Fall Race Quandary?

It’s mere weeks till marathon season, and I’m just not there yet. August has been a somewhat cruel month. The body isn’t happy. I probably shouldn’t. But somehow I just can’t resist the fun.

Just a few months back I wrote about how pleased I was that my training was progressing well following my return from the dead after foot surgery. Now, a short time later, I’m in a lull. I’ve bumped up my mileage a bit to about a buck fifty per month, but my average pace has slowed, and more importantly, I’m just feeling like a slug. Not strong. It doesn’t just flow. It’s a struggle. It doesn’t feel right, and it’s a bit worrisome. I’d chalk it up to summer heat, but it hasn’t been that hot.

Reality check: Perspective time here. Um, I still put in a hundred fifty per month the last two months, and ‘slow’ is a relative term. I recently recorded a second running podcast with my friend Chris Russell and we talked about how being knocked out of action for 5 months changes your view and heightens your appreciation for just being able to get out there. To steal the fishermen’s phrase, a bad run beats a good day at work, right? 99% of the planet didn’t pop in a buck fifty at 7:32 pace last month. As I tell my kids, suck it up. Besides, I probably hurt because I’ve spent days and days on my hands and knees installing the new kitchen floor. Or if that excuse doesn’t work, I’ll think of another, just hold on a bit.

Against this background, it’s decision time. Fall marathon season is so close, I can count the number of long runs I should have already done but haven’t. The easy choice is to skip it, take the fall off, after all, last year’s Wineglass time already gets me a plum spot for Boston 2010. My body really isn’t ready. But I’ve got Mount Desert Island in my sights, and I just want to do it.

Mount Desert Island, Maine (a.k.a. Acadia), is a second home for me. We’ve vacationed there for years, and I’ve hiked almost every trail on the island, save the obscenely steep ones (no thanks!) Running MDI would be, well, just plain cool and fun. The fact that it finishes in Southwest Harbor, the very town that is our home away from home, is even better. And it fits this year: it’s a tough, hilly course, not likely to produce a good time on a good day, but with my Wineglass time lined up for Boston, I just don’t care about time. Which is, like it was for Boston this past spring, freeing. I can be a tourist and love it.

Like most marathons, MDI’s price goes up the longer you wait. I’d hoped to decide in August and save five bucks. But I didn’t get that satisfying long run in that said, “Go ahead, you’re not stupid to do this.” So it’s September, and I’m still on the fence.

What I did get in August was a very pleasant surprise and a big kick toward doing MDI. I spent a few days in the White Mountains of New Hampshire bagging peaks with my family. I finished my 4000-footers back in 1995, but now that my kids are old enough, I’ve begun a second tour with them. Tuesday, climbing the Amonoosic Ravine Trail, heading for Mt. Washington – upon which I hadn’t set foot since it became my first New Hampshire summit way back in 1982 (!) – I ran into my old Appalachian Mountain Club friend Steve, whom I hadn’t seen in 15 years. We were heading in the same direction and as such had a few hours to catch up. If that wasn’t fate enough, we’d apparently both been sent the same fashion advice email and looked like a pair of twins (that’s him in the yellow tech shirt and faded green shorts on the right, me in the yellow tech shirt and faded green shorts in the center). And wouldn’t you know it, he’s entered the MDI marathon (he plans to power walk it). It was like God sending me a signal. Just do it, you fool.

What’s the chances…?

Six summits, including the most perfect day on Lafayette you could imagine, and a sore knee later, I left New Hampshire knowing I want to do MDI more than ever. And immediately again faced the reality that my next run felt pretty downright lousy.

But hey, I’ve got almost 7 full weeks to turn that around.

Just do it, you fool.

Side Note: It’s been a year of blogging! To the six of you that have actually read all 73 postings, I thank you for your interest. Leave a comment now and then. And if there are only three of you, or even one, that’s OK, because I’ve enjoyed writing these stories, and will continue to do so, just because. Cheers.

Gentlemen's Sport

Ours is a gentlemen’s sport. Sure, we sweat like pigs (metaphor of course, my daughter the pig fan points out that pigs don’t sweat). Sure, we get caked in mud on the trails. And even blood sometimes, too. But outside of the realm of big name competitors’ vocal rivalries, we’re kind, helpful, and gentile to others even as they’re thrashing us soundly. You won’t see that in a hockey game.

