Race Report: 2018 5unner's World 5K and Half Marathon

What do I say about these races? 

Oh yeah, hills.

I'll be honest, like most of my running stories, this is one of those things that seems like a good idea at the time.  I'd just had another great time at Shamrock.  I'd signed up for the marathon.  I'd been running more than I'd been running in years.

And then, summer.

Summer.  The season I used to look forward to has become the bane of my running existence.  This was not the hottest summer.  I could usually find temperatures in the 60s or low 70s.  With 100% humidity.  At 7am.  It sucked.  It was gross.  I'm not as skinny as or as tough (those two concepts are unrelated, but they both relate to my tolerance of heat) as I used to be, and I suffered.  Due to weather, bad luck, and just an uncommonly busy schedule in September, I just didn't nail the long runs like I usually do.  My longest training run was 8 miles, on the first cool Saturday of the year, one week before the hilliest half marathon I would ever run. (Creepy Foreshadowing Music).

The Runner's World Half & Festival seems to be the official name of the event, and they have a great variety of races over the weekend:

• Friday night -- 3.8 mile trail run (we did not participate in this)
• Saturday -- 5K followed by a 10K
• Sunday -- Half Marathon.

For those of you into multi-race challenge events, they've got a good thing going here.  To do all four is called the Grand Slam. You get a quarter-zip pullover for it.  To do the 5K, 10K, and Half is the Hat Trick.  Brilliantly, you get a hat.  To do the 5K and 10K is the five and dime, and you get socks.

Doing the 5K and Half is a big fat tub of nothing, and that's exactly what I did.


5K
Your HQ for the Festival is the SteelStacks compound in Bethlehem, PA, not far from Runner's World HQ in Emmaus.  (Hopefully that remains now that it's been purchased by Hearst.)  This provides a scenic and somewhat convenient center of events.  Scenic because they've...well, not renovated but used the decaying buildings of the old steel mill and turned them into a haunting and strangely beautiful backdrop to a multi-purpose event space.  Can you tell I'm a marketing writer?  No. Ok, carry on, then.

But anyway, all 3 of the road races start at the SteelStacks and head eastward from SteelStacks and head toward the Fahey Bridge, and they all end with a long loop around the ArtsQuest/SteelStacks compound via Sands Boulevard (adjacent to the local casino resort) with a finish in the center of SteelStacks.  The main difference in the races is how much time you spend north of the Lehigh River.

The 5K is not flat, but its biggest hill is still within the first mile, a steep climb right after the Fahey Bridge and then an equally steep descent.  It was here that I got my best advice of the weekend, a father saying to his probably 10ish old son, "We're going to go downhill now.  Don't try to speed up, just let gravity do the work and rest.".  Although the advice wasn't meant for me, I tried to follow it. 

My goal was to take this race relatively easy, since I knew I was undertrained for both the distance and hills the following day.  With that in mind, I tried to not to push myself. I succeeded, finishing in 35:36, which is quite a bit slower than my normal 5K training run finish times.  That was a little disappointing, given that I'm most often at 32 or 33:something, and it was a cool day, which usually makes me faster (#fasterinthecold).  Of greater concern was how tired my legs felt. 

I don't have anything bad to say about the race itself.  The scenery is interesting and the early location of its tough make this a course anyone can enjoy.  It wasn't my finest hour as a runner, but I was happy with it.

Half Marathon
I'm going to skip ahead of some things that I'll come back to later and just say that I woke up the next morning at the Overlook Hotel in complete dread.  I did not want to run the half.  I really, seriously contemplated telling my wife "Let's go home.  I'm not ready for this.  This is stupid.".  I've never been this scared before a half, even my first.  I was really having trouble getting my nerves and stomach to calm down that morning.

But, once the race started, I felt ok.  Stronger than I had during the 5K, and that strength just stayed with me longer than I had any right to expect it to.  I paced myself smartly and ran a careful race, trudging up the uphills and speeding up on the flats and downhills, and I felt great up until about the 10K mark, good up to about 8, struggling till 10, and then basically a mass of gelatinous goo for most of the last 3.1, the exception being a long, steep downhill just before mile 11.

I'll take it!

