Harriman Hurt

Saturday I took a trip to Harriman State Park for a ride with my friends Todd and Walter. Let’s just say it was a hurt fest. I am so out of shape compared to where I was last year. I was scheduled to go 6 laps or 84 miles, but I had to stop after only 5 laps. I was just too tired to go on. During my last couple of laps, I was really starting to lag. Perhaps I was better off just going myself so I could have taken my own leisurely time instead of pushing to keep up. Perhaps then I would have gotten in the total distance.

Todd bailed out of the ride after 56 miles. He had done 100 the previous day and didn’t want to push it anymore. I had expected that by tackling Harriman a day after a 100 miler he would be suffering, but he looked strong as ever. Walter stayed with me over my final 14 miles, but I could tell I was really holding him back. Even if I felt like going on another lap, I don’t think I would have because I didn’t want him to feel obligated to stay with me.

After Walter left to complete a 100, I met Todd down by the beach. I could already feel my muscles shaking from the day’s effort and I was filled with chills. My HR started to take a dive on my final lap and I guess I used up all of my energy, hence the chills. Despite the chills, I took a dip into the lake to wash off the sweat, dirt and suntan lotion from my body. I was feeling groddy and needed to get in the water. After I submerged myself, I stood up to see an oil slick surrounding me. I was an environmental hazard I was so covered in grime.

When I returned home and started to unload my car, I suddenly felt like such a loser for not completing my intended distance. It felt as if I had quit a race simply because I was feeling too tired to go on. As I write this, I vow never to let myself quit a race because I am tired or the going has gotten tough. If I feel like such shit for just quitting a training ride, imagine what I would feel like if I bailed out of a race. In a way, I wish I could go back and complete that 14 miles, even through at the time I am pretty sure I made the right decision.

After returning home I almost decided to make up the distance right then and there. I had to pick up my road bike from the shop and I thought about taking it out to Prospect Park for a 14 mile test drive. I was feeling a little better, since I had eaten some solid foods. However after some asshole turned his car too sharply onto my side of the street and almost hit me head on I decided to just go home and rest for the remainder of the day. And rest I did, I fell fast asleep in my bed for several hours.

This morning I was supposed to do a 20 mile run, but I was conflicted with my desire to go for a swim out in Brighton Beach. Swimming won out since I have tomorrow off from work (Memorial Day) and could do the run then. I went down to the beach with my friend Rob. We swam for a wonderful 51 minutes in clear and mostly calm seas. The water was a balmy 61 degrees and I felt toasty warm in my long sleeve wetsuit and neoprene hoody.

As pleasant as my morning swim was, my afternoon wasn’t nearly as so. My wife and I went to the Jackson Premium Outlets in New Jersey for some Memorial Day discounts. I lasted with her for much of the shopping spree, but towards the end I had to bail out and escape to my car where I listened to the radio in air conditioned comfort and now type this blog entry. Here is a picture of the vast sea of cars on top of an oppressively hot asphalt parking lot. It’s 91 degrees and stifling.

Healthy Kidney 10K

If last week’s 50K was a test to see if I could go slow and long, today was a test to see if I could go short and fast. So I decided to see if I could go fast at my first NYC Marathon qualifier – 6.2 miles around Central Park. I am happy to say that I still have some speed in my legs. I ran the 10K in 42:56, a personal record.

It really wasn’t that hard to do. I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. My legs felt loose and the weather was nice a cool. Perfect for running a hard and fast effort. I was a little nervous just at the start of the race, as I haven’t run hard in several months and only twice in the past 11. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to take putting out a hard effort, but it turned out I needn’t have worried. My body just ran it like it was something that I did every day. It’s nice to know I could still push myself.

When I went out, I had no idea what I would have to run to make a PR. I hoped I would PR as I didn’t want a hard effort to go to waste. When I got home later and was able to check my records, I saw I had the PR by almost a minute; breaking a record that went back to February 2003.

The toughest part of the race was the last .2 miles. I was already running hard and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to push harder to pass a few more runners or to try to try to hold off anyone trying to pass me. The question was soon answered as someone tried to pass me in the last couple of hundred yards, which turned on the competitive spirit inside me. I not only held the person off, but it motivated me to catch a few runners in front of me. According to my Polar HR monitor, I raised my HR to 99 percent of max. I don’t remember the last time I did that.

So anyway, I still felt good enough after the race to do some more running, but I had to get home for my son’s baseball game. I thought maybe I’d have time later in the day to get in another run, but it didn’t work out. Just as well, as the weather turned pretty nasty.

My plan for tomorrow is to do an 80 mile bike ride in Prospect Park. I asked my coach if I should go up to Harriman State Park or if I should just ride the 3.4M loop. He made the point of saying that my perception of my fitness does not nearly match the reality. He means that I am much more fit than I am giving myself credit for. He feels that what I need to do more mental training and what better way to do it than to spend several hours on my own in the park. Nothing like a mind numbing 3.4M loop to train one’s mind. So that is what I am going to do. I may as well sign off from this now so I can get up nice and early and get it started.

