCA about 20 blocks away but it was actually some children center and didn't appear to be open.  I ended up driving up to the Vivion YMCA, which is another 20 minutes away.  I ended up being over an hour late to work.  Oops.

The bonus to this trip was I found the Vivion YMCA.  It has a 50 meter lap pool that I can be used when start focusing on swimming again.  Sweet!

3rd
Third times a charm?  Not really. Overall this workout session went well from house to work.  Fortunately, I have an awesome neighbor who is a co-worker.  He texted me as I was leaving the track to inform me that our office didn't have water again, which likely meant the YMCA didn't either.  I went directly to the Vivion center.

FYI... during the 7 days between the 2nd and 3rd session, the water department was ripping up the streets doing some sort of maintenance causing the outages before the work day started.

4th
A cold I had been fending off come on in full effect.  Track session cancelled.

5th
Today was the fourth track session.  As I've been recovering from the cold last week, I struggled a little to get up this morning and got to the track session about 15 minutes later than I wanted.  During my first 800 I noticed a bunch of cars descending on the high school.  As I was finishing up my second 800, about 20 members of the high school women's track team flowed onto the track and started their warm up.  I was only halfway done with my planned session.

I am sure I had every right to finish  and share the track(I do pay taxes in this school district), I really didn't want to become the pervy 34 year old dude who runs on the track with the women's track team.  So I finished up my 400 meter recovery, hopped in the car and took off.  Fortunately no shower issues downtown.

Bonus Story
The day that sent me driving around for an hour and half looking for a shower reminded me of my favorite pre-work adventure.  I'm cheap about certain things and parking is one of them.   I park on the street instead of paying $50 a month for a swanky parking garage slot.  This one particular morning it was storming and raining like crazy.  I was parked on the street, listening to the radio while waiting to make my break for the office.

The rain subsided a little and I took my chance.  I opened the door, slammed it, and took off running.  After about 3 steps I realized I wasn't the only thing running.  The car keys were still in the car.... with the engine idling. Not a big deal except I had locked the car doors on the way out.

By the time I finally got in the office I was soaked.  I had TKB bring me a change of pants and my spare keys.  Fortunately, any would be car thieves decided to stay in due to the rain as well.

Are you there, Blog, It's me, Scotty Tris.

It's been way too long since I've visited the "Create Post" functionality of Blogger, so I am back at it!  I've been busy trying to avoid the heat.  It feels like it's been two weeks since temps stayed under 100 degrees.  The nice thing about preferring AM workouts is it has not a huge adjustment avoiding the heat.  I just roll out of bed like normal, put on the shoes, reflective vest, and hit the streets.

Here are how my training weeks are going:

Tuesday
I have made one adjustment to do my Tuesday.  Since it is my shortest run day of my training plan (I think it hits 5 miles at most), I go to the gym and do about 50 minutes of strength training before I do my run (about 40% upper body, 40% core, and 20% legs to save them for running).  The treadmill is set at a minimum of 1% grade and I run about 60 seconds slower than race pace.

I will say that every time I hop on that treadmill I think I still good do my run outside but continue anyway.

Wednesdays
Wednesdays are still outdoors.  I started doing 7 miles on my Wednesday runs this week and they will continue to increase up to 10 miles by August/September.  I try to mix in a few nasty hills on these routes to strengthen the legs.  Although Wednesday I went down to English Landing Park by the Missouri River for my run (read: FLAT). I didn't sleep very well Tuesday night (maybe 2 hours due to poorly timed caffeine consumption) and so I decided to go for the flat lands of English Landing Park.  I set the mind on cruise control and just ran.  No concern for pace and I managed to hit miles 2 - 7 within 3 seconds of 8:40 split the entire time.  These runs are generally 30 - 45 seconds faster though.  I just needed a mental break.

Thursday
The plan calls for my Thursday runs to also be at a slow and easy pace (60 to 90 seconds slower than race pace) with a distance equivalent to Tuesday; however, I have decided to switch this up.  I will always get the prescribed distance but I will do speedwork instead. My plan is to do two weeks straight of track work and then a week of hill repeats.  The track workouts will focus on doing Yasso 800s.  The ultimate goal is to do 10 Yasso 800 repeats at a specific speed.  The idea is this:

Run 800 meters (2 lap) in a "minute" time that is equivalent of the "hour" time of your goal marathon pace.  So if trying to finish a marathon in 3:00 hours then the 800 should be completed in 3:00 minutes.  Then your rest interval is a 400 meters at that same time.  So once the 800 is completed, run a 400 in 3:00 minutes (which is painfully slow when you were running at twice that speed).  One of these sets is called a Yasso 800 (named after Bart Yasso, the Chief Running Officer of Runners World).   The goal is that if you can complete 10 of them at the correct pace, you should be able to run a marathon at that target "hour" pace as well.