 I'm still about the same 40-minutes slower than my old PRs that I was at Shamrock, this was one of those unexpectedly very good races that I magically pull out of my you-know-where occasionally.  I'd heard all weekend that this course was hilly.  And it was very hilly.  But I ran 10 miles of it before I needed to start mixing in increasing amount of walking. I credit 3 things:

1. The cold:  I love running in the cold.  There's got to be some formula that converts hot miles into cold miles.   If there's not, I just invented it.  Let's call it "Brian's First Law of Thermodynamics", which states that every hot, humid mile equals 2 cold miles.  MH=2(MC).  You'll be quizzed later.  This was a raw, windy morning in the low 40s. The kind of weather that makes running blissful and standing waiting to run miserable.  I'm the idiot that used to stand in the Orange corral at the Philly half in a tank top, shorts, and light gloves in 35 degrees.  Now, at least I wear a light crumple-up jacket, which I wore till mile 4.

2.  The free advice I got from the dad.  Some of these hills were killers.  But, what goes up, must come down.  I've never ran a race that had the long, steep downhills like this one did, where I could rest and let gravity do the work.  As tough as the uphills were, I think these downhills let me run more of the race then I might have been able to on a completely flat course.

3. Crowd support and Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a beautiful old town, and this race is a great way to see its historic downtown as well as a lot of its neighborhoods, and people came out to cheer in droves. Both things distract from how most of the race seems to be uphill.

I'd like to especially give a shout-out to the Sub 30 Club, a group of people dedicated to supporting each other through their running adventures.  To make a long story short, the Sub 30 Club started as an online support group with RW writer Ted Spiker, who was attempting to train his way to sub-30 minute 5k.  It's become much more than that, a tight fraternity of runners who cheer for each other along the course, encourage each other in training, and make sure that no one finishes last alone and no one feels alone on the course or at the event.  There's always volunteers left to run in with other club members, including Jeff, who pushed out-of-breath me to a faster finish.  My wife's been a member of the club virtually for a couple years, and I just joined recently.  Check it out on Facebook. You'll be glad you did.  We're huge introverts and they made us feel very welcome.

I hit the 10-mile mark right at two hours.  I knew if I kept my walking pace up I should be good for under 2:45, but since there were some downhills, I was hoping I could beat my time from Shamrock.  I just didn't have quite enough in the tank, and came in at 2:40:03, which I am very, very happy with.  As I checked my results on line, my 1:59:33 from Philly in 2010 shows up as "other races".  Like this, that was a better-than-expected result that seemed to come from nowhere.  I'm equally proud of and happy with both. 

Throughout the race, I amused myself by thinking of the really cocky things I was going to say to Chris when I finished.  Should I quote my favorite speech from Lord of the Rings?  Butcher some Hamilton lyrics?  Drop some mad rhymes?  In the end, I was too incoherent to do anything.  I tried to make a funny funny face for the finish line cameras, and my chin muscles cramped up.  Oops.

Event
I have mixed feelings about the event.  On the place side, the races are great.  What else would you expect from Runner's World?  The course management is phenomenal, adequate water and aid stations, great volunteers, and excellent crowd support.

What's negative is just that this is a race you have to drive to, and that makes it a little inconvenient.  I'm comparing it to Shamrock, Philly, AC (which I didn't run), Baltimore, Wildwood, and Love Run, all of which we stayed locally and can walk to the race.  We stayed a little outside Bethlehem, since there was no room at the inn (wakka wakka wakka), but the start isn't walkable from most hotels in the area. 

I also expected more from the expo.  It's not the biggest race or the biggest town, but Runner's World IS running. I was hoping to be able to both load up on Runner's World swag and buy the things I'd forgotten (Sports beans in my case).  The pasta dinner was fun and the food was good, but I'd have liked to hear more from the RW staff or perhaps a VIP runner.  I've heard that Bart Yasso (who is as nice as everyone says he is) has brought the house down in previous years.

That doesn't change the fact that is race series is fun.  The camraderie of runners makes it fun.  The restaurants and breweries of Bethlehem (Fegley's Steelworkers' Oatmeal Stout, trust me on this) make it fun.  The Sub-30 Club makes it fun.  We probably won't do this every year, but this is a race series I'll definitely be willing to come back to.

Race Report: 2015 Wild Half, Wildwoods NJ

I'm having trouble putting into words my experiences at the 2015 Wild Half Marathon (but let me write a long, rambling blog post about it, nonetheless), because it's an accomplishment that still feels like a setback.  The accomplishment is that I finished my first half marathon since 2010, marking a significant step forward in my often-derailed comeback; and the setback is how I felt during the race, which I was clearly not as ready for as I had thought that I was.

Pre-race
Chris and I arrived in Wildwood on Friday afternoon, going from our hotel, the Beach Bungalow at the Blue Palms, to the Adventure Pier in time for packet pickup.  We then went for dinner at Capt'n Jack's Island Grille, on the Boardwalk, which featured one of the boardwalk's few liquor licenses, excellent fries, and good burgers and sandwiches.  After dinner, Chris and I retired rather quickly to our room, exhausted from the long travel day and in bed by 9:30.

We slept in till about 10:30 on Saturday, had breakfast (muffins that we had packed to save money) in our room, and then hit the boardwalk.  We did some shopping, picking up a few Christmas ornaments; had a small lunch at Capt'n Jack's again; and played miniature golf (a rare win for Chris) before heading back to our rooms to relax for a while before heading out to an early dinner with some new friends at Little Italy.  After a delicious dinner, Chris and I headed to the Old City Pub for a single pre-race beer, one of our longstanding race traditions, and then back to the room to get our race gear ready and turn in early.

I find the laying out of the gear the night before to be very soothing.

Race Day
Race day dawned warm and extremely humid, consistent with the weather forecasts.  We knew at that time that this race would be a struggle and not much fun. It didn't help that the bed in our room was very firm, and so neither of us had slept especially well and Chris' back (with her two herniated disks) was quite sore.

Ready for the race?  Not as much as I thought.

Ready to make dumb pre-race faces?  Of course! 

Still, we were as ready as we could be, and we kept to our Jeff Galloway-inspired plan of half-mile run intervals with a minute of walking in between, as the course went south on Ocean Avenue into Wildwood Crest (the southern part of Wildwood) before turning and heading back north on the Wildwood Crest bike path and the entire length of the Wildwood boardwalk.  We were hot, it was disgustingly humid, but we felt relatively ok and were sticking to plan. 

At about the four-mile mark, we left the boardwalk and continued in the same direction up JFK Beach Drive (I didn't know any of these street names at the time, I found a map with mile markers here) before making a series of turns that took the course in a more due-northerly direction through North Wildwood.

After the sixth mile, I felt that the course became more difficult, as we crossed a bridge over Gateway Sound and then just after the mile 7 marker another bridge taking us out to Mosquito Island.  It's really called Nummy Island, but I think my description of this swampy landmass is more apt.  During this stretch of the race, we began to struggle more and more with pain:  Chris' back and hips, and my right knee, which was very sore on the outside.  We made the turn shortly before completing 8 miles, and headed back over those bridges, walking the inclines at this point, my right knee and Chris' back and hips hurting badly at this point.

We made it to mile 10, back in North Wildwood, at which point we were walking more than running.  Every mile seemed longer than the next, until we were back on the boardwalk with a little over a mile to go.  At Garfield Ave, we turned off the boardwalk and then made a left on Ocean toward the finish.  The misery had ended.

The positives:  We made it.  The comeback continues.  No compartment syndrome symptoms.

The negatives:  The race just didn't go how we hoped it would. A possibly new injury or recurrence of ITBS.

I was internally kicking myself (with my non-sore leg!) through the last few miles of the race, but after further reflection, I think the positives clearly outweigh the negatives.  We both know that we rushed our training for this race, and I know that while I do my stretching and strength exercises after every run, I have to be more consistent in doing them on my "off" days (my knee injury felt to me like the return of the ITBS that I experienced in 2011.  I know how to manage this), and, to not lose sight of the big picture:  this was the longest distanced I'd completed in almost four years and my longest time out on a course since the Philadelphia Marathon that same year.  As recently as February, I didn't think a half marathon was something I could train for anymore, and it was GREAT to after almost four years to finally be a full participant in a "big" race and not just a spectator.  I am proud of Chris and myself for pushing through pain, in conditions we both despise running in, to finish the race, and I am thankful for her for pacing me (and putting up with me) during such a long race in which I didn't feel good.  Our accomplishment is not taken away by walking more than we wanted or by a sore knee or aching back.