Yes, of course, this applies to the women as well. I’m not being sexist, there’s just no equivalent phrase I can think of that communicates the same connotation for the other gender.

Tonight’s case in point? The 4th Annual Chuck Martin 5K in Clinton, Massachusetts. I returned to this race tonight as an experienced veteran. Having run it once before isn’t a lot of experience, but it’s enough, considering last year’s event where my 3rd-place finish magically turned into a 2nd-place finish because the leader made a wrong turn and sadly came in 6th. Most of the race is on trails. Most of the turns are marshaled. Most, but not all.

As we gathered at the start with a good-sized crowd of nearly 200, there was plenty of chatter about precisely where the course went, it being pretty clear that most had no idea. When I volunteered that I not only knew the course but was there for last year’s game of Lose the Leader, I instantly became the man to follow. Now, I’m not really a mid-packer, I’m more of a front-of-the-mid-pack, back of the truly competitive, make a splash only in very small ponds or large puddle type of runner. Truth be told, I expected to be in the top 10%, but with my continuing recovery, not being back to last year’s level, sporting that aching and damaged foot, and so on, I certainly wouldn’t publicly hint that the crowd should follow me. But they did. It’s a weird sport.

Out the gate, the starting adrenaline rush kicked in and after perhaps 20-30 seconds with one other runner alongside, I was all alone. Huh? I’m not supposed to be alone up here. Perhaps a minute or so later – time is fluid in these events – a couple of youngsters arrived to keep me company, and the one guy who looked like a serious competitor in the pack proved that appearances aren’t deceiving and bolted out front. Ahh, that’s better.

And now comes the gentlemanly portion. After four tenths of a mile on the road, the course turns sharp left onto the trails and levees along the Wachusett Reservoir. At this turn, a local cop duly stood guard, assuring no runner road pizza events. And he did that well, but didn’t consider that the runner bolting toward him had no idea where he was going. And so our leader cruised right past Turn Number One.

If kindness and helpfulness were a random event in our sport, one runner might have alerted him to his error. But kindness and helpfulness aren’t random events among runners, they’re the rule. Ours is a gentlemen’s sport. Everybody jumped in to help. A cacophony of voices rang out – perhaps a half dozen – everyone within sight and shouting range, TURN LEFT! LEFT! LEFT!

It got better. By now I was running with a pair of youngsters, with a couple more behind us, while our leader quickly recovered from his error and again put space between himself and us more ordinary folk. And then he did it again.

While missing Turn Number One could be blamed on a complacent cop, missing Turn Number Two at about six tenths of a mile could only be chalked up to, well, perhaps a missed brain cycle? On approaching a set of barriers across the trail, clearly positioned to prevent passage, in front of which was a yellow plastic tape that gave a pretty obvious hint to turn right at the barriers and follow the tape, our Beloved Leader somehow ran right through the barriers and with each passing moment compounded his error by going deeper behind the Fence of No Return.

In any other sport, those behind him would see an opportunity. Let him go. Second goof. Our turn now. His loss.

Not in our sport. Again the choir sang. GET BACK HERE! TURN RIGHT! GET OUT FROM BEHIND THE FENCE!

And as if the Gods were giggling in mirth, it got even better. The rest of the leader pack thought itself so smart. They’d gone right before the barrier. They bolted up the levee. And to my shock, they started bolting right over the top, down the other side, headed toward the lake. Uh, that was Turn Number Three. And nobody else seemed to get it. Now it was my turn to scream. TURN RIGHT! ONTO THE DIKE! Seems I was indeed, as they hinted at the starting line, the only one truly with a clue as to where I was going.

This was getting ludicrous.

And so it was that at three quarters of a mile in, I found myself leading the race. Not really supposed to happen. Cool, though. Enjoy it while it lasts.

One could argue that there should have been course marshals at these points of confusion, but Turn Number One was manned (by the Complacent Cop), Turn Number Two was bloody obvious, And Turn Number Three, well, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the course probably didn’t plunge into the lake. But in any event, the point is that at each spot, everyone who had a clue helped out, even though the person they were helping was in the process of thrashing them soundly.

It’s a gentlemen’s sport.