Up At Night

I am training regularly again. This for some reason means I cannot sleep at night. I guess because I am not taking a sleeping pill that keeps me out for the night. I want to be able to wake up to get out the door. It has been successful, but on the occasional nights like these I do nothing but sit in my kitchen reading blogs or playing online poker.

I just discovered that one of my favorite reads, “Fast @ Forty” is no longer online. I hope nothing is wrong with Janice. If you are reading this please let me know you are ok.

My nose is stuffy from the swim I took this evening. What a lousy swim it was. The pool only had two lanes open and both were filled with gimpy swimmers with absolutely no lane etiquette. It made for a difficult and unsatisfying workout. But at lease I have been swimming lately. I no longer think I will drown at Alcatraz.

I ran into an athlete I know named Blake today. He told me he is doing the Badwater 135 this summer. I wish I could do that. I really think that after this year’s IMLP I am going to concentrate on ultrarunning. I think I will look to do the Vermont 100 miler next summer. Maybe then Western States. It is good to have goals. I can always come back to Ironman, especially when there is less competition in my AG.

Long Island Greenbelt Trail 50K

I haven’t written a blog entry in quite some time, but I have been training and planning for races. One of the highlights of my recent training was my annual birthday trip to Harriman State Park for some suffering on my bike while I negotiate the hills. I’ve done this on May 7th for the last 3 years. My goal for the birthday ride is a 100 miler, but I’ll take what I can get. This year it was a pleasant, but painful 70.5 mile ride. I’ll write a more detailed entry about it some time soon.

Anyway, this training ride set me up nicely for the Greenbelt 50K trail run this past Saturday. Where do I begin describing this race? Perhaps I should mention that the night before the race I cracked one of my teeth and the merest whiff of air against it would throw me into spasms. I almost decided not to do it in order to get the tooth fixed the next morning, but after speaking to my coach, he told me to put some ear plug wax over it. This worked out nicely, so I decided to go for the race and just wait until Monday to get the tooth fixed.

The race was definitely one for the record books. Let’s just say it was not what I expected. I thought I would have an easy 5 hour , 31 mile run with my friends Larry and Willie over some pleasant trails, but instead this race turned out to be one of the hardest things I have ever done, if not the hardest. Larry and Willie both felt the same way.

The race started out easy enough. The course is two loops of an out and back trail, so we all left our resupplies in the car. It left from where we parked our cars, and then on roads for about 2 miles before we entered the Greenbelt trail. The trail at this point was relatively smooth and easy going. It was a pleasure to get into the woods and off the asphalt. I was able to run steadily and easily and began to range ahead of Larry and Willie. There were some difficult parts along the first couple of miles, but nothing so bad that you couldn’t make good progress. There were plenty of roots along the ground and you had to constantly watch your step. However for the first few miles you were mostly able to run it. At one point we came out of the woods into a wide open pasture, with beautiful clear blue skies and a pleasant breeze.

It is really hard to describe the entire course. The best I could really do is separate the 7.5 mile trail (remember it is out and back) into the first 4-5 miles and the last 2-3 miles. The first 4-5 miles was mostly runnable with the occasional walking breaks to climb some stairs of to navigate some particular rocky and rooty areas. The last 2-3 miles was a freaking nightmare. Since it was out and back, you had a 4-6 mile section of course that was like something out of a Charles Dicken’s novel. It consisted of long stretches of ups and downs in densely covered woods. This entire section had a dark feeling about it with obstacles thrown at you every few yards. I remember feeling pretty good up until this part began, but then feeling my mood slip and the trails became more difficult to negotiate and the course harder to follow. Many runners on this first loop were taking wrong turns and you really had to concentrate to stay on course. As the trail got tougher on the way out, I began to doubt whether or not I could do it.

During the run out on the first loop, we passed the same runners over and over again. This is because they took several wrong turns along the way. There was one woman in particular who took several wrong turns and I guess this caused her to bail out of the race at the turnaround point. The turn around point was a steep trail down a hill with steps along the way. It dumped you out somewhere near Cold Spring Harbor. Waiting for us at the turnaround were a couple of volunteers with Gatorade, water, cookies and potato chips. I really wished they had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

On the way back we started to come across the lead runners of the 25K. They started out an hour after the 50K start. It was amazing to see them fly up and down the hills that we were struggling with. I wished I was them, not so much for their speed, but for the fact that they were only doing the 25K. The way back to the start was tougher than the way out. All the time on the way back on the first loop I was thinking that I would just bail out once we reached the cars. The Long Island Railroad was sounding very good to me. I figured I’d get my stuff out of Larry’s car, perhaps call my brother who lived nearby, and head to the train station.