But, I can see that my 10-miler of two weeks ago gave me confidence that was not warranted.  I was not prepared to run a long distance in such hot, humid conditions, and it showed.  I need to train more methodically and train in the heat, I need to lose weight, and I need to get in more l0+ mile runs to determine whether my knee is ok.  My plan going forward is to take it a bit easy with running the next few weeks, which are insanely busy, but to try to get at least one double-digit distance run in during each of the next 5 months with shorter runs on weekdays, whether or not I actually do a half marathon in the Fall.  I think that if I can do this and the legs are feeling good, that this would prepare me to train up to make an attempt at the Shamrock Marathon in March 2016, and that if the legs don't feel good, it would help me to figure out if the current knee issue is really a problem, and/or if compartment syndrome is truly addressed.  For what it's worth, my knee felt dramatically better the next day.

My quest for a revenge marathon took a significant step forward with this finish, but there is still a long way to go.

Despite a challenging race, the comeback continues!

Race Review.
I'm not sure if I would run this one again, just because of the likelihood of having to run it in the warm, humid conditions that I despise.  That said, I think Morey's Piers, CGI Racing, and the Wildwood Community did a great job with this event.  The course was clearly marked; the boardwalk was at least partially closed to pedestrians, giving runners a clear path; there were ample water stations with unfailingly friendly volunteers; and the experience at the finish line was very positive (no running out of medals or food, beer garden still open).  Wildwood is a fun destination and the race entry, which includes admission to the Morey's Piers amusement parks, is a good value. I'm sure this event was established as a way to introduce more people to the Wildwood area and all the fun it has to offer.   It definitely did that, and I will have to write in more detail in another post about the fun places we found to eat. Everything that the organizers could control, they did an excellent job with.  I likely would have had a much more positive experience in the race itself if I had been in the condition I was in 2011, when I ran longer distances in warm, humid conditions several times a month.  That's not in any way the race organizers' fault, of course!

If I could change one thing, I would add an expo or some merchandise.  This was my first "big race" since 2011, and I would have liked to have been able to buy a hat or windbreaker.  A friend said that there had been a small expo in a previous year, and theorized there was none this year because another organization had rented the convention center.  For the record, no expo was promised in ANY of the promotional materials or the event's website.  I'd probably also move the event to April, when cooler weather is a possibility, but in this case that would put this event up against several other big regional races and would mean, I suspect, that businesses on the boardwalk would be almost completely closed.  Again, I don't want my own personal weather bias to detract from my feelings that this was a very well-organized, well-run event.

Race Report: 2014 Rocky Run 10K, Philadelphia

During my running career, there are two races in which I pulled an unexpectedly great performance completely out of my ass.  One was the 2012 Hershey 10K, which I PR'd in 52:33, a 10K time I had never, have never since, and probably will never again, come within 5 minutes of.  

The other was on Saturday, at the inaugural Rocky Run 10K.

I had no business -- no business whatsoever -- trying to run the 10K.  5K is the farthest I'd run since my surgery, and while I've finished that distance a few times without needing walk breaks, I usually needed to take a few, and I'd barely run the previous two weeks prior to this race (due to both some schedule issues and some motivational issues).  I'd needed several walk breaks during the third mile of a 3-mile run on the Wednesday night before the race.  On Saturday, I ran -- other than a stop to drink a cup of water and a short pause to tie a shoe -- 5 miles of this 10K before needing some walk breaks in the last 1.2.

I felt great during the race, and while I am a little sore after the race, it is not nearly as bad as I expected.  But most encouraging to me was that there was not even a hint of compartment syndrome pain, just normal soreness that I'd have after any run that was this challenging.

I couldn't be any more thrilled.  In the span of 1:12:54, my confidence level for the two half marathons I'm signed up for in the spring increased tenfold.  I need to train.  I know I'm not really trained to his level yet (I ran 4 miles on the Wednesday evening after the race, and while my knees hurt, there are again no compartment syndrome symptoms), and that the Celtic Solstice 5-miler in Baltimore's Druild Hill park will be (as "Druid Hill Park" implies) much hillier than this.  But for the first time in well over a year, it feel like longer distances are really possible again. 