Rest of the story… Our Beloved Leader again caught us after his latest mishap and retook the lead. I didn’t see any real way to stay with him, so focused on the runner who was sticking with me. At about 1.5 miles we were head to head on a wide levee. I decided to make a move, knowing it was early and risky, but he didn’t answer, and I had 2nd all to myself. Footsteps fade fast on the trails, and there was no crowd to give audible hints of the spacing behind me, so I had no idea if he would respond or others would surge. Nor did I want to look back. Nearing our emergence from the trails back onto the road, a sharper turn gave me an opportunity to glance back, and I saw no challengers. Two tenths from the finish I looked back anyway to avoid any surprises. Nobody home, smooth sailing.

For the second year in a row, I took 2nd, but this year the winner – Our Beloved Leader – was a youngster, so I scored the masters win, though in a time a full minute slower than last year. Most of that minute slowdown I attribute to just not being in the same shape as in the pre-surgery days, but then again, the entire field was slower, so it’s hard to tell. Frankly, it just doesn’t matter. It was a fun race, an eventful race, and a race that really showed off the best side of the nature of our sport.

Wolves Howl!

Yes, I know that races are held every day, twice on Saturday, and it’s no big deal. But when it’s your own race, when it’s your first full-scale event, it is a big deal. And it was. The First Annual Running With the Wolves 10K went off with a howl, and came off like, well, clockwork Wednesday night, and there was great rejoicing.

Wednesday was an exercise in panic avoidance and bullet dodging. A few items short of a million could have gone wrong, but they didn’t. The Gods smiled upon us. My club-mates and I breathed a huge sigh of relief and a shout of joy when it was over.

First, it didn’t pour. Just not raining at all would be a tall order, the way our weather has been this summer. Wednesday was not only forecast to be the hottest day to date this summer – the first targeted to hit 90, which is pretty unusual for that not to have happened by now – but was, of course, also expected to be punctured by thunderstorms. Some severe. A real Weather Channel kind of day. Live by it, baby.

As of the night before, those storms were forecast to last until…? You guessed it, 6 PM of course, right up to the starting gun. Make me sweat. But no worries, the revised forecast Wednesday morning cleared up any concern over whether they’d wrap up in time. Instead they were forecast to last into the night. Gee, uh, thanks. Yet, as the afternoon rolled along, those menacing green, yellow, and red blotches on the radar formed to our west, approached, and then magically parted and avoided us.

Second, and probably most important, we built it and they came. Between sponsorships and pre-registered runners, we were financially whole no matter what. But if they didn’t come, it wouldn’t be much of an event, now, would it? And that wouldn’t do much for next year. But they came, oh glorious runners, they came! To paraphrase Jackson Browne, “People you've got the power over what we do, you can sit there and wait, or you can come run our race!” They didn’t stay-yay-yay home, they came. And I thank each one of them.

And third, everybody, and I mean everybody, pulled through. Our club is small, but it’s tight-knit, and it’s fantastic. Everyone covered their appointed tasks and anything else they could find that needed to be done. Sure, there were a few comical glitches, like me holding up the start for two minutes trying to get our one-mile splits person back on the phone. But all in all, it was smooth city. The traffic was marshaled. The runners were processed, hydrated, guided, cheered, and awarded. The refreshments refreshed. Even our medical tech volunteers had a customer, who happily was A-OK in the end, but gave us the satisfaction that we’d covered that piece of the plan. The newspaper sent a photographer, as did Jim Rhoades. The city opened up the field for our stadium finish, and even painted us a finish line. Our friends at CMS lent us gear that made our event safer, and look slicker, too. Our on-site sponsor The Karate School opened her business for our headquarters. And our post-race party? Well, not a lot of the runners showed, but at least for us, dinner for $3, cheap (yet good) beer, and two live bands. Can’t beat it.

Our course turned out better than planned. Since it hooked back on both the outbound and inbound, spectators could get from the start/finish onto the course in time to cheer the field. Traffic control at our first rail trail to road crossing was easy – we filled the road with fans! When the smoke cleared, the women’s race was ruled by the seniors who took the top three spots, with Carol Allain of the North Medford Club leading the way, while Julien Dimaria took the men’s race in a smokin’ thirty four minutes flat. We knew it would be a fast course, but yee-haa! We’ve got a mark to target next year!

These individual attributes read like a laundry list, which could go on. But they miss the point. It was a real race. Walking around, it felt like a real event. Small, but real. Falmouth must have started this way. Or the Boilermaker. Happy people enjoying themselves, at least once they caught their breath. We gave one back. We pulled it off. And that felt fantastic.

Change of topic…On an unrelated note, today, August 7th is always a special day in my calendar. It marks the day back in 1981 when I didn’t die, but came darn close (see posting from last year). Twenty eight years later and I have the joy of my wife and daughters and am healthy enough to pursue this obsession we call running. If I hadn’t been running and fit then, I wouldn’t have made it. Nor would I have stood a chance save for my sharp-eyed doctor who had a hunch as to what was going on, was right, and moved fast enough to save my life. Thanks, doc.

Race Eve

It’s a good thing I don’t have many readers. When I go two weeks without a posting, I get no complaints. My excuse? I’ve been absorbed with race planning, which seems simple, except that it’s not.

It’s payback time. For all those races I’ve attended, for all those bits I’ve praised and all those items I’ve groused about, now it’s my turn. And knowing how persnickety I can be makes me want to get it right only that much more. The basics are obvious, but the details perplex, and it’s the execution that counts. You just can’t predict what’s going to happen on race day, and you won’t have much time to fix it.

Let’s back up a bit. My club holds a couple of races each year, but they’re extremely casual. Our Laborious Labor Day Ten Miler and Thanksgiving Tough Turkey Ten Miler (or whatever we call it?) are no-fee races. We collect food for the local food pantries as our entry fee. Along with no fee comes no expectations. No awards other than the honor of victory. Any refreshments are whatever club members decide to bring. It’s all casual. Nobody complains. What, they want their can of corn back?

But now that we’re a real live incorporated oo-fish-ee-al club, well, we want to do some of those oo-fish-ee-al club things. Like expand our outreach – after all, we do have a mission to promote health and fitness through running. Like build up a collection of equipment, like timing gear, to run a little higher-brow events. And so on. Stuff that requires coin.

At the same time, we clubbies have been lamenting the passing of the other-than-5K race. Along with the expansion of the sport from the midpack back – which isn’t a bad thing, mind you – has come a proliferation of 5K races. Several per weekend around here. All for some great cause, some so much for their great cause that I’m sometimes amazed to see what you can pay to run a 5K. Call it the dumbing down of the sport. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that more people are running, and though the 5K isn’t my favorite – way too short and fast for my tastes – it’s a fine event. But variety is the spice of life, and outside of the major races, variety is fast becoming an endangered species.

Such was born our new race. The First Annual Running With the Wolves 10K, on a weekday to avoid conflicts with other races, in the evening under the full moon – thus the name. A real-live oo-fish-ee-al event with a real live entry fee for a real-live great cause. Us. That sounds kind of self-serving, but it’s not. We’re a tax-exempt charitable organization. None of us profit. All of us want to spread the word and make our world healthier. We’re not fighting one disease. We’re beating back all of them, more or less. You can fight heart disease when it happens, or you can fight to stave it off through fitness. Our charity is the latter.

That being settled, it quickly becomes amazing how much needs to be done to assure a quality event; quality being a requirement in my mind when people are paying money to run, and we want to be sure there’s a Second Annual Running With the Wolves 10K. It takes a lot of people, and we’re a small club. We quickly laid down the law: club members won’t run in this event, they will run this event. Good thing, because it’s taking most of the club to cover all the bases.

I’m not the race director. And I won’t call myself the assistant race director, because that’s not fair to the core members of the race committee. But the amount of involvement makes it feel that way. Some of it is my own fault. As I said, I’m persnickety. They don’t call me “Slightly Obsessed” for nothing.

My number one pet peeve? Poorly measured courses. When I run a race, I want an accurate measurement, so I can compare today to my previous races. My past inquiries about course accuracy have ruffled a few feathers. So it’s only right that if we’re to get any complaints on that score, it should be my problem. Solution: measure it myself (with help, of course). Several times. Which takes quite a lot of time – measuring and re-measuring and marking out 10 kilometers, getting access to the stadium for our finish, and all that. If you, the racer, don’t like it, complain to me. I deserve it.