I'm up to 3 of these intervals.  I plan to add one each track session until I get to 10. So far it has been successful.

The hill repeats are just as "exciting".  I run up one of the hills on 64th street next to Riss Lake.  It's about a third of the mile (although I usually just do .25 miles) at a pace that I can do consistently through the entire workout.  Once I hit the top I turn around and jog down.

Friday (and Monday)
Friday is a rest day, as is Mondays.  The training plan actually calls for cross training on Monday but I have taken on some much needed sleep instead.  I'd like to get back to the gym for some pool time though and more strength training.  We'll see.

Saturday
Saturday has been either a marathon pace run (where I target around 7:10 miles) or an easy run that is about half of what Sunday's long run is going to be.  The idea is that your legs are tired for Sunday's long run.  I have definitely been doing the marathon pace runs at English Landing Park because it is flat (just like Chicago is suppose to be).  I've been pretty successful here.  A few seconds behind the pace but I may be forgetting one or two runs that were further off, likely due to the heat.

Sunday
Sunday is the Long, Slow Distance (LSD) run of the week.  Joe and I completed a 13 mile run this past week and these will get up to 20 miles three times over the course of the 18 week plan.

Well, I actually have a few stories to tell from the past few weeks but I guess this has turned into an overview of my training plan.  I'll get to those soon. As you can see, there are no planned Bike/Swim days.  I'm full on running mode right now.  This does make me yearn for 2013 which I plan to pick the triathlon events back up but for now I'm enjoying the single sport mentality.  This has allowed me to focus on doing speedwork sessions which I knew I should have done last year but never did as I was trying to figure multisport out.

Otherwise it's been a busy summer working on other projects around the house and by that I mean computer geek related stuff.

Race Report: KC Corporate Challenge Triathlon

My sophomore season of being a triathlete officially started Sunday morning at Shawnee Mission Park. Being my 2nd season it also means participating in races for the second time.  Typically you can compare running races fairly easily because a half marathon is always 13.1 miles.  Yes, you have changes in elevation, weather, and routes but you can generally compare them.  There are many inconsistencies between triathlon events the compare one from the other.  You can rarely find triathlons that have the exact same distances unless you are paying for an event like a 5150, half ironman or full ironman event.

In 2011, the KC Corporate Challenge Triathlon was my second triathlon of my first year in the sport.  In 2012, it was the first triathlon of my second year in the sport.  Poetic, no?

Truth be told, I had no clue what to expect because I've probably spent a quarter amount of time in the water and bike saddle this year than I did last year.  I knew my running would certainly improve though.  Last year I completed the KC Corporate Challenge Triathlon in 1:03:56.  I at least wanted to see an improvement of that time but knowing I hadn't trained for it, I would take what I could get. I had an ambitious goal of under an hour but again, no basis for that.

Pre-Race
I'm still in marathon training mode, so I did 5 easy miles on Saturday and spent the morning watching my 6 year old niece compete in her first swim meet!  It was so much fun!

Ella on the blocks!!!

Ella is in the middle doing the backstroke.  Yeah, I have a lot to learn from her!

I asked for some tips and she recommended keeping my head down in the water.  Very good tips.

We went up to northwest Missouri near Maryville for a family reunion where we almost got blown away by an oncoming storm.  I spent about 15 minutes holding down a canopy from flying into the next county.

We arrived home around 10pm and I spent about 30 minutes packing up and then bedtime.

I woke up to a sick wifey, so I took off for Shawnee Mission Park around 5:30am on my own.  My company's Corporate Challenge Triathlon/Duathlon coordinator Denise parked right behind me.  She had carpooled with Bryan, both were participating in the Du.  Another DST associate showed up while they were getting unpacked and I eventually took off on my own to get my rack position.  It's first come, first serve.  The organizers changed things up this year and gave timing chips and TriTats in the packet, so I didn't even need to do anything other than setup my transition area before the race.