But let's back up.

Race Day
Chris and I stayed with friends in south Philly, who kindly picked up our packets in addition to giving us some couch and floor space.  We left for the race, which had a 7:30am start time for the 5K, and an 8:15am start time for the 10K, which we were running, at 6:45, and were over by the starting area around 7:45.

It was freezing!  I like running in the cold, but temperatures were in the 20s and I am not very acclimated or in nearly as good a shape as I was in some of my past running winters, and I -- in my shorts, throwaway knit gloves, long-sleeve t-shirt -- was wishing I had my jacket, more serious gloves, and my cold-weather headband.  

Hilariously, our friends dressed as a chicken (him) and Rocky Balboa (her), hoping to win the race's costume contest by recreating the scene from Rocky II in which Rocky chases a chicken as part of his training.  There were plenty of Rockys, and well, that mostly it.  I did get passed by a few chickens (including my friend), a guy dressed as a giant piece of meat, and even 2 guys in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (representing, though, Rocky's turtles, Cuff and Link).

The race started promptly at 8:15.  I had been debating whether to run with Chris, how follows a modified Galloway plan in which she walks for a minute after every half mile, or use my own plan, a more informal approach of "run as much of the race as I can and then cross my fingers".  My legs felt good, and so I thought I'd run as much as I could without walk breaks.   

The 10K course is an out of back along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive (formerly West River Drive).  It was a pleasant, mostly flat course along the scenic Schuylkill River, with a decline down to MLK Dr. from the art museum, meaning an incline at the end.  

I started out at what I felt was a very cautious, measured pace, because I knew if if I went for my old 9-10 min mile pace, I'd have no shot of running most of a distance this far outside my comfort zone.  My strategy worked.  I felt great for the first 3.1 and had plenty left in the tank.  I felt like the second half of the race was more difficult...which I guess is always true on a flat-ish out and back.  Aside from a pause for a water break and a brief re-lacing of my right sneaker, I ran 5 miles before I needed to take a few walk breaks to finish the race.  But running into the sun was challenging.  I'd be lying if I said it was "hot", but the sun was very bright and I was sweating my butt off.  I took my long-sleeve t-shirt off and was more comfortable in just a sleeveless tech shirt, and very glad I didn't have any of my real cold-weather gear to carry.  Even 4 days later, my forehead still feel sunburned.

This race has a lot of personal baggage.  Even though it's across the river from the second half of the Philly Marathon, which follows Kelly Drive out to Manyunk and back, I still had that "running along the Schuykill and wondering if I had enough left to finish" feeling.  Indeed, in that same race back 2011, I remembered at mile 11 and 12, along the same place on MLK Drive, knowing that I felt decent, but not good enough to have the type of second 13.1 I was hoping for.  On the other hand, this time, there was no sign along MLK telling me that I had another 14 miles to run; I just got to run back up the hill toward the Art Museum and finish -- just like in the two Philly Halfs that I count among my best races.

This one is up there with my favorite finishes, even though I know I didn't really earn it.  It will probably be a few weeks before I'm trained up to run a 10K or even 5 miles, but knowing I ran this far without compartment syndrome pain was joyous, and I lost control of my emotions a bit as I came up toward and crossed the finish line.  I finished the Rocky Run 10K, but now my training for the Shamrock Half must begin in earnest.

Race Review
This was a really nice event.  Fun theme, fast, scenic course, great medal, DJ's playing inspirational hits from the Rocky movies along the course, ample port-o-potties at the start, and free photographs.   I'm not sure if this will be an "every year" race because of the logistical challenges of a Philly race (although I said I'd dress as Adrian next year to enhance my friends' costume contest chances), but I would definitely run this again.

There's a few constructive criticisms, though.

• I'd space out the water stops differently -- there were 2 on the way out, quite close together, and only one on the way back.  I can't complain too much, I certainly could have brought my hydration belt
• I think I'd send the starters off in a few more waves, it was a very crowded field
• There was no food at the finish line, only water, or if there was food there wasn't enough of it or it wasn't well-marked. 

Overall, though, a great first-year event with great friends, and a race that definitely has meaning for me as I attempt to make up for lost time in my now three-year quest for revenge.