Somehow I landed the t-shirt design and acquisition task. Again, sounds simple. Not. Twenty seven phone calls and one hundred eight two emails later, piles of shirts arrive. Then there’s the scoring. We don’t own timing equipment and scoring software, so we’ve borrowed gear from our friends at a neighboring club and I’ve written the scoring spreadsheet from scratch. Designing and ordering banners. Handling the funds, of course, as I’m the green-shade guy of the club. And more…

It’s been a lot of time on my part, but it’s worth it – it’s cool to give this back to the running community. And no matter how much it seems, there’s so much more beyond me. Our race committee and general membership have been fantastic, beating the bushes for sponsorships, planning food, water, medical, traffic, marketing, registration, cleanup, awards, the kickin’ post-race party, you name it. Mine is but a fraction of the whole task. This club is awesome.

But it all comes down to a few hours Wednesday evening, and once that time arrives, our ability to fix any oversights is constrained by time. Very, very, short time. I think I’ll be sweating as much as if I ran the race. And there’s that forecast of thunderstorms to deal with, too…

Tonight our crew assembled – about 25 of our 35 or so volunteers – to go over all the plans, stuff goodie bags, and of course, stuff ourselves. We tried to think of everything we haven’t already thought of, and we rehashed everything we have thought of. And we know we’ve probably missed something – something that will appear at the most inopportune time.

I’ve got great confidence in this team, but I’m still sweating.

The Boilermaker - Part 2

The Boilermaker is big. Twelve thousand runners is a lot of people even when you’re used to 27,000-plus at the start of Boston – and that’s just the 15K main event, not to mention a few thousand more in the 5K. I find it hard to comprehend where they all came from and where they all go.

The scale starts to sink in when you stop at the Thruway rest stop 10 miles before Utica and it looks like the starting area itself with so many runners lined up outside the restrooms. Woe to those non-runner travelers who happened to stop in, wondering what hit them. But Marge, where did they all come from? Why are they here? And why do they all look so underfed?

The scale really sinks in until you watch them coming at the finish line. And coming. And coming. And those are just the ones a half-hour behind me, after I finished, after I wound my way through the labyrinth of Utica streets to get the other side of the line to find Sis. There were thousands I missed. And thousands more after I left for the party – the party of planetary proportions.

But, back to the race. After being dropped near the start by Ace Support Team Sis & Phil, niece Kris quickly found a friend (how this happens amongst 12,000 runners is beyond me, but it happens) and she headed off to her “Gray Corral”, not really a corral at all, but the area for the 8,000 or so unseeded runners. I was seeded in the “Blue Corral”, the 500 runners behind the 300 “White Corral” elites. I’d felt a tad guilty since I’d turned in a seed time of 59 minutes based on last year’s pre-surgery performances, not knowing where I’d be by race day, but I quickly found that even my race-day target of 62-64 minutes would have gained me the same corral. Guilt alleviated.

Despite the scale, starting coral organization was excellent, though traffic control a bit draconian with a few over-zealous marshals. Once I found my corral, I headed off for a warm-up, only to be told on return that I couldn’t get back in without circling an extra three blocks and re-entering from the rear. I figured out this was so they could open the white elite corral to an adjoining parking lot for their warm-ups. Nice, but a little frustrating for the rest of us. To be fair, we’d been warned via the map of the starting area, though the map was a little incomprehensible, as was their map of the finish & party area – a simple arrow pointing north would be nice! Whatever, minor gripe.

What a morning! Perfect weather, among the coolest in Boilermaker history, sunny, gorgeous, a bit breezier than expected. Ready to roll on my first real long race since the surgery, Boston having been a purely recreational outing. And speaking of Boston, there in my corral, a few bodies away was none other than Boston Billy himself, Bill Rodgers, the guy largely responsible for my love of the sport. My hero from First Lap days. I’ve seen him at expos, but always behind a line of well-wishers longer than I cared to endure. Here, it was easy. I sidled over, greeted him – nicest guy in the world – and of course invited him to the 10K my club is putting on next month. Yeah, right, I know, but might as well, you never know. Even at my age, it’s still a thrill to have started the race with him. Way cool.

The ropes dropped, we did the surge-forward thing, the gun, we’re off. Uphill. Now, I’m one of these inertial runners who takes a long time to warm up – usually about 5K in a typical 5K race – so I’m not real keen on any start, but the Boilermaker is all uphill for the first few miles as you head south out of the river valley – not big, but noticeable grades. And I noticed it. I felt pretty much awful, like I was running in the high 7’s as opposed to the 6:50 pace I’d stated as my goal or the 6:40 I had in my head as my real goal. Ugh. But mile one clocked in a 6:28, surprise, surprise. I should know better, happens all the time. Well, at least I knew why it felt like an effort!

I forced myself to back off a bit, and dropped the pace for miles two and three to the high 6’s, knowing the golf course – the big hill – loomed at three, but it didn’t help much; it was a struggle, the body just wasn’t happy. And then, our reconnaissance mission paid off. The golf course climb was… nothing. Its most memorable moment? The band hammering Zeppelin as we entered the course. Just one of the seeming bazillions of bands on the course, but later Kris would recall these guys too – serious rockism. Utica pulls out all the stops and does it up in style.

Just like that, we were over the top and screaming down the other side, going sub-6 for mile five, clicking 33 minutes flat through five, 6:36 pace, and suddenly the morning had turned around like I never expected. Sure, I was working hard, but I was ahead of my private target with more downhill than up remaining.

And then, since this was becoming a roller-coaster day, along came mile seven in roller-coaster style. I’d warned Kris about seven the day before. At its start, the city boulevard turns briefly into a freeway. I’d warned Kris that car-scaled roads play games with your mind. You lose the perspective of houses passing by. The crowds thin. The same distance that would fly by on a city street stretches mercilessly. And it did. She later agreed completely with my prediction. But worse, having checked out this part of the course in the car in a thunderstorm, we’d both missed the insidious upgrade that followed the freeway stretch and continued into mile eight. It caught me off guard. My cruise mentality took instant hit points, and minor agony ensued till the summit.

But the eight was another screaming downhill, even screamier than I’d expected. I’m not a strong downhiller; I have to force myself to stride out and take advantage of the hill – more speed, but more work, too. Which made nine, tough already, that much tougher. Nine hands out a slow rise late in the game, a lung-burner, a test of will. I had a good one going, better than I’d hoped for the day, and here was where I’d keep it or lose it.

Over the last top at nine miles. All downhill to the end. The sun was brilliant, blinding, making any hopes of locating Sis & Phil pointless. Lungs screaming, sporting my usual death-warmed-over look (that’s me in green at 9.2). Yet it’s funny, no matter how we’re hurting, snippets of our surroundings stand out. I suddenly noticed the fresh tar over the previously exposed trolley tracks just before the finish. That one was for me, Mr. Faceplant of Wineglass. I’d promised Sis I wouldn’t do it again, and the Gods of the Boilermaker heard me and helped assure no repeats. Cool.

It’s easy to see that this is the biggest event to hit Utica all year. Other races construct elaborate finish chutes, and pull them down by the end of the day. In Utica, the Boilermaker finish is permanent; a glorious cast iron arch that stays all year, reminding the locals that once a year, the world really does come to them. I passed under that sign in 60:37, well ahead of my 62-64 minute target, having turned in an average 6:30 pace and gotten elation in return. It still didn’t feel like last fall, it didn’t feel like a cool easy comfortable stride, but most likely my recollection of what it felt like last fall, before the injury, before the surgery, is unrealistic. Memories can be rosy. I’ll bet it hurt back then, too. Bottom line, I was a happy guy.

And Kris was a happy girl. She made it home right on her target. She’d wanted an hour and a half, and she pulled in at 1:29 and change. Best of all, before we left town, I heard her say she wants to do a half-marathon. Yes, this disease is infectious! Of course, the biggest party you can possibly imagine, complete with more Saranac on tap than you’ve ever seen and a killer flyover, afterburners and all, by the guys out of Rome Air Force Base, didn’t hurt. Nor did knowing that half her classmates ran it as well – and yes, she somehow managed to find them in the sea of humanity – which made an even better event for her. You couldn’t script a promo for running any better.

The Boilermaker - Part 1

If you’d asked me before I started my Second Lap about some of the iconic far-away races I’ve since run – take the Charlottesville 10-Miler and the Stowe 8-Miler for example – I would have stared at you with a blank face. But the Utica Boilermaker? That’s one that’s always been on the wish list since those high school First Lap days.

I feel like I’ve shared a connection to this race. Back in the spring of ’78 I was a high school freshman in Upstate New York, I had just started running, and the Utica Boilermaker was born as an instant hit. I recall my friend and running mentor Cliff extolling it in its early years. It quickly became a big destination for runners in my local crowd. It was one of those talked-about races. And I’d forgotten until I read the race program that I’d had the privilege of having both of its second year champions in my circle. I shared high school track and cross country miles and colors with women’s winner Cindy Girard, and ran with as well as wore the decidedly low-tech jersey of men’s champ Tom Carter’s Lechner’s track club (that’s me in 1980 in the hot yellow shorts and geeky socks running for Lechner’s). Tom was an awesome runner back then, and as of the last time I saw him last year, he still is. Oh, and there was that little bit about dating his sister, too, a truly nice young lady. The Boilermaker. It was cool back then, and who knew it would become world-famous?

But I never ran it. We had our own 15K in town, the Forks XV, site of my fastest long race ever, and still being run today, so hauling off to Utica for a 15K didn’t offer any real uniqueness to me. Being in high school, I wasn’t really in the mode of traveling to far-flung races, though there were a few notable exceptions, stories for another day. It never happened, the First Lap ended, and the long drought descended for that 25-year vacation.

Until one of my running club-mates suggested we organize a club trip to…the Boilermaker! That nascent idea was suddenly thrust into reality. Of course, I’m in!

Well, not unlike last year’s “club” expedition to the Stowe race, which turned into a massive team of, uh, two of us, this year’s “club” expedition turned into a massive team of, uh, three. OK, that was a 50% boost, I’ll take it for what it is. But since the other two had their own family and friend agendas, it turned out not to be a club expedition at all. Call it a club catalyst effect, instead. Ahh, so what, I’m in, and free to pursue my own family agenda.

That family agenda centered on my niece, a recent convert to the mental deviance of running. I’d mentioned in my last post that this was her first race, but forgive me, I lied. She’d run a 5K last fall; this was to be her first long race, at this point for her a challenge purely for the distance involved. Knowing that I share at least a bit of the blame for her new affliction, it was pretty exciting to me to see her bite this one off. We worked out some pretty elaborate logistics to join up, plans made far easier by the interest and help of my sister and her companion Phil, who’d been my Ace Support Team for Wineglass last fall. I had to promise to them I wouldn’t fall on my face again.

I love small local races for their simplicity, ease of logistics, and, I admit it, the chance to score an age group spot or a good raffle prize. But I love the big races because of the magic of assembling so much talent in one place, and the fact that most of that talent is packaged in the most unassuming people you’ll meet anywhere. Unlike typical overpaid sports superstars, elite runners blend into the scenery as normal people, because they are, other than their extraordinary abilities. Kris got a quick taste of this defining aspect of our sport quickly, over lunch at the Subway (after, I note, we’d arrived in Utica 10 minutes apart, having converged from 350 miles distant, not bad timing, eh?). We struck up a conversation with a runner type and her family, only to discover she was in fact an elite master, one who’d shared the vaunted church basement with Kara Goucher & Company at the starting line in Hopkinton, one who rubbed elbows with the fabulously talented top women of America. Yet she was more than interested to chat as any other runner. It’s just that kind of sport, and that’s one of the reasons I love it.

After hitting the expo – somewhat of a disappointment for a race the size of the Boilermaker – Kris and I set off to reconnoiter the course, partly on wheels, partly on foot. We popped in a four miler, looping over the biggest hill on the course where it climbs above the valley through the city golf course. The course profile on the web made this one look like a killer even to me, the “seasoned runner”. Facing the challenge of the distance, let along the hills, it had given Kris considerable apprehension. “Know your enemy,” I told her, and it was a lesson worth learning. We came, we ran it, we laughed. Piece of cake.

The skies poured forth their fury as we scoured the rest of the course (comfortably behind the windshield) and made our way back to Base Camp Syracuse – Kris’s apartment when she’s in school – for dinner with Ace Support Team Sis & Phil. Forces of nature – more storms, and a foolish neighbor loudly unloading lumber late on a Saturday night – staged a conspiracy to ruin our early sleep, but failed to hamper us. Four AM would come too bleeping early…

Next posting: Race day

Delinquent!

Oh my peeps are in distress. Yes, all six of them, if I have even that many readers. I’ve been delinquent in my postings, and I must make amends. Bless me Father, it’s been over three weeks since my last post. Here are my adventures. (What, you wanted sins? Not here, this is a family friendly blog!)

My summer slump arrived, well before any summer weather showed itself. June in New England was utterly pathetic. July, at least until yesterday, hadn’t been much better, though summer suddenly arrived in glory today and the weekend promises spectacular weather. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

In late June, my clan made our annual trek to Acadia National Park and spent an entire week without a clear view from a summit. For the first two days our cottage on the sea endured a storm packing constant gale force winds. Following that came more showers, fog, showers, fog, wind, fog, did I mention fog, and oh yes, it was cold. Ah, summer vacation. The good news is that we saved a lot of money on non-consumption of sunscreen. The other good news is that I’d run mile repeats with my club in a pounding rain a few days prior to our trip, so I was well trained – for the weather, at least.

Weather aside, our week in Maine offers up my version of the Rave Run, concept stolen from that certain over-glitzy magazine. Within a six to seven mile outing I can run from the cottage on the sea through the small village nearby, and be on the forest roads of Acadia. Tacking on a couple more takes me deeper and opens up trail options. Each year I venture a little further, blurring the line between our hiking territory and my running turf. The solitude of these forests is pure joy.

Friday morning found me running on some of our frequently hiked trails, emerging at the south end of Long Pond, greeting a few hikers heading in. Three hours later, showered, fed, assembled with kids, we returned to the same spot to start our day’s hike, only to meet the same hikers I’d seen earlier, now walking out, tickled to see me heading back in. My wife’s comment to them was a classic: “He feels the need to get exercise before we hike for the day.” Now, we vacation actively, so it’s not really the need to get exercise, it’s because – you know this – running is in we runners’ blood, and we crave the chance to run in different and especially beautiful spots. But her comment was still a classic.

Hard to fathom, but on our return leg that afternoon we finally saw the sun. We’d waited all week for that one glorious hour, basking on a lakeside rock. But the cool part is we just don’t care all that much about the weather up there, it’s Maine, it’s Acadia, it’s “The way life should be”, so they say, as opposed to the other bumper sticker we saw which read, “New Jersey, The way life is”.

But the slump? Well, usually I blame it on the heat. But I was feeling it before Maine, I was feeling it in Maine where there was no heat, and I’ve been feeling it since Maine. It’s not summer heat. The body just isn’t quite in the mood. Not feeling strong. Not bad, mind you, just not strong. My theory de jour is that May and early June were about breaking through on pace, getting closer to the training pace I’d left behind pre-surgery, and, having pushed hard to make strides in that direction, the body sighed. So the last couple weeks have been about backing off and working on the base, stretching in a few more miles but taking the pace more comfortably. Listen to the body. Listen to the body. That change of pace has made the last week far more enjoyable. I skipped out on the 4th of July races to keep the intensity down.

In the theme of low intensity, superbly enjoyable was this week’s Whitney Memorial 5K, a casual local race put on by our friends from the North Medford Club. With an entry fee of a mere five bucks, it’s the perfect event not to worry about, so being in low intensity mode, I hinted to my family to give it a try, and they took the bait. Both daughters tossed their hats in for their first 5K, and my wife joined the merriment as well. She prodded along our younger one, while I coached and cajoled our older edition, who managed to come in ahead of more than a quarter of the pack, but more importantly she gained the confidence of seeing that she could run the whole thing, even the hill, longer than she’d ever gone. Nine minute pace never felt so good to me!

But weather, slump, and low-intensity aside, it is summer, and there are big events to try, so I’m off in the morning to the stunningly exotic metropolis of Utica, New York, to step up to the line at one of our sport’s classics, the Boilermaker 15K. While this is a race I’ve wanted to do for a long time, the event is sweeter as I’ll be joining my niece for the festivities; my niece who’s started running in the last year not entirely uninfluenced by her old guy uncle, and for whom this will be her first race. Yeah, pick off an easy one to start off with, I say. Or, just dive into the deep end. First four miles are all uphill.

Maybe that’ll break the slump.