I talked with a handful of other associates in between bathroom stops (using the flush toilet by the marina and not the 10 or so pit toilets).  I found Kristen on the way back and we chatted with our Triathlon Team.  The swimmer on the team is Doug Hayden who coaches a Masters swim class in North KC.  I plan to take his class this offseason as I prepare for next year's season.

Kristen and I took off for a warm up run but I noticed it was almost 7am, which was the start for the Duathlon... Kristen's event!  My wave didn't start until 7:35 so I was able to get a mile or so jog in and still get back in time for the start.  I snapped this photo of a bunch of DST associates ready to run/bike/run.

They just look fast.  Surprised I could catch them on my camera.

Eventually I made it back to my transition to down a Gu packet, grab my swim cap and say good bye to corrected vision for about 40 minutes.  I do have prescription goggles... the best prescription goggles about $5 can buy.  I caught up with Austin while getting into the water, he is the other 30 - 39 male age group competitor for my company.  He and I met up for a couple Open Water Swim practices the previous weeks.

Triathlons at Shawnee Mission Park require participants to swim from the marina to the beach, which is maybe 50 meters.  It's a perfect warmup swim.  Not too long after we were herded over the timing mat and back into the water on the other side of the beach for our start.

Swim - 500 Meters
I haven't spent much time water... Maybe once a week for the last 6 weeks (with the last three being at Shawnee Mission Park Open Water Swim practice). I lined up conservatively about 3 rows back and on the outside. It wasn't a huge fight the entire time but crowded. I was still able to get in a good rhythm though. Sighting was pretty hard after the turnaround due to the sun but I somehow managed to be perfectly positioned for the exit. I swam until I hit ground and took off. I did peek at my Garmin and was happy to see it under 11 minutes. My time was 61 seconds faster this year, which is funny because I've probably spent 20% the amount of time in the pool since January.

Time: 10:29
Rank: 100 / 254

T1
Huffing and puffing, I easily found my bike.  I don't remember having any problems.  Instead of racking up close the to bike exit, I racked in between the swim entrance and run exit, which was only 4 racks away from the bike entrance/exit.  I thought it was a good spot even though you probably have no way to visualize what I'm talking about.

Time: 1:41
Rank: 54 / 254

Bike - 9 Miles
My mount was pretty piss poor but that's ok.

1st Lap - Just like swimming, I haven't spent much time on the bike. I decided to follow the strategy of trying not to blast the downhills and save the legs during the 1st lap. I did work on keeping the speed up during the flats of the second half of the loop.

2nd Lap - Strategy was was to hit the hills a little harder and blast the downs. I do GPS tracking so friends and family can "watch" me online. On one of the downs I decided to give them a little show and hit 45mph since I had just finished an up hill around 8mph.

Nearing the end, I peeked at my clock again and noticed that I was at 23 minutes and realized I was set for finishing under 30 minutes.

I did a flying dismount and it worked perfectly.  The only thing that was wrong with it is the guy at the dismount line wasn't yelling at me to dismount.  I guess I wasn't going fast enough.   Overall a really good time for me. Over 3 minutes faster than last year.

Time: 27:42
Pace: 19.5 mph
Rank: 77/254

T2
Last year I had the special laces that don't requiring tying the shoes so my time suffered a little.  I think my racking position was pretty optimal because I didn't have a long run to the run start.

Time: 1:07
Rank: 132/254

Run
I may have been too conservative on the run. There is a nasty hill in the first mile and a nasty hill in the last half mile. I followed another triathlete for the first mile as she was pacing around 7:45. She could hear me (breathing my last breaths) because she even waved me to pass at one point. Once we got through the dam(n) hill and the first aid station I took off. That strategy likely hurt my first mile split but it probably saved me for the end. Mile 1 - 7:44

The second mile is mostly downhill and I took advantage as much as I could and hit 7:26 average. I was down to under 6:30 pace for most of it but that last hill was a killer. The good thing was I didn't walk like I did last year. Mile 2 - 7:26

The last .4 is usually a struggle due to the hill you are working against but you know the end is near!! And yes, you finish on another hill too! There were a couple Sprint employees in front of me and reeled them in when I hit sub-6 for about a .1 of a mile. I shaved a minute off of last years time here too! Mile .4 - 2:57 (average pace 7:21)

I just noticed something as I was proofing my post.  I NEGATIVE SPLIT THE RUN!  7:44, 7:26, 7:21 (pace for last .4).  Pacing off the runner in the first mile was probably beneficial!!

Time: 18:07
Pace: 7:33
Rank: 60 / 254

Overall
I saw the clock tick at 1:34:04 and since I had started 35 minutes after the first wave, I realized I had hit my top goal.... Under an hour!  I was pretty amazed by this.  After a couple disappointing races, I was glad to hit an arbitrary goal that I had no basis for setting!!  Why not be happy!

While I bested last year's time by almost 5 minutes, I did not fair so well in the rankings.  I was prepared for this since last year the Corporate Challenge Triathlon was the same day as Ironman Kansas 70.3 (which is where Austin was last year).  I knew competition was going to be much more fierce this time.

Time: 59:04
Rank: 61 / 254 Overall
Age Group: 25 / 68 (Males 30 - 39)

Last Year
Time: 1:03:56
Rank: 73 / 215
Age Group: 21 / 65

So a much better time.  My overall rank was improved but those in my age group must have been doing IM Kansas 70.3 and the people replacing them just went as fast.

Proof
My photos are somewhat lacking this time around due to my #1 fan being in the infirmary. Here are some the I took or stole off of Facebook

Team DST.... well, most of them.  I'm in the back in the white visor.

Always my favorite photo.... the one showing the underwater rescue boat launching pre-race.  What were you thinking it was?

Me racing my nephew Sam.  Showing him how to cheat at the start a race.

I'm a bad influence.  He caught me in the end.  Notice the storm coming in?

Week in Review & 1 Mile Race Report

Marathon training has literally started with a bang!  I participated in the KC Corporate Challenge Mile Track Meet last night.  Not necessarily the most conventional day 1 of an 18 week plan, but these Corporate Challenge company coordinators can be rather pushy convincing when it comes to participating in events.  Continuing the theme of unorthodoxed training, my last three runs have been at races -- Amy Thompson 8K, Hospital Hill Half Marathon, and now Corporate Challenge Mile Track Meet.... all within 8 days.  Last week I was also fighting off a bug so I tried get plenty of rest before Hospital Hill and missed my AM workouts.  I did get a Swim/bike in last Tuesday evening at Shawnee Mission Park with Mark.  That puts me almost two weeks without the pre-dawn sweatfest.  That will be changing real soon.

Swim: 1000 Meters
Bike: 13.21 Miles
Run: 18.51 Miles
Total: 31.94 Miles / 3:28

Corporate Challenge Mile Track Meet
While running a hard mile three days after running Hospital Hill probably was not the smartest, I'm glad I did it.  Not from the corporate civic duty but from a checkpoint of my fitness.  I really have never ran a timed, single mile before.  I really didn't know what to expect.  If you have a time goal over the course of a half marathon, you can generally correct a missed split.  That's not easily the case in a mile.  Plus you are running near maximum effort the whole time, that's great if you know what that is.  So I targeted some splits to put me in close to 6:00 minute pace.  Something like 1:33, 1:31, 1:29, balls:out.

While I did wear my Garmin, I'm not trusting the split data on there because it clicked off the mile about 9 - 10 meters before the end. I did try to calculate the splits as I ran by but, let's be honest, I don't remember much of the mile at all.  It's a blur.  I remember the sound of the start gun firing and then focusing on the track so as to not fall on my face.  I do remember my first couple splits were pretty close to planned but even being off by just a few seconds adds up.  What I do remember is I started to pick-up the pace with 300 meters to go and then faster at 200 meters to go... and then with 100 meters to go I had lost all control of my legs.  They were doing things I never thought possible as I redlined at 4:15 pace (considering my previous comment about trusting the Garmin data).  I would love to see a video of my finish because I bet my legs looked like the Roadrunner.  They felt like they were moving in circles and billowing clouds of dust.  I started picking people off and then I caught two guys that I apparently provided a bit of motivation and they kept with me stride by stride and finished a step in front of me.  I patted their backs, congratulated them, and then went on the hunt for my breath.  It had been replaced by the taste of blood in my throat.

Official time: 6:10.930

I spent the rest of the evening coughing at cheering on my coworkers until about 9:15pm.  Kristen was running the mile for the company and she beat her expected time! 

I have one more Corporate Challenge event left, the Triathlon.  I don't think I'll do as well as I did last year since I'm not spending much time on my bike/swim disciplines this year.  In fact, this may be my only triathlon for 2012 simply because I am not willing to devout the time to swim/bike as I would like in order to compete.  I do plan to continue the Shawnee Mission Park Swim/Bike sessions each week for cross training.  I'm planning to spend both weekend days on running so little time for cycling.

Race Report: Hospital Hill Half-Marathon

Hospital Hill Half-Marathon

I registered for Hospital Hill about 2 days after last year's Hospital Hill event.  They had announced that medals for the 2011, 2012, and 2013 events would fit together as a puzzle with the 2013 event being the 40th anniversary of Hospital Hill.  I couldn't resist getting the second piece of the puzzle.  I've had a slow then hard approach to training for Hospital Hill this year.  Coming off of low volume months of February and March and a lingering knee issue, I took April as a slow base building month.  Slow as in I was running 9:30 - 10 minute paces the entire month.  Once May arrived, I started adding in some speedwork once my knee (and everything else) could handle it.  This plan has worked marvelously as I did not have a single knee related issue or any injury during and after Hospital Hill. While waiting until May to do speedwork may have hurt my time a bit, in the long run it will be much more beneficial.


Health Expo 
Last year they added a full on Health Expo to Hospital Hill and it continued this year.  Packet pickup was smooth.  Bib, Shirt, Socks, Reusable bag, easy enough.  I headed over to the Garmin Pace Group booth to pickup a pacing band.  I grabbed two, 1:40 finish and 1:45 finish.  Yes, I was still undecided; however, I wanted ensure I could get in the 1:40 pace group so I went over to the "Solutions Desk" and asked to move up to Corral "A".  I told the lady I wanted to be with the 1:40 pace group and she told me I was "right where I wanted to be", which I was pretty sure was wrong, but was late to getting back to work so I just left it.  When I registered last year, I must have entered an expected completion time based on the 2:00 hour finish for 2011.  Oops.





On my way out I walked by the Andrew J Somora booth when I heard someone call my name.  It was an long-time friend Jenny who was working the booth (and I really do mean long-time friend, I've known her since I was born).  She's helping her best friend put on a 5k walk/run in October to support Colon Cancer Research.  Her friend lost her husband to colon cancer last October and they started a foundation to raise funds and awareness.  TKB and I are signing up and trying to convince my parents to do the walk.  You should too!


Friday Night 
While I knew the weather was going to be perfect, I didn't want anything else to blame for my performance if it was sub-par.  I had a good bowl of pasta but, frankly, I had been eating carbs since Wednesday to slowly increase the glycogen levels.


My biggest decision was still to be made.  Which pace group to follow? Looking at the 1:45 and 1:40 splits, the average 8:00 pace for the 1:45 seemed very doable so I chose 1:40 (7:37 average pace) to give myself a challenge. Since this is my third year of HH then if I'm not there to challenge myself, then why am I there?  In addition, I figured having the pace group would push me through the struggles of the hills.

#1 or #2?

It took me a little while to get to sleep.  I was pretty nervous about this run.  First, I was putting quite a challenge onto myself with the 1:40 group AND it was the first time I really felt like I was "racing" the event to meet a time goal instead of running to "get it done".


Pre-Race 
Got up at 5:00am and made my breakfast.  I slept fairly well considering the nerves.  As usual, took my pre-race shower to hold off the Scotty-funk as much as possible.  It's my pre-race coffee, I guess.  TKB and I took off for the race around 5:45 or so to try to get a decent parking spot and take care of those pre-race necessities (port-a-pot stop, warm-up run, port-a-pot stop, final pre-race nutrition, port-a-pot stop, etc).  TKB and I met up with Joe VI, Lauren and Joe VII.  Lauren was running the 5k, wearing her "Pregnant, Not Fat" bondiband.  She's about 7 months pregnant. So if Baby Jeppson keeps up the Hospital Hill Runs, that will be one more than years she is old participating.


Start 
Joe and I moved over to the starting corrals around 6:50.  Just as I surmised, the 1:40 group was in corral "A".  I hung out in that corral with Joe VI as he flip-flopped between starting with me or starting in "A".  I kept urging him to start with the 1:40 and leave me behind.  I believe he was concerned that I would catch up to the 1:40 group and, therefore, beat him.   I assured him I was going by the 1:40 wrist band and he finally moved up to the pace group. I have no aspirations to race against someone else at this point, I'm focused on time.  If he started with me he was going to have more trouble catching up with the 1:35 pace group as that was his "ambitious goal".


The clock clicked 7:00am and Joe VI was off.  I was at the front of Corral "B" and there were definitely some people that don't understand the corral system as they took off past the timing sensors and then stopped when the emcee barked at them.  Oops.  A few moments later, we were off!


Miles 1 - 3:
 I always go out too fast and this was no different.  I kept forcing myself to slow down and I finished mile one 30 seconds faster than I should have. I honestly thought my watch was broken when it read 7:00 minute pace and I felt like I was walking.  The first mile does have a small hill but it's mostly downhill.  Miles 2 & 3 have nearly 200 feet of elevation gain, so I kept the pace right on target.


Miles 4 - 6: 
It was at about mile 4.5 that I realized I missed mile marker 4.  Normally this isn't a big deal but I had a specific pace goal and was trying to match specific mile splits; therefore, I turned the auto-lap function off on my Garmin.  I was manually hitting the lap button when I crossed a mile marker. It is extremely difficult to run a race as officially measured.  A course is measured with the shortest route possible in mind. Think of someone laying a string from corner to corner or straight through a windy road.  Since I'm not going to be able to run that route with people and pot holes to dodge, I should still adjust my pace to match those mile markers. It may take me 1.05 miles to from mile marker 3 and mile marker 4.  If I need to run that distance in 7:30 minutes, then I need to run the 1.05 miles in 7:30 minutes.  Clear as mud?  Why would it take me the extra .05 miles?  Weaving through people, going to the other side for an aid station, gladly giving high five to some familiar or unfamiliar faces in the crowd. Who knows, who cares, it's (a runner's) life.


So mile 3 was supposed to finish in 7:47 and mile four was supposed to be 7:12.  So I just made sure I finished those two at an average of 14:58 (which was the total of the two).  I hit it at 14:56.  Not bad.  The problem was I didn't realize I missed the mile marker until it was half a mile passed, so I used up extra energy to even it out.


It was at mile 5.5 that I saw those familiar faces.  My brother Mike, Amanda, and the kids were cheering from the sidewalk.  That was such a great pick me up!  High Fives for all!!!


Miles 7 - 9:
Even though this is where the course turns north, it was going south for me.  Reality of the hills and quickened pace were settling in and my legs were starting to yell.  It wasn't a  lactic acid issue, my quads were just not happy.  At this point I wasn't even near the worst hill, a 160 foot incline over 1.5 miles.  It feels never ending and starts in mile 9 and so I was holding back on the pace in preparation for the hill.  I was still hitting 8:00 minute miles at this point but that's because I was on the Trolley Trail route, which is mostly downhill (except Hospital Hill course planners figured out to put another short nasty hill in there).


Another set of high fives from Mike & Amanda and the kiddos here, too!  It was so nice seeing them on the course.  They had to have gotten up fairly early to get there in time for the race.


Miles 10 - 12:
My pace dropped to 9 minute miles for this section due to the nasty of the nastiest.  I walked through the aid station just to give them a little relief.  Near the top of this hill I heard someone say "Hi, Scott!"  It was Kyle from Twitter!  Kyle gave me some motivation to get through the top of the last two hills.  We chatted for a bit when Kyle took off in front of me on that last hill.


Miles 13 - 13.1
I was mentally ready to get this over with so I took full advantage of the downhill speed during the 170 foot drop in the last 3/4 mile.  I caught back up with Kyle and then I heard another voice from behind me, "What?  Is this a training run?" as Ryan from Twitter blows by.  I knew this guy was behind me and taking it easy as he was preparing for Ironman Kansas 70.3 the next weekend.  Sure, the 1:45 group caught up with me but I couldn't let Ryan catch me!!?!?!  Dang it!  Apparently he had an axe to grind since Jackson County Tri last year when I passed him on the bike course, so he finally got me back!!! Sure, it took him the full 13 miles to catch me this time while it only took me the first turn on the bike course last year for me last year.  haha. I jest.  Read Ryan's race report here (apparently I provided a lot of motivation for him!)

Getting ready for my "Garmin Shot" at the finish line (Picture of me pressing "Stop" on my Garmin) #BlurryCam

Results

Remember my diatribe about how to run a route on a measured course?  I ran 13.15 miles.  Pretty good, I'd say.


Post-Race
Joe was waiting for me at the finish line and I also caught back up with Ryan and we chatted for a bit.  Walking through the post-race grub was a bit disappointing.  While the pre-made sack of goodies was OK and there was also oranges (not sliced, btw) and bananas. The only post-race hydration option was water.  Yes, there was Michelob Ultra but that is classified as water to me anyway.  The food bag had various items, from pretzels, to some kind of rice crisp, protein bars, and dried plums (aka, prunes... nice try marketing department).  I echo Ryan's comments that Chocolate Milk should be at pretty much all races.  I have recently driven to grocery stores after my own long runs and bought chocolate milk (OK, maybe I was picking up donuts at the time).  Anyway....


While cooling down I also met up with Mark (yes, also from Twitter and the blog-o-sphere) and chatted with him for a while.  He had finished with a mind-blowing 1:26 and was waiting for his wife to cross the finish line.  Shane stopped by and said Hi.  He PR'd his half marathon time, but when you are motivated to not miss your son's tee-ball game, it helps!


We eventually took off for home. Shower, 1.5 hour long nap (niiiiiiiiiiice) and off to Oklahoma Joe's for lunch.  I bypassed the BBQ they had at the race and opted for tradition.


Overall 
The more I let it sink in, I'm disappointed that I couldn't push through the last 5 to 6 miles to even finish under 1:45.  When I first put this race on my calendar, I was shooting for 1:35 but that was before my trip to Bangkok entered into the picture, so I'm totally fine with missing that mark by 10 minutes.  Chicago is 18 weeks away.  Can I get myself down to 7:14 average pace for 26.2 miles?  I'm not sure.  I have a lot of work to do in those 18 weeks.  My quads were a big factor in this race.  Two days later they are still sore.  I need to strengthen them.  While Chicago has an elevation gain of 512 feet over 26.2 miles with Hospital Hill having 713 feet gain (according to my Garmin) over 13.1 miles, the pounding they are going to take at that speed is going to hurt.  Enough on Chicago, I'll work on a separate post for that.


The one shining light is I smashed my Hospital Hill PR by over 8 minutes and I only missed my PR by 25 seconds.  When you consider I was in half-ironman shape (albeit with a broken rib) on a much more forgiving course at the time of my PR, missing it by such a small margin is pretty satisfying.  (Yes, I consider myself in better shape last October).


Congrats to Joe for finishing just a few clicks over 1:40.  That's freaking awesome!  I've got a lot to do to catch up with him.... or rather stop pushing him to train.


Proof

Lauren in magenta coming into the finish.  #BlurryCam

Apparently Joe reached Pace Group 1:30, beat them up and stole their pace flag.

Me in orange, Ryan in yellow shoes, and Kyle is peering over the shoulder of the guy wearing the white shirt on the right.  Kyle is in blue.

Mark! (if you couldn't tell by his bib)

Today's Crew

Butt

I stole this off of some guy on Facebook.  It's the "Puzzle" board.  I suppose it works but the puzzle could have been a bit more creative.

Additional Note:  I love reading signs that people hold up during races. They are motivating and a lot are extremely funny; however,  I saw the worst sign ever on a half-marathon course.  "Chuck Norris never ran a marathon".  Yeah, no one on Saturday ran one either. OK folks.  If you are going to go through the trouble of making a sign for a race, do a little research.  We don't call running races "marathons" here unless they are truly 26 miles, 385 yards.

Race Report: Amy Thompson 8k

As I mentioned in my weekly report, I got a free race registration late last week through Amanda's (my sister-in-law) company.  I waited a little bit to register so as to make sure I didn't take the spot of someone who actually works for the company.  I was debating about my goals for the race because I knew my legs would be tired after running 12 miles of the Hospital Hill course on Saturday with Joe VI as well as ensuring I was fully rested for the actual Hospital Hill Run 5 days later.  I was still planning for a threshold run this week, so I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to get it in.

That being said, I still decided to set a goal for the race.  Based off of recent race performances and training runs, I was hoping a 35 minute 8k was in sights.  That's roughly 7 minute miles, which also happens to be a few clicks south of Boston Marathon pace.  I decided anything under 38 minutes would be more than acceptable seeing that my threshold runs lately have been around 7:20 - 7:30 pace.

The Race
This is the Amy Thompson Run for Brain Injury.  It's in its 25th year of... um.... running and supports the Brain Injury Association of Kansas and Greater Kansas City.  Very cool!  I'm glad to be there to support this race... through my, uh, free race registration.

My Sister-in-law Amanda signed up for this as motivation to run a longer distance.  Her previous best was 5k, so this was adding nearly two miles to that distance!  My brother Mike was also running to get him back into race events for the first time this year.  Yay!

Today's Race Crew. Amanda, Mike, and me.

Well, if Amanda and Mike are running, someone had to watch the niece and nephew, so TKB signed on for that duty.

Sam and Ella getting their pre-race nutrition in. They had the Kiddie Dash to race later after the 8k!!
Photo Credit: Mingle Kansas City

Pre-Race
Samsies

Food: Banana & Bagel with PB.

I did about a 3/4 mile warm-up and stretch prior to the start of the race and had a Gatorade G1 about 20 minutes prior to the race.  The temps were starting to rise, as well as the humidity.

Race!
After getting hugs and kiss from the kiddos and the wife.  We headed over to the start line on Wornall Road about 10 minutes prior to the start.

Amanda looked pretty happy to be doing something she'd never done before!!

Mike with his game face on.

I'm the tall guy... in the shirt with orange sleeves... shocker

Since I'm not a Speedy McSpeederson to get positioned up on the front, I was hoping there might be some pace markers to help people line up.  I've learned to not care for the dodging and weaving, considering the fact that I ALWAYS go out too fast.  I don't need that to wear me out.  I ended up running the first 1/4 mile on the left (outside) of the group.  This helped me pass people that I should have otherwise been in front.

Mile 1: 7:07 Pace
Yep.  Too fast.  This even had a nasty hill that I was planning to take slooooow.  #fail  In all honesty, it did feel like a slow pace for what I was trying to accomplish.  I don't want to stare at my watch the entire time though.

Mile 2: 7:13 Pace
Some more inclines but these were a bit more gradual with some flats mixed in to get a breather.  It was about this time that I was thinking to myself that I'm trying to do a whole marathon at this pace?

Mile 3: 7:27 Pace
There was an aid station in this mile, so I slowed for a drinky drink.  Actually, I don't remember for sure but that's what I'm going to blame it on.  It could have easily been that I slowed down because I may have started to lose focus.  Or I was setting myself up for negative splits the rest of the way!

Mile 4: 7:15 Pace
Bringing the pace back down on this mostly flat stretch.  It was along scenic Ward Parkway.  I was tracking behind another guy that I was hoping to reel in and pass, so I found some motivation.

Mile 5: 7:02 Pace
I did kick up the pace a bit but there is also a nice decline that I tried to take advantage of because the last tenth of a mile is up the entrance to Loose Park and it's pretty steep.  I hit it as hard as I could and, apparently, gave a guy in a much higher age group a "run" for his money.

I mean that too, he literally kept looking behind himself about 5 or 6 times in that last .1 of a mile as if I had any chance of catching him...or any need to catch him.  He was 19 years my senior.  He said something to the effect of "Thanks for the chase" at the end, which marks the second time that has happened this year.  I didn't even know we were racing each other.

I'm struggling up that hill.
And there is the guy looking back at me.  While he did finish before me, I still beat him by 2 seconds by chip time.  Good times though.

Overall
It was a good race and definitely hot.  The post-race grub:  Bottled water, frozen custard, muffins, bagels, bananas, oranges, milk options from Shatto (they had cotton candy milk?  I grabbed a chocolate milk which turned out to be latte flavored), and at the end was a table of crab rangoon.   Interesting!  I felt like I was at the Thai-Japan Mini-Marathon!

Time: 36:11 / 7:16 pace
Age Group: 9 / 48
Overall: 77 / 913

I will say that I'm happy with my progress.  My Garmin time actually showed a 36:05 time (started/stopped them at the timing mats).  I only point that out because, according to my Garmin, I was cruising along under a Boston Marathon pace.  Doing that pace for 21.2 more miles seems quite daunting, consider Chicago is less than 19 weeks away.  What I'm learning that focus is going to be KEY.  I've completed two marathons and have never really had a problem with miles 20+ but this is going to be different.

The Proof

Mike in the yellow visor.  PUSH IT!!

Amanda smiling to the finish of her first 8k race!  (Or crying, I can't quite tell)

The kids with Sluggerrr!

The K. C. Wolf also showed up to cheer us on! 

This is apparently what I look like to a 4 year old.  Sam stole the camera for a couple shots.

Sam flying into the finish line for the Kiddie Dash!!

Ella waiting for the start.  She got the memo about no race shirt on race day.  I have a few things to teach Sam.

I see some marathons in her future!

Look who got first place in his age group!!!  Although, I saw every kid holding one of these.... I think there might be something wrong with the timing systems.