On the way back my mood started to lift again, after we got out of the treacherous part of the course. We were able to do some decent running again and the constant motion served to calm me down. I still didn’t want to go back out again and all I wanted to do was call my brother-in-law who was taking my son to his baseball game to see how my son was doing.

As we started to get closer to the starting point, I tripped over something on the ground. I hit the ground and rolled for a few feet, but other than getting dirty I was fine. As we started to see the lead wave of runners come back at us, we noticed that many of them were dirty and cut up from falling as well. Finally, we came out to the trails end and what I thought would be a loop around to the cars. However, we were told at this point we simply head back out on the trail to do it all over again. I was literally in shock and in a panic over this news, because all of my plans for either bailing out, or calling my son or resupplying myself just flew out the window. I said to Larry that I wasn’t sure if I could do this, to which he replied to just put one foot in front of the other. We were at this point over 3.5 hours into the race and I had expected to be done in 5. I somehow just managed to follow Larry back onto the trail and talked myself into calming down and to just keep moving. Within a few minutes of heading back out I began to feel better and settled into a steady rhythm.

The joke of the day on the course, especially when we got back to the difficult part was how the course was Challenging, but fair. This was the race director’s description of the course on the website. We really were questioning exactly what fair meant. What did he mean by challenging, but fair? This was the most difficult course any of us had run on and there didn’t seem to be anything fair about it. The course looked to trip you up almost with every step of the way and it was a long time between aid stations. This course was more about survival than being fair. I finally decided that the RD meant to say fare, as you were certainly paying a price for running on it.

As difficult as this course was, I do have to say that I probably had more fun doing it than any other race. When the going got really tough, there was really nothing to do but laugh about the situation. Many times during the day, I simply busted out in laughter at the absurdity of what we were trying to do. Everything that we could say about the day brought out peels of laughter from the 3 of us. We laughed at how there didn’t seem to be much quality running to be had as at times the most you were able to run was able 15 feet before you had to negotiate a steep hill or obstacle.

The 4-6 mile difficult part of the course on the second loop was just as difficult if not more difficult than on the first loop. Let’s just say we were all glad when we left it for good on the second loop. We passed a few runners who were still coming out for the second loop and all I could think of was how I was so glad not to be them, first having to negotiate it. It was a major relief to finally put behind the difficult section of course for good.

Along the way back a couple of runners had passed us. This kind of annoyed me even though I wasn’t going out to be competitive in the race. One particular runner passed us at one of the aid stations, but he never got that far ahead of us. We tracked him through the final miles of the race. At the last two miles of the race, I realized that we could break 7:30 for the race. I also wanted to catch the runner who had recently gotten ahead of us. I found a second wind on these last two miles and just let my legs start running. I am sure it was a slow pace, but it certainly felt fast compared to the previous miles. We caught the runner who got ahead of us at a road crossing when he went the wrong way to enter the trail. I started to run ahead of him with Larry and Willie following me not far behind.

My adrenaline at the thought of the finish got the best of me and I totally blew out ahead of Larry and Willie. I crossed the finish line about a minute ahead of them and immediately felt bad for not slowing down and finishing with them. I couldn’t help it though, I was running and feeling good and couldn’t slow down. Hopefully they didn’t mind so much, especially since if it weren’t for them, I am not sure I would have finished the race.

As tough as this race was, I am contemplating doing it again next year. It was definitely a great workout and I did have a lot of fun. Next time I’ll be prepared for it. I took it easy the next morning by riding my bike for an hour and then heading to Coney Island for a swim. The cool 56 degree water felt great on my legs and wiped out any aches and pains that may have lingered from the race.

I am feeling confident now that I’ll do ok at Escape from Alcatraz 3 weeks from now. It feels good to know that I must be in some pretty decent shape to complete the course I just did.

Chapter Over

What a day. Every time I try to get away from work for a few hours it seems like stuff blows up in my office. Today I had expected to get in an easy early morning bike and then cram for the NYS Real Estate Salesperson exam. However, that was not to be. As soon as I returned from my ride, I looked at my computer only to discover several messages from users complaining that a couple of computer systems were down. Therefore instead of being able to get in some much needed last minute studying, I was off to the office to fight fires.

During my ride this morning, my friends Todd and Rob zipped past me. Evidently I just missed hitting them with snot rockets as they were approaching me. I didn’t stand a chance of keeping up with them and after a brief hello; they left me in the dust. I guess that is what happens when you let yourself get fat and out of shape. Of course, fat and out of shape is all relative, but when I compare myself to last year that is what I am.

Anyhow, after dealing with the fires in my office, I managed to get back downtown to take the real estate exam. I am not sure how I did. I just hope I passed so I can be done with it. It will be a welcome chapter of my life put behind me.

Athenian Army

While doing a 10 mile run this past Saturday Prospect Park, I ran into the Athenian Army. Here